In SEPET (2005) Orked (played by the effervescent Sharifah Amani in the first two films and who is the niece of director Bade Haji Azmi, whose film, GANGSTER, the NYAFF showed in 2006) is a middle class girl on the verge of university and adulthood. Her teenage crush on Hong Kong actor Takeshi Kaneshiro leads her to cross paths with Jason, a Chinese teenager who sells VCDs and who gives her a copy of Kaneshiro’s CHUNGKING EXPRESS as a gift. It is very much love at first sight, but as in all love stories things do not go according to plan. But in truth it is not so much the romance that makes this such a memorable, joyous film but instead the world that Yasmin invites the viewer into – one of smart dialogue, cultural distinctions, religious observance, realistic locales and Orked’s home life with her loving funny parents and their boisterous maid. GUBRA (2006) begins a few years after SEPET and Orked is now married to a somewhat older Malay man who has a wandering eye. Though still having moments of humor, there is a melancholic mood that overlays the film – one of innocence lost and sad memories stored. Contrasted against Orked’s crumbling marriage is the blissful one of her parents, the caustic one of Jason’s (from SEPET) parents and the pious loving one of an Islamic cleric. The film is a bit too unfocused at times as it brings in characters more to make cultural and moralistic points than to further the story, but it is all part of a humanistic canvass that Yasmin is painting of her country.

A SNEAK PEEK