She walked the talk and that’s why Malaysians love Yasmin Ahmad

Famous Malaysian filmmaker Yasmin Ahmad once said of her work: 'I hope my films are more evocative than provocative.'

When little Tan Hong Ming reeled in shock that he had spilled the beans on Umi Qazrina being his girlfriend, it melted all our hearts because that’s what love is about – expressing it. No one here seems to know how to capture that emotion as effectively on screen, while negotiating past prejudice and persecution, quite like the late Yasmin Ahmad could.

Capturing love’s innocence and presenting it to audiences had us all, hook, line and sinker. Love is universal – any living being can relate to it. If paymaster Petronas had expected a winner for that Merdeka Day ad (aptly titled Tan Hong Ming In Love), Yasmin hit this one out of the park with her simple story of friendship and affection.

Sharifah Amani and Alan Yun in Gubra, a 2006 film by Yasmin Ahmad which had a simple yet sincere messsage.

What is obvious in every piece of visual and sonic art of hers is the dismissal of conformity in any shape or form. Yasmin told stories that warmed our hearts, and made us all feel simply Malaysian, sans racial or religious constraints. She always thought out of the box and had a knack for reaching deep into our psyche, a place traditionally reserved for purity and sincerity.

While she had bona fide silver screen gems like Sepet (2004) andGubra (2006), for nearly a decade prior, she was challenging the imagination of the Malaysian public with her brilliant Merdeka Day commercials, all of which centred on the unity theme, a seemingly life-long ambition of hers.

It’s surprising that she hadn’t taken the movie route any earlier, but creative freedom was something she held dear. So, financial clout has often been seen as the reason why her entry into the film world was a belated one.

But she made up for lost time very quickly, releasing a succession of movies in a short span – six in six years. The made-for-TV Rabun (2003), Sepet, Gubra, Mukhsin (2007), Muallaf (2008) and Talentime (2009) were all rooted in good family values, espousing colour blindness in race, friendship and love within the class structure, and unity and integration in the struggle for equality.

Mukhsin (Mohd Syafie Naswip) and Orked (Sharifah Aryana) in Yasmin Ahmad’s Mukhsin, the prequel to Gubra.

Mahesh (Mahesh Jugal Kishor) and Melur (Pamela Chong) inTalentime.

Yasmin eschewed societal norms. She questioned the need for ethnic segregation. Her movies contained simple but heartfelt messages which everyone could relate to. The perspectives might be Utopian in nature, but they all came from a good place, intended to bring Malaysia’s multiracial society together.

We’ve been inundated with a sea of unity-driven campaigns over the years, print ads plastered in the papers, sound bytes on the radio and elaborate commercials on TV, and somehow, Yasmin’s name stands tall in this endeavour for equality and togetherness.

It was always apparent to her that if we could simply put our differences aside (and fundamentally, that’s not so difficult to do), this world really could be a better place.

Last year, Google honoured her with a doodle. She must have done something so profound to have earned the accolade. And as Malaysians, we know exactly what that is.

Google’s Yasmin doodle.