The Story of Southern Islet - Destiny and Insanity
Quick Thoughts: The Story of Southern Isle (2020)
Made by Chong Keat Aun, this is the Malaysian film of the series.
The Story of Southern Isle is an evocative film, rife with complex symbolism scattered through beautiful mise en scene. It manifests a powerfully mystic atmosphere in portraying a movement into complete shadow. Conjured over the narrative is then the sense that, that which makes you act irrationally brings you toward your destiny. Food is an essential aspect of this narrative; an anxiety for sustenance and to preserve one's family. A fragility is exposed in the road underneath this narrative's small family through this, and they are shown to lack the tools to overcome it. This fragility is existential; I then love the scenes in which we feel the tears and anguish of the mother and father as they retreat to solitude for momentary catharsis. Their anxiety of treading the wrong road and meeting its end is palpable and the humanity upholding the film. But the qualities that make this narrative shine are found in its lack of resolution, and lasting portrayal of strength in its characters - who we grow to trust. All trouble is cast into the unknown, a deep dark ocean, which the characters realise they have long embraced to find themselves clean in their existential intentions. They search for gods to pull them to shore, only to learn of their limitations and fallibility. In this, they feel, too, the gods' incapacity for malevolence and harm; their ability to defeat humanity. And so there remains the initial sentiment; destiny makes one behave insane, drawing one not just to light, but through the shadow of supreme meaning, an affront to gods we do not understand.
