Images can be overpowering. They can make you feel small. You can try to hide, but images have a way of creeping up behind you in a world filled with images.
Images exist in almost every nook and cranny of our lives. Just look at the cup of coffee you’re holding. Remember the image of the bottle of shampoo in your toilet? Are you being forced to recollect?
You can run, but you can’t hide. You can try to scroll away from images and pretend that you don’t want to see them on social media. Like it or not, you will be exposed to images or paid advertisements. They are, after all, there for a reason. You. Or your credit card.
Such images are created to encourage consumption. They are designed in ways that will affect you. You might not need something, but these images make you want it. All you need to do is to click on that paid advertisement. Pay with your credit card, and the cycle continues.
And who’s to say that the creator of images themselves aren’t in this vicious cycle? As a filmmaker and a creator of stories told through images, I, too, find myself an unwilling participant in this cycle.
Filmmaking is essentially an illusion where images move at 24 frames per second. This illusion of exploiting images is, in essence, the foundation of filmmaking. Don’t forget the sound too.
But in today’s world of filmmaking, we tend to forget this foundation. Everything is created through digital means. To a certain extent, filmmaking’s touch and feel, sights and sounds seem to have faded.
Ignorance and naivete caused by the ease of digitalisation have made one forget about the pioneers of cinema – Eadweard Muybridge, the Lumière brothers and even Thomas Edison.
Without their sense of curiosity, and their ardent innovation through toying with images and light, we will probably not be watching superhero films from sin-city in cinemas today.
As a relatively new medium, compared to art, literature, and music, filmmaking has grown into a billion-dollar industry. We’ve dashed forwards from Muybridge’s galloping horses and steamrollers from The Arrival at the Train Station.
We now live in an era of bad films. Commercialisation and capitalism have encouraged cinema chains to continuously screen bad films. It shouldn’t be B movies but C movies.
Most films are produced to make money. No longer is it about the filmmaker telling good stories and raising ideas and issues through moving images. Both filmmakers and audiences have succumbed to the capitalist nature of the industry.
A film buff and filmmaker, I am exposed to watching the good, the bad and the unwatchable! I cringe when a scene forces me to feel something – the death of the main character’s family member or so-called nationalistic issues through propaganda-driven films.
Seven years ago, I decided that this has to stop. I felt that my life was being dictated by the images around me. I realised that I am being nudged to feel what I feel. I decided to practise “selective watching”.
I placed myself in a self-designed experiment, limiting myself to watching only ten films per year. Selective watching was the toughest in the first year. I had nothing to contribute to social gatherings when others discussed the latest film release.
I rejected many social invites and film releases. Imagine the responses I got introducing myself as a filmmaker who seldom watches films!
The experiment grew on me. I no longer desire to catch the latest release; I now see images differently. Neither do I want to examine the image in my coffee cup. Billboards became an array of colours as I drove on the highway. I have desensitised my emotions.
Recently, I watched Mukhsin by Yasmin Ahmad again. I started tearing up when Orked was confronted by bullies. She was defended by Mukhsin, the good-looking young chap who was interested in Orked.
As he defended Orked, the bullies hit him on the head with a plank. Although that act was not made to create emotion, I cried. I cried, thinking about the lack of humanity. I continued thinking about the scene for the next few days, asking myself, why is there a need to harm one another?
As the tears dried, I realised I had desensitised myself from the “malicious power” of imagery dictating how I should feel. I now viewed the world from my gaze without any significant influence. This is what bliss feels like.
I’m not suggesting that we watch fewer films. Instead, we need to learn to be selective, which is our right as a consumer and audience members. We must keep watching films, for they enrich our lives. But we must learn how to choose films that can help us feel more robust and not weaker!
Shall I continue with this experiment? I’m still looking for an answer.
By Syed Amar Ghazi Syed Ahmad Alkugsi, Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor Dr Adrian Lee Yuen Beng, Head of Department of Film and Performing Arts, School of Arts, Sunway University
