KHAIRIL M BAHAR

I was somewhere in one of the rural states in Malaysia, the hot kampung sun blistering, when I heard the man give a hint of disappointment.

The man in question wore a 1Malaysia polo shirt and slacks as he answered the questions posed to him whilst I sat behind a camera way too big for the job at hand, shooting obvious propaganda for the ruling party about how much they ‘help’ the people. It was fiction claimed as fact, a promotional tool amongst many to remind everyone how much good the government have done and now I was part of the narrative.

Between November of last year till two months before the election, these were the jobs that were most in circulation in my industry. I had recently returned to being a freelancer and needed to take any job I could get, and in my head, a gig was a gig. I was a crafter of fiction, after all, and this was the highest form of fiction there was – convincing an entire country of people that things were the exact opposite of what they truly were, even though all it took to remind them was to look out the window or go to the supermarket and see if they can afford a can of sardines.

I couldn’t afford sardines without the job. I like sardines.

But as I shot gigabytes of bullshit, my heart would sink more and more. I am almost certain those that hired me for the gig were disappointed at the quality of work and they’d be right, because I have a problem that I don’t think a lot of other filmmakers in my field have:

If it’s bullshit, I can’t hide it.

In reality, all filmmaking is bullshit – film is a lie, at 24 frames per second (or 59.97 or whatever stupid fucking interlaced frame rate some broadcasters prefer). But it’s meant to be a beautiful lie. We cheat the audience into thinking that a giant warehouse filled with quickly assembled plywood structures is a spacecraft, that two people truly love each other, that porgs exist and they are adorable.

(They fucking are).

But this was a different lie. When I was shooting television shows and I’d get truly terrible scripts or advertisements with ridiculous and corny premises I would just concentrate on making it look cool, but it would still show that I didn’t care. Not one bit. And for these videos it’s probably even more obvious that I not only didn’t care – I flat out resented them.

There was nothing to shoot that I could, in my head, make look ‘cool’. Not with the script given. All my eye could see was lies and bullshit and, as unprofessional as it may be, I couldn’t separate myself from it. And even though I haven’t seen the final cuts of those videos, I’m sure it shows. Every interview segment was a complete lie, with actors claiming to be real people with real problems that were fixed by fake solutions from a fucked up government.

Only one person we interviewed was a true supporter of the People In Power – the man in the 1Malaysia polo shirt. And as a filmmaker, his interview was the only one that mattered – at last, some truth in this so-called art. He waxed lyrically about how much the People In Power had helped him and his family and how truly thankful he was for their support.

I then asked him one of the other points in the video.

“Could you speak a bit about how the governments initiatives have helped install more street lights in your village, making it safer for everyone?”

The man replied just as honestly as he did the other questions.

“Actually, we still haven’t had our lighting in this village fixed. We only have one street lamp for all the houses here, so when night comes it’s actually very dangerous. I sincerely ask for the governments help in fixing this and I have faith that they will as it was supposed to be done a long time ago. We are all supporters here and we hope that they will help us.”

My heart sank. For that one moment, I saw the disappointment in his face, holding on to the blind faith that the government will do the right thing.

We never used that moment in the video (obviously) but I wish I had a copy, because in hindsight that moment said everything. Even the loyalists had their hearts broken under the rule of the Supreme Leader of the People In Power.

Later that night we went to a development site for high end houses and shot the street lights there. Because film is a lie.

The previous election felt so long ago, and so different, and I remember feeling torn. My memories of that period are hazy, but what remains clear is that I was unhappy with how the opposition parties were campaigning. It felt like they were using the same tactics that the ruling government were – a combination of promises, attacks and lies – as both sides tried to tell the people that their enemies were evil fucks of the highest order.

I didn’t like it because it felt petty. Worse, it riled the people up into gang mentalities – two sides of the same coin calling each other racist, selfish cum rags. Whilst one side claimed racial superiority and divine providence the other side claimed intellectual and moral superiority and revolution. Both sides were yelling, and the yells were loud. The people that supported both sides were angry, fuelled with blind allegiance and strong beliefs that in itself were fuelled by a whole lot of emotional passion but not much thought.

And when both sides are yelling, “fuck you you’re wrong cos I say so” it’s very hard to root for either one.

I remember watching from afar as Bersih rallies went from a symbol of hope to the coolest festival to be a part of, a combination of hipsters wishing they were at Coachella and tear gas. I remember watching a friend of mine with strong political convictions who wanted the current government down call bullshit on the opposition during a press conference and escorted out.

The passion was there, but it was all over the place. And the government used it to their advantage. A fractured enemy was easy to undermine.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, the Old Man came back. He was done. Enough was enough and he was sick of it, a man who looked at his legacy and what his old party had become and was sickened by it.

