Saloma Biopic

I went to see the premiere of Saloma biopic at UiTM last June -- the first half. Yes, sometimes people want to watch just half a movie in a huge hall, on a small screen, with the audience sitting as far away as possible. Worth all the RM6.

This is not The Hobbit, so I don't get the 'show only half of the movie' thing. A full movie would leave a stronger impression and get the audience talking about it more*, no?

(*More excitedly, of course. P Ramlee and Saloma's fans already love the genre.)

So obviously this is a new marketing technique that I haven't caught up to yet. The full movie will be shown on Astro this month. No, not on any of the channels you already have. This is Astro we're talking about.

Thoughts:

• Watching the other side of these movie legends is refreshing.
• I didn't know Saloma at one time was married to A R Tompel. Apparently, the latter was quite a ladies' man and was not really a Husband of the Year to Saloma. This is Malaysia, we stay away from difficult topics in movies. The whole time watching it, I wondered what Tompel's family thought about the movie. Nevertheless, good job, Melissa Saila. While thankfully this is not the first, we certainly don't have that many of this either ie a brave take in local movies that we've always wanted to see more -- one that we'll discuss and watch hopefully with respect and empathy, and makes us torn between two paths. Life is not always a straightforward black or white.
• Yes, we've heard that not everything is always rainbows and butterflies in the entertainment industry either. Very few, if there's any, from those earlier generations became rich. We are reminded of this again, watching it on screen. We also caught a glimpse of Saloma's relationship struggle with her first son (right from the womb, actually).
• Saloma and Mariani ran away from their father's home in Perak to their mother's in Singapore by a delivery truck and train when they were little. I'm so mad at the truck driver. You brought two young girls on your truck from Perak to KL and left them at the train station with no question asked... HowTF do we explain it to this man??
• Sharifah Amani as Siput Sarawak, with only a few short scenes, was one of the highlights of the movie -- top two maybe.
• I came for the clothes, props and production design. They were beautiful and carefully thought out. The flared baju kurung, the hair buns and twists, the long songkok, the oversized trousers and shirts were all feast for the eyes. We can feel that each colour of the props and background was carefully created to help set the tone for each scene.
• The dialogue, however, feels like just barely enough for me. And it pains me to say this: so does Nabila Huda's performance. I've never seen her other works, but the blank stares didn't really do it for me. To be fair, this cannot be an easy role to play. And she's probably set to do more great things, now that this role is under her belt, anyway.
• The movie was partly a project by the UiTM movie students, or something like that. I forgot the actual nature of the collaboration, but I have to mention them here. So, well done to you too, movie students.

Image: Astro