Gubra

Dear all, please note spoilers ahead. If you have not seen the movie, I suggest you skip this post or else - I'll ruin it all for you! *evil laugh*

To do away with the mundane, this is what the story is about :

Part A
Orked (the ever adorable Sharifah Amani) is now married to Arif (the typical Malay male). Her parents, who live with their giant-size-of-a-maid and the gardener's son (or something along that confusing line), are still as adorably loving as ever (I particularly loved the scene where these 2 not-very-thin people squashed onto a single hospital bed did the macarena lying down). Orked's dad is admitted into the Ipoh hospital. I think that Yasmin Ahmad gets an A for effort in filming the entire Ipoh town into something so whimsical, old-but-new, timeless, something that makes you forget whether it's set in today times or yesterday times. But I digress.

Anyway, Alan bumps into Orked along the hospital's corridors. Alan is Jason's brother (if you did not watch Sepet and do not know who Jason is, go and bang a wall). By the way, Alan is played by Alan Yun, that gorgeous tall, fair, yummy and extremely well-built model who by the way, cannot act and is quite kayu. I understand that Yasmin takes the approach of not forcing her actors to act, but rather to let them be themselves. But, hmm, for someone as good-looking as Alan, it spoils it that he can't act lor.

Anyway, Alan befriends Orked (who earlier attacked him with a mop full of shit thinking he was some mad stranger). On the day Orked leaves her crap-of-a-husband, Alan drives her to his home in his really old workman's truck and gives her a box which contains letters Jason wrote but never sent, a book of English poems, a Chinese book (maybe someone can tell me what book it is), and the symbolic handphone that bears the marks of a broken screen. Orked breaks down and sobs for all the loves she has lost - heartbreakingly for Jason's, and self-pityingly for Arif's.

Part B
The story of a bilal (I learned from this movie that he is someone who calls the azan) and his relationship with 2 prostitutes. No, it's nothing like that. The 2 prostitutes do what they do merely for a living, one for the love of her little son, the other for the needs of her family in the kampung (the true reason of which is not shown in the movie). The one who has a son (her name is Temah) is, predictably but cruelly, diagnosed to be HIV positive. She turns to the bilal's wife for spiritual comfort and friendship, and implores for help in raising her son if she ever dies. The other prostitute, who is young and pretty, subjects herself to the whims of this sadistic customer who pays her extra to beat her up. She does it for the money. When she does save enough money to return to her kampung, Temah's son's useless-debt-ridden-father comes and steals all the money from the young prostitute (and goodness knows does what else behind that closed door, the screams coming from that door driving the pain into the viewers' hearts).

So, done with the synopsis, here's my thoughts after the movie :
It is amazing how one movie can portray SO many facets of love. Let us count the ways :

• The cute long-term love between husband and wife (Orked's parents)
• The often-portrayed young love between newly-weds (Orked and Arif when she grumbles that he didn't wait to bathe with her)
• That turns into heartsick when the husband has an affair he can't let go of (all men should strive NEVER to be like Arif)
• The brotherly love offered by Alan to Orked when Orked trustingly takes his hand and walks away after she confronts Arif with Latifah, the other woman
• The affectionate love of Orked's family towards their maid
• The budding love between the maid and a hospital boy (I don't know what his job is called - a male nurse?) who is Chinese, which sparks off jealousy from the gardener's son
• The typical gruff love between a bitter bed-ridden husband and a dutiful wife who have forgotten what it means to be alive together
• The sweet neighbourly love of the hospital-bed-neighbour, who offers chicken rendang when hospital food tastes too bad
• The love between mother and son, whose son is awaken by a bad dream where his mother is crying in a swing (which becomes true), and where the mother does everything she can to make his life as normal as is possible with her job as a prostitute
• The fatherly love between bilal and the 2 prostitutes, where the bilal understands their predicament and does what he can to help
• The sweet love between the bilal and his wife, who feeds him his bread and coffee before he goes off to call the prayers
• The twisted love between Temah and her husband, where he steals her money in order to avoid his eyes being cut off, but returns it upon gentle advice from the bilal
• And, most heartrending of all, the bittersweet love-that-can-never-be between Orked and Jason

Again, as in Sepet, Yasmin ends the movie with a sort of cliffhanger - which you'll only note if you stay until the end of the credits. My take on the ending - it means whatever you want it to be. It could mean that in real life, Jason never died and they live happily ever after. Or, it could mean that Orked yearns so much for Jason that he becomes a real part of her life.

Or, for me, it just means that, amidst all the soul-breaking realities of theft, infidelity, and all other human flaws, there is still love ... and there is still hope.

"Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul ..." ~ Emily Dickinson