‘HIJABISTA BALLET’: ‘FLASHDANCE’ COPYCAT, SOCIAL UNREALISM AND THE WORSE OF BOLLYWOOD

…WITH A CHEAP FIGHTING SCENE IN A LRT COACH! IT IS PURE MELODRAMA, WITH A THIN PLOT THAT LACKS A ‘SPINE’.

By Mansor Puteh

This film should not have been made into a feature film but a television feature or ‘telemovie’ as they say in Malaysia.

If it had to be made into a feature film, then the setting should not be in Malaysia but in a western country, where such issues are more relevant than it is here in Malaysia where it is not.

And least of all, this film could never be set in Iran or Saudi Arabia, for obvious reasons. 

So this is the first mistake the director had made.

And I have been told that the producers was given a special ‘research grant’ to produce this film so they could conduct research on what elements are important for Malaysian filmmakers to have in their films in order to attract the attention of the views in the country.

They did some surveys with selected groups and those who were in them gave glowing comments on this film. But how far do their research is true can be seen in the box office collection of this film and the viewers how many from amongst the non-Melayu had seen it.

I would reject the proposal for this film if the screenplay had been given to me to review and analyze. It does not have a ‘spine’, a term that the director and screenwriter often used to describe a screenplay he was given to review.

Of course, this film can be used to highlight the exertion of a feminism in the form of a dancer. But it does not seem to work. The women operating the stalls or warung, are better characters to use to show that anytime.

And from the dialogue exchanges that I had heard in the clip of this film, I can say that they are good for radio dramas, not feature films.

A report I saw on FB says that only fifty-five people watched this film in its first screening at TGV KLCC with Syed Mohammed amongst them. But it did not say if there were non-Melayu amongst them.

I have not seen this film and do not wish to see if in the cinemas, but I can still write a commendable and original review of it that I first posted in part in my Facebook.

And this much I wish to say of this over-rated film. Not that it is original; it is not. It does not aim to portray an issue which is original or truthful using ballet which is not a common dance choice of Malaysians men or women.

It is not often one is confronted with Melayu woman who dances in ballet companies in Malaysia especially; one cannot even count with the fingers on one hand. It is that rare. In fact, there is no such a dance company that one can find in the country which has Melayu women dancers in it.

In fact, ballet dance companies simply do not exist in Malaysia anymore these days.

There were few in the past but they had mostly Chinese men and women. They did some shows on television but not in public. This form of dance is not popular.

So why did the director of ‘Hijabista Ballet’ choose this dance-form to create an unnecessary and frivolous issue out of it?

I can guess that he did not know what else that he can use to show how a Melayu woman could confront with unnecessary issues and controversies concerning her personal choice in wanting to exert his religious conviction, by wearing the hijjab or headdress.

I can understand if she is an American-Muslim in America who wants to wear the hijjab to perform on stage as a dancer. But there is one American sprinter who dons the hijjab in the last Olympics and won bronze. There was no issue with the Olympics or her own national team.

So the wrong choice of vocation and hobby that the director had chosen had caused his film to become one which fails to create any controversy and scandal.

I have no desire to watch the film; maybe later when I can find a DVD of it so I can watch it then so I can preview it better and in greater detail.

But I have seen the clip of this film and read what the director had to say of his debut film which is enough for me to know what he was driving at to strive to benefit from the local viewers’ curiosity. 

So there is a strong element of a choice of activity aimed mostly to provoke.

In an American film that was shown in the early 1980s called ‘Flashdance’, a woman who stars in it is featured as a construction worker a site and who aspires to be a dancer. It was pure fiction even in America of then…

In ‘Hijabista Ballet’ a young Melayu-Muslim woman insists on wearing the hijjab to dance in a ballet company; its as though she has the choice on the costumes which are dictated by the type of dance styles of the choreographer, unless if her father owns the dance company and her mother is the choreographer.

There are similarities between these two films, and also the many Bollywood films that had fighting scenes at odd places over silly issues and concerns.

Is there an issue, a real one in ‘Hijabista Ballet’ and in Malaysia? No! So what is the predicament? None!

And is the whole story standing on the solid social realism concept that we know of? Hardly. It is pure fantasy!

It is melodrama too in many ways!

If there is some it is a highly implausible one, more so at this time when we have the LRT and now MRT.

Yes, the fighting scene in a LRT coach is pure unadulterated Bollywood...whose films have the mandatory fighting scene. And they happen everywhere especially at places which are tourist attraction.

The characters have no fear for the law which is often missing even when properties have been badly damaged and some people killed.

This is the mental and creative level the Bollywood directors, the producers and actors had gone down to, that they just could not see the silliness in such scenes which are irrelevant to the plot, but which they thought are interesting for their audiences in India and elsewhere.

And some of that had rubbed on the minds of their counterparts in Malaysia including the director of ‘Hijabista Ballet’.

And of course, the police are conveniently missing; so the plot can move on with those involved in the fight can take the plot further.

It maybe better for police to be missing or they would be profiled as idiots as they are in all the Bollywood films that we have seen.