The sabukaru Guide To The 10 Most Beautiful Southeast Asian Movies
Asian cinema has been all the rage these past few years. Of course, remembering historical milestones like the Hong Kong New Wave and the exploits of black and white Japanese films, we can trace its success to decades back. However, the spotlight is only getting stronger, especially with its availability being a few clicks away.
Forget about K-dramas and Sono Sion’s chaotic films - there is a place and time for these gems, but it’s time to scooch these over to present an underrated side of Asian cinema: the treasures of the Southeast Asian genre.
Southeast Asia is, to many, a home, with all of its evergreen rice fields, its rainbow of street food flavors, and bubbling cities. Political turbulence has plagued many of the countries in this region but nonetheless, its art has been untouched: poignant, authentic, and a gift to the world. Southeast Asian art has been serially beautiful, graced by its rich culture and unwavering talents.
Decades of films have gone under the radar and are awaiting to be discovered by those unfamiliar. Sabukaru had a deep dive into this subculture and dug out the 10 best Southeast Asian movies of modern times. In fact, there are so many other titles unlisted, like the indispensable Vietnamese film “The Scent of Green Papaya” and the Filipino dark thriller “On the Job”, but for introduction's sake, these are the true gems you should immediately log into your watchlist.
These movies are a cascading crash of memories, pain, love, and consolation. Undescribable feelings are turned into visual poetry, and reality is crowned by its hurtful fate and blinding light of hope. In all of its splendor, Sabukaru presents 10 of the best contemporary Southeast Asian cinematographic masterpieces.
What Happened to the Wolf? [2021] - Myanmar
Heartwarming in a way, desolating in another: Na Gyi, a prolific Burmese director-screenwriter, enchants once again with his latest prodigy, What Happened to the Wolf?
Unlike Western queer films, this one is much more subtle, for good reasons. Myanmar is less than lenient towards sexual minorities and because of its political instability and injustices, the two main actresses have risked their lives playing this role.
It all starts with two terminally ill women. One of them, Moe, was recently diagnosed with lung cancer and has suffered terribly with her torn relationship with her father and caving mental health. She meets Way Way, who, though much younger, has been battling a chronic disease for which her older brother has sacrificed his life, becoming a doctor to help her since they are orphans. Moe is difficult, but so is Way Way, in vastly different ways: as an attempt to escape from their problems, a friendship sparks as they hit the road.
Cemetery of Splendour [2015] - Thailand
A group of soldiers is afflicted by a strange illness. Resembling a coma and sleep, they all seem to be psychically related to some ancient myth of the land. A nurse befriends one of the men during his few waking hours, in order to uncover the cause behind this creeping disease.
Dreamlike and supernatural, Cemetery of Splendour is a slow-paced, static film indulging in the unrefined majesty of stillness and nature. Human relationships are studied through a haze, like drugged on a heavenly concentration of melatonin and mythical obscurity, and the seeming stupor riddles out into connected threads between the unexplainable and the living. Cemetery of Splendour is a tale of wonder translated into languourous drowsiness, perfectly accorded to the curse in question.
Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts [2017] - Indonesia
Though promoted as a movie about feminism and empowerment, it’s not a merry tale about self-help and equity. Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts is the sour reality for many women who aren’t taken seriously and are left to suffer, isolated, and blamed by the patriarchy.
Since the death of her husband, Marlina is pushed and shoved like a disposable object by a gang of local thugs. She reaches a point of no return: avenging herself, she fights fire with fire, showing how brutal she can also be. Being a widow in a poor village in Indonesia, there is not much she can do to protect herself, but now being a murderer, Marlina’s second life begins.
Mouly Surya did an excellent job portraying the inglorious reality of womanhood and poverty. She ruthlessly points out the holes in humanity and the boiling point for murder as self-defense. Viewer’s discretion is advised as the first and last few scenes show horrifying sexual violence.
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives [2010] - Thailand
Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the father of Cemetery of Splendour, this Thai movie hits so many pegs in the universe of storytelling and subtlety.
The movie tells the story of Uncle Boonmee who’s spending his life quietly as he fights liver failure. But don’t expect a family drama. The apparition of his passed wife joins him, and his lost son returns in the form of a spirit of the jungle. The wild nature is not so stranger to Uncle Boonmee, as he scavenges around to find the place of his very first life - many before the one he’s living now.
It’s a funky yet profound tale of respect towards spirits, the jungle, and its inhabitants, human or not. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is a ballad for the lonely. It’s a surreal tale of life and its divine connection to humanity.
Ma’ Rosa [2016] - Philippines
Illegality and morality mean nothing when you’re just trying to survive and feed your family: that is the basis of Ma’ Rosa. It’s a poignant story by the prolific director Brillante Mendoza about the troubled reality of many households in the poorer side of the Philippines.