The re-emergence of the Old Man felt like an old grandfather watching his grandson try to fix a car – he watched, patiently, reminding himself that he should let the boy do it himself. He showed him countless times how to do it. He left detailed instructions. All the parts were there. And the boy kept fucking up and fucking up and fucking up.

Then the boy says, “does the car even need to work?” and the Old Man has had enough. He asks for the wrench but the boy won’t give it.

So the Old Man snatches it from his stubborn hands. An Old Man we affectionately call Dr. M.

The days leading up to the elections this year felt very different from the last. There was a lot of blind hope the last time – a lot of intensely passionate people yelling at the world that a change was coming. Then the votes came in and the disappointment was heavy and hard. This year it felt like that memory of disappointment was still strong in a lot of people’s heads. And with every tactic the People In Power put into place to skew the election their way helped to hammer home that memory of losing. Jerrymandering, the fake news bill, harbouring on about the Old Man’s age and health, on and on. Youtube ads leading up to the election were either attack ads reminding people of some of the truly dumb shit the Old Man said back in the day or short films about a little boy named Najib  who didn’t steal money in school.

There was hope, yes, but it felt like there was a sadness and reservation behind it. No one wanted to be too confident of change. Anything could happen when your playing at a table with a loaded deck. It was a gamble, and some of us were down to our last chips. Every analyst around the world was predicting that whilst the opposition would definitely win the popular vote, the People In Power had rigged the game too much and would probably win again.

I woke up early on voting day. After dropping off my wife at her place of polling I went to mine and got there ten minutes before the doors opened and already there was a long queue. I had so little sleep the night before my brain was still groggy. When it was time to dip my finger in ink to mark that I had voted I requested for my right hand as I was left handed and didn’t want to get any ink on the ballot but they refused me, leading to the tricky process of trying to hold a pen without using my index finger for fear of spoiling my vote. I was so groggy by the time I folded my paper and was about to put my vote in I couldn’t remember who I voted for (I’m pretty sure it was who I wanted, but still). By the time I left 90 minutes had passed and the hot sun was coming out, beating on everyone else queueing outside.

As I drove home I don’t remember feeling any hope or, on the flip side, worry. There was a disillusionment deep inside – we’ve been fucked over before, we could very well be fucked over again.

And from my observations of the weeks leading up to the election, there didn’t seem to be that much in the way of hugely positive spirit amongst the people. The old timers were stocking up on supplies just in case – they had lived through a race riot in May just a few decades ago, they’ve seen Malaysians at their absolute worst and this time they were preparing for it, just in case. No one had given up, but no one wanted to have their feelings caught with their pants down or discover they were suddenly in a mass of hysteria of violence.

I can’t say I blame anyone for being extra cautious. Having our hearts broken led to us being cautious about giving our love and hope too much this time around, like trying to date again after a disappointingly terrible and painful break up. And as for the fears of violence in the streets, that too was a caution entirely warranted.

Why? Because the People In Power were a feral animal. A rabid, mangy creature so grotesque it doesn’t deserve to be called an animal – animals have an instinctual purpose, this thing was a selfish Beast that didn’t want to give up everything it had taken.

And the Beast could feel them coming from every corner, waiting to take It out. And a feral beast backed into a corner will fight to its dying breath.

Social media was filled with images of inked fingers. Businesses offered discounts for anyone who came in and waved their fingers to show that they voted. But the streets themselves weren’t filled with people and the roads appeared to serve only one purpose that day – to drive to and from the voting stations.

By 5pm the votes had closed, and the word was a result would be announced as early as 9pm. By 11pm the parliament seats between the People In Power and the opposition were ridiculously close, with the opposition an intensely close 2nd by only one or two seats with every refresh of my browser.

Social media was abuzz with stories, ranging from the true to the fake to the frankly absurd - some voters had queued for hours, some seniors had actually died after queueing for so long, many were turned away as the queues still existed after voting closed at 5pm. Some people I knew went to vote only to discover ‘someone’ had voted on their behalf before they got there. Rumours of vote tampering at the ballot boxes and violence in the streets were peppered here and there. Meme’s circulated over how everyone’s fingers were turning into Thanos thanks to the black ink on our fingers changing its shade over time.

I wanted to stay up to find out what the results would be, but I was too tired and finally, I passed out in my bed.

The next morning I woke up at 8am and, after showering, switched on my phone – the opposition, appropriately named (when translated to English) ‘The Coalition of Hope’, had won the majority vote.

It was surreal and unbelievable. In my heart, I had never imagined I’d live through an experience like this in my lifetime. The ruling government that had been in power since Malaysia first got its independence from the United Kingdom was finally toppled down, ironically by the same person who had led it through its most impressive decades of development. It was too good to be true.

