02/06/2023
Anwar: The Untold Story (2023) - 4.9
Director: Viva Westi
Review written by: Mohd Nurhuari Yahya
Besides the cons listed, some other weakness include CGI, peristiwa yang terlalu disensasikan & peristiwa yang tidak cukup sensasi. Namun, semasa kami menonton film ini & selepas berfikir beberapa kali, kami tidak rasa langsung ada agenda propaganda yang tersembunyi atau percubaan menjatuhkan pihak-pihak tertentu. It is just a story from one person's perspective & told by others. Itulah bagaimana sesebuah biopik berjalan. We appreciate our Indonesian friends for their deep interest in DSAI's journey. Overall good story to tell, poor ex*****on but plenty of rooms to improve.
Pros:
1) Skop di foreground cerita ni kecil sahaja, iaitu meliputi malam Dato' Seri Anwar ditangkap, hinggalah dia dibawa keluar dari Bukit Aman. Kami lihat ni timeline yang strong & iconic enough untuk cover. Kisah-kisah lain dipapar secara background, so dia jadi lebih mudah hadam.
2) The making of this film itself was a risky business, whereby they started before DSAI jadi PM. Besides that, penggunaan dialog & perletakkan bias terhadap DSAI sebagai protagonis & Dr.Mahathir sebagai antagonist adalah amat berani, sebab tiada sugar-coating. Mereka tidak takut untuk terang-terangan cakap "polis masa ni corrupted".
3) Pemilihan tone film ni di waktu pembukaan agak okay, kerana ia macam "calm before the storm" di mana kita tahu big things will happen but nada yang dipakai adalah tenang. Hasilnya, kita tonton fokus sebab tidak bising tapi jantung kita laju. Selebihnya, nada cerita dibawa seakan biopik Indonesia yang lain seperti Habibie & Ainun, Kartini & Soekarno.
Cons:
1) We know this is an INDONESIAN film (but need to remind anda semua juga), tapi perihal sebutan, dialek & diction Melayu itu amat-amat lemah, bukan sahaja kepada watak sampingan tetapi juga watak utama. We wished that they had more time to properly train for the role in terms of accent in speech delivery. They were too weak that the dialogues are ruined. Ini mungkin juga buat kita sedar bahawa just as Malaysian actors struggle to speak in Indonesian dialect, so do Indonesian actors with Malay dialect. Oh ya, satu lagi yang anda kena tahu adalah; filem ini adalah lakonan 90% pelakon Indonesia, including some very familiar faces.
2) It was clear that the actors were indeed casted for their brilliant acting. However, with the weakness in the dialect, the next thing that we hoped could save the film was at least the visual comparison of the actors to the real figures they are playing. Besides Farid Kamil & Hasnul Rahmat, we probably didn't get any other resemblace of the actors with the real figures.
3) Strong dialogues if you read it, but very weak when delivered.
4) Why must this film release now? Ada banyak bahagian belum ready & probably perlu redo untuk capai the outcome yang kita semua mahu. For a film that has been in the dark for a while, with the risks that the team went through, probably it would be best if they could wait another year of re-evaluation before public release. It felt rushed, underprepared and under evaluated.
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