Kiamu
A docudrama on seniority abuse in Malaysian elite boarding schools, in which has recorded numerous cases of severe injuries, disability and even a few deaths. An insight to the darker culture of their “excellence” and “discipline” and how the institutions maintains that side of them a secret.
The film opens up with the main character, Adhi in a dark dorm room surrounded by three seniors. He is standing weirdly; knees bent 90 degrees and hands stretched forward. Future Adhi narrates the events of the film. The narrator begins by giving answers to