Abang

Synopsis of the film

Abang emphasize on the family relationship between siblings and parents. In Malay culture, the eldest son has to take up the responsibility of the family besides his dad. Fuad has been at London for more than 10 years and suddenly decided to return to Malaysia and visit his family. His siblings were worried that he come back to take over the business and fight over the properties and therefore they misunderstood him. Fuad tries to solve all his siblings’ wrong doing and teach them to be a better person before he died over leukemia.

Review

I like the moral of the story. There’s a suspension to this film that the reason Fuad came back to Malaysia was actually he suffered over leukemia. He tires in many ways just to help his siblings and correct their wrong doings even though they misunderstood him. But he never gives up on them in fact he asked forgiveness for his wrong doings. The only problem that I feel about this film is the cutaways. I discovered a few continuity issues. During Fuad asking for forgiveness from Mona, the cutaways were quite messy and have no continuity. The scene was supposed to be at night, but cutaways were morning. Fuad was sitting down and suddenly he was standing and next second sitting again.

I like the ending part which Fuad hold his mother’s hand and walk upstairs before he died. Fuad knows that he is going to die in a few moments so he shows his love for his mother. He stood in front of the window and has a last glimpse of the neighborhood. I dislike the way part where his family throws a ‘welcome home’ party for Fuad. That part is about Fuad missed the party and his brother was drunk and they end up fighting. The reason I dislike about it because it progress too slow just to prove a point.

The film highlight on culture and language hybridity. In this film, Fuad just came back from London and the way he carry himself is very western. For example, the way he dress up is very western, in fact the male characters in this film is dressing up the same. Fuad often have physical contact with his family members such as hugging them. Fuad’s family throws him a welcome home party in buffet style. As for language, Fuad will use a small amount of English words between the sentences. This shows a very obvious culture and language hybridity because of National Economic Policies (NEP).

Fuad’s wardrobe is very western style, slacks, leather shoes and shirt. This shows that he is a very modern Malay and he carry out the role as a big brother in the family very well. He is very strong at his opinion as well. The female characters in the family shows a mixture of modern and conservative. Because they would wear baju kurung in the house and when they are in the public place they wore fancy dress. This shows that they can be modern but well behave at the same time.

There’re not much props used in this film. The makeup style is very modern almost similar to this days. As for the lighting, sound and editing it’s not perfect but at least it carries out the message to the audience.

Overall this film is very easy to understand and it shows the love of the eldest brother in the family. No matter what happen between the family members, the love will always be there and nothing can separate them apart.