FILMS/
MUKHSIN
World Cinema
Malaysia, 2006, 95 minutes
SHOWTIMES
Sat, Apr 28 / 03:30 / PFA / MUKH28P
Mon, Apr 30 / 08:45 / Kabuki / MUKH30K
Wed, May 2 / 07:15 / Kabuki / MUKH02K
Sun, May 6 / 01:15 / Aquarius / MUKH06A
CREDITS
- dir
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Yasmin Ahmad
- prod
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Ahmad Puad Onah
- scr
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Yasmin Ahmad
- cam
-
Keong Low
- editor
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Affandi Jamaludin
- mus
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Ahmad Hashim, Inom Yon
- cast
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Sharifah Aryana Syed Zainal Rashid, Syed Zainal Rashid, Sharifah Aleya Syed Zainal Rashid, Mohd. Syafie bin Naswip, Irwan Iskander bin Abidin, Adibah Noor
- source
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Grand Brilliance Sdn Bhd, 3rd Floor North Wing, Sri Pentas No.3 Persiaran Bandar Utama, 47800 Petaling Jaya Selangor, Malaysia FAX: +603-7726-3987 EMAIL: infogbsbsales@gbsb.com.my
Ten-year-old Orked is the kind of kid who confronts bullies she sees harassing smaller children, but hides under her bed when the neighborhood girls try to recruit her to join in their game of "wedding." Her amorous, nonconformist parents, Pak Atan and Mak Inom, are fodder for local gossip. "Malays who have forgotten their roots," sniffs the woman next door while watching Orked and her mother dancing outside in the rain. It’s little wonder that twelve-year-old Mukhsin, whose mother has fled from his abusive father, and whose older brother has taken refuge in drunken hostility, comes to love Orked and her easygoing family. Gentler and in some ways more focused than Ahmad’s previous films about Orked and her parents, Rabun, Sepet (SFIFF 2005) and Gubra (SFIFF 2006), Mukhsin portrays without melodrama the tender awkwardness of childhood friendship growing into first love. She also offers an affectionate, funny, occasionally critical portrait of Malay life and marriage, from a coach who seems to communicate only with gestures and blasts of a whistle, to an unhappily married neighborhood woman who sends her little girl over to relay spiteful comments to Orked. Adibah Noor reprises her role as Yam, the hefty, no-nonsense housekeeper in a household of free spirits, Mohd. Syafie bin Naswip gives an affecting, sometimes wistful performance as Mukhsin, and Sharifah Aryana Syed Zainal Rashid is a sharp and likeable Orked. Ahmad notes that Mukhsin was inspired by the poem "First Love" by Wislawa Szymborska: "In it, she wrote how the first love may not be as tempestuous or as passionate as later ones, but for some reason it's the one that stays with you until the very end."
—Pamela Troy
International Premiere. In Malay with English subtitles. Sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Wells Fargo and RF Audio. Presented in association with the Malaysian Professional Business Association.