Punggok Rindukan Bulan / This Longing (DVD)

A poignant mysterious memory piece from the impressive Malaysian independent cinema, newcomer Azharr Rudin's Malay-language This Longing tells (at least) two stories. Narratively as well as stylistically daring, the film has one constant, the decrepit housing estate in the southern Malaysian city of Johor Bahru, just across from flourishing Singapore. This place is a character in its own right, a home for people left behind by South East Asian prosperity bubble.

Young Sidi lives in the estate, and nominally goes to school. But, since his mother left abruptly, he seems more interested in skateboarding with his friends and nights fishing with his father. Sidi's father may be a security guard, but spends most of his time hanging with his buddies. Sidi's adventures include not quite flirting with a girl he fancies; setting up his friend witrh a local transvestite prostitute, ans unsuccessfully avoiding the curious attention of a local would-be tough.

Less a through-composed plot than a series of linked vignettes, the film transfuses seemingly ordinary moments in Sidi's life with an uncanny light, and invites the viewer to make the necessary chronological and causal links. When the story breaks and restarts about 80 minutes in, as Riza, a former inhabitant of the tenement, returns to find her presumablt estranged father, we are challenged to re-image what we've seen before.

-- Shelly Kraicer, Vancouver Internationsl Film Festival --