4/27/2007
censorship in a first world country
Loh Chee Kong was not very pleased with the censorship of the film, Zahari's 17 Years. He questioned the necessity to continue to ban a film on Zahari when books on him are available in the shops. Could the film be that different in presenting a different truth or truth from another angle? Or the motions, pictures and sound can have a greater impact on the viewers?
What the film is about is the political activities of a man of an era and idealism that are history today. Like communism was once a taboo topic, today it is openly discussed as just another ideology that is no longer relevant to the creating of a new world. Would the life of Zahari be that influential and emotional that exposing it to the interested public would lead to unrest in our society? Have our society and people grown over the years, matured and be able to cope with the drama and issues of the past? Or we are still the naive and impressionable little country bumpkins that must be protected from the influence of the media, that we are still deemed to be unfit to see a different truth?
We are first world, man!
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2 comments:
If you've ever read a book and then watched a bad movie adaptation, you will realise that the medium has an impact on the message.
In fact Noam Chomsky even go as far as to say that "the medium is the message".
That said, I tried to watch the film posted on some blogs. It was quite boring. No action (at least for the fews minutes that I watched).
I guess this goes back to what Vivian B. said about censorship. It's token and symbolic. You can watch the film on the net. The govt just won't officially allow it.
In banning the film, the govt just raise interest in it. So in a sense the govt did the film a favour. :-)
Leo is right — the film is very dry. However I didn't find it "boring" in the sense that I was interested in the facts. and it only goes for 49 minutes.
You can watch it here and download it if you choose.
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