One thing that we can be quite certain after the Anugerah Skrin TV3 2005 last Friday is that Azwan and Aznil is getting further and further apart in the MC skills. There is no doubt now who is “Aku No. 1”. Azwan was really terrible, his incessant, boring talk and his very ugly wardrobe to his plead to the media not to report the glitch in the presentation of one of the awards is deplorable. So long to free speech and fair reporting. It is also very depressing that he does not realise that to MC effecively, the MC should not hide his eyes behind dark glasses! He just effectively denied himself a very critical instrument in getting emotions and messages across.
Despite being a very “syok sendiri” event, TV3 at least has made the effort to do something. We have the best TV3 cameraman, best TV3 host, best TV3 lighting man etc. I understand that this is TV3’s internal appreciation thing to thier staff but the quality will not get any better if it is not opened to everyone in the industry. But well, we already have the Oskar PPFM (award ceremony was last night), I hear someone saying… Be it, then.
You will immediately notice the low quality production when the focus is soft, the lighting not well planned, the audio feed breaks, the live sound miking terrible, lack of coordination and the whole thing looked like it was recorded in the 90s. One wonders when TV3 is going to come up to at least Astro’s standard. Not that Astro is particularly superb but is surely better. First step is probably indulging less in “syok sendiri” things and start getting more competitive.
The night belonged to Afdlin Shauki. He grabbed 3 of the biggest awards, Best Actor, Best Screenplay and Best Director but not Best Film. Hmmm… how does one define Best Film then? And for all it’s worth, the Best Film award went to “Paloh”. I was speechless….. It is also quite disappointing that “Sepet” did not participate. To me, “Sepet” is still the Best Film in the past year. I also like “Buli” a lot, so given that “Sepet” did not participate, “Buli” should have won. Oooppss…. I should be rooting for my company’s own films but I have to be honest here…. ;-) Anyway, we did win one top award though.
Last night, I was supposed to give a talk in the AEC short film awards workshop at Holiday Villa Subang but given that I am already engaged in another appointment, I could not attend. Last night, I was supposed to touch on “back to reality” for indie filmakers and I am quite well versed in getting filmakers back to reality when I am to talk about the financial and distribution aspects of it. I was to touch on budgeting, cost controlling, project feasibility studies and distribution, those stuffs that I do at work. It will be great to meet up with these people and talk to them. In them I can see great passion but they need to come down to the ground a bit.
I was present at the launch ceremony for this short film thing a while back and they presented a few short films from last year’s participants. With all due respects for their passion, I have no clue what those short films were about despite me being able to sit through and enjoy, and rewatching those supposedly artsy films by Tsai Ming Liang and gang. These shortfilmakers are really getting too pretentious, if I can use that word. They got too philosophical and too metaphorical, their films need to be explained to be understood.
A lot of new filmakers nowaday forgot that films are supposed to tell a story by means of moving images. If the audience cannot catch the story and have to be explained later what it means as if they are so dumb and shallow, it will not work. I can see that these people has some interesting concepts but the whole storytelling is bad. They need to understand that to be successful, they need to be storytellers, not silver screen Hegels.
Anyways, it is a healthy thing to have and with a new bunch of wannabe directors and support from Astro and sponsors, we should be able to see a new breed of Chinese filmakers coming up when they mature in time.
Poet-Philosopher
I want to be a poet-philosopher. I think poet-philosophers are the greatest bunch of people who has achieved a certain state of mind that ordinary people could simply not comprehend. They can see and feel things that ordinary people are just too dumb or too numb to notice. They have a certain air of peace, of calm, of wisdom and of reassurance around them. I really want to be a poet-philosopher. Or at least let me be a friend of a poet-philosopher so that I can feel the peace, feel the calm and wisdom, and be reassured that this world is not as bad as it seems.
I would like to share here a poem by Pablo Neruda. This poem is quite popular and Yasmin has recently posted this poem too. I just want to post it here too to grace my blog. This is from “The Poetry of Pablo Neruda”, edited by Ilan Stavans. The translator is W.S. Merwin.
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Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, “The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.”
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another’s. She will be another’s. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
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Strange, after typing this, I feel happier.
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