I was pleased to see that this made it to Netflix. It’s a Malaysian-Singaporean film that challenged some boundaries, yet never caught serious flack for it. It bothered me that so many of the recent local films we’ve caught were directed and written by ethnic Chinese even when they featured Malay characters. So here’s a film written and directed by M. Raihan Halim and directly addresses the issue of sexual repression in a very conservative Malay village. Honestly this is a rather standard film and anyone will have already seen variations of the format from other countries. But this one is Malaysian and that’s enough to make it fascinating to me.

Kampung Bras Basah is a small village that imposes conservative values on its people due to the demands of its headman Tok Hassan. A spunky young girl Azura rails against restrictions such as censoring the photos in the magazines available. Her father, local policeman Salihin, is kind but enforces the rules as required. One day an outsider Hanie arrives, having inherited a long abandoned house. She renovates it into a lingerie store she names La Luna and intends it to be a safe haven for women. The delighted Azura immediately asks for a part time job there but Tok Hassan is strongly opposed to its existence. He orders the local preacher to speak out against the shop and its corrupting influence. The hesitant villagers are brought around when the lingerie helps spice up their sex lives and the shop becomes a popular gathering spot for the local women. A relationship even burgeons between the divorced Salihin and Hanie. Things escalate when Hanie tries to shelter a local woman who is being abused by her husband. Tok Hassan insists that the husband has the right to discipline his wife as he wishes and resorts to underhanded means to have the shop closed down.

It’s a familiar story and this particular iteration doesn’t really break new ground. Even the extra elements like the romance between Salihin and Hanie or Azura being a spunky, somewhat rebellious girl are sort of rote. Yet this is a Malaysian film and so there’s an undeniable thrill in seeing what they dare to poke fun at. It’s already quite something to see the village’s brand of conservatism being succinctly captured by the signs plastered everywhere Allah is watching you. When Tok Hassan raves madly about the moral threat of La Luna and invokes the name of Syaitan, the film leaves you in no doubt who the devil really is. They even show him offering a bribe to a government official to order the shop to close. That’s more daring than I would have expected but it would have been even better if it were verbally called out rather than simply shown in imagery. I wondered too how the issue of women in lingerie and sex. As it turns out, the most we see is a bra strap on a shoulder. The sex scenes take place off screen and are played up for comedic effect. It’s really quite tasteful in that it doesn’t shy away from adult topics and succeeds in telling its story without being at risk of offending the censors or public sensibilities.

That said, the film does take the expected easy way out. All of the nastiness is entirely crystalized and contained within the character of Tok Hassan. It doesn’t take much convincing for the rest of the villagers to rally to Hanie’s side and there’s no one defending Tok Hassan’s version of conservative Islam. As such there’s no debate whatsoever over varying interpretations of religion. Tok Hassan is not just wrong, he is blatantly evil. Then there’s how the village seems so insular and self-contained that it barely has any connections to the rest of the country. In real life, the village headman doesn’t get to make up rules that the police are obliged to enforce and mosque sermons are distributed by a central authority. Even if mobile cinemas still exist in Malaysia which I doubt, the excitement of the villagers over them is wildly implausible. Malaysia is just too small a country for any village to be really that cut off from other towns and cities. It’s a weird setup that isn’t reflective of what life in the country is really like.

The production values here are okay but not outstanding. The acting ability of the performers is somewhat uneven and I’m unhappy how little of a role Azura after her introduction. I’m not sure how much international viewers are able to get out of this but as a Malaysian I found it delightful that something like even exists and I was heartened at seeing Malay Muslims stand up for a more moderate way of life.