Review: There’s Something Wrong With ‘Jwanita’
The Daily Seni recently managed to catch a screening of Jwanita, and we would like to extend our thanks to Nuansa Sdn. Bhd. for their kindness and hospitality. Here, we share our thoughts about Maya Karin‘s career and briefly discuss the film, which will hit cinemas nationwide on the 24th of September 2015.
Maya Karin has charisma.
As an extremely reliable actress who’s been carrying lead roles in significant Malaysian films over the past ten years or so, her track record at the box office has been undeniably impressive.
She’s a household name, and one which is strongly associated with a pool of blockbusters — Shuhaimi Baba‘s Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam, Osman Ali‘s Ombak Rindu and Bernard Chauly‘s Pisau Cukur are just a few of the films which have catapulted Maya Karin to her stardom.
Maya commands attention when she’s on screen. If her face and physique doesn’t already arrest you with natural beauty, her presence will hold you hostage. This is a prevalent trait when we consider her appearances in all her projects. Be they commercials or films, Maya is often centre of focus.
Her most recent release however didn’t really reach a wide enough audience, floundering at the box office with an end total of RM80,000, according to the National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (FINAS). Nota may have possessed some of the most beautiful cinematography we’ve seen on the silver screen but not many people were aware of the film — it was marketed with a relatively smaller budget than most of her releases with bigger production houses.
Maya Karin plays the titular character in Jwanita.
We’re here to talk about her work in Jwanita, Osman Ali’s eighth film. For someone who’s meticulous about choosing which project she wants to attach her name to, we understand the rationale behind her collaborating with Osman again.
Jwanita tells the tale of its titular character who develops extensive trauma under the wing of black magic practitioners, eventually growing into a psychotic, vengeful witch.
As a child in an orphanage, she is separated from her younger sister, Julaika. She leaves the orphanage in pursuit of Julaika, but is caught by Kartini (Umie Aida), who more or less enslaves Jwanita, never interfering when her partner in crime Rostam (Radin Intan) takes advantage of the young girl.
After a series of occurences in which crimes are committed and time has passed, Jwanita falls in love with her psychotherapist, Farhan (Bront Palarae), and is reunited with the now-adult Julaika (Cristina Suzanne).
The proverbial shit hits the fan when Julaika and Farhan marry one another, and Jwanita disappears after a violent tantrum at the couple’s home. She comes back many years later with a brand new demeanour, and it’s from here onwards that things escalate to the point of insanity, and death.
In the centre of this entire madness is Maya Karin — playing lead and looking genuinely voracious as the demented Jwanita, she gives her all in the film. Whenever she whispers murderous chants or inflicts harm onto herself, we fear for her and the other characters. A lot of her rage and mania was borderline uncomfortable to witness and we dare say this is going to be the major selling point of the film.
Unfortunately, Jwanita just isn’t a great film.
Despite outstanding performances from Cristina Suzanne and Maya herself, Jwanita is an erratic effort at presenting a poorly-told story. Throughout the film, events seem to happen at random in order to trigger incoming arcs in this horrifying tale. By the end of its proceedings, we’re left with disturbing visions burned in the back of our minds and not much else.
Jwanita opens this Hari Raya Haji.
It’s fair to say that the problem with Jwanita is perhaps Osman Ali. Here, it’s as if the accomplished director is back to square one after all his years learning and perfecting his craft.
As evident from it’s first half-hour of choppy, frenetic editing, to it’s final scene of Julaika and her children reciting the Quran while a surah is superimposed onto the scene, Osman Ali doesn’t seem to know exactly what he’s doing with the film.
But the opposite also holds true; Osman Ali is completely sure of how to shock his audiences when it comes to horror.
His strength at creating some downright frightening moments lie in his truthfulness in conveying elements of his story; if the film hints that someone is about to get hurt, someone indeed gets hurt — within seconds. There’s no dilly-dallying with Osman Ali; whenever someone throws a knife or an axe in Jwanita, it’s definitely hitting somebody.
Iranian scholar and documentarian Komeil Soheili who was present at one of the film’s pre-release screenings had a lot of praise for Jwanita‘s visuals, scare tactics and lead actors, but took issue with the film’s dire script.
“I thought everything looked beautiful; I loved the costumes and the acting and some of the scenes were just horrifying,” he began.
“But where is the script? Why are there so many things that makes no sense? The way these characters are behaving are very unrealistic.”
He proceeded to give us examples of plot points which he believes need to be worked on, and we had to agree with a lot of his notes. We then informed him about Osman Ali’s standing in Malaysian cinema, and he hopes to catch other works by the renowned director.
But back to Maya Karin: does she risk a career downturn should Jwanita‘s shock tactics fail to translate to box office figures? At the age of 36, she’s done far better than perhaps any of her peers — though we’re starting to get skeptical on how long this can last given the performance of Nota despite its outstanding reviews.
Maya Karin and Osman Ali are frequent collaborators.
Maya’s previous film with Osman Ali, Sejoli: Misi Cantas Cinta, garnered her a nomination at the Festival Filem Malaysia ke-27 and was a box office success but received overall middling reviews and was even deemed “Osman Ali’s lightest fare”. Critical reception for Jwanita hasn’t quite surfaced on the net yet, although we do know entertainment portal Budiey highly recommends the film.
We desperately want Maya to continue doing well; she possesses one of the most interesting careers in Malaysian cinema and is a major draw to the box office. The masses cannot get enough of her amiable public persona while she also never lets us down with her style, glamour and refusal to feed tabloids with petty, useless information.
Despite our feelings towards Jwanita, we urge viewers to go and watch the film and come back with your own judgment. There’s no denying it’s a horrifying piece of cinema, and if we’re going to discuss which local film release you ought to spend money on this week, your other option is romantic comedy Girlfriend Kontrak, which stars Keith Foo and Risteena Munim.
On that note, we wish the Jwanita team all the best and hope to see Maya Karin in more great movies in the future.
Follow the film on for more behind-the-scenes looks!
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