Fiction

KARAOKE

Chris Chong Chan Fui
Malaysia 2009
75 min
V'09

In his poetic and intelligent feature directorial debut, Chris Chong Chan Fui improbably elevates karaoke videos into the realm of allegory. But Karaoke is far from a treatise on the art of music videos. Instead, it focusses on a young man named Betik and his illusions regarding what it means to come home. Betik has an idealized view of his return home to rural Malaysia from Kuala Lumpur: his mother happily receiving her son back, and his eventually taking over the family karaoke bar. But once he is there, reality proves to be starkly different than what he had imagined.
Another theme runs concurrent to Betik's tale. Palm oil is a major industry in Malaysia, and acres and acres of palms trees fan across the country. But these trees are artificially grown as products - what were once forests are now just rows of identical crops, ready to be harvested. Chong's keen observations are reminiscent of Jia Zhang-ke's docudrama works. The processing of palm trees is bluntly presented here, adding another discourse of artificiality to the idea of returning to the serene countryside. (Raymond Phathanavirangoon)

Credits
  • Zahiril Adzim - Betik
  • Mislina Mustaffa - Kak Ina
  • Mohammad Hariry - Bak
  • Nadiyatul Nisaa - Anisah
  • Chris Chong Chan Fui
  • Shanon Shah
  • Jarin Pengpanich
  • Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr
  • Yasuhiro Morinaga
  • Lee Chatametikool
  • Shanon Shah
  • Yee I-Lann
Tanjung Aru Pictures

m-appeal Prinzessinnenstraße 16 10969 Berlin, Deutschland T +49 30 61 50 75 05 berlinoffice@m-appeal.com

35 mm
col
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