Does life reflect art or does art reflect life? The fate of the artiste

- Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice

The immensely versatile Raj Kapoor of India made a film that best articulated the fate of many artistes in all countries, and through all time.

In Mere Naam Joker (My Name is Joker, 1970), Kapoor not only directed the film but also played the lead role of a clown in a circus – one who was the best ever. He made people laugh with his antics, but inside, he carried all the sorrows of the world.

The character of the tramp in Charlie Chaplin’s films played the same role, as did Torajiro Kuruma in the Tora-san series of 48 highly-entertaining films that were directed by Yoji Yamada.

A similar fate befell Malaysia’s legendary artiste, the versatile P Ramlee, who entertained the masses in the Golden Age of Malay Cinema in the 1950s.

He left Singapore for Kuala Lumpur in 1964 together with his wife, Saloma, to continue his filmmaking at Merdeka Studios. Saloma had a name as a singer in Singapore but she willingly followed him.

Towards the end of Ramlee’s life (he was to die early), he composed a song, Air Mata di Kuala Lumpur (Tears in Kuala Lumpur), that reflected his feelings about the degradation and humiliation that had befallen him in Kuala Lumpur.

From an artiste that had been the idol of millions, he was humiliated and booed while performing on stage.

Like the proverbial prophet, P Ramlee was denied honour and recognition in his own country, and within his lifetime. In Melissa Saila’s biopic, Saloma, we see how the lives of both Saloma (played by Nabila Huda), and P Ramlee (Tony Eusoff), are interconnected.

What happens to the one affects the other. As P Ramlee’s world crumbles, Saloma’s too, goes on a downward spiral.

It is well that Melissa did not take the realist approach to tell her story as this would have necessitated verisimilitude. As such, casting of the actors and their acting style did not have to adhere to the look and mannerisms of the actual persons depicted in the story.

This was not a documentary but a director’s reflection about people who had become icons. There was no attempt to copy the styles of the characters of P. Ramlee and Saloma. Acting was underplayed and did not degenerate into melodrama as could have easily happened.

In this, Nabila Huda was a pleasant surprise. She brought the right expression, emotion and acting nuances that were in keeping with the screen character of Saloma as envisioned by Melissa Saila. In keeping with the film’s theme of deterioration, decay and despair, Melissa has wisely chosen a naturalistic style to tell her story, both in narrative as well as through the visuals.

Naturalism, when applied to narrative, unbinds events rather than brings them to significance as in the usual generic narrative.

Melissa’s use of the naturalistic was then best suited to effectively depict the disintegra-tion of the moral, social and the physical in a way that could not otherwise have been shown. P Ramlee’s life crumbles around him through no fault of his own.

His only ‘offence’ was being the best in his field, but in a world, a place and time where no one cared for him. Saloma, too, began to deteriorate with his demise, and true to her mother’s words, she came to love him more than herself.

But then, are Saloma and P Ramlee totally blameless for their own deterioration and decay? The 1950s' were a time when Malay society was still traditional in its thinking and its culture was dependent on its adherents at being in harmony with nature.

The migration to the city, however, drastically affected the traditional Malay and his psyche. Freed from the constraints of the traditional society in the villages where they came from, many Malays lost their identity and forgot their roots.

(This was the theme of P Ramlee’s 1959 film, Pendekar Bujang Lapok.) Many could not negotiate the modernity that was thrust upon them. Those who were lured into the tinsel and glitter of the entertainment industry were lulled by the accompanying glamour and accolades. They went on to be duly influenced by the mores, fashions and styles which they saw in the Hollywood films of the times.

Events in the masterfully structured teleplay of Melissa Saila’s Saloma unfold one by one through foreshadowing, inciting incidents, plot points and character development that carry the story to its inevitable, tragic conclusion. Melissa (subtly) questions Saloma for her lack of humanity and disregard for family and (Malay) values.

These are indicated through various scenes, among them:

◾As a child, she accepts money from passers-by for her singing, disregarding her mother’s advice not to accept alms. When the actress Latifah Omar visits her on her deathbed, she describes how she was paid for a show with RM1 notes (an indication of alms being given, and perhaps, as a punishment for disregarding her mother).

◾She does not listen to her mother’s advice not to marry A R Tompel.

◾Her mother does not give her blessing for the marriage.

◾Tompel divorces her when she is pregnant (something forbidden in Islam).

◾When she gives birth, she gives away the baby, not wanting anything that reminds her of Tompel (again disregarding her mother’s advice not to do so).

◾Saloma takes revenge on Norizan by seducing P Ramlee and causing them to divorce.

◾When she is about to marry P Ramlee, her mother tells her that she will love him more than her career. Later, her mother says that P Ramlee is a man she will love more than herself. Her mother’s words come true when at the end of the story, she is unable to continue her career and life after his early death.

◾And when her son whom she gave up for adoption embraces her in sorrow at the end of the story, she shows no emotion and does not reciprocate. Does she regret her actions, or does her son still remind her of Tompel? A number of signifiers give indication of Saloma and certain (unMalay-like) influences that shape her character:

◾In the sea voyage to Borneo for a show, she is seen on the deck staring vacantly ahead of her. It is like a scene out of a movie, with a yellowish sky portending trouble.

◾Her name ‘Saloma’ comes from the Hollywood movie Salome, then showing in cinemas in Singapore. P Ramlee, too, nicknames her ‘Sally’ (another foreign name).

◾Her veiled threat to P Ramlee’s wife, Norizan, and then flicking open her fan with a flourish as a sign of ‘war’. It is a scene straight out of a movie.

◾When Saloma marries P Ramlee, the marriage song from P.Ramlee’s 1964 film, Madu Tiga (Three Wives), comes over on the soundtrack, a signifier of the artificiality of the marriage. She was not really in love with him but did it to get back at Norizan.

◾At a time of P Ramlee’s need, Saloma does not stay by his side but leaves him and goes to sing in Bangkok.

Melissa Saila’s depiction of P Ramlee makes him out to be contradictory in character. He breaks the rules that he himself has set for the Panca Sitara group - that there be no love affairs between the members of the group.

Immediately after that scene, he is ebamoured with Saloma. He is also seen to be childlike in his dealings with her and is easily led by his sentiments.

The question that Melissa poses, then, is perhaps: could P Ramlee’s life have been different if Saloma had not enticed him away from Norizan? Was Saloma responsible for the fate that befell P Ramlee in his later years that caused his early demise?

The great English Bard, Shakespeare, had observed very early on that men merely play roles on the world’s stage, and that some of them are destined to play parts full of sorrow. Whether he liked it or not, as an artiste, P Ramlee had to fulfil that destiny – because his life reflected his art and his art reflected all that he went through.