Sesat dalam cahaya terang
Jenuh aku mencari Jalan
Gundah hati bukan kepalang
Rapuh jiwa terpatah jangan.
On Passing Away
Gaunt and thin
Shallow breath
Frenzied beat
and then a sharp swift fall
He takes a final breath
and leaps heavenward
leaving us behind to
grieve.
Today’s Three Things V
- Many Malaysians have been complaining about a lack of direction for the Malaysian economy. Today, PM Anwar Ibrahim announced his vision: Ekonomi Madani, Memperkasa Rakyat. The announcement itself is worthy of dissection, which I hope to find time to do some time soon. For now, I can say this: I like the level of Ambition. Top 30 economy in the World! Now, we await the details of how we are supposed to get there.
- Anyone who knows some basic amount of physics would know that room-temperature superconductivity is a Holy Grail that could change the way we live. Is LK-99 the new material that would take Moore’ Law to the next level? Some folks are skeptical.
- This is the kind of level of Ambition that is needed to take Malaysia to Top 30. One Gigawatts! (And am I the only one here who suddenly thought: hey that sounds familiar!)
Tentang Pergelutan Setiap Malam
Setiap malam kau harus bergelut dengan suara bisik desisan yang mengumpan gundah dan amarah: kau tak layak kau tak mampu siapa engkau apa hak kau Dan setiap malam kau tak mampu terlelap mata parau memandang ke siling bilik yang mengejek mencebik: kau pasti gagal kau anak tersial kenapa engkau mengapa kau Setiap malam kalaulah mampu ingin aku pinjamkan selaut kasih dari hati tulus ini agar menjadi perisai yang melindungimu dari bisik cebik itu dan menyelimutimu agar lena dibuai kasihsayang selamat dalam teduhan tenang.
Today’s Three Things IV
- I have always thought of value investing as a truism in investing. But what if we are still in the midst of a tech boom that will continue to drive valuations upwards for growth-oriented tech companies? Should value investors lean away from their preferred strategy, and load up on more tech stocks in their portfolios?
- I mentioned in my recent post on Barbenheimer that the director made a bold decision in the portrayal of Ken. The Guardian goes a step further and declares that the real star of Barbie was… Ken.
- According to Sinar Harian, the amount of days in which we ought to mourn the passing of a politician, before we start speculating on who gets to benefit from his demise, is exactly three days. Politics is really a rough business.
On Our Barbenheimer Weekend
So we ended up spending the weekend having watched both Barbie and Oppenheimer. Not that we had set out to do so. Sure, I got tickets much earlier for the IMAX screening of Oppenheimer – we wanted to avoid the crowds, and so we secured tickets for the Sunday morning screening. But then we found ourselves in the Pavilion KL mall on Saturday afternoon, with nothing planned for the evening, and we thought: oh, well, why not just see if we can get last minute tickets for Barbie.
And that was how we ended up having our “Barbenheimer” weekend.
Perhaps it is useful to share some observations, about both movies separately, and then the overall “Barbenheimer” experience as a whole.
So, my thoughts on Barbie:
- Barbie was surprisingly really fun and enjoyable. The opening was suitably full of what you would expect of Barbie: blonde hair, female empowerment, full-on product placements, and lots and lots of pink. As the story progresses, the dilemma of the movie presents itself in terms reminiscent both of the Toy Story series as well as The Matrix, leading to an extended “Barbie in the real world” act that started off with multiple shots of “fish out of water” humour and became increasingly madcap and zany as the story progressed.
- What I did not expect was that as the story wore on towards the closing act, the story became almost existential. The setpiece of the final act was a moving montage, backed by a melancholic soundtrack featuring Billie Eilish, that moved me almost to tears. This final move was a bit jarring, and I felt slightly rushed – it was only just about believable thanks to Margot Robbie, who combined saccharine beauty and grace with formidable acting chops to make a truly charming and beguiling portrait of Barbie come to life. This movie would have been inconceivable without Margot Robbie in the lead, I think, and her acting more than anything else makes the movie work.
