French New Wave, an umbrella term which is widely used to describe two groups of French filmmakers whose films shown distinctive styles and themes in comparison to films made before them, both in France and the other part of the world. In general, they are consisted of the Right Bank and the Left Bank filmmakers categorised in a way that the former were relatively younger and thus having bolder approaches in their films and vice versa.

The Right Bank French New Wave filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Claude Chabrol, just to name a few, had their deep interest in films thank to the post-war economic boom and liberal approach taken by its hitherto xenophobic French government (resentment towards the world’s polarised interest towards Hollywood films), the French general public (including these filmmakers) have had their pleasure to watch films from other part of the world, especially those from the Hollywood.

This happened concurrently with the mushrooming of many cine-clubs in Paris as well as European art cinema movements. The filmmakers’ admiration for Hollywood auteurs such as Orson Welles, John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock are clearly seen in both their writings for the then famous film magazine, Cahiers du Cinéma as well as the films they made (ie strong reference to these auteurs’ films) in the late 1950s and 1960s.

These filmmakers, as mentioned earlier, were bold and had developed a strong dissatisfaction on French cinema as well as the seemingly demotivating social and cultural condition in their country, hence, putting the responsibility of making greater films that reflected their beliefs (ideals) to their own shoulders.

Apart from making films that demonstrated unprecedented film form and techniques, they tend to include stories that surround characters who shown strong resentment to their contemporary society.

Two stunning examples being Truffaut’s ‘The 400 Blows’ (1959) and Godard’s ‘Breathless’ (1960). The latter film, in comparison to the former, had daring technical approach, particularly true when audiences were (and even until today, therefore are) astonished by the use of striking jump cuts, low angle and handheld camera movements.

Despite this stark difference, these two films inevitably share a similarity in term of their theme: delinquencies of their characters in films.

Delinquencies in Malaysian cinema in the 2010s - from ‘KIL’ to ‘Juvana 3'

I believe, those who frequent theaters for local films have noticed the similarities shared between the films made by several filmmakers such as Nik Amir Mustapha, Shanjhey Kumar Perumal, Mohd Khairul Azri Mohd Noor and Faisal Ishak.

For the purpose of this write-up, I will refer mainly on the latest film that I watched recently, namely ‘Juvana 3'. It depicts a group of former juveniles who are trapped by their ex-school warden, Encik Raja for his own benefits. These juveniles were put into the ostensibly inescapable trap made parallel to the power imbalance society in Malaysia.

Encik Raja, a mastermind for all the mishaps in these franchises, was described as an unscrupulous evil person who engulfed all the funds in his ex-school, returns with a stronger line up of thugs who can only be overthrown with violence.

Encik Raja, playfully acted by Hasnul Rahmat has shown strong reference to Don Vito Corleone in the installations of ‘The Godfather’. This reference is even made conspicuous through the film poster hung at the makeshift clinic in the film.

‘Juvana 3', just like its counterparts such as ‘KIL’, ‘Jagat’ and ‘Pekak’, features delinquencies in its foreground and are made justifiable by the trap these characters are in. This pattern is apparent in ‘Pekak’ when the filmmaker chose to use many ‘frame within a frame’ shots to deliver this very notion of trapped in the seemingly ineludible world that we all live in.

Apart from such surface delinquency, ‘Juvana 3' and its counterparts have also shown delinquencies by breaking the filmmaking rules widely taught in film schools and acceptable by the mainstream filmmakers: 180-degree rule and continuity editing, just to name two. ‘Juvana 3', the main subject of my discussion, has challenged all these rules by not complying with them entirely.

I would, however, expect counter-reading of ‘Juvana 3', by saying “well, after all these delinquencies, the film has to come to a happy ending that adhered societal norms: the bad people are arrested by the cops and those who deserve to die are killed at the end of the film”. That is a great reading that many would happy to stand strong with.

However, I would like to draw your attention to the very reality that, Malaysian cinema has been shackled (and some would say, made creative) by the scissor-happy censorship for many decades.

In order to make their films available to a wider audience, the filmmakers have had to battle with the censorship board and possibly rendering them, if they are lucky, a ‘P13' label instead of the unwelcomed ‘18'. To put it succinctly, these films have shown their resistance to the existing order in their own way: from breaking the film rules to including delinquencies through their characters in films.

The Malaysian New Waves, really?

Generally, many academics have accepted the fact that independent filmmaking in Malaysia as well as other Southeast Asian countries was made possible with the advancement of cheaper technology available in the early 2000s. In Malaysia, there was a rise of two different groups of filmmakers whom I would call ‘independent filmmakers’ and ‘indie filmmakers’ whose films are dissimilar altogether in term of their styles and themes.

The former consists of filmmakers brought prominent through the ‘Odisi’ series on ntv7, ie Bernard Chauly, Yasmin Ahmad and Osman Ali with relatively wider audiences of their own; and the latter such as Tan ChuiMui, Amir Muhammad and Woo JinMing whose films have had gathered them their niche audience. I would discreetly put them as the earliest Malaysian New Wave^ (2000s) filmmakers for the path they have had built to the later days Malaysian cinema.

Some of them are still working closely to encourage and enrich the film cultures in Malaysia. Take Bernard Chauly and Tan ChuiMui, for instance, they had never fail to conduct or organise film workshops to young aspired filmmakers across Malaysia. They love and passion for cinema have then been translated into their films and actions they took to build the next new wave of filmmakers.

Zooming out and now refocusing on the new group of filmmakers in the 2010s, they are however, carrying some similarities with them.

As much as I would like to make parallel between the seemingly rightful term, ‘Malaysian New Wave (in 2010s)’ with the ‘French New Wave’, I would like to put an asterisk mark on it, hopeful this will serve as a friendly reminder to the readers that ‘Malaysian New Wave* (2010s)’, nonetheless is a blanket term for a diverse group of filmmakers and thus subject to debates and continuous redefinition of it.

While many have flourished with their debut feature, there are still many young and upcoming filmmakers who are yet to be exposed to the general audience. From my brief observation of the current trend, supported by the mushrooming film clubs and film schools in Malaysia, there are more and more urban-middle class youths who are now partaking in the filmmaking scene. Most of them are making urban-hipster-like films, which reflect their identity.

This movement, I would say, is made possible with the ever-growing film culture especially in big cities across Malaysia supported by more and more film festivals, homegrown film clubs and film related events which are bolstered by existing technology, incentives provided by the state through the National Film Development Corporation of Malaysia (Finas) and the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) as well as (oops!) filmmakers’ dissatisfaction toward the current state of Malaysia.

These are what made our cinema exciting, no?

^I am aware of the repercussions in coining terminology like this as it rendered over-simplistic reading of a diverse group of filmmakers.

YOW CHONG LEE is a film lecturer from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas). While he seems to be optimistic and expecting imminent cinematic excitements in the near future, he wishes to urge Malaysian audiences to support quality local films while they are being shown in the theatres.