Sight & Sound, April 2006

The current issue of the British film magazine Sight & Sound has an article by Tony Rayns on the Berlin Film Festival and includes the following words and of course I am right chuffed:

"The Forum...[had] a scattering of engaging titles. The smartest and wittiest was Amir Muhammad's The Last Communist, a sort-of documentary about Chin Peng, the leader of the long-banned Communist Party of Malaya, who remains on Malaysia's 'wanted' list. The film explores the mainly rural locales in which Chin Peng grew up and began his struggle and winds up in Baytong, just across the border in Thailand, which is home to a small community of Malay communist exiles. Along the way, it pauses to interview present-day residents of those places - and to feature a series of newly composed songs performed by the rotund Zalila Lee, parodying propaganda anthems ancient and modern. Chin Peng himself is conspicuous by his absence. As usual, Amir's real subject is Malaysia now, a site of evasions, contradictions, repressions and forbidden desires; this essayistic delight confirms him as the only visible heir to the Chris Marker tradition."