- The other delicate balance that was difficult to pull off, was a more central challenge for the movie: how to make a story about a plastic doll, born in a different age when it came to norms about female beauty and significance, and how to fit this narrative in the era of the 21st century and the “woke” narratives around the female body and the representation of women in leadership and society? The writer and director decided to attack the problem head-on with a bold send-up of capitalism and corporate America, and… it works. The blow is softened somewhat by the madcap depiction of the suits in charge of Barbie, especially by Will Ferrell who seems to be cornering the market on the depictions of funny madcap capitalist bosses.
- Another delicate problem which I thought the movie addressed very well, is the Problem of Ken. How to depict a character who is clearly and has always been a sidekick in the mythology of Barbie, and square that with current narratives around female empowerment and rejection of male patriarchy? The movie makes another bold decision by choosing to make the Problem of Ken as the central dilemma that drives the narrative tension of the plot. While there are some detractors who have complained that Ryan Gosling is too old for the role, I think his casting was another masterstroke for the movie: by turns hangdog, airheaded, roused and rabblerousing, Gosling’s Ken was the perfect foil for Margot Robbie’s Barbie. I thought his scenes in “the real world”, discovering the nature and permissiveness of male patriarchy, and his rendition of a Matchbox Twenty rock song to be the one of the comedic heights of this entertaining movie.
- Maybe the final thing to say about Barbie the movie, before my summary later, is that the music was top notch. Lizzo, Dua Lipa, Nicki Minaj, Charli XCX, Sam Smith, and of course, Billie Eilish – this was a cracking soundtrack that was truly worthy of Barbie.
As can be expected, Oppenheimer was a very different beast altogether. (Kat and I both agree that “Barbenheimer” was probably concocted by whichever PR agency that Warner Bros. had hired to push Barbie amidst a competitive opening weekend, having to go up head-to-head against a Christopher Nolan movie.) Here are my own observations on Oppenheimer:
- In the run up to the opening weekend, the hype for Oppenheimer was relentless. The new movie from Christopher Nolan, the very same director that brought us The Dark Knight and Inception and Interstellar! (The less said about Tenet, the better.) It was shot purely on IMAX! It stars Cillian Murphy, the Peaky Blinders dude! It’s about the atomic bomb! What could be more explosive than that?
- The problem, of course, is that when expectations are raised through the stratosphere, the risk of disappointment grows in tandem. Unfortunately, I found that while the movie itself was certainly a work of art, and a strong story in its own right, it ultimately fell short of the (very very high) expectations set for the viewer. I felt that even in the realm of the Nolan canon, this movie was probably a below-average performance for Christopher Nolan.
- The main problem with this movie is the narrative structure chosen by the director. The central narrative of the story of Robert J. Oppenheimer is the problem of Guilt: what does it do to a man, knowing that he was primarily responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings, deaths which were later shown to be unnecessary in the context of a world war that was already in its final conclusive months. Nolan chooses to showcase this by homing in on a private hearing involving Oppenheimer as the subject, and juxtaposes this against another, more public hearing in order to set up another character as the primary “villain” of the story. This choice, however, sets up a “Twelve Angry Men” setting as the primary narrative drive for the movie, playing out across two different parallel timelines, while also fitting in a chronological story of Oppenheimer’s youth and career, and culminating in his time at Los Alamos. This triple narrative structure made the movie too dense, and left little time for the characters to be fully fleshed out.
- As a result of the demands of balancing this triple narrative structure, the main character of Oppenheimer feels impressionistic in his characterisation, and other characters get only a few flecks of narrative paint alongside Oppenheimer. And so, unlike in Interstellar or Inception, the viewer is not given time to truly know and understand Oppenheimer and the other main characters, with the ironic result that the viewer walks out after three hours not really getting a deep sense of who Oppenheimer was as a person, and what drove his strengths as well as his own self-destructive tendencies. Characters like Kitty Oppenheimer, Jean Tatlock and Leslie Groves become somewhat caricaturish in their depictions, as more and more screen time gets diffused across the many characters that populate the three different narratives all happening interchangeable across the course of the movie.
