The Malaysian film "Southern Witch" and three other new Asian horror films in 2021, "Spell", "Psychic Medium" and "Crying Sorrow" have received a lot of attention.
Expecting a thriller or debut as a god's work is a big disappointment.
"Southern Witch" has participated in several film festivals, including the Hainan Island International Film Festival, and has won 3 awards at the Golden Horse Film Festival, the Golden Horse Award for Best New Director and Best Original Screenplay nomination, as well as the nomination for the 45th Hong Kong International Film Festival Firebird Film Award and the International Film Critics Fei Bisi Award.
This film can be said to be a well-done feature film debut, but it is not so embarrassing. Viewers who have not yet seen it should not be expected by these awards and praise.
Malaysian director Cheung Ki On won several awards for "Southern Witch"
Many marketing accounts rendered the film as a particularly scary horror film, which not only misled the audience who expected the film, but also made an otherwise bland film lose its objectivity.
First, combined with the introduction of director Zhang Ji'an, analyze some of the contents of the film:
The film's director, Chong Keat Aun, was born in 1978 in the Malaysian state of Kedah, where the film takes place.
The film explores two "boundaries", one is the geographical "boundary" and the other is the psychological "witch world".
As you can see from the map, Kedah is located in the far northwest of Malaysia, bordering Thailand.
It was once an independent sultanate, ruled by Siam, and later became a state of the Federation of Malaysia.
Due to the special geographical location, in addition to the aborigines, there are a large number of Chinese ethnic groups such as directors and male protagonists in the film, as well as Siamese, Indians and other ethnic groups living here.
The language is more complex, although the so-called Malay or Kedah Malay is spoken here, but teochew, Cantonese, (Kedah) Hokkien, Mandarin, etc. are spoken in Chinese circles, and other ethnic groups also have other Thai dialects and various Indian dialects.
This multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-faith living environment is not only the environment in which director Zhang Ji'an grew up, but also the background of the film.
That's why there's a dark line in the film that keeps talking about identity, language unity, and the relationship between ethnic groups and countries, because this is the border, and the demographic composition is too complex.
Born here, Cheung Was born as a successful radio anchor and radio producer, a broadcaster for 12 years, and the first Chinese in history to win the Malaysian Broadcasting Awards for Chinese program.
However, due to conflicts with radio stations and unfair treatment, Zhang Ji'an, who dreamed of becoming a film director since childhood, left radio in 2017 and studied film and television creation at Curtin University in Australia, and began to enter the field of film and television creation.
Ah An, one of the two sons of the protagonist AChang family in the film, may be based on the director himself, and the two children occasionally receive TV signals from the Thai side, which is also the director's personal experience of living in the Ma-Thai border when he was a child.
Director Zhang Ji'an has previously made a short film called "Yishan", which has received a lot of attention and praise from the Busan Film Festival.
Short Film "Yishan"
The so-called "Yishan" refers to the unique Chinese culture of Southeast Asia, "Chinese Yishan", which is the public cemetery of overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia in the past, which is regarded as the ancestral grave and root by the Chinese in later generations.
During a trip to the countryside to do a program, Zhang Jian found a piece of "Yishan" (cemetery) related to the "May 13" incident in Malaysia in 1969, so he continued to shoot material, and finally completed this short film.
Zhang Ji'an is a director, and the first two works have achieved a lot of attention and good results, but in fact, it is not a whim.
He himself came from a background in media, including accumulating a large number of video materials and cultural investigation materials when doing radio programs such as "Xiangyin Archaeology", which accumulated for the creation of the film "Southern Witch".
It can be said that "Southern Witch" is a success of director Zhang Ji'an.
Directed by Zhang Ji'an
As mentioned above, the film "Southern Witch" is strung together by two threads, the bright line "witch world" and the dark line "boundary".
Among them, "Witch World" is the main plot of the film:
The male protagonist, Ah Chang, had a conflict with his neighbor, and the neighbor had a car accident. The neighbor's daughter-in-law, Aunt Kaew, blamed Ah Chang and gave Ah Chang a lower head, causing him to lose his labor and vomit iron nails.
Ah Chang's wife, Ah Yan, did not believe in these ghosts and gods at first, but after trying various healing methods to no avail, she could only turn to mountain gods and wizards.
The clue of "boundary" is processed as a dark line, using some historical backgrounds, character designs, supporting roles and other forms to express.
The film doesn't look scary at all, even drowsy, because the director is dealing with the shots more like a documentary about local folklore.
This kind of recording image is what the director is good at, and it is speculated that it is also the effect that the director can achieve at this stage.
It's obvious that Southern Witch uses a lot of long shots with fixed frames, very little camera movement, and the editing tempo is very, very slow.
Such a motionless shot, only relying on the actor's performance and scene scheduling in the depth of field, coupled with rare switching, naturally looks very sleepy.
In addition, from the above screenshot of this shot, there are many such director's point of view shots in the film, and the camera position is particularly low.
This low camera position is neither the point of view of the characters in the film nor the objective point of view of objectively explaining things, but it is likely to be the point of view of the core god "Datok Gong" mentioned by the director in the simulation film.
This perspective is like the Datuk at the door of the male protagonist's house watching their family, and it is also similar to the height that Dato's avatar as a snake or crocodile sees.
Datuk In the movie "The Southern Witch"
Datok Gong is a popular folk deity in southern Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and the Coastal Strait of Malacca in Indonesia, where the Chinese community enshrines elders dressed in Malay costumes in a shrine to bless the peace of life in this area, similar to the land god, the land god, and the landlord god.
The male protagonist of the film, Ah Chang, is very superstitious about Dato, and the film also begins with Ah Chang worshipping Datok, and the Malays believe that Datok's guild will incarnate as a snake, crocodile or tiger.
Datuk Gong in the Malay Chinese community (image from the Internet)
Since Dato is the god of the land, and the position of the worship and the incarnated animals are relatively close to the ground, many low-camera director's viewpoint shots in the film create an atmosphere where ordinary people are watched by the gods.
To sum up, the film "Southern Witch" is very "debut" characteristics.
The so-called "debut characteristics" refer to the commonality of some directors when making their first feature films:
First of all, in the use of film language forms, it is either particularly fancy or particularly simple, but it is particularly obvious. "Southern Witch" belongs to the latter, the language of the shot is very concise, and sometimes it feels like looking at a slideshow.
Secondly, the creator will choose his familiar environment, usually his hometown, and familiar subject matter.
These are easier to control for a debut film, because the director is more familiar with the customs and ins and outs of the shooting environment than others.
Objectively speaking, "Southern Witch" as a debut work is very "stable", certainly not a bad film.
But its advantages are more reflected in the freshness of the subject matter than in the watchability and ideological nature of the film, both of which still need time to be refined.
The evaluation and expectation of "Southern Witch" should be more objective, and not be rhythmic by a bunch of big awards and headline parties.
If there is any error in the above information, we hope to correct it
-END-