It's sad really. Malaysia is a country that houses an abundance of irritants, embarrassments, misfortunes, joys, beauty, history and people - most places on Earth do - but the lack of progress is astounding. Most severely in its media arena but let's zero in on film.
Many are aware that for anything to first sputter into being, most things begin from either nothing or the unknown. However, when looking at the Malaysian film arena, it resembles a whirlpool of swamp water that is endless - the vicious cycle of cronyism sits at the pinnacle of the hierarchy like an obese, hard-breathing Jabba The Hut. This country has no shortage of passion, talents, genius and hard-hitting business men but support is lacklustre. To begin with, the selection of leaders in the local film industry is blatantly partial and rather pathetic. The thwarting of potentially great filmmakers by ignorant and unqualified leaders from the film fraternity is absolute injustice.
Generally, Malay films do very well here and in business you produce what sells but there are other demands from the Malaysian public - unfortunately, the same types of films fare excellently, again and again and again and again. You can blame it on the marketing, the funding, the promo and so on and so forth but one fact remains - our so called film gurus and big shots, consisting of individuals from all parts of Malaysia, are elitists who need to be less self-serving. As far as i'm concerned, filmmakers are usually more heart than money, more dream than glamour, more respect than self-worship - there are always exceptions - so there has to be always someone for the underdog. On the contrary, in Malaysia, even the campaigns and efforts that supposedly aid the less capable revert back to one thing - the film fraternity recruiting more 'like-minded' people which equates to idiots breeding to produce more idiots.
Ignoring another's plight is one thing but shattering one's hope with a false one is just cruel. One does wonder if all hope is lost in Malaysia's film industry or is this just the natural progression of things.
