ALL families are dysfunctional. You grow up thinking you had a perfect childhood, or your family are the only kooks in the neighbourhood, only to discover as an adult that one: decades of resentments and hurt have been swept under the rug, and two: no one has it figured out.
Zahim Albakri’s 'Spilt Gravy/Ke Mana Tumpahnya Kuah...' examines this maxim to a fault. The movie is Zahim Albakri’s first feature and was originally produced in 2011 but it failed to pass censorship boards and has been kept on ice until its premiere earlier this month.
Unfortunately, it closed after a one-week run, and regardless of how one feels about the quality of Malaysian movies, something is so clearly broken about local theatrical distribution. Based on a play by Jit Murad, the movie centres on a day of the lives of an upper-middle-class Malay family.
Zahim Albakri enlists a heavy-hitting ensemble of local theatre and screen actors, all of whom shine in their performances. Rahim Razali gives a career finest as “Bapak” who heads the clashing personalities in this polygynous family unit.
The movie opens with a series of vignettes of children playing hide-and-seek at a birthday party. Darwis, the birthday boy, waits excitedly for his cake hoping for something grand similar to what his siblings would typically receive only to be disappointed when it arrives without even his name inscribed on it.
Bapak is nowhere to be seen at the party. A sharp cut to present-day of Bapak waking up from his sleep, inferring it was only a dream. He conducts his morning prayer, while his maid prepares the house, opening its doors and windows, as the movie metaphorically invites the audience into this family’s lives.
A series of montages proceed, introducing us to the exploits of the children from the hide-and-seek game, now fully grown adults. Zakaria (Zahim Albakri) is the “black sheep” of the family having been kicked out of the navy and now operates in the underbelly of Kuala Lumpur.
Kalsom (Bernice Chauly) is a celebrated writer and director, facing public protest due to controversial elements in her movie. Darwis is an English language lecturer and the only child that is still living with Bapak. Husni (Sean Ghazi) is an architect and the most successful member of the family.
Zaitun (Juliana Ibrahim) is a single parent who spends her day at the mall, flagrantly absent from her daughter’s life as she delegates those tasks to the house help and chauffeur. They are step-siblings who grew up together and shared four mothers.
Consciously or otherwise, all of them are motivated by a deep desire to seek Bapak’s attention and approval. Bapak is a retired journalist and now lives with his Filipino maid, Concepcion, and his son, Darwis. His four wives are no longer alive.
A startling vision of two angels, played by Harith Iskandar and Jit Murad, shocks Bapak into organising a family dinner before his time is up. Darwis is given the responsibility of rallying up his siblings and making sure they arrive on time.
Each of the siblings is seething with the unacknowledged hurt Bapak has left at some point in their lives, and the invitation to dinner was the only opportunity for Bapak to address them. Filled with wit, and a clever conceit, the movie takes aim at the many idiosyncrasies of Malaysian life.
Despite being based on a text written two decades ago, many of the movie’s observations remain a preoccupation of the national zeitgeist. However, if it loads heavy artillery in the beginning, the movie ends up shooting blanks by abandoning its queer and female characters.
In its final act, more buried history is unearthed: Zakaria being raped as a child and not being Bapak’s biological son, Husni’s homosexuality is outed, and he learns about a sister he never knew he had and Bapak’s confession of their family driver’s culpability during the May 13 racial riots (yes, the movie goes there).
The movie breezes through these revelations and moments without pause and subsequent opportunities for reconciliation come across as entirely contrived. Bapak’s four wives are reduced to male fantasies, completely removed of any semblance of an identity – either to cook, sing or offer pleasure to him.
These missteps aside, the movie does not let its lead protagonist off easily. It ends the way it opened, with Bapak waking up: a dream or a nightmare? He repeats his morning rituals. The camera swings to an empty kitchen, and we hear echoes of his children’s voices.
Were the admissions, confessions, and revelations left unsaid and unspoken? How on-brand of Asian families. Perhaps to continue haunting Bapak’s life. – The Vibes, June 18, 2022
