The Women in Shuhaimi Baba’s First Film

Shuhaimi Baba is one of the most famous female filmmakers in Malaysia who strives to give Malaysian cinema a more unique, artistic and commercial identity- an identity that would reflect Malaysia’s place with global modernity.(Levitin, 2003) And the film I am going to mention here is Selubung (1992), her first directed local film. Selubung is about a modern Malay young lady, Matsura who returns from studies abroad at Perth, Australia, feels bad for unable to help her friend E.J, who has chosen to follow the path of the religious extremist group led by Brother Musa. When she comes back to Malaysia, she joins a voluntary organization, “Rescaid” to help the children refugees from Palestine and there she meets Kamal, who is married but divorce to be Mastura. The nation-wide charity campaign that promoted by Matsura and the “Rescaid” team are quite successful, but tragedy strikes when a bomb planted by the terrorist explodes and caused Mastura falls in coma. When Matsura awake from coma, she still has the determination of protecting the unfortunate ones. As for the aspect of the film analysis, is to discuss the issue of women representation in film, and also focusing on Islam and modernity.    

First, let’s discuss about woman representation in the film. In Selubung, the leading roles are the female characters, not the male characters. Besides that, unlike female roles in other films, which are usually weak and follow the lead of the male lead, Matsura, the main character in Selubung shows another way round. She represents as modern, independent and highly educated woman during the 90s, who has the freedom to do things she likes and things she thinks that are right. While her best friend, E.J represents another type of female role that gives a contrast between her and Matsura. Although E.J and Matsura study aboard together, but her mindset is different from Matsura’s, she is much conservative and very religious kind of woman compare to Matsura. After E.J married to Brother Musa, she is like a traditional woman who follows and listens to her husband, which Matsura cannot stand of.

Secondly, according to Islamic rules, Muslim men are allowed to have more than one wife. But some modern Muslim women like Matsura refuse to take it. One of the example in Selubung is, even though Matsura is a Muslim, she does not like the decision of E.J marrying Brother Musa, as he has already has a wife, Hani. Another example would be, when Matsura finds out that Kamal actually married, she refuses to see him again until he divorced.   

Another thing in the film which is related to Islamic rule and modernity, is the issue of modern female representative in Malaysian Cinema do not wear tudung (head covering). This is might because of the influential of global modernity or to attract larger audience, since Malay cinema’s roots are more towards to entertainment rather than artistic expression. (Levitin, 2003)

In my opinion, the film Selubung is like an experimental film which the director tries to create film emotions by using different kind of techniques, which is kind of special. The overall film is sort of about feminist, Islamic and modernity in the 90s in Malaysia. And in Selubung, Shuhaimi Baba also shows her concern of the unfortunate Muslims from around the world.

Reference:

Blaetz, R. (2007) Women’s Experimental Cinema. United States: Duke University Press

Ciecko, A.T. ( 2006) Contemporary Asian Cinema. New York: Berg, Oxford International Printing Ltd.

Jarr, A., Malek, M.Z. (2005) Malaysian Films: The Beginning. Malaysia: Perbandanan Kemajuan Filem Nasional Malaysia (FINAS).

Lenos,M., & Ryan,M. (2012) An Introduction to Film Analysis. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc.

Levitin, J., Pleasis, J. & Raoul, V. (2003) Women Filmamkers: Refocussing. United Kingdom: UBC Press