- Despite the narrative mishmash, what truly saves the movie is the strong ensemble cast. Cillian Murphy kills it (geddit?) as the lead character. His portrayal of Oppenheimer – by turns charming, arrogant, driven and guilt-wracked – is the true centre of gravity for the movie, and he succeeds in making Oppenheimer feel real, despite the rather impressionistic way in which the plot drives the introduction of Oppenheimer to the viewer. The real crime of this movie is that the likes of Florence Pugh and Emily Blunt and Matt Damon and Jack Quaid get too little screen time to truly flesh out their characters, even as the likes of Gary Oldman and Kenneth Branagh make the most of the precious few minutes that they get onscreen.
- The other problem with the movie, to me, was that Christopher Nolan had clearly made the choice to showcase the initial Trinity bomb test in New Mexico as the central spectacle of the movie. A lot of ink and Youtube video time has been spent on foreshadowing this supposedly-seminal moment in cinematic history: the depiction of an atomic bomb explosion in an IMAX cinema setting. In the end, and perhaps because of the high expectations raised from the outset, the actual execution of the Trinity explosion felt, to these eyes and ears at least, to be somewhat short of what was promised.
So, with all that said, I thought that both movies were solid four-star performances, although I think it is important to note that Greta Gerwig’s Barbie was a surprise on the upside, while Oppenheimer sagged, to me, under the weight of all the expectations heaped on this latest Christopher Nolan venture.
For those of you who have seen either or both movies – what do you think? Do you agree, or disagree, with my thoughts above? Happy to hear your thoughts!
Tentang Soldadu Yang Pulang
Sejak dari awal Dalam lapangan juang ini Kau memegang peran terpendam Soldadu tenang dan berani Mengangkat panji amar Menyeka noda mungkar Berpesan dengan penuh haq dan sabar Kendatipun jalanmu berliku Terpulau dari saf haraki itu Kau tetap beranut pada jalan sederhana Berjuang penuh ikram Melawan tiada berdendam Menyanggah tanpa menikam Budi santun bersulam erat Gigih usaha sepenuh kudrat Pesanmu pada kami Di setiap penghujung hari Ketika tubuh merebah letih Doa dipohon beriring tasbih: "Moga semua dosa mereka Dan dosa diriku jua Diampun maaf oleh Yang Esa." Maka tidur tenang berlena Hati sejuk diredup redha Kini kau pulang ke alam baqa: Sandarkanlah panjimu itu Rehatkanlah beban sang soldadu Damai aman kini milikmu. (buat Allahyarham Salahuddin Ayub, moga rohnya diberkati dan dilindungi Allah jua)
On Wanting and Gratitude
In gratitude I
pray, I thank Thee for this Life.
I want for nothing.
On The Lack of Grit
No grit - crushed by the
very act of existing.
You leave as you lived.
Tentang Reformasi, Tatakelola dan Madani
Selama lebih 20 tahun, Anwar Ibrahim yang dipenjara dan diusir dari pentas politik negara telah berjuang atas dasar reformasi institusi dan undang-undang negara. Selama mana beliau dihumban ke balik tirai besi dan dihina dicaci, selama itulah pesan dan seruan beliau itu bergema besar dalam dewan fikrah politik tanahair.
Mana tidaknya: selama lebih enam dekad Barisan Nasional mentadbir Malaysia, sungguhpun pelbagai kejayaan dan kemajuan telah tercapai, sungguhpun anak watan Malaysia telah mengecapi peningkatan mutu hidup dan kemewahan yang tidak mungkin ternafi, namun harus diakui juga bahawa dalam masa tersebut, semakin bertimbun juga akronim-akronim yang memalukan dan menjelekkan: BMF. 1MDB. SRC. NFC. LCS. Dan ini cuma yang diketahui umum – entah berapa juta bilion lagi harta negara yang telah tumpah ke tangan segelintir kecil dengan cara-cara yang licik dan tersembunyi, sepertimana terjarahnya Felda dan Mara dan Tabung Haji.
