Sepet (2004)

Sepet is a local romantic comedy-drama released on 2004. The movie was directed by Yasmin Ahmad and starring Ng Choo Seong and Sharifah Amani. This is one of Yasmin’s highly appraised movies and won multiple awards including “Best Asian Film Award” in Tokyo International Film Festival 2005, “Best Film” in Ninth Malaysian Video Awards and more.

Sepet is a romantic story between a Chinese boy Jason and a Malay girl Orked. Jason worked as a CD seller in the market and instantly fell in love with Orked when she brought Chinese movie from his stall. They started to see each other. They have faced pressure from the society because of their racial difference but it does not stop them to love each other. Jason got into trouble when he realizes he impregnates to his ex-girlfriend, Maggie, who is also the younger sister of a local Don of Chinese gangster, Jimmy. He decides to take responsibility to support Maggie and her baby, Orked were heartbroken and refuse to see him again or answer to his phone. Orked received the scholarship with her result and she decides to continue her study in England. To met Orked before she leaves, Jason rush to the airport with his bike and ends up in a car accident. The story ends after Orked reading his letter and forgives him by confessed her love.

Malaysia has been a multi-racial society but we can hardly find local films that discuss the racial and religious issue because our society had always thought the subject is too sensitive to put it on the silver screen. The plot of Sepet develop around this Chinese-Malay couple, as the plot developed, we are able to see how the culture difference between a Chinese and Malay family, how normal people will react when they know their friend are dating with someone from different race, and how their family members consider their relationship more on “did they suit for each other?” and not “did he a Malay or a Chinese?”. 

There is a scene when Lin’s boyfriend mocking her for dating a Chinese guy with “sepet” eye, she refutes by saying Malay men been married with different races for generation and nobody said a word, but when she do it people starts to make noise. It shows that how men often treat women as their personal belonging, they were not happy to see a girl having a relationship with men from other races because they see it as someone try to occupy their “property”.

The story of Sepet is actually very simple, the acting and the camera technique used in the movie makes it a very moving, artsy film. The acting in Sepet is very natural and realistic, the characters in the movie do things that normal people will do in their daily life, the shooting continues even when the actors choked on their lines because normal people chock on their word in the daily life too. The film used a lot of long shot even in a conversation, instead of showing us both of the characters in a conversation, the camera holds still and focuses on only one character, we get to see they complete reaction when he or she get the response from other people