Queer as Punk
Yihwen Chen's appealing documentary blends music and queer activism within the homophobic nation of Malaysia.
Image courtesy of TAPE Collective.
by MANSEL STIMPSON
Yihwen Chen's appealing film may not stand as a model of outstanding filmmaking but it does illustrate quite splendidly how finding truly sympathetic personalities can lead to a documentary being deeply satisfying. This is a film from Malaysia made over a period of six years starting in 2018 and primarily concerned with showing what life is like in that country for those who identify as LGBTQ+. Over the period of filming there were changes regarding those in control. In May 2018 a general election saw the defeat of a coalition that had been in power for sixty years but the new government viewed as potentially more liberal collapsed in 2020 and when a further election was held in 2022 it resulted in a hung parliament. In the event the situation of LGBTQ+ people rather than improving remains much the same severely constrained as it is by the civil law of the land and by religious Sharia laws.
Chen's documentary illustrates all this vividly by concentrating on Faris Saad and the other members of the Malaysian punk band Shh…Diam! (the name is a defiant one since it is a demand to shut up which is exactly what the band refuses to do). It started in 2009 as fun activity but as Faris, its singer and composer, points out those who write songs tend to draw on personal experience and the band quickly became one with activist aims that were made manifest. Shh…Diam! were the only out band in Malaysia and one intent on challenging prejudice (they described themselves as 75 per cent queer). Faris had been brought up as female with identity papers that confirmed it and in that country these papers can never be altered although he now presents himself as a trans man. He is entirely open about his situation: early on in the film we see him taking testosterone shots and towards the end he reaches the stage of having top surgery. A crucial factor in his life arises from the fact that same-sex marriage is not allowed in Malaysia and he is now in a loving partnership with a white woman, Jade, but unable to make her his wife due to the fact that his identity papers declare him to be female.
Faris is in effect the central figure here, but nevertheless we see quite a lot of the band’s bassist Yoyo and of Yon who plays guitar. Although most of the film was shot in Kuala Lumpur and other parts of Malaysia there are also sequences showing the band on tour in foreign countries including a visit to Northern Ireland. It is there that Yoyo is able to celebrate her love for a woman named Cat (short for Catherine Rose) by marrying her and this joyful scene is one of the film’s highlights. But, if the queer community and its issues are central, the band, which readily participates in street protests in Malaysia, extends its concern to other matters too. Consequently, it is part of the overall picture that there is footage of Yon not only with the band but as the partner of a man named Andrea. When Yon gives birth to a daughter, Soraya, she comments on the way in which Malaysia supports the view that motherhood should be so central that - as she puts it – a woman with a baby is expected to disappear from the world.
As the film’s title would lead you to expect, the band’s music is featured although some of the scenes in which they perform are quite short. Nevertheless, the first song we hear immediately expresses the joy in their music which is rather wider in its appeal than the punk label might suggest. Footage of the band on a visit to the UK includes a longer number, ‘Lonely Lesbian’, which mocks those whose hostility makes them view all lesbians as lonely and the conclusion of the film offers a song about pink migration, a phrase that refers to those like Yoyo who eventually decide to leave Malaysia to join their partners in another country where they can openly live us a couple. Another strong scene arises when the band take part in a staged event expressing anguish and horror over the public caning of a lesbian couple in the Malaysian state of Terengganu in 2019.
Queer as Punk is in its way a rather haphazard film as it shows bits and pieces shot over the years while mixing together the personal lives of its central figures, their music and the political and social aspects of Malaysian life. But, if this can sometimes feel rather rough and ready, Chen, who also photographs the film favouring a handheld camera, captures admirably the sense of fellowship within the band. Ultimately, however, the strength of Queer as Punk resides in the fact that it enables us to get to know Faris, Yoyo and Yon and to recognise what nice people they are. Rather than regarding the film as propaganda for a cause we come to share their lives and to identify with them and that is the best possible way to promote understanding and sympathy.
Featuring Faris Saad, Yon, Yoyo, Jade, Cat, Andrea, Soraya.
Dir Yihwen Chen, Pro Yihwen Chen, Ph Yahweh Chen, Ed Ange Sodo and Yihwen Chen.
Locke Films/Talamedia-TAPE Collective.
88 mins. Malaysia/Indonesia/USA/Germany/Taiwan/Hong Kong. 2024. UK Rel: 15 May 2026. Cert. 15.
