Rise...ini kalilah

RISE...INI KALILAH is the local production that's making the rounds of the cinemas around the country right now. It takes inspiration from the recent General Elections (GE14) to weave a story around six loosely-connected characters in the days leading up to GE14. I say loosely connected because these six characters do not know one another - except maybe two of them - and yet their paths would cross on that fateful day of the 9th of May. In their own ways they contributed to the formation of Malaysia Baru. Out with the Old, in with the New.

Each of the six characters contributed a slice of Malaysian life, both the good and the bad. "There is policeman Azman (played by Remy Ishak) who doesn’t accept bribery of any sort, but he doesn’t stop his partner when the latter harasses and blackmails the common people either. Teacher Shanti (Sangeeta Krishnasamy) is always questioning the authority for any wrongdoing even when that authority is none other than her own father, who is the headmaster at the school she teaches," reviewed Mumtaj Begum in The Star newspaper.

There is bound to be at least one character that we can associate closely with, whether the character is the policeman, teacher, reporter, businessman, overseas student or overseas worker.

That's us with Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow

We despaired with their private challenges in life, their angst, their fears, the demons they were facing, the hard decisions that they were required to take, what was right and what was wrong. And then there were the representative moments in the film that mirrored real life situations....the cutting out of Mahathir's picture from the billboards, the almost empty cheramah grounds (clap clap clapping from the audience), the distribution of phantom ballot boxes which the crowd tried to stop and successfully, foreign workers posing as voters, free buses to transport voters back from Singapore, students organising themselves to collect and bring back the ballot papers from far-flung reaches of the globe and the invidious attempt by the Head of the polling station to allow cheating to happen.

On the stage were the film's producer, (Fred Chong) his three
directors (Saw Teong Hin, Nik Amir Mustapha and MS Prem Nath)
and two of the actors (Jack Tan and Moon Yoong).

The star of the film was none other than Dr Mahathir himself. The producers of the film took a lot of liberty to include actual footage from television news stories as the drama of the polling night and the days that followed unfolded....of Mahathir claiming victory based on the unofficial results, the pregnant wait for the new Government to be accepted by the King and ultimately, the swearing-in at the Palace (more clapping from the audience.)

In all these scenes, the PKR flag flew prominently everywhere while the BN flag and banners were nowhere to be seen. Oh, I forgot....except for a fleeting moment during the rolling of the credits at the very end of the film, an alternative party flag and name were used to depict the campaigning ruling party. But nobody was fooled. We knew what they referred to.

RISE...INI KALILAH had hit the local cinemas from Thursday (13 Sep 2018) but my wife and I were lucky enough to have been invited to a private preview screening of the film in Penang a week earlier because, well, we had volunteered our services to the DAP as their polling agents during GE14. A small reward for our efforts, we were told.