Sepet

Today, I going to analyze the mise-en-scene and cinematography in Yasmin Ahmad's Sepet (2005) and discuss how the elements contribute to the portrayal of Malaysian identity in the film.

Summary of films:

Sepet is a 2005 Malaysian teen romantic comedy-drama film in Malaysia. This film is about the love story between a young Muslim Malay girl Orked and a Chinese Malaysian guy Loong. They face some social and racial problems that stopped them from loving each other. 

Mise-en-scene and cinematography in Yasmin Ahmad's Sepet:

The setting I going to discuss is in the Chinese Kopitiam. The Lighting in this scene is used natural lighting. The character in this scene have Orked who dress with baju kurung without tudung to identify she is a modern Malay girl, Loong who wear with a collar shirt and a long pant to show he is very serious for his relationship with Orked, because he wears sleeveless normally and last is Keong who wear long sleeved and a long pant like a Chinese Malaysia guy do. The director Yasmin Ahmad wanted to confront preconception that addresses the stereotypes in Malaysia. She does this by having the two different cultures, religions of the main character to make the audience realise that stereotypes are judgmental and absurd. As this scene, Keong advice to Loong “I don’t think Chinese boys should go out with Malay girls, There’ll only be trouble, You’ll break your parent’s hearts, change your name, and your religion and some more u can’t eat roast pork, they’ll also snip off the tip of your little brother” The issue of marriage between different races was further developed in the conversations between Loong and Keong, we get to know how most of the people nowadays perceive marriage between different races.

The director Yasmin Ahmad also exposed the issues of unfairness and difference through a critique of the random way scholarships are given. In the film, Orked’s mother and Kak Yam highlighted this in a conversation about Orked receiving a government scholarship to study overseas but not Loong who scored better than Orked in the national exams.

At the same time, The director also shows some good example of a Malaysian in the film. Malaysians are a cross-cultural and ethnic boundary in their daily lives. For example, the scene where Orked has done with her prayer, she opens her cupboard. The cupboard had a lot of Takeshi Kaneshiro’s posters pasted over the door. This scenes didn't just challenge the stereotypic perceptions and also tell us that we can be religious and respect other cultures at the same time.

Throughout the entire length of the movie, the audience faces the stereotypes present in Malaysia. From Loong finding it strange that a Malay would be interested in watching Chinese movie. In another way, Orked’s friend called Chinese people slit-eyed people.  Yasmin makes the audience realise that stereotypes are judgmental and absurd. Orked is a character that blurring of stereotypes in this film.

Elements contribute to the portrayal of Malaysian identity in Sepet:

There are multiple elements in this film that highlight the uniqueness of Asian Cinema and portrayal of Malaysian identities, such as Orked and Loong can speak multiple languages. Orked can speak little mandarin because of her mother and her aunty watch a Chinese movie all day long. It has exactly mirrored the culture and environment of Malaysian society. Furthermore, Characters used in the film has multiple races like Malay, Chinese and Indian which is the majority race in Malaysia will also mirror the feature of Malaysia film. Lastly, the setting used in the school will present our Malaysia icon as they show the Malaysia primary outfits.

Conclusion:

This film is present a more multi-ethnic face of the nation while smartly discover issues that think sensitive in Malaysia. It is a great film for us to understand the society better and therefore highly recommended to those that have liberal views.