Of narrow-minded people, on their narrow minded street...

desiderata.english

Yasmin Ahmad's hit movie, Sepet, must have brought early Hari Raya AidilFitri cheer when the Malaysian love story bagged the Best Asian Film Award in the Winds of Asia section at the 18th Tokyo International Film Festival just a week ago.

Sepet beat Singapore's Be With Me, directed by Eric Khoo, which received a Special Mention and was also the opening film of this year's Directors' Fortnight at Cannes.

Other films that competed in the section included Hong Kong's Everlasting Regret and All About Love, India's Chandramukhi, Indonesia's Janji Joni and Of Love and Eggs, Thailand's Citizen Dog and Malaysia's Monday Morning Glory and Gol & Gincu.

Yasmin is an exceptional storyteller who spun a "love story" quite against the grain of Malaysian life -- betwen a teenage Malay girl and a Chinese boy. For reasons unknown, some Malaysian politicians were quick to criticise Yasmin's award-winning effort when the movie hit the big screen -- perhaps, they didn't like a "happening" beyond their "normal" expectations of what constituted a proper Muslim-non-Muslim relationship across race-cum-religious and other barriers. Maybe they were too far ahead of the times; or mayhaps they went back into the dark ages when other countries entered a new millennium five years ago.


So Yasmin must be congratulated for being a soul who dared to disturb the sound of silence within certain minds who'd rather that people with eyes, should not see beyond the surface, people with hearts should not feel beyond skin-deep, and writers and film producers should not dream beyond the politicians' narrow-minded streets.

Desiderata has just started on this adventure of writing a film script. Now over the next few weeks, if I take a hiatus from PoliticsBlindsville into EscapistMindsville, I hope my dear Readers would just keep their fingers crossed that I don't step on the toes of "narrow-minded people, in their narrow-minded street".


The song lyrics by Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel, I had written last Monday ("Sound of Silence and Moonlighting"), conjured in my mind, as I played the hit nigh one midnight when I usually do my creative writing:

People, faces
Scenes, places
Laughter, tears
CONversations
that sometimes dare to disturb
the tranquility that echoes within the
Sound of Silence

I want to be able to capture all these images one day in a written form, and hopefully followed by visual medium too, and that desire led me to a trail to learn from some experts rom ScreenAsia who threw a challenge to wordsmiths with a Story to Tell in the Asian region to Write for Hollywood. This writer with bravery or bravado thus joined some 20 Malaysians DARED TO DISTURB The Sound of Silence echoing in Hollywood two Saturdays ago. We must and can dreAm, can't we?It was also a silent challenge I imposed on myself.(Kyels, et tu?)

ScreenAsia's Exposition reads:
“Human beings have traditionally used stories to describe or explain things they could not explain otherwise.”

"The myriad experiences of ordinary individuals are instruments to understanding the human condition. These describe the identity and culture of a people, and should therefore be suitably packaged in some medium if we were to engage in dialogue amongst ourselves and the rest of the world."


Following Dustin Hoffman's break into stardom via "The Graduate", the actor later went on to win an Oscar for his role of a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist CARL BERNSTEIN, who with colleague BOB Woodward at The Washington Post, exposed what is widely known as Watergate scandal, culminating in the resignation of the American President Richard Nixon in 1974.


If the Malaysian media needed any good role models to under-study the craft of investigative journalism, it's this team of Bernstein and Woodward. But with such narrow-minded politicians who could only see the "dark side" to creative efforts by the more adventurous --and more discerning and far-sighted ones -- the Fourth Estate here can not even take its first baby steps along that direction well trodden by the two American journalists who were responsible for an American President's resignation though seeking out The Truth in what took place as an event first referred to as The Watergate Caper.

Malaysia has its share of similar, if not darker, capers, but myGOODfriends, who dared to disturb The Sound of Silence?

Mayhaps, we could see some Towering Yasmins in the future?
Hope always springs eternal in the hearts of spirited writers!

Desiderata on this festive Sunday, says this li'l prayer based on a simple, yet sombre, song:

And he also poses a li'l question -- will some of these politicians get out of "their narrow minded street"?


Try a little kindness
(Glenn Campbell)


If you see your brother standing by the road
With a heavy load from the seeds he sowed
And if you see your sister falling by the way
Just stop and say,"You're goin' the wrong way"

You've got to try a little kindness
Yes show a little kindness
Yes shine your light for everyone to see
And if you try a little kindness
Then you'll over-look the blindness
Of narrow minded people on their narrow minded street

Don't walk around the down and out
Lend a helping hand instead of doubt
And the kindness that you show every day
Will help someone along their way

You've got to try a little kindness
Yes show a little kindness
Yes shine your light for everyone to see
And if you try a little kindness
And you'll over look the blindness
Of narrow minded people on their narrow minded street