Ziela Jalil, back in the days before she became then deputy home minister Megat Junid's wife and made splashy appearances at Anwar Ibrahim's trial, acted in a few movies. One of them was called Ujang , where she was a victim of a jealous rival's malice.

This conspiracy didn't extend to the highest levels, but involved merely a phone call to the religious authorities. Her rival in love, Susan Lankester, put in the call when Ziela happened to be in the same house as Malek Noor, the object of both of their affections. Well, I'm sure you know how the story goes: Ziela got busted and Susan gloated.

As an ordinary viewer watching the movie when it came out, I can say that the khalwat -busters were a mere tool in Susan's dastardly campaign. No one felt that Ziela deserved what she got. The khalwat officers, rather than being instruments of divine will, were pawns in a simple cat-fight.

Khalwat , in case you didn't know, is the term given in Malaysia to acts of "close proximity" between people of the opposite sex.

In the original, Arabic sense, khalwat referred to meditative solitude. The most famous example: The Prophet Muhammad was in a state of khalwat in a cave when he first received the word of God. So the word didn't always have a giggly, negative connotation.

Salleh ben Joned, in his New Straits Times column a few years ago, pointed out that the evolution of the word khalwat in Malaysia is a sign of our pseudo-pious parochialism.

But enough about socio-linguistic theory; let's get back to movie stars. What is the role of khalwat in modern cinema? Seeing as how most Malay movies rather heroically eschew iconoclasm, you wouldn't be surprised to know that the khalwat incident as portrayed in Ujang is par for the course when it comes to character motivation, plot justification and the expected audience reaction.

Critiques or mere plot devices?

First off, an anomaly: In Perempuan, Isteri dan ... , Sofia Jane puts in a call to get herself busted for khalwat . Why? A short answer would be: to ensure that the brutish man who sold her off to a Thai pimp would marry her.

A long answer would need to delve into the intriguingly peculiar sado-masochistic relationship (tainted by hatred, revenge and shoe fetish) between herself and the thoroughly disagreeable man, who just happens to go by the name of Amir.

An anomaly, like I said. All other depictions of khalwat stay rather close to the formula: amorous but otherwise respectable couple; jealous rival; malicious accusation; circumstantial evidence. Seeing as how I've been blabbing about Erma Fatima movies for the past few columns, it's only fair that I zoom in on another one.

In the period movie Syahadat , Erma plays a sweet village maiden victimised by the jealous manipulation of others. She is in love with a young preacher, played by an actor whose name escapes me and everyone else, but who was an early graduate of the Keanu Reeves School of Acting.

There's a scene by the beach in which the couple very properly meet to talk about the curse that has befallen her family: surely a respectable enough topic by anyone's standards.

On the way back from the beach she trips. He leans over to help her. Their eyes meet. The music swells. Alamak! This is the cue for the dastardly Eman Manan, the chieftain's son with the unrequited hots for Erma, to cry " khalwat " and get the two of them arrested. Eloquent cries of " potong stim " fairly reverberated in the cinema halls.

Even the thickest moron would side with Erma and her wooden companion. Eman Manan had shown himself to be a thoroughly disagreeable scumbag with two equally disagreeable friends, one of whom just happens to go by the name of Amir. Eman would stoop to robbing graves just to aid a black-magic spell intended to get him into Erma's sarong.

A man of such consummate infamy would not hesitate to cry " khalwat " if it would help him get his way. The fact that he is the headman's son also makes him arrogant enough to flout the rule of law.

My point - and I do have one - is that popular Malay movies acknowledge, no matter how meekly or incompletely, that religious institutions can be subject to profane realities which include the faithful melodramatic tropes of dengki (envy) and dendam (vengeance).

As a plot device to show up a deeper iniquity, the misuse of religious raids would exist on the same metaphorical plane as all those villainous Datuks and corruptible headmen that populate the Malay film and TV landscape. It's a way of saying, "There's a rotten world out there, but let's just take a few familiar scenarios."

Do the khalwat plots of Ujang and Syahadat function as critiques of the religious-bureaucratic status quo? Or are they too small and innocuous to be more than convenient devices to move the damn story forward? Go to a secluded space, either alone or with a friend, and think about it.