A Super Long Review

An anonymous review emailed to us today- we honestly haven't got a clue who, what or where this person is (all we know is that the email add is very interesting), but considering the stupendous amount of effort he/she obviously put into analysing S'kali and writing this super long article, we figured it merited a place on our blog. Clearly we're also thrilled that he/she rated us 4 out of 5... thanks pal!

Whether you agree or disagree with the opinions below, hope this makes those amongst you who haven't seen the film feel like seeing it... remember you have only 8 days before its run at Cathay Cineleisure ends, so hurry!

Cheers,
The S'kali Team

*warning- this review is VERY LONG


It’s rare that I find Malaysian-made films worthwhile,
be it inde or not. I really have to say it was a rare experience
to watch director Arivind’s S’Kali which had been generating
some interest or curiousity amongst us Malaysian filmmakers
for the past months. Obviously this is always the case with most
inde films that reach our local screens rather than just minor
festivals because we’re always curious to know if it
would be any good, have a broader appeal… or just be
some plain dud with exaggerated marketing and
overrating-optimistic reviews… which the latter proves
to be unfortunately, painfully true.

Now let me just say it for the front row seats. S’Kali
is fairly impressive and has surprisingly GOOD acting.
I seriously can’t remember when was the last time I
felt characters in a Malaysian film felt so rich…. Yes
I’m sick of those arty-farty pretentious
character-trash that seem to populate festivals.

S’Kali has quite a basic premise and merely deals with
five close friends who are about to depart, either for
university, studying abroad or simply pursuing some
minor career. The fact is is that they can’t stick
together much longer despite their well-bonded circle
of friendship.

I can’t imagine anyone who hasn’t gone through this or
at least has felt the force of reality overpowering
his/her youthful life. And eventually you’d just have
to face it and simply move on. This is what I feel
makes S’Kali work. In terms of originality, frankly,
this particular teen flick doesn’t have to be! The
simplicity of the premise alone is what would
contribute appeal. But S’Kali’s strength is really in
its characters. If they don’t work, any premise or
predicament won’t ever suffice because we couldn’t
care less for them. I certainly don’t give a rat’s ass
for any of those mute/silent/staring characters we
often see in those local heavy art movies.

Arivind’s characters/cast are a sigh of relief!! They
really did it for me. It won’t be anything a hardcore
film buff hasn’t seen before but I swear these fellas
do a fine job of carrying/driving the picture through.


Apart from its premise, Arivind has wisely chosen to
further complicate things for his characters by simply
giving them distinctive attachments that they each
can’t let go of. You have the individual who can’t get
over drinking, another who’s petrified to fulfill his
dreams, the couple who isn’t sure what their parents
might think of them being together, etc. Ultimately,
they each contribute to the conflict and separation,
and Arivind skillfully unfolds each one of them. As
aforementioned, it’s not the originality, but the
mixture, and it’s overall pleasing to watch.

Now admittedly, at times Arivind’s dialogue can be a
little too on-the-nose [writers get this] but I got
comfortable and didn’t mind it at all. I concede that
I’d normally nitpick at every moment of a local movie,
but S’Kali made me wanna listen and see more. Now
wasn’t that a surprise! On top of that, the film also
has marginally good songs by this band called FatBoy
and I still have the trailer song in my head as I’m
writing this.

Where S’kali falls short is that it’s… well, TOO short
as it clocked in just over an hour and you can’t help
but think some viewers may go "That’s it?". Great
films [all the world over throughout the century] have
always had great characters, first established as
either interesting, appealing or sympathetic. Then a
crisis occurs that throws them all into the mix and
we’d be anxious to find what happens to them in the
resolution, seeing how they may or may not resolve it
which leads to something big. Whether it’s triumphant
or ultra-tragic, hi-tech, low-tech, it’s still
emotionally big and unforgettable. S’kali has all of
the above except a proper satisfying/active resolution
and it just breezes through the ending. I wished there
was some additional ‘act’ or more conflict but alas
it’s not here. While I wasn’t expecting anything so
gigantic [and it doesn’t need to be], again, you can’t
help but feel Arivind could have done more with the
material simply because his characters actually work!
Nevertheless, the transition or change of what they go
through unfolds almost masterfully given the short
duration.

While I’d be glancing at my watch for certain
Malaysian flicks wondering when it’ll be over… S’Kali
was over before I knew it. I really digged Arivind’s
characters and I would have loved to see more
interaction between them on say… a sequel or
something. Wishful thinking, but that just shows how
much the flick can be fun. Yes folks that is very
unexpected for a local one and although there have
been acceptable ones throughout the years like Sepet,
S’Kali is quite different as it doesn’t want to hint
too much on artistry or indolence.

So how does it compare to Yasmin’s flick? As in
‘Sepet’. Tough one. Well sort of. To kick it off, I
VERY MUCH prefer the characters of S’Kali to Sepet by
quite a long mile and I ain’t kiddin’. And yes, dare I
say it… S’Kali’s bunch has more life to each of them
and I feel they make those of Sepet look somewhat
stiff and dry by comparison. It also makes Sepet feel
draggy or slower. This is fairly strange to me because
Sepet has it the easy way as you only need two main
characters to drive the story and in the film medium
itself, when you have more characters, things are very
difficult to keep track of, let alone create a sense
of coherence - a critical flaw in Gubra btw, despite
the better performances. But anyway in S’Kali, you
have FIVE characters and it’s impressive when you find
Arivind is capable of crafting them together and all
things add up satisfyingly.

