Zombie Film's Success Reanimates Native Pride

 

A Malaysian zombie horror film earned the praise of the nation’sprime minister has won a string of film festival awards in March this year, but so far the loudest voices in support of the movie have been from those who take special pride in the film’s positive portrayal of a strong Southeast Asian tribe that had been deeply affected by the real-world historical trauma of “First Encounter.”

The indigenous Iban tribe living within the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo — which itself is divided three ways between Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei — served as the setting and main source of actors for Belaban Hidup: Infeksi Zombie (Fight For Life: Zombie Infection). 

Belaban Hidup is also special in featuring the indigenous Iban language, the mother tongue that is still spoken by the population of native Iban that has dwindled down to just a million people.

The Iban were once respected in the region as a fierce and relentless warrior culture that practiced headhunting and whom the British colonizers who saw them as fearsome pirates. Under colonial pressures the Iban abandoned both their warrior culture and their headhunting practices, with most members of the tribe now identifying as members of a Christian ethnic minority within predominantly Islamic nations. Industrialization and the environmental degradations brought about by the palm oil industry have likewise had a negative impact upon the tribe, which is a branch of the Dayak indigenous people. The British called them “the Sea Dayaks.”  

The zombie film was written and co-directed by the 45-year-old Malaysian-Chinese filmmaker Ray Lee who was born on the island and his wife Misha Minut Panggau, who is a native Iban. They had been working on bringing this film together since 2016. This is the first film to be produced by a member of the tribe.

Belaban Hidup won in the Horror and Science Fiction category at the 2021 Singapore World Film Carnival on March 18. The film went on to win Best Feature Film and Best Horror Film awards at the International Symbolic Art Film Festival (Saint Petersburg, Russia) and Best Feature Film at the 2021 Canadian Diversity Film Festival. Belaban Hidup was also nominated for the Best Feature Film at the Los Angeles Marina Del Rey Film Festival.

"We are also anxiously waiting whether we can get through the nominations for several other international film festivals such as the Paris Film Festival, Hollywood Blood Horror Festival, and the Swedish Film Award," said co-director Ray Lee.

“We deserve our own film industry,” Misha Minut Panggau told the press after the win in Singapore. “I always hope this is the kind of work that I do that will spur more interest among Dayak youths who want to get involved in the film industry,” she said.

 “Malaysian corporates don’t really support the local film industry and prefer to throw hundreds of millions into foreign productions,” her husband added, expressing hope that this zombie film will have a positive influence not only on the Malaysian film industry, but for the Iban people who might expect increased interest and dollars from the nation’s tourism sector.

For the pre-colonial Iban, headhunting was ceremonially used to end the long and strict period of mourning after a death, especially the passing of a leader. Headhunting was also a way to celebrate the birth of a son, though the practice of taking a head was mostly a sign or martial valor and gave great prestige to the winning warrior.

Within the Malaysian film industry this zombie narrative is the first major and internationally released film to so heavily rely upon Iban involvement, from the production to the acting. Indeed, only two other filmsused the Iban community on Sarawak as a setting for their stories: Chinta Gadis Rimba (Love of a Forest Maiden, produced in Singapore in 1958) by L. Krishnan, a forbidden love story between an Iban girl and a Malay lover; and Bejalai (1987) by Stephen Teo, which was the first Malaysian movie in the Iban language, and focused on the ritual journey that Iban boys take when transitioning into adulthood.  

Some reviewers have indentified Belaban Hidup as a modern tribute to the gruesome Italian zombie and cannibal films of the late 1970s and 1980s, and Southeast Asian jungle horrors like the 1980 Indonesian cult film Primitif by Sisworo Gautama Putra. South China Morning Post reviewer Marco Ferrarese speculated Belaban Hidup would please genre fans who are eager for “a unique ethnic spin on the much-abused zombie invasion trope.”

But unlike many other filmmakers working within the confines of the zombie narrative, the producers of Belaban Hidup chose to highlight beautifully envisioned jungle and river settings, and a sharp focus on the Iban tribal pride in their historical traditions as a warrior culture. Does this film maintain the tradition of nihilism that has been an almost inescapable part of the narrative since the arrival of the shambling cannibal zombies of Night of the Living Dead?

Belaban Hidup may in its own way be using the zombie narrative to address the history of indigenous encounters with invading foreign powers, though in this horror movie the foreign intruder is a mysterious scientific research organization that moves from Madagascar to Borneo to set up a hidden laboratory and uses the offer of “free medical treatment” to locals as the bait to hook human test subjects. When a group of captive teenage orphans manages to escape, they also inadvertently unleash the zombie infection. The escapees flee to the jungle and seek the help of the tribe.

While the heavy focus upon the Iban is praised by many throughout Malaysia, students of cinema might someday examine why the filmmakers chose to also rely upon a number of non-Iban actors, including non-Malaysian actors such as Slovakian star Katrina Grey and Indonesian singer Tegar. Other well-known actors include Pablo Amirul and Cassidy Panggau, who join native Ibans who have never before acted in a film.

The larger Dayak population is concentrated in Brunei, the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan, and Sarawak. But tribal communities can also be found in Malaysia, mostly in Sarawak state, with smaller communities in Sabah and other parts of west Malaysia. Borneo Island, in the South China Sea, is not far from the territory claimed by China.

See the trailer for Belaban Hidup here.