‘Mukhsin’ steals hearts of NY reviewers
By FOO YEE PING, The Star
Friday May 30, 2008
The 2006 flick by director Yasmin Ahmad began its limited six-day engagement. It ends Monday at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
“Mukhsin is the final part of the director’s trilogy about Orked and her family. I am so taken by Mukhsin that I’m going to hunt down the previous two movies,??? wrote reviewer V.A. Musetto in New York Post on Wednesday.
The daily gave it a three-and-a-half star rating. Incidentally, Sex and the City, which premiered here on Tuesday, got a one-and-a-half star rating given by another reviewer from that newspaper on the same day.
Stories about Malaysia seldom get published in the New York Post except for quirky happenings reported under its “Weird But True??? column.
Examples include Malacca protesting against naming a virus after the state, a woman lopping off her husband’s penis and a man being ordered to pay his wife a cow in a polygamy dispute.
The New York Times reviewed Mukhsin under the heading “A Tomboy in Malaysia is introduced to hormones.???
“Deceptively simple and threaded with gentle humour, Mukhsin paints the turmoil of puppy love on a canvas of family relationships as delightful as it is believable,??? reviewer Jeannette Catsoulis said.
She also quoted a scene from the movie which she said “perfectly captured the film’s acuity and its maker’s empathy for those whose dreams may never come true.???
On its website, introducing the movie, MoMA noted that Yasmin had been described as the godmother of new Malaysian digital cinema.