Malah boleh dikatakan bahawa sejarahbesar politik tanahair telah dilakar oleh kerosakan tatakelola negara, serta penolakan rakyat terhadap para pemimpin yang mengabaikan tatakelola yang baik. Kemarahan politik Melayu yang paling marak dalam sejarah tanahair adalah lahir daripada gerakan Reformasi yang membela nasib Anwar Ibrahim pada ketika itu. Rata-rata orang Melayu merasakan bahawa Anwar Ibrahim pada waktu itu terzalim, dan jatuhnya Anwar Ibrahim pada waktu itu daripada tampuk kekuasaan bukan sahaja atas dasar perebutan kuasa semata-mata, tetapi akibat usaha segelintir yang ingin menyelamatkan kepentingan ekonomi mereka dalam suasana ekonomi serantau yang gawat dan tersengat. Meskipun UMNO dan BN masih gagah meraih undi dua-pertiga di Parlimen pada pilihanraya umum 1999, jelas kini bahawa bibit-bibit kejatuhan Barisan Nasional pada tahun 2018 telah mula tersemai pada tahun 1997 lagi. Kejatuhan dan pemukulan Anwar Ibrahim telah mengakibatkan suatu exodus di kalangan ramai golongan profesional dan kelas menengah Melayu pada waktu itu, yang akhirnya menjelma semula dalam kebangkitan PAS serta penguasaan PKR di kebanyakan kerusi Parlimen di kawasan bandar, di samping meruntuhkan sokongan golongan bukan Melayu kepada sekutu-sekutu UMNO dalam Barisan Nasional, iaitu MCA dan MIC.
Dalam kerangka ini, jelaslah bahawa kemenangan besar Pak Lah pada tahun 2003, dan seterusnya kehilangan majoriti dua-pertiga di Parlimen dan kekuasaan BN di lima negeri pada tahun 2008, boleh dilihat dari perspektif tatakelola: rakyat Malaysia amat mengharapkan kepada kepimpinan baharu Barisan Nasional untuk mengurus kejayaan dengan cara memperbaiki tatakelola serta hak-hak berdemokrasi di zaman pasca-Mahathir, dan apabila peningkatan tatakelola dan tadbirurus dilihat terlalu tawar dan tidak cukup serius, ditambah pula dengan keterhimpitan daripda peningkatan kos hidup seharian yang begitu mendadak, maka kepimpinan yang sama telah ditolak secara besar-besaran di kalangan para pengundi.
Begitu juga, prestasi Barisan Nasional pada tahun 2013 yang jauh rendah daripada pengharapan dapat juga dilihat dari sudut kekecewaan rakyat terhadap usaha perubahan sosioekonomi dan politik yang dilihat terlalu terkompromi: pengenalan konsep “1Malaysia” memberi obor harapan kepada ramai rakyat yang dahagakan perubahan, tetapi selain daripada usaha transformasi ekonomi yang giat, dapat juga dikesan bahawa struktur politik dan sosiobudaya negara masih terjerat dalam keadaan status quo. Kes Altantuya yang mencurigakan, serta bisik-bisik berkenaan kes 1MDB yang semakin berlegar, turut mengeruhkan kepercayaan rakyat.
Lantas, apabila hasil pilihanraya 2013 menunjukkan hasil yang hambar dan mengecewakan, Najib Razak telah mengolah semula skrip politik yang lebih menekankan pendekatan kaum yang lebih sempit dan eksklusif, dengan harapan bahawa pemusatan tenagausaha politik ke arah konsep pemerkasaan Melayu dan Bumiputera boleh melenyapkan kemarahan rakyat terhadap pembongkaran kes 1MDB yang menyebabkan seluruh negara, malah dunia, malu dan mual.
Maka tahun 2018 sepatutnya menjanjikan suatu fajar baru dalam dunia politik Malaysia: kemenangan sebuah gagasan politik yang juga bersikap pancakaum sepertimana Barisan Nasional, tetapi bezanya, ia lebih serius dan tegas tentang soal tatakelola dan usaha memerangi rasuah. Gandingan maestro otai Tun Mahathir dan juara reformasi Anwar Ibrahim telah menangkap dayacita rakyat yang dahagakan perubahan dan menolak rasuah dan perompakan.
