When a film unexpectedly turns into the biggest success story in a country’s film history (especially if spoken in minority languages), questions are asked about the whys and the wherefores of such a triumph. And The Journey is no exception. In Malaysia, the debate about the film has been a shot in the arm for the national film industry following a couple of years of disaffection by the local public. It also focused attention on productions in Chinese languages, which were previously banned from being fully classified as “national films”.
The film by Chiu, previously behind the successes of Woohoo! and Great Day, opens with Bee Yong returning to her native village accompanied by her English financé Benji. After having spent years in England, the young woman returns for the lunar new year to ask for her father’s blessing in her marriage to Benji. Bee’s father, “Uncle” Chuan, is an elderly, superstitious man who has promised, in accordance with tradition, to put on a major feast for his daughter’s wedding and to invite all his old classmates. Unfortunately, cultural and linguistic misunderstandings accumulate between Chuan and Benji, despite the latter’s good intentions. Just when Benji is about to give up, Bee confesses that she is pregnant. Benji gives it one last go to win over her father’s affection: he will accompany him on a motorcycle ride to deliver the invitations to his ex-school pals, who now live scattered across the country.
Initially what seems to be a comedy turns into a drama, with The Journey on the one hand exploring the cultural conflicts between the West and Chinese traditions and, on the other, being a delicate reflection on intergenerational relations. Chiu and his screenwriters Ryon Lee and Chan Yoke manage to create, with great simplicity, a formula which combines the local with the universal.
The experience of intercultural marriage and the differences of opinion that stem from it are common currency in a multiethnic society like Malaysia’s. The Journey contains some witty irony on the desirability of marriage to a foreigner – not to mention a British one, so a direct representative of the ex-colonial power – which intertwines with the news of the imminent marriage between Bee and Benji as well as the past crush Chuan had on his Malay school friend Fatimah. The issue of love between different ethnicities, culture and religions which goes from a national dimension to a global one is interesting, and has different results: Benji and Bee get married, while Chuan never managed to confess his love for Fatimah. The actual journey undertaken by Benji and Chuan to deliver the invitations becomes a pretext to visit a series of places that make up the geographical-cultural framework of (mainly) Chinese Malaysia.
But beyond references to a strictly local sphere, it is probably the humanistic approach by Chiu that conquered the Malaysian public: in the relationship between parents and their offspring, between different cultures and generations, no one is really ever right or wrong. Between happiness and sacrifices, separations and reunions, funerals and marriages, what really counts is accepting, forgiving and loving. That is the only way for a parent to really fulfil their role in the lives of their children.
With its excellent filmic quality (especially the photography by Eric Yeong and the sound by the Taiwanese Tu Duu-chih) and superb acting (the perfect pairing of Benji-Chuan by Ben Andrew Pfeiffer and Lee Sai Peng), The Journey has managed to open the road ahead for Malaysian cinema. Let’s hope this is just the beginning of the journey.
Paolo Bertolin