Ma’ Rosa is the matriarch of four children and a useless husband. Her business sells everything, from daily goods, and foods, to small amounts of drugs. One fateful day, her house gets raided by the police and though she’s extremely cooperative with the authorities, the corrupted police arrest her and are only ready to trade her freedom with a hefty bunch of cash. The kids have to go make a lot of money - and that, quickly.
The story itself is simple, but it’s the cinematography that is the cherry on top: this movie reminisces of a filterless documentary, with an unstable camera and the constant battle against time.
The Big Durian [2003] - Malaysia
In 1987, a terrorist incident happened in Malaysia, the amok of Private Adam. This began a flow of racial riots and rumors of politicians - the country panicked and things went downhill. The Big Durian is a semi-documentary interviewing real people and fictional characters about this historical event, giving away a piece of the truth in every conversation.
Amir Muhammad was applauded for his bravery on this project. It was daring, even though it was released years apart from the amok. It’s not an easy thing to declare the injustices that happened then, especially under the watching eyes of a corrupted government. The Big Durian is a necessary watch and an essential movie in order to understand modern times. At times humorous, it nonetheless offers a raw and untouched view of the groups of people inhabiting this country.
The Inseminator [2014] - Vietnam
The Inseminator is grotesquely fascinating; it’s utterly breathtaking but nonetheless a disturbing watch. Bùi Kim Quy, an award-winning Vietnamese director, proves her unforgiving and dauntless imagination is a symbol of genius in this documentary-style film.
Mr. Boi is the father of Maize and Tu, and this small family lives in the secluded depths of Vietnam’s mountains. Maize is a 16-year-old boy ready to get married off according to traditional customs, but his mental disability is a social hurdle. Unable to pair him up with a wife, Mr. Boi has to consider Tu, his daughter.
This film has been banned from Vietnam, but this taboo film is such a poetically executed movie with all of its bewildering scenes of the beautiful sceneries in its rural side.
Lovely Man [2011] - Indonesia
Queerness in Indonesia is a scandalous topic. This conversation is met with opposition and violence, but also with accepting tenderness, and Lovely Man portrays this in its most virgin form. It’s raw, untouched, and claws deep into your heart: the city sounds, the nightscape, the exchanges, everything seems close and palpable.
The story intimately follows Cahaya who travels to Jakarta to find her long-lost father. The 19-year-old is deeply religious and parallelly conservative, so it’s a shock to her to find out that her father is a sex worker who plays the role of a woman. On top of that, the sex worker rejects her attempt to reconnect very strongly. But the situation is never that black-and-white. Parenthood and womanhood weave beyond the cruelty that street workers face: Lovely Man is a tear-jerking, hospitable story about connection and differences.
It is to say that it is unclear if Cahaya’s parent is a transgender woman, as the label we know in the West, or a cross-dresser, but this doesn’t matter in the context of the movie. Queerness is fluid, but its freedom is hostile and an Achille’s heel in a country so divided. Directed and written by Teddy Soeriaatmadja, this movie targets your heart, and the jab is hard.
The Long Walk [2019] - Laos
This Laotian horror-thriller is a must-watch. It’s a twisted story, but the undertones of compassion, kindness, and hospitality make The Long Walk such a compelling film.
Though its stories include themes of war and history, it’s not the central focus. The plot extends into a reflective ghost story, so don’t expect your average junkie horror movie. It follows an old hermit who meets the ghost of a woman, but she doesn’t taunt him - instead, weird incidents of time travel spur out like geysers and he’s brought back to his mother’s death as a young boy.
Mattie Do directed this masterpiece, and she deserves an eternal standing ovation for her marvelous work: she is the first female Laotian director and the first Laotian horror film director, inevitably going down in the Southeast history of cinema. In fact, her crew consisted of about 20 people, and though drastically minuscule for us, it was a particularly large team for Laos. The Long Walk is a representation of the upwards curve that Laotian cinema will take in the years to come.
The Rice People [1994] - Cambodia
The Rice People competed against Pulp Fiction in the 1994 Cannes Film Festival but lost, unsurprisingly, as the latter film had a much more popular fanbase. It’s arguable that The Rice People is far more necessary [it was the first Cambodian film submitted to the Academy Awards]: documenting Cambodia’s state with all the horrors caused by the Khmer Rouge party, this documentary-style movie is not going to be your gun-waving, cocaine-snorting drama but a down-to-earth scorching agrarian reality.
The kids of the new generation do not know where their rice comes from. They only know the big bags that the UN distributes them. Rice is the foundation of life, yet as families are torn apart and the earth soiled by innocent blood, there is no time to grow jade-green fields of this sustaining grain. One family puts themselves to it to reconnect to their roots and provide for themselves, but the labor is unjust and callous. As the father, the head of the house, becomes ill, the vision of abundance they sought starts to unravel. The Rice People is stunning but starvation was never beautiful; though despairing, director Rithy Panh spared us from all sugar-coating, making this film a rare, indispensable treasure.
About the Author:
Mizuki Khoury
Born in Montreal, based in Tokyo. Sabukaru’s senior writer and works as an artist under Exit Number Five.
