Sepi <3

Bisikku pada bulan
Kembalikan temanku
Kekasihku, syurgaku

Tanpa dia malam menemaniku
Sepi memelukku

Bulan
Jangan biar siang
biar alam ini kelam
Biar ia sepi
Sepertiku




Sepi is a story about three different lifes, three different loves intertwined by one life-changing event.

Adam (Afdlin Shauki) is a man in his twenties or thirties, fat and jolly, but very sweet in his own way; a chef who specialises in making the most romantic and dreamy wedding cakes. His mantlepiece is filled with cotton candy-coloured wedding invitation cards, as one by one his friends find the love of their lives. So the poor guy dreads weddings as he always gets seated at the 'singles' table.

At one wedding, by pure chance Adam catches a whiff of a Camelia flower in the beautiful dark hair of a maiden, and something in the scent of the Camelia made the world stop for him.


Next to enter was Sufi (Tony Eusoff). Sufi's story made me cry.
Sufi is a successful, very, very, very rich businessman who owns the Roadrunners shoe factory. One day, when he was driving with his wife, Nina, an accident happened. As fate had it, Nina died and Sufi blamed himself for not saving his wife. Sufi started running, running away from it all; loving his son, Ashraf, yet not knowing how to care for him when his own grief was so raw.
Fate led him to Marya (Eja) in whose serene, sky-blue presence Sufi finally stopped running. An off-hand remark by Marya to make running shoes with air-con in it (to cool the feet, you see) struck Sufi with a brainwave to make Roadrunners with a cooling system. Sufi was elated, ecstatic even. As he explained his idea, the architecture of the shoe, his face shone with something new. It was something in the the way he sat his boy down and told him to listen carefully to papa, something in the face of the little lost boy who looked up at him in full faith, that was so real it made me cry. Here was a drowning man and son, who had finally found something to grasp on to. Sufi's grief, his loss, his desperation for something to hold on to, to believe in again, his ecstasy at finding it, were so palpable. I've never cried in cinemas, maybe a tear or two sometimes. But this scene I interpreted it my way, and it filled me with sudden poignancy.

Lastly is Imaan (Baizura Kahar; I don't know who she is) who is a student studying art and drama. She is the playwright for a play (or was it just poetry declamation?) titled 'Sepi'. She is the one who wrote the poetry 'bisikku pada bulan'.
She's strong, very emotive, passionate about her play, and takes an instant dislike to Ian (Syed Hussein) who is the stereotypical good-looking, flirty Mr. Popular. Ian wants her, but she resists. At the end of the movie you realise she has her own demons to battle, in the form of her dead childhood sweetheart, Khalil (Pierre Andre).


I have to say this. I never liked Pierre Andre. I tolerate him at most. His presence in Goal and Gincu, I tolerated. I remember reading a write-up about him the the newspapers a few years ago; they heralded him as the rising star in local showbiz.
The author called him a 'heart-throb with hot, smoldering looks' or something along those lines. I almost laughed. Ok, I take that back. That was an evil thing to say. I just don't like him that much la.
There is something in the way Pierre Andre PURPOSELY slurs his words while keeping his mouth open only one small gap, that irks me.

I know that the local Malay slangs (not the KL bahasa baku) have a sing-songey tune to it, and the words tend to be slurred together. Some malays speak the language so fluidly I notice their mouths hardly open, they mostly move their lips only. It's actually nice if you do it naturally.
That explains why a Chinese-schooled, A-in-SPM Bahasa Melayu student like me took 2 weeks to actually understand what the malay staff were saying when I worked in the pharmacy. During the first few days, sometimes I couldn't understand a single word what they were telling me.

I would go 'sorry, huh? Kak cakap apa?'
Then she would repeat it in exactly the same way.

'Saya tak faham langsung apa yang awak cakap.' I say in my head,
which comes out through my mouth as 'Hhm, Ya. Ok.'

Or if what she says is accompanied by a smile or laugh, I say 'hahaha.' in return.
That's how hard the Kedah malay slang was for me. But I think they liked me, so my method must have worked.


Back to Pierre. I think his slurring is unnatural and a put-on.


But I digressssssssss. A lot.


Cinta tak datang hanya sekali.
That's the theme of the movie.
The cinematography ( is that what you call it? I actually want it to mean the graphics) were wonderful. And the colours, they were very fitting to every scene and emotion. The music, I love. But the director's shooting skills were so good it was awful. I tell you I wondered more than once to myself if this was an artistic film or a horror movie instead. The accident scene was replayed at least 3 times. It was scary in a foreboding way and I didn't like it one bit.

Bang! *Body clothed in pink thrown on windscreen and tumbles onto the road*

Bang! *SUV rams straight into woman in car*


Stab! *blood oozes out from abdomen and man falls backwards from overhead bridge into river*

Man looks like dead fish floating while girlfriend starts walking away in a shocked daze.




But Sepi has a happy ending.
The characters are beautiful people, and their lives are beautiful too.
And beautiful too is the thread which holds the whole movie together: love.