Anxiety

The filmmaker herself calls the film a kind of prayer; a story about love and forgiving. That is certainly honestly intended, but it should be said that Anxiety is primarily a comedy – a social comedy made in the best traditions – that also has some sharp edges.
The film tells two stories. The first is about Orked (played by Sharifah Amani Yahya, who also played the lead in Ahmad’s earlier film Sepet), a young woman who is married to an older man. When her father suddenly has to be taken into hospital, a kind of sitcom develops there. Orked meets the young man Alan, the brother of her first lover. The other story is about the priest Pak Bilal, who tries to help two prostitutes to build up a new life.
For a European viewer, the film breathes a warm and mild humour, but in Malaysia the film, just like the other work by this maker, was the subject of occasionally fierce debate. Ahmad playfully and carelessly touches on many problems that affect multicultural and largely Islamic Malaysian society, and in that society some people are very sensitive. The sensitivities are not restricted to important issues. In one scene, Bilal strokes the dog, and that causes the necessary controversy: apparently it is a disgrace. The film maker was walking on eggshells. (GjZ)

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