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Diva (Musical, about 120 minutes) Starring Ning Baizura, Jeremy Thomas, Sheny Andrea, Jessica Iskandar, Awal Shaari, Balkisyh, Adam AF2, AC Mizal, Donny Kusuma. Directed by Sharad Sharan. Produced by Astro Shaw SDN BHD/Tarantella Pictures. (Bahasa Indonesia).
If recent movies like Dreamgirls, Chicago, and Moulin Rouge have slowly lured us modern moviegoers out of our skepticism and restored our lost faith in taking musicals as a serious cinematic art form, then movies like Diva have just catapulted us right back inside!
No one told me when I bought the ticket to this movie that I'd also just bought myself a ticket to a time machine.
Watching this Malaysian import is like seeing those Indonesian movies from the 70s, when filmmakers could get away with just about any kind of bombastic melodrama, because moviegoers were just too happy to see their favorite stars singing and dancing on screen that they forgot to be remotely critical about the story.
Kartika (Baizura), an internationally successful Malaysian singer, returns to Kuala Lumpur to patch things up (oh so tearfully) with her mother and the man she loves but can't marry (Thomas).
Along the way, she finds four youngsters (in ways that are too corny to discuss), and decides to turn them into a singing sensation overnight.
She then has to deal with these annoying kids (played by annoying little performers) as they cope with fame, and also with her deteriorating health.
Diva gathers practically every tired clich‚ in film history and turns them into one huge cornball.
With musicals, we tend to forgive a little illogicality here and there, but this one really goes beyond musical sensibility.
Every character's motivation is oversimplified (at times inexplicable) and every plot development is so text-book, that with one tiny cough from Kartika so early in the film, we know how this character is going to end up (at least find a less overused disease, please).
Perhaps the film's title not only refers to the central character, but to the film's personality as well. Every scene is overblown, and to say that every performance is over-the-top would be an understatement.
There is no explanation in sight about the use of Indonesian actors (except maybe as a marketing ploy to attract both markets, and to give a pathetic last chance to Indonesian sinetron has-beens), especially since it's never clear what nationality they are playing.
It seems that they are supposed to be Malaysians, but none bothers even to attempt to cough up a Malaysian accent.
Oh, and nice try, Donny Kusuma, who starts out with a (badly done) Malaysian accent, but suddenly forgets all about it in subsequent scenes.
Really, Queen of Tacky would have been a more appropriate title for this film. Zero stars (out of *****)
Resensi jujur燿ari koran Indonesia mengenai爁ilm爄ni |
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Post time 30-6-2007 07:26 AM
