For the Win
By Genevieve Loh, TODAY | Posted: 23 October 2009 1136 hrs

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RATING:

It has all the hallmarks of a Yasmin Ahmad film: Honest-to-goodness storytelling, quiet sincerity and the inter-racial/religious romantic relationship.

Yet, the late award-winning film-maker's formula never grows old, her signature pluralist approach and sensitive human touch evident as ever in this, her last film Talentime.

Serendipitously inked together via a school talent competition, a singer from a racially-mixed wealthy family (Pamela Chong) connects with a deaf-mute Indian boy (Mahesh Jugal Kishor), while a gifted musician (Syafie Naswip) copes with excelling in academic life and a dying mother.

The acting is raw but commendably unforced, with the young Malaysian actors showing lot of natural promise.

With a rojak-mix of Tamil, English, Malay and Cantonese, Yasmin cuts you a realistic slice of Malaysian life, Asian values and religious taboo, compensating whatever heavy-handedness that might seep through with injections of "aw-shucks" romance, comic relief and heart-rending sentimentality.

Posthumously awarded Best Director and Best Screenplay at this year's Malaysian Film Festival, her prowess as a great storyteller with a unrelentless message of humanity simply cannot be denied, especially when it provokes, questions and opens the mind.

- TODAY/yb