And by 10am, the words ‘too good to be true’ seemed like exactly that.

Traditionally, the new Prime Minister would be sworn in at the Agung’s palace in the morning after the election, but the palace was blocked by police. The Previous People In Power gave a press conference stating that due to there not being a true majority winner it would be up to the Agong to decide who would be the next Prime Minister.

None of this made sense, until it did. The Coalition of Hope was exactly that – a coalition of a number of opposition parties banding together as a united front. As opposed to previous elections where there were a number of different opposition parties, this time a bunch of them figured out that if they just worked together against their common enemy their combined figures would surely unseat the government, and it did.

But technically the coalition was not an actual party (thanks to some tactics set forth before the election), so technically no one party had a proper majority vote.

Now, all this political mumbo jumbo I just said may not even be technically correct, because I know jack shit about politics. This is what I understood from reading whatever I could about what was going on. What I did understand was the simple fact – the feral Beast was backed into a tight corner, surrounded by enemies, using every last trick it had in its pocket to keep them at bay.

Perhaps there was a game plan. Perhaps by causing problems they’d incite a riot, forcing an emergency government that would give them the power to put two in the chest of every opposition leader before the dust settled.

But a feral Beast has no plan – it only knows how to fight back. No rules, no strategy, just fight back.

The streets were even emptier. Everyone was waiting to hear some news. The Old Man, together with the Coalition of Hope, addressed the people an hour or so after the Beast, explaining the situation, that everything’s on track and that everything the Beast had said was bullshit.

That’s not even me being flowery – The Old Man actually called bullshit on it. He flat out said ‘bullshit’ on live television. And he saved it for last, like a mic drop before walking out of a rap battle.

I won’t lie – it was fun watching the Old Man in action again. A 93 year old whose had two heart surgeries and still sharp as a tack. Sure, there were some pretty glaring moments that screamed ‘oh, snap, he really is 93’, but his trademark wit was all there and that’s when it kicked in – I haven’t seen a local politician be this quick witted, snappy and sarcastic at a press conference since, well, the first time the Old Man was in power.

After the mic drop we learned that he’d be heading to meet the Agung at 5pm, and for the rest of the day I thought about the Old Man.

In the days leading up to the 9th of May the attacks on the Old Man were in full force. First thing every piece of press against him pointed out was that he was old. Real old. And how could an old man like the Old Man have all the right faculties to lead a nation? Sure, he did it before. But how many 93 year olds do you know who can do the same thing they did half a century ago? Hell, how many 93 year olds do you see just… doing shit?

Then they’d bring up the things he did when he was in power. The racist remarks, the pro-Malay sentiments, any number of things he implemented that effected everyday people in real and painful ways. I remember, after he had retired, it seemed like he had no filter and would spew out whatever was on his mind like Mel Gibson being pulled over for a DUI, to the point that a lot of people dismissed him as crazy.

And whilst the Past People In Power pointed out all these things and made videos about how bad he was and how great they were or how they were just like us as they sat in an empty mamak putting on a performance that would make pornstars cringe, the Old Man put out a simple video of his grandchildren asking him why he was going to run for Prime Minister again. His reply? Because he made some mistakes in the past, and its time to fix them.

The Old Man basically pulled a Hobbs from the Fast and Furious franchise – “Daddy’s gotta go to work.” Or, in this case, granddaddy.

I thought about the Old Man’s past and yes, he did some fucked up shit. No one can deny this, half of the voters lived through it and it’s still fresh in their heads. But to me, I think there’s a very simple reason why, as much as people hated the Old Man, they still voted for the party (or coalition) he was part of.

Whatever the Old Man did, he believed he was doing it for the country, even though we disagreed. The Beast didn’t.

The Beast haemorrhaged money and wanted more. His Harlot wanted even more than he did. And the Past People In Power got fat off of it.

To say the Old Man never used his power for the benefit of him and his family members would be a flat out lie. But that’s all the Beast did. And all we got out of it was a poor currency, ridiculous inflation whilst income figures stayed the same, G-S-fucking-T, a ton of empty buildings, a woman blown up with explosives, lower literacy levels, racial tension, millions stolen and an FBI investigation.

On the plus side, we got the MRT and The Wolf of Wall Street.

(But to be fair, that same money for the Martin Scorcese masterpiece was also used for Dumb and Dumber To).

By 5pm, we tuned in to a live Facebook video of the Old Man heading to the palace. After he got in we left the screen on, expecting to turn back to it once everything was decided.

Then the video stopped and was replaced with another that Facebook’s algorithms thought we’d want to see. But this was not the time to recommend a video of a vlogger ranting about Kanye.

