kritikus jumpa pembikin filem

Last night after persistent SMSes from the Visitor I finally decided to attend the Bicara Filem event at Akademi Seni Kebangsaan. We arrived quite late, the screening of Dato' Rahim Razali's much-acclaimed Matinya Seorang Patriot was already well into the second half of the film already.

The panelists for the forum were filmmaker Dr. Mahadi J. Murat and Berita Harian journalist (journalist kan?) Akmal Abdullah, and the title was "ANTARA KRITIKAN DAN PEMBIKINAN FILEM: DI MANAKAH TITIK PERTEMUANNYA?.

What I learnt :

1. To be a critic, one needs to have at least some knowledge of films. Anybody can give a review, and anybody can try to be a critic, but it takes a good knowledge base for one to become a real critic.

2. A critic is usually influenced by his own experience and school of thought, as well as the time he lives in. Therefore a critic in 1980 might say one thing about a film made in 1980, and another critic in 2006 could watch the same 1980 film and could likely have a different opinion from the first.

3. Critics should first and foremost be eclectic in making up their opinions, and not based on one pre-set specific theory or principle.

The surprising thing was that we, the audience found what a couple of members of the audience had to say were more interesting and engaging than the panelists'. Well, of course but then it has to be noted that members of the audience who had their say included Mansor Puteh and Pak Hassan Muthalib :)

But hats off to Dr. Mahadi who nicely played along to Akmal's off-the-track comments and very nicely tried saying "Dude, what I think about Y is such and such, but then again the forum is supposed to diccuss about X" (of course lah he didn't say it like that, but I think that's what he meant). But the other panelist seemed to fail to (or pretended not to?) realize that people thought he's about a mile off track already.

Just for thoughts - is it possible for a film reviewer-critic to jot down whole pages of notes about narrative of the film, the storyline and his thoughts on what this and that meant bla-bla-bla, and in the process forgot* the name of the MAIN CHARACTER as well as the love interest? Okaylah, the love interest I can kasi chan, but to have no idea of the main character's name for God's sake?

I realized while driving back that I wanted to ask this question-

"Through the internet as an alternative medium to existing media channels, with the emergence of self-acclaimed film reviewers cum critics in self-made sites as well as filmmakers with blogs/websites themselves thus enabling two-way interaction between the filmmakers and the critics as well as Joe Public - could this be seen as a positive contribution towards the so called 'meeting point', and are these self-published individuals actually worthy to be reckoned as film critics in that sense?"

Maybe I should email the question to Akmal and Dr Mahadi? Anyone got their email addresses?

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Rujuk * di atas - Aku tak rasa kejam bila aku katakan pada Fadz aku fikir dia patut tembak** aje kepalanya.

Rujuk ** di atas - Okeylah, sebagai seorang yang baik hati, tembak dengan lastik getah aje.