Malaysia gay-themed film gets applause at 1st show "In A Bottle,"
"Dalam Botol," or "In A Bottle," is a Malay-language film about a man who gets a sex change operation because he thought it would satisfy his male lover, but ends up regretting it. The film earned applause from movie bloggers invited to its first public screening Wednesday, three months before its scheduled nationwide release.
"Even five years ago, we wouldn't have been able to make it," Raja Azmi Raja Sulaiman, the film's producer and writer, said after the screening. "I'm glad that at this time, at this moment, we can show it."
Malaysia's government-run cinema censorship board has long frowned on sexually provocative films. As recently as last year, the board banned British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's "Bruno," accusing it of promoting homosexuality with its portrayal of a flamboyant fashion journalist.
But public pressure for the board to tolerate mature themes is leading to looser restrictions. Censors now say depictions of homosexuality like those in "Dalam Botol" are no longer barred -- as long as being gay isn't condoned.
"If the movie had tried to glamorize the lifestyle of a gay person, it would be against our current standard guidelines," censorship board chief Mohamad Hussain Shafie told The Associated Press this week. "But the character repents in the end. We can say it is in line with our social values."
The slow-paced, melancholy film bears influences of foreign gay-themed movies, including the Oscar-winning "Brokeback Mountain" and Hong Kong's "Happy Together."
But it takes far fewer risks -- its heterosexual male leads, who include a 26-year-old making his film debut, never kiss. The most explicit acknowledgment that the characters have sex is when one gets out of bed in his underwear while the other sleeps, presumably naked, beneath a blanket.
Nevertheless, there are raw, poignant scenes that capture the realities of being gay in a country where homosexuality is effectively outlawed. Though prosecutions are rare, sodomy is punishable by 20 years in prison.
Raja Azmi said the film is about a close friend who had sex change surgery in Thailand 25 years ago and wanted to warn young men not to make the same decision. In "Dalam Botol," the main character is wracked with remorse after his operation prompts his partner to abandon him.
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