Sayangnya, tampuk kerajaan pada 22 bulan itu telah diculik oleh segolongan elit yang lebih berminat untuk melemparkan penghukuman kepada seteru ekonomi dan politik mereka. Pada masa yang sama, seolah berlaku “perang saudara”, khususnya di antara golongan konservatif Melayu yang menentangi kalangan liberal bukan-Melayu dalam kerajaan Pakatan Harapan yang akhirnya membawa kepada Langkah Sheraton dan peralihan kerajaan. Janji-janji perubahan reformasi sekali lagi menjadi bahandagang yang terpinggir dalam perseteruan politik yang meremehkan keperluan warga demi kepentingan politik peribadi.
Keputusan pilihanraya umum pada tahun 2022 sepatutnya menjadi suatu keinsafan kepada para pemuka politik negara. Selepas pergolakan sedunia akibat pandemik Covid-19, politik Malaysia kembali memberi kejutan apabila tiada satu pun gagasan politik yang memenangi sokongan terang-terangan daripada para pengundi. Satu persatu kerusi parlimen yang dipegang oleh UMNO, yang masih bergelumang dengan skandal rasuah, telah dibaham oleh Bersatu dan PAS yang dilihat memiliki momentum, walaupun gagal untuk menang secara keseluruhan. Kerajaan baharu akhirnya dapat juga didirikan dengan cara bersekongkol dengan kelompok politikus UMNO-BN yang dahulunya diejek sebagai golongan penyamun. Undi KJ dapat Zahid, undi Ramanan dapat Zahid, undi Anwar pun dapat Zahid: begitulah multiverse politik Malaysia yang penuh dengan kejutan dan kekecewaan.
Kekecewaan ini masih lagi belum terubat. Di bawah Kerajaan Perpaduan ini, warga Malaysia seolah dirayu untuk melupakan hakikat bahawa seorang Timbalan Perdana Menteri sedang berdepan dengan 47 dakwaan rasuah, pecah amanah dan pengubahan wang haram. Kita diminta untuk menerima bulat-bulat bahawa siasatan terhadap seorang hakim oleh sebuah agensi penguatkuasaan kerajaan bukan merupakan balastuba akan keberanian untuk menjatuhkan hukuman ke atas seorang mantan Perdana Menteri. Kita dianjurkan untuk tidak terlalu cemas apabila salah sebuah parti tonggak dalam kerajaan dengan terang-terangan memberikan sokongan tegar kepada seorang perasuah yang telah ditolak bulat-bulat oleh rakyat Malaysia dalam sebuah pilihanraya umum tidak berapa lama dahulu. Kita diminta untuk jangan terlalu mendesak apabila masih ada lagi kontrak konsesi kerajaan yang disembunyikan melalui Akta Rahsia Rasmi, walaupun umum mengatahui kontrak sebegini adalah antara cara utama di mana harta rakyat disedut keluar masuk ke poket para pemaju dan rakankongsi politikus mereka. Yang paling mutakhir, Akta Hasutan yang dahulunya dicemuh sebagai undang-undang draconian yang kejam dan zalim, sekali lagi digunapakai untuk menutup mulut seteru politik yang dianggap terlalu vokal. Seolah-olah janji reformis yang dijaja selama ini tiba-tiba dikesampingkan apabila kuasa sudah berada dalam tangan.
Masih awal sebenarnya dalam penggal kerajaan ini, dan masih banyak masa untuk kerajaan ini membuktikan keseriusannya dalam memperbaiki tatakelola dan tadbirurus negara. Soal pembasmian rasuah, pendanaan politik, kebebasan bersuara, ketelusan kontrak kerajaan – kesemuanya memerlukan perhatian dan pembetulan. Sebagai seorang Perdana Menteri yang telah membina platform dan sokongan politik yang padu atas dasar pendekatan yang reformis dan berani, inilah masanya untuk semua janji reformis yang telah ditabur selama bertahun agar akhirnya dibaja dan dituai. Sekadar menyebut “tatakelola” berulang kali tidak akan merubah struktur dan rupa negara yang dahagakan pembaharuan dan perubahan. Tiba masanya untuk “execute, or be executed.”