Meanwhile, Facebook was again filling up with news related to the elections. Word started spreading that the Past People In Power were offering 20 million ringgit to the independents who won seats in Sabah to jump the fence and pledge their allegiance to them instead. Other posts covered the Sabah situation in real time as peaceful protesters expressed their dissatisfaction at what had happened. From what my meagre brain can understand (as Sabah politics are a whole other ball game), the independent party had won equal parliament seats as the Past People In Power, but instead of showing their allegiance to the opposition they teamed up with the Past People In Power. The claim is that these members of the Past People In Power will leave their old party so that together they can be truly independent from all the mainland parties.

Or something. It’s even more confusing than the whole coalition thing and reeks of poo and a large number of East Malaysians aren’t happy about it, including a bunch of my friends whose opinions on the matter I trust more than my own, so I’m pretty sure it’s bad.

But whilst they protested in the East us here in the West were anxious – why the delay? Many had stayed up all night as the final results were delayed till almost 4am, and now they were waiting again. The internets were abuzz with wild rumours and honest requests to stay calm and wait just a wee bit longer.

But we were tired. And I’m pretty sure many had assumed that something must have happened. The Beast must have had an ace in the hole. Perhaps today would be yet another in a long line of lessons that those who have the power make the rules. Perhaps we were fucked.

At 10pm, even more jaded than the day before after a momentary glimmer of hope, I begrudgingly checked the internets for any news.

And there it was, on my Facebook feed. A news video segment from Singapore covering the Old Man being sworn in as Prime Minister of Malaysia.

The video was odd and confusing – the Singapore press covering it were using footage from a Malaysian TV station whilst two English speaking news anchors narrating what was happening and a third person translated anything being said in Malay into incredibly broken English that took me completely off guard. Whoever was translating it somehow managed to past tense the already past tense ‘left’ (as in ‘to leave’) in a sentence I will never forget – ‘the new Prime Minister has lefted the palace’.

But it was true. The Old Man was the new Prime Minister, and he had lefted the palace to go about his Prime Minister-ing ways. And as tired as I was of following the news all day, I turned to my wife and we both embraced – neither of us thought we would live through a moment in our history that would make us proud of our country.

We don’t know what will happen next. Who knows what tricks the Old Man has up his sleeve, as he’s known to have quite a few. But one thing was for certain – the Beast was finally dead.

As I write this, I look back at those few months ago when I was shooting the propaganda pieces for the Past People In Power and remember how I felt during at the time – disgusted and sick to my stomach. My financial and career situation had reduced me to a whore doing the Beast’s dirty work. That whoring paid the bills, fed me and my wife and allowed us to live a little longer, but it also confirmed that I didn’t want to do work like that again. Compartmentalizing doesn’t work when you see someone whose faith was entirely in the Past People In Power talk about how they haven’t helped put up lights in his village, hoping that by saying it on camera perhaps they’ll listen, not knowing that those were words that would be definitely cut out because the Past People In Power that he put all his hope into didn’t want anyone else to know that they didn’t do their job.

Around the beginning of the year I re-posted this quote by Joss Whedon from screen_craft's instagram about making stuff.

When I posted it I wrote about how my mantra for the new year was to MAKE STUFF. Any Stuff. Just Stuff. Anything. As long as it's Stuff. And this would extend to making public previous Stuff that I've made so get ready for an influx of old shit made available and public once again from my back catalogue of movie making Stuff.

But movies aren't all I do. For quite a while my most public creative output was music. And if you've been following me on the social medias you'd notice more and more posts of past musical Stuffs being put up. This isn't just a hark back to self-perceived glory days (because they really weren't that glorious) but more of a mapping of the chronological timeline.

A lot of this music was made back when the main way to pimp out your music on the interwebs was mp3.com (where I discovered Teh Tarik Crew's first demos) and later myspace, and the way one would get your music out there would be CD's and tapes at gigs. That musical landscape on the net has changed quite a bit, and I wanted to put a bunch of this stuff out there that had never been put up, warts and all.

Oh, there's many warts.

Before there was a band called Khaimano there was a demo tape.

Like, literally. A cassette tape with the words ‘Khaimano’ scribbled on it. I didn’t even have a CD burner on my laptop in 2001. That shit was a luxury back then.

I started recording the songs that would end up being the 411C sessions (named after the room of my student housing flat in London) between Spring and Summer, finishing up the bulk of it after my finals. Sublime was the primary influence, together with everything else I was listening to up to that point and it shows.

The reasons for recording it? No idea. I had some songs I wanted to get out of my head and I had a way to record it like never before - on a computer.

WEDNESDAY LENSDAY: Stretchy II - Shooting 2x Anamorphic with the 2x SLRMagic Anamorphot