MOVIE ANALYSIS (MUNAFIK 2)

MUNAFIK 2 – MOVIE REVIEW

BY: NURUL SABRINA MOHD YAZAID

Munafik 2 is a continuity genre movie of the Malaysian’s horror film, Munafik, released on 30 August 2018 which are a combination and based not only on the horror, but also on the religious and moral value by SKOP Productions, directed and written by Syamsul Yusof. Syamsul Yusof also performed in the movie himself as Ustaz Adam, Fizz Fairuz, Nasir Bilal Khan, Fauzi Nawawi, Mawi and this time Maya Karin added as Sakinah to this movie. Who does not know Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam? Most undoubtedly were inspired to look at Munafik 2 by Maya Karin’s appearance in the screen after a long break. A short synopsis of the film is that it begins with a story of Ustaz Adam struggle to rescue a single mother, Sakinah, against heresy in a small village, led by Abuja. After two years the unexpected death of his wife and son in the first Munafik trilogy, Ustaz Adam’s life revived.

In this movie, there are some approaches that I found and can be stated from the movie which is one of them is an aesthetic approach. The aesthetic approach that I can identify in Munafik 2 is where it used a hybrid genre which meaning by it contains more than one genre. The genre of Munafik 2 is supernatural horror, but in Munafik 2, it can be seen that the director shows religious elements to the audiences in it. For example, Munafik 2 is the difference between a scary and a missionary message-laden element where all women in the movie wear hijab throughout the film. In some ways, the film approaches by the director, Syamsul Yusof in a way that is easily understandable and daring to resolve the heretical problem. The Quran’s surah read in the movie will be conveyed successfully in every verse and interpretation where it shows that the character of Ustaz Adam has maintained the holiness of Islam and has been willing to risk his own life, so as not to mislead the religion by other people.

Other than aesthetic approach, there is another one approach that can be identify in this film which is ritual approach that related to the genre. In this film, I can see and identify the ritual where Ustaz Adam recite the Surah of the Quran to help Sakinah who has been possessed by demons in her body. I believe that in Maya Karin possessed scene, it can be said as one of the most powerful scene and moments in that movie as an Arabic dialog has alerted viewers the coming of ‘Dajjal’ to the world. Moreover, as seen in the movie where the ritual of worship occurs when Abuja and his followers from the villagers where worship black magic in the area of a large building, complete with a flag symbol of the gathering place of Abuja and his followers performing the ritual. In addition, the director also added some ritual scenes where they read and recite the Quran after performing prayers.

Besides that, ideology approaches. Ideological approach is the main idea of the genre to create a story or drama where it is also can be defined as a group or person’s set of opinions or beliefs. The storyline of the movie is I keep wondering the beliefs of how people in villagers can be so easily influenced by Abuja, and have so many loyal followers who can easily listen to him without protest to his instructions. Munafik 2 this time shows many things happened about the struggles of Ustaz Adam experienced in a small village, and many more in dealing with a group of heresy led by Abuja at the same time which it actually contrast to the Western films where the movie plot makes the audience become more influenced. In the movie, it shows the scenes of Ustaz Adam’s early death of his son and wife and the appearance of an antagonistic feature from the previous Munafik. In the end of the film, it becomes more interesting as all the doubts as well as questions of the story has been answered.

On top of that, I can identify that this movie also has other elements which through a sociocultural element. Sociocultural is a characters and character traits are social and cultural representations that communicate to society significance and messages. According to Fludernik (2009), the characteristics and characterization lead to meaning. Thus, the characteristic symbolism and characterization of Malaysian society are can be seen based on Munafik 2 film such as roles, stereotypes and many more where the aim of this film is to explore how the roles portray the realities of the Malaysian community, consisting of many human behaviours through different characters. The social role in this film is shown as a person who is deeply into Islam and want to fight and solve the social life problem in heresy of a small village because as mentioned before, the film is conceptual and hybrid not only about horror but also religion, so the film focuses on social life of Islamic knowledge.

Not only that, the element of sociocultural also consists of stereotypes of social life. Stereotype can be defined as a concept or belief attributed to other forms, although it is not true for each individual person in fact. Stereotype can be a negative or optimistic assessment of someone or a group. Through this movie, I can see there are two stereotypes, both positive and negative which can be illustrated. The positive stereotype I can identify here is that the role of an Ustaz who is willing to go to an upstream village just because he wants to help and cure people from spiritually or black magic. This is because the role of such a religious person who not only can cure black magic or spiritual, but also spread religious sermons so as to prevent the life of a village without knowledge of this superficial religion from being affected and can distort religion their own. However, a person’s stereotype can also go from good to bad person just like in this movie where the character of Ustaz Azman played by Fizz Fairuz who has become a best friend with Adam suddenly we will surely see him as a thorn in flesh who is always ready to destroy Ustaz Adam just because he was envy and jealous of Ustaz Adam that has always been praised by people for his skills to cure villagers.

