Folk Beliefs, National Trauma, and Body Politics in Malaysian Film--“The Story of Southern Islet” (2020)

“The Story of Southern Islet” (2020) is the debut feature film made by Malaysian Chinese filmmaker Chong Keat Aun based on his childhood memories. Set in a village in Kedah, a state in northwestern peninsular Malaysia on the border with Thailand, the film follows the male protagonist, Cheong, who vomits rusty nails and falls bedridden after an altercation with a Siamese neighbor. It is suspected that he is fallen under a curse for which his wife is drawn towards local shamans, deities and religious healers in search of a cure.

This paper focuses on four aspects. Firstly, through narrative and aesthetic analysis, how the coexisting and intermingling of folk cultures in Thai-Malaysian border is represented and how body performance is used in the film to reconnect the audience with memory and trauma in the past will be studied. The “Southeast Asian aesthetics”, including color tone and atmosphere employed in the film which make the film varies from or identical with films of other regions will also be examined. Thirdly, as a Malaysian Chinese whose identity is constantly in flux between a diaspora living in a Malay-dominant state and as a Chinese who is connected to China and other Sinophone regions, how does the filmmaker articulate the issue of identity, and how, in turn, this issue is dealt through the films will be investigated. Fourthly, the process of production and distribution of the film which is excluded from the national category and transcend various Sinophone communities beyond Malaysia will be scrutinized.