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The What-Has-Been and the Now of a Communist Past in Malaya in the Films of Amir Muhammad

The What-Has-Been and the Now of a Communist Past in Malaya in the Films of Amir Muhammad This article considers two films by the Malaysian filmmaker Amir Muhammad, The Last Communist of 2006 and the Village People Radio Show of 2007. Both films are focused on the Malayan Emergency and the lives of a small group of Malayan communists. Through an engagement with Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Storyteller,” the analysis in this article examines the aesthetic forms that structure Amir’s films, namely nonlinear narratives, intertextuality, and the use of images and stories as comparative frames. This article argues that Amir’s films enable audiences to recognize how the truth of a communist past in Malaysia, both of its politics and suppression, inflects the present. The films provide an opening to recognize how the absence of communism today is the effect of the ideological clearing of all leftism that became the hallmark of the end of the British Empire in Malaysia. Communism is made meaningful in Amir’s films both as a lived experience and as a displacement that is absent from the postcolonial everyday. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png positions Duke University Press

The What-Has-Been and the Now of a Communist Past in Malaya in the Films of Amir Muhammad

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Copyright
Copyright 2021 by Duke University Press
ISSN
1067-9847
eISSN
1527-8271
DOI
10.1215/10679847-8722769
Publisher site
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Abstract

This article considers two films by the Malaysian filmmaker Amir Muhammad, The Last Communist of 2006 and the Village People Radio Show of 2007. Both films are focused on the Malayan Emergency and the lives of a small group of Malayan communists. Through an engagement with Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Storyteller,” the analysis in this article examines the aesthetic forms that structure Amir’s films, namely nonlinear narratives, intertextuality, and the use of images and stories as comparative frames. This article argues that Amir’s films enable audiences to recognize how the truth of a communist past in Malaysia, both of its politics and suppression, inflects the present. The films provide an opening to recognize how the absence of communism today is the effect of the ideological clearing of all leftism that became the hallmark of the end of the British Empire in Malaysia. Communism is made meaningful in Amir’s films both as a lived experience and as a displacement that is absent from the postcolonial everyday.

Journal

positions – Duke University Press

Published: Feb 1, 2021

References

  • Dangerous Politics and the Malay Nationalist Movement, 1945–47
    Amoroso, Donna J.
  • The Storyteller
    Benjamin, Walter Arendt, Hannah Zohn, Harry
  • Documentary as Montage: The Ambivalence of Post-Authoritarian Indonesia in Amir Muhammad’s The Year of Living Vicariously
    Bonura, Carlo
  • Immanent Comparisons and Posthuman Perception in the Filmic Sensorium of Apichatpong Weerasethakul
    Bonura, Carlo Jackson, Mark
  • The Page and the (Video) Camera: Conversation with Amir Muhammad
    Cazzaro, Davide Baumgärtel, Tilman
  • Shakespeare’s Other Sovereignty: On Particularity and Violencein The Winter’s Tale and the Sonnets
    Cormack, Bradin
  • Translating Bangsa Malaysia: Toward a New Cultural Politics of Malaysianness
    Gabriel, Sharmani Patricia
  • Postcolonial Desire: Placing Singapore
    Holden, Philip
  • Filling in the Gaps of History: Independent Documentaries Re-Present the Malayan Left
    Khoo, Gaik Cheng Day, Tony; Liem, Maya H. T.
  • Endings and Beginnings: Reimagining the Tasks and Spaces of Comparison
    Layoun, Mary N.
  • Boundaries and Beyond: Whither the Cultural Bases of Political Community in Malaysia?
    Mandal, Sumit K. Hefner, Robert W.
  • Malay/Malaysian/Islamic: Four Genres of Political Writings and the Postcoloniality of Autochthonous Texts
    Mohamad, Maznah
  • Method and Time: Benjamin’s Dialectical Images
    Pensky, Max Ferris, David S.
  • ‘Moving a Little with the Tide’: Malay Monarchy and the Development of Modern Malay Nationalism
    Smith, Simon C.
  • Memory Films and the Politics of Revisiting: On Amir Muhammad’s Films about the Communist Party of Malaya
    Wang, Chih-ming
  • Dangerous Politics and the Malay Nationalist Movement, 1945–47
    Amoroso, Donna J.
  • The Storyteller
    Benjamin, Walter Arendt, Hannah Zohn, Harry
  • Documentary as Montage: The Ambivalence of Post-Authoritarian Indonesia in Amir Muhammad’s The Year of Living Vicariously
    Bonura, Carlo
  • Immanent Comparisons and Posthuman Perception in the Filmic Sensorium of Apichatpong Weerasethakul
    Bonura, Carlo Jackson, Mark
  • The Page and the (Video) Camera: Conversation with Amir Muhammad
    Cazzaro, Davide Baumgärtel, Tilman
  • Shakespeare’s Other Sovereignty: On Particularity and Violencein The Winter’s Tale and the Sonnets
    Cormack, Bradin
  • Translating Bangsa Malaysia: Toward a New Cultural Politics of Malaysianness
    Gabriel, Sharmani Patricia
  • Postcolonial Desire: Placing Singapore
    Holden, Philip
  • Filling in the Gaps of History: Independent Documentaries Re-Present the Malayan Left
    Khoo, Gaik Cheng Day, Tony; Liem, Maya H. T.
  • Endings and Beginnings: Reimagining the Tasks and Spaces of Comparison
    Layoun, Mary N.
  • Boundaries and Beyond: Whither the Cultural Bases of Political Community in Malaysia?
    Mandal, Sumit K. Hefner, Robert W.
  • Malay/Malaysian/Islamic: Four Genres of Political Writings and the Postcoloniality of Autochthonous Texts
    Mohamad, Maznah
  • Method and Time: Benjamin’s Dialectical Images
    Pensky, Max Ferris, David S.
  • ‘Moving a Little with the Tide’: Malay Monarchy and the Development of Modern Malay Nationalism
    Smith, Simon C.
  • Memory Films and the Politics of Revisiting: On Amir Muhammad’s Films about the Communist Party of Malaya
    Wang, Chih-ming