Now I can’t compare it to Gubra because that one takes
on an entirely different structure and narrative. But
even then, S’kali’s characters are still BETTER.
Speaking of which, Yasmin makes a small poignant
cameo, along with a handful of other artists.

Now on to technical technicalities. And some trivial
nitpicking you could say. As often mentioned in forums
[including it’s own website], S’Kali was shot in High
Definition! That’s pretty much [well almost] THREE
times the resolution of standard MiniDV, assuming that
all the settings of Arivind’s camcorder were set to
max, as in 1080p. This somewhat new format gives far
greater depth and definition to the overall video as
‘highlights’ don’t overexpose much while deep
shadow-detail is still preserved. This would also mean
killer video-filesizes to edit on! If you’re a
knowledgable video buff, you’d get all of what I’m
saying here. Now I’ve seen various MiniDV movies
projected on a movie hall in Midvalley and although
they seem kinda blown-up in resolution, it’s still
quite watchable. Which means if they project HD
footage, it would be better right? As in three times
better? Well not quite, which made me dumbfounded.

As proven with the case of S’kali [as in when
projected on a big screen], it’s hard to distinquish
the added HD resolution from miniDV’s because the
square pixels look so notoriously large and blocky.
Either the editors outputted the whole movie on a much
smaller resolution [as opposed to its highest HD
glory] or the digital projector inside the Cathay
Cineleisure hall is one helluva dud. If the reason for
this happens to be the former, then that’s one BIG
mistake and quite a missed opportunity.

When the movie began, the cinema hall’s screen opened
up to an almost 1:85 aspect ratio [real movie-buffs
know this], yet the film itself sits within a mere
1.33 frame [aka 4:3] so we see some black bars on the
SIDES throughout. What I don’t understand is why
couldn’t the film be shot in true 16:9 widescreen? It
was shot in HD which would have had that setting and
would have given the film a more cinematic look. Well
slightly, since that’s still a far cry from grand
Cinemascope [2.35 aspect ratio].

On a side note, I felt the overall sound volume was a
little too loud. Not really an ear-bursting problem
but you’d really agree it gets a little too high on
the levels at times. And I don’t understand why it
never occurrs to editors [whether sound or mixers] to
lower the volume of car-doors closing. And S’Kali is
no exception. These particular sounds almost seem to
‘clip’ when it happens. But overall, I guess S’Kali’s
audio is still clear for the most part and not too
distracting. And thank God there’s no obvious
looping/ADR by the actors as is so obviously the case
with Bjarne Wong’s Legend of the Red Curse.

There are however, brief moments where Arivind’s bunch
get together and start to have multiple conversations
that overlap each other. This is where it can be
difficult to hear specifically what they’re saying,
but you get the idea they’re just gossiping trivial
stuff. Good example would be the opening mamak scene
itself. Luckily we still have those funky subtitles
and unfortunately S’Kali is yet another movie where
the editors forgot [or just don’t know how] to add a
stroke of shadow around the subtitles. Meaning if the
text appears on a sparkling bright image, they’re
virtually invisible and that happens 35% of the time.

Well in terms of shooting style, I wouldn’t say there
is anything remarkable which is still fine in case you
were curious if Arivind would try for a more fancy
style, given his talent. It’s simply the good old
shoot-straight form with no tricky, fancy business.
There are however, a few very good time-lapse shots
where multiple roads [filled with tiny shimmering
carlights] intersect, as if coming together than
separating. Good symbolism folks.

As for the style of basic conversation scenes, I’m not
too sure if Arivind personally operated the camera,
let alone oversaw the framing of every shot because
things do look a little too up-close [or tight] for my
taste. Personally feel they could have been handled
better slightly but this is ONLY a minor quibble and
no big deal. I’m really quite impressed with all those
table/mamak scenes because as the average filmmaker
knows, they can be very deceptively simple to shoot.
Yet Arivind always maintains a sense of geography and
doesn’t jump his axis, so there’s hardly any confusion
as to who is where and who’s responding to who. I
guess casual readers won’t get what I’m trying to get
at here unless you’ve personally shot five characters
at a table scene.

Lighting-wise, there appears to be some minor digital
diffussion around shots that frame the ever dull
overcast sky during day-scenes. My isn’t it so hard to
get interesting clouds or vivid sky blues? Night
scenes are typically orangy and blusih, mostly lit by
overhead street lights. Overall, acceptable stuff.

Oh and one anecdote about S’Kali’s marketing… It
should have been better! The faceless poster’s tagline
"Love Life Friendship" simply is inadequate and
doesn’t specifically imply what the movie’s plot
really is and I doubt just by looking at it, will
spark any interest. The so-called trailer itself
doesn’t tell you anything and even FatBoy’s song isn’t
enough, though it just ‘might’ make you feel it’s
catchy. Hate to say it, but even Bjarne Wong’s
attrocious ‘Legend of the Red Curse’ [I’ll run to the
hills away from his next film ‘Possessed’] had a
better trailer because I at least [and the very damn
least] knew what that show was about. Yes the same can
be said about Julian Cheah’s ‘Hired Killer’. Trailer I
mean, if you happen to have somehow caught a glimpse
of it.

But with all that said and done, the verdict is still
that S’Kali, is I feel REALLY a breath of fresh air to
the Malaysian filmmakers. Attention to all those local
Art-only-directors [yes even those so-called renowned
ones], THIS IS THE way to make movies!!! Characters we
like and care!! Not slow, draggy, sluggish, boring,
silent, muted, loser-like handicaps who only know how
to get it up the ass!

S’Kali is my recommendation!


4 out of 5 stars