A night of ironies

Note: Later part of this post has some spoilers involved.

I rushed from work to Cineleisure so I could pick up my ticket and have a bit of a dinner before it would start.

The Yasmin Ahmad tribute with the gala premiere in Singapore for Talentime was featuring that day, on 15 October at 7pm. I managed to get a seat online the day booking was opened and even by then, the seats were selling out so yaaay, I was quick enough to snatch one up!

Fifteen minutes before the screening and you could tell who was going for the screening. Well mostly because there was a sofa thing there and people were talking about watching the movie and also cause this was a tribute screening so some of them were teachers/actresses/etc.

Those who were touched by Yasmin Ahmad, her fans or those who contributed and organized the tribute.

Furthermore, all the monies from the tickets and such will go to Pertapis Children’s Home.

Okay, like… even before the movie would start, I figured I’d be sobby because I just tend to get sobby at most movies even at Monsters Inc and stuff. It’s not the romance, it’s the relationships within the characters that make me sob and not knowing the summary of the current movie besides that it’s about talent time at a school, I totally knew I would be a lot sob worthy.

It was going to be a movie about people and how they are to each other etc, etc. I figured that much out since it’s definitely not an action/romance/etc movie. (I don’t want to read reviews/summaries before watching then because I don’t want to be spoilered.)

Thus, sobbing in the movie is totally foreseen.

Being all teary before the movie started was not. Oh maaan. Speeches were had from the organizer of the tribute, to Pertapis Children’s Home and of course, Orked… The sister of Yasmin Ahmad.

She faltered a bit at the start and pushed on through tears in speech to thank those who had helped in making the event a reality, to those who came for it and also told us a bit more about her sister. It was really heartwarming to know that the movies that Yasmin had made were for her parents.

And then after the speech, the movie started.

And I was like, what… the heck.

It’s not that the movie was bad, oh SO VERY NOT (I loved it but I’m getting ahead of myself here since I’m writing that in the next few paragraphs). But as the first strains of the music played on with the opening titles, I realized I had been listening to the soundtrack for the past freaking month or so.

Like I said before, I do not want spoilers.

AND I HAD BEEN SOUNDTRACK SPOILERED FOR THE PAST MONTH OR SO… AAAAAAAAAARGH.

It had been playing on my colleague’s computer on loop.

Repeatedly.

Continuously.

And the ironic bit is I’m sure that I’m watching the movie even before her when she’s been playing it for ages somehow.

So the movie started and it was beautiful. It doesn’t seem like anyone is an “extra” and that everyone is a living character living out their own lives and we got a chance to peek into some of them. Brief appearances from minor characters aren’t just condiments to make the movie spiced up, instead they are the ingredients to make it all a whole proper master piece.

It was that good.

There was a character, Melvin who was such an extra. I don’t mean that in a movie/acting term but more of a school slang term. You know, there’s always a student in school who was just… extra. The one who tended to just appear there and do things even when he’s not supposed to but he isn’t minded THAT much even if he can be annoying because he’s not mean.

And don’t lie to me because there’s always one Melvin in every school.

Yeah, that made me go, “Uuuuuggh” a bit because it certainly made the school more real and nostalgic and because the Melvin in my school used to hit on me and everything was embarrassing with a lot of teenagery embarrassment involved since I didn’t like him that way anyway.

If I was in a class that had to do in depth analysis of a movie, I would pick this movie because of SO much symbolism and subtle nuances in it that enables you to dig in deeper into an issue. Or various issues really. You got to remember that this is set in Malaysia too where… Well, you just got to understand the culture there and the bumi putera policy too to get into it deeper if you wanted to.

Even if you didn’t know that, you’ll still get the story because it’s pretty understandable and you’ll just get it. I can’t explain more without revealing the whole story and you know how I am regarding spoilers anyway.

Amusing parts of the movie!

In the audition bit, there’s one student who plays the guitar and he just looked so selenger when playing it (he’s one of the “stars” of the story by the way). That’s not an English word but a semi-translation of that I can say is… not really douchey but okay, I DON’T think there’s an English equivalent of it. That’s the only word that fits him because of the way how the movie is told.

It’s in a multitude of local languages.

Which makes it even more believable! Oh yes, there’s subtitles of course so you can understand it. But anyway yeah, he plays like what I’ve seen a lot of guy students play at school when auditioning for Teacher’s Day, Talent competition and etc.

OH, oh! And the grandmother of one of the talent time participants there. She comes from Yorkshire and is visiting her son and family for a holiday and… Yes, you can’t miss her in the movie since she brings much laughter.

That’s a few of the amusing bits and then, there was one part of the movie that was irony galore. I don’t think anyone missed it since it was the part of the dying mother and how she died. It certainly was not intentional, I do not think it ever could be but the words of what the mother said were like echoes of what Yasmin might have said (considering she made this movie), like a message to her loved ones.

Gosh, on a technical point of view, I wanted to talk about it but I can’t because it has to do with the ending. Just know, that it’s so heartfelt too, okay? I JUST REALLY LIKE THIS MOVIE A LOT. It resonates a lot somehow and it didn’t have a sucky ending. Heck, you can see she liked irony too (and I love irony) from how the dialogue worked.

With that, I leave you to find other reviews if you still need convincing to watch it because I’m done with mine (unless I wanna spoil more). If you see me feel free to talk to me of it because it’s that discussion worthy and oh here…

A performance by Caleb and Shunta before the movie. I realized I was spoiled when they said that this was one of the themesongs but I only knew I was spoiled for the whole soundtrack when the movie started.

Catch Talentime in Singapore cinemas, it opens today! 22 October!