A critic's opinion

My old schoolmate, Kee Thuan Chye, was invited to the charity screening of The School that Built a Nation, the documentary film on Penang Free School last Monday. He wrote an opinion piece in facebook recently. I think it is worthy of reproduction here, and I hope he doesn't mind at all 😊

I was invited to the premiere screening of the documentary on the Penang Free School, pompously and, I think, erroneously entitled 'The School that Built a Nation', last Monday at GSC in One Utama. {The school did not build Malaysia even though it brought out graduates who contributed to the development of the nation.)

The invitation came from Loo Shun Ming, the director and editor who did a commendable job of putting the one-hour docu together. It was delightful meeting her for the first time.

It was also delightful meeting some of the Old Frees who attended the screening, especially my good old friend Sukhindarpal Singh and his brother Harinder; the legendary Anwar Fazal, who has an inspiring story to tell in his interview in the docu; Ahmad Said; Jagmohan Judge, who is actually a lawyer despite his name!; and Lim U-Jin.

Meeting U-Jin was particularly heartening because he told me he was so inspired by my giving my children Malay, Indian and Chinese names that he gave his own children names from other races too. His daughter, for example, has Sunitra as her middle name, similar to that of my daughter, Soraya Sunitra. I'm so glad to see this acknowledgement of Malaysian inclusivity.

It was also a wonderful surprise to see former PFS headmaster Tan Boon Lin there. He is now 90, and he has much to say in his interview in the docu. When I entered PFS in Form One in 1966, he was the headmaster then. It's amazing to see him still going strong.

I also met my old classmate Abu Huraira, former group executive director of Utusan Malaysia Mohd Nasir Ali, and Cheah Wee Leong, a former banker who is now an investment banking trainer.

The screening was preceded by the singing of the school anthem. And after the show, during the taking of a group photo, the anthem was sung again.

A show of alma mater spirit, I suppose, but I couldn't help wondering how many of the Old Frees present -- professionals, corporate figures, businesspeople, politicos, beneficiaries of the system, etc, among them -- live up to the line in the song that says, "Free School for the BRAVE and for the TRUE".

How many among them are real Frees, with courage and integrity and independence of spirit?

There will be another screening of the film on July 21, this time in Penang at GSC in Queensbay Mall at 10am.

But within his own circle of old school pals, he gave us a better insight into his experience watching the film:

The docu was not bad. But the part about the school building in Farquhar (Fucker) Street was overlooked. I also thought there could have been something said about the Tunku and his saving the school premises in Fucker St from being demolished. The visuals could have been more varied and imaginative. Too much repetition of the handwriting visual. There were some interesting revelations but other interesting ones were omitted. The script is written by a Mat Salleh named Alan Braddock. Not a suitable choice, in my opinion. It needed a local, better-informed perspective. The docu's core theme is the celebration of Hutchings' vision. Which is fine, but it needed to be more solidly fleshed out. I also don't see how the docu could have been titled The School that Built a Nation when it doesn't even touch on Tunku Abdul Rahman. Only carried a quote from him at the end. The only luminary featured was Wu Lien Teh. There were irrelevancies too, like Boon Lin talking about his wartime experiences and Anwar Fazal about his breaking the state's middle-distance records in athletics. The docu needed a local to write it and an Old Free to direct and edit it. The narrator, Nick Atkinson, is also a Brit.