Where are the Borders?

William Van Der Heide.
Malaysian cinema, Asian film: border crossings and national cultures.
Amsterdam University Press. 2002.
ISBN: 9 05356519 1
336pp
US$32.00 (pb)

The dearth of publications on Malaysian cinema makes William Van Der Heide’s comprehensive study of Malaysian film culture valuable. Malaysian cnema, Asian film: border crossings and national cultures, is the first book published in English solely devoted to Malaysian film culture. However, the value of the book lies not just in the little known (even marginalized) Malaysian cinema but also in the interesting approach that Van Der Heide has chosen to study this subject. Van Der Heide considers cinema and film culture to be two very different things. Cinema, he writes, “refers to a specific film production aggregate based on national, regional, ethnic, linguistic, gender or any other identity characteristic” and “film culture or film refers to the collective film experience of a particular community both synchronically and diachronically” (11). Therefore, the point of interest in the book is how Van Der Heide brings together these two varying concepts in his analysis of Malaysian film culture.

Tucked in Southeast Asia, Malaysia is strategically situated between the East and West and sandwiched between the great civilizations of China and India; thus it has always been exposed to different cultural influences that have shaped its local culture. Therefore, adaptability and hybridity have always been unique features of Malaysian culture; these characteristics certainly also extend to the world of film as Van Der Heide demonstrates throughout the book. Adding to the complication, the Malaysian population is far from uniform – only 50 % of its population is Malay, while 35 % is Chinese, and 9 % is Indian; therefore, Malaysia’s multi-cultural population has a versatile domestic audience of Asian film. Thus, the effective distinctions made by Van Der Heide between cinema and film culture are imperative to the understanding of film in the Malaysian context. Another curious phenomenon in Malaysia is that, although the Chinese represent the second largest ethnic group in Malaysia, Malaysian film has been and still is predominantly centered on the Malays and Malay culture – there is a definite lack of representation of the Chinese and Chinese culture in Malaysian film. Hamzah Hussin has made a rather interesting observation (which Van Der Heide also quotes as an epigraph) when he writes that “the Malaysian film industry was founded on Chinese money, Indian imagination and Malay labour” (105). These complexities within the Malaysian society, therefore, require a different approach from the traditional approach to national cinemas.

The book is organized into four chapters. In chapter one, “Border Crossings”, Van Der Heide assesses the transformation of the Western genre and discusses how this is relevant to Malaysian film; in chapter two, “Malaysian Society and Culture”, he analyzes Malaysian society and culture; while in chapter three, “Film in Malaysia”, he maps out the history of filmmaking in Malaysia and shows how other film cultures have shaped it; and in chapter four, “Malaysian Cinema”, a sketch of Malaysian cinema is provided based on eleven Malaysian films. “Lines of connectedness” are the main thrust of Van Der Heide’s thesis, for he believes that “lines of connectedness” are the underlying force that have shaped Malaysian culture. Van Der Heide conceives “lines of connectedness” to be a site where borderlines reconfigure; as such he recognizes the importance of borders but sees them not as a rigid lines of separation between cultures but a site where cultural forces intermingle. Van Der Heide insightfully states that “the border is still a valuable metaphor for the discussion of national cinema (at the very least as a strategy), but it needs to be accompanied by other concepts that open the border’s resistance to difference” (22). He weaves an interesting discussion in the section entitled, “National Cinema”(in chapter three), where he exposes many limitations of studies made in the past on national cinemas. Van Der Heide plots out the “lines of connectedness” in the first chapter with the example of P. Ramlee’s film, Labu dan Labi (1963). He shows how Hollywood, Japanese, Hong Kong and Indian film have intermingled, shaped and changed Malaysian cinema. He interestingly (even entertainingly I might add) presents his arguments using pejorative culinary labels that have been tagged on Westerns, especially those that have strayed from the authentic Hollywood “Hamburger” Western, such as the Spaghetti Western, Sauerkraut Western, Paella Western, Camembert Western, Chop Suey Western, Noodle Western, Borsch Western and Curry Western – would Labu dan Labi qualify as a Satay Western? Although somewhat tangential (which he admits [26-27]), Van Der Heide provides a rather intricate and fascinating argument demonstrating how fluid film influences and transformations are in the genre of Westerns.

Van Der Heide also deftly deals with the problematic issues of identity in Malaysia by succinctly informing us of the complex historical, cultural, political and religious forces at play. He fascinatingly illustrates “lines of connectedness” through trade, migration and colonialism when he discusses Malaysian society and culture in chapter two. He is able to capture the complexities and pluralist nature of Malaysian society, making his discussion both informative and cogent. In the third chapter, Van Der Heide encapsulates the film culture of Malaysia by charting out the history of the Malaysian film industry, as well as analyzing film spectatorship in Malaysian, Indian, Hong Kong and Indonesian films. His inter-disciplinary approach is innovative and thoughtful.

Providing an overview of Malaysian cinema in the final chapter of the book, Van Der Heide analyzes eleven films and maintains his thesis of “lines of connectedness.” I do, however, find the way this chapter deals with Malaysian cinema lacking. According to Van Der Heide, there were just under 600 feature films produced between the years of 1933 and 1993 in Malaysia (106); yet Van Der Heide’s presentation of Malaysian cinema is based only on eleven films and films made up to 1994. He partly justifies his selection in qualifying that film critic, Baharudin Latif, has claimed nine films out of the eleven films analyzed (in the book) to be the “Ten Best Malaysian Films.” Although Van Der Heide’s discussion is well-researched and supports his thesis, his small sample of canonized films with the most recent film made ten years ago, makes his analysis appear unduly “agenda driven” (which he does remark is the reality of most national cinema discussions [106]). I cannot help but wonder if his analysis can be accused of the very criticism he made of other studies on national cinema – that “the symptom of coherence can easily and seductively become the desire for coherence…” (107-108). Chapter four left me dissatisfied – I felt that Van Der Heide merely scratched the surface of Malaysian cinema. My response has undoubtedly been conditioned by how film scholarship has traditionally approached national cinema. But overall Van Der Heide’s book does force us to think carefully about national cinema. It sharpens our critical thinking about national cinemas by coercing us to contemplate where the borders are. Curiously, Van Der Heide notes that filmic interactions between Malaysia’s neighbours have not been significant, particularly with Thailand and the Philippines, even though (as he has noted) some Filipino directors have worked in the Malay film industry (243). Why are these borders more rigid? These seem to be pertinent issues that relate to Van Der Heide’s thesis of “lines of connectedness”, yet they are not addressed in the book.

As I read the book, a couple of further things crossed my mind. I wondered why a recent film made by Teck Tan, Spinning gasing (2000) was neither included nor mentioned in Van Der Heide’s book. The film depicted the pluralist Malaysia that Van Der Heide has devoted much effort and space to prove. The other thing that I thought might have been useful is an appendix with a filmography of Malaysian films, particularly films made since the “Revival” period as details of films prior to the “Revival” period overlap with Singapore, which have already been charted out by Uhde and Ng Uhde’s in Latent images: film in Singapore. Despite these limitations, I think Malaysian cinema, Asian film: border crossings and national cultures is a valuable book that contributes to the understanding of Malaysian film culture. It is a book that has been long overdue!

David Neo,
La Trobe University, Australia.