Furthermore, social class also can be described as stratification in society or culture between individuals or groups of people. While most societies typically have social class, and we can find some groups in society based on the features of social stratification. The social class that can be seen in this movie is a social group between the pious people and those not practicing Islam and eventually practice their own religion which also can be known as ‘Syiah’.

The semiotic is a mark in a context of scenarios, images, text and scenes in a movie. Generally, semiotics are signs that signify the symbolism in addition, it also states that semiotics are concepts about the signs associated with the human mind in real life. Semiotics can be divided into two which are signifier and signified. Signifier is something that include images, objects and sounds while signified is a sign that gives a specific image of the thing marked to be something symbolized. The semiotic in Munafik 2 is a signifier as for example, a scene involving Ustaz Adam is often harassed by a woman dressed in black covering her whole body. The scene is quite interesting and new to Malaysia’s horror films as a ghost who speaks Indonesian as nothing else compared to other horror films other than in Malaysia. Through the image, I am sure not all audiences get why she suddenly appeared at the first place. Through the shadow of her image in this movie, I believe that the character is actually has an implicit meaning to give a message and lesson to the audience on how she wants to incite or provoke Adam about his faith in Islam. The character displaying certain figures is often used symbolically or image and a shadow of a person so that audiences always think and remember about their signs.

Syamsul Yusof is a very influential artist and not only for being a film producer and director, but also as a screenwriter, actor and film editor. In addition, as a singer, composer, and songwriter in Malaysia. He is best known for his action and horror films and has set the record for ever winning the 23rd Malaysian Film Festival as the youngest director. In my opinion, based on his masterpiece of filmmaker, the director of a horror film called Munafik 2 is good to be considered as an auteur that has a body of work for an on-going theme. I admit that his work through this movie is well deserved as he has been able to actually explain and gives the features of who is actually hypocrite (Munafik) at the end of the movie. The best example that I can give based on the movie, the character of Sakinah who is actually turned away same as Azman just for their own benefit.

The mise-en-scene that I discovered in the movie is how Syamsul Yusof used dark and low lighting and thrill sound to make the scene and surrounding environment to become more mystery, suspense, scary and intense which it also has created the visual world of a film and overall atmosphere for the audience to see his work. For example, he wanted to bring a sense of gloom to his film to show how scary is the surrounding which actually is a horror theme but for me, this can be compared to a western film for example, The Conjuring where the lighting is clearer even in the dark. Technically, the sound effects are suitable with every scene to make audience feels suspense but it is actually are too loud and always adorned the scenes at times it can overwhelmed the audience. I think that in terms of sound effect maybe the director can let it be relevant and appropriate in which scene actually needs the sound effect as for me, when it is sad, music plays a part.

From the perspective of cinematographic and camera angles, personally I think that Munafik 2 offers the best. The film is actually well presented with some of a mysterious story, gloomy and full of mystical elements that help lift viewer’s anxiety especially in a zoom-in shot. When it comes to the special effects of makeup, I think I should give them credit as it looks real and in particular especially a woman in black which she looks so scary but I think when compares to a Western film, such as The Conjuring, I think they look more real and clean.

In terms of acting, it seems that many people know that each and everyone of the actors and actresses in this movie are a great actor in Malaysia. Firstly, from the director himself, Syamsul Yusof is definitely successfully and carrying well as Ustaz Adam. The emotion expressed by the character of Ustaz Adam also carry beautifully and does not look awkward which is good for his performance. For me, I like the character of Ustaz Adam by Syamsul Yusof other than his films. Next, who thought Maya Karin’s character was once feared because her acting in the movie ‘Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam’ has left an impression on viewers until now and now, she is back in her action in Munafik 2. I like the character of her as Sakinah was actually great. This is because the scene where she was possessed in her house and hit the floor of a wooden house and climb trees while speaking in Arabic which had actually made me goosebumps while watching it.

The character of Abuja acted by Nasir Bilal Khan brought the real life of a hypocrite person. This is because it actually happens in a real world as he began to argue and raise issues related to religious beliefs that clearly perverted his faith. His character is well performed as his tone of voice, facial expressions, and body movements evoked resentment and he should be commended for bringing the actual character to the point of bringing the movie to become alive for the audiences to see and watch the film.

As a conclusion, Munafik 2 seems to have a perfect and full of good content of Islam that we bring it up ourselves in our life. After watching this film, I think that the director really approaches audiences to solve the problem when it comes to heresy in a way that it is actually easy to understand. Each and every verse and interpretation of the recite surah of the Quran in this film is brilliantly conveyed to the audiences. However, the character of Abuja that always keeps telling about the verses in the film makes are often misunderstood by deviants itself. At last, all the question and plot of the true meaning of hypocrite or ‘Munafik’ is very interesting and gives the audience a great impact because as we all think that only the hypocrite comes from a bad person but actually a good person also can turn into bad because of hatred and jealousy. Frankly speaking, I think this movie is able to conquer other local horror movies.

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