SYNOPSIS (IMDb)
Karthi, a disgruntled assistant on commercial productions, is working on an honest, personal film script, but his project is without industry backers. In the dispiriting pursuit of his dream, he loses his love and sinks into alcoholism, until he meets a kindred spirit adrift in the world.
REVIEW
In the current world scenario where the audience are made of binge-watchers and doomscrollers, a mature piece like Blues will feel like a life sentence to them. But Sun-J do not care about the average viewers. He does it for himself and his love for the art. Hence the tagline ‘Aku. Sinema. Dia.’ A row of tagline separated by full stops are nothing more of a sign of the three just cannot live together. The love has to be reluctantly divided most of the time. The story is divided into three chapters to, among others, divide the story into proper 'three act' structure. Sakthi, Sivam and Siva Sakthi to represent perhaps, setup, confrontation and resolution.
Moreover, the film starts with a quote from Rumi saying, ‘The wound is the place where the Light enters you.’ It resonates with me with the understanding of how stories are being written. One I remembered from Pak Hassan Muthalib is about those people writing stories about struggle from the comfort of their air-conditioned office. And it is only through conflicts and suffering that one can convey an authentic piece of writing.
Karthi is Sun-J and Sun-J is Karthi. This way of channelling ones self through the film’s protagonist as a proxy or surrogate has many custodian. One of them is the great Federico Fellini that says in the 1965 ‘The Atlantic’ saying, ““All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.” Andrei Tarkovsky says in his book Sculpting in Time, “A film is an author’s confession.”
Sun-J does it with minimal degree of separation. Another saying I heard recently (but I cant figure out the source) says that an art is art when you do it for yourself. If you do it for others, it is called an illustration. Like the scene where Karthi is taken to a film pitching for his idea, instead hes was tricked as his story is switched to another one. This is the main que showing that Karthi is Sun-J and vice versa. The year is 2010 and the title of his story is ‘Kechik’, if I’m not mistaken, about a small boy life in a rural rubber estate plantation. Its no coincidence that it has the same story as Jagat.
Ray Kril forwards me his interview about his long career saying that he has the ‘Van Gogh Complex’, he said, “I guess you could say I have a Van Gogh complex: I film because that is what I do, and you keep doing it because it’s a part of your life.” - an example of a true artist and auteur - as true as Sun-J Perumal. He is of course, not the only one though. I can straight away relate Blues with Metro Maalai by Haran Kaveri and Shoobaan, who speaks of the same narrative in their recent release, Simple Manusan. Including Vijay Ganesh who played himself in Mirugasirisham. Malaysian Kollywood scene has been taking cinema seriously. Other recent Malaysian films that revolve around cinema of solitude, other than metacinema is Mencari Ramlee by Megat Shahrizal, Ninavau by Bebbra Mailin, and Shadowplay by Tony Pietra Arjuna (please do help me add to the list!) - and also a recent short flim by MMU Haevindhran Pillay's entitled Edharkaga Marubadi.
The direction of photography by the enigmatic Gwai Lou chops one scene and takes you to the next as hard as the full stop between Aku.Sinema.Dia in the tagline, closely reminded me to Seman by Mansur Puteh, which Pak Hassan Muthalib wrote in his 2003 working paper saying, "Imejannya tersangat dialektik, naratifnya merupakan anti-plot, tetapi struktur & tekstur diperlihatkan dilayar secara tersusun. Ruang & masa jarang mempunyai kesinambungan & seringkali ‘disjointed’. Watak menjadi objek & bukan subjek, sekaligus pendekatan ini menjadikannya sebuah filem anti-genre." Pak Hassan labelled it, "counter-cinema". He further quoted the late Dr. Anuar Nor Arai saying, “Yang berada dalam ingatan putus2 & fragmented…waktu tidak dituntut dengan waktu kalendar. Waktu dituntut dengan emosi & intelek.” And also the protagonist in Seman is Mansor Putih. Just like Karthi and Sun-J.
In Chapter 3 called ‘Siva Sakthi’ (Stillness and movement) which might be the synthesis of Chapter 1 ‘Sakthi’ (Movement) and 2 ‘Sivam’ (Stillness), Karthi puts closure to the whole thing close to how the kid protagonist in 400 Blows does it (and many others). Sun-J Perumal is the only auteur I remember that has 2 films showing in theaters running at the same time. I witnessed Blues on its last day of screening, which falls on the 10th anniversary of Jagat. Their confluence with the end of the Jagat trilogy (Jagat - smoke, Macai - fire and Blues - water) is so profound and meta, and perhaps a closure and the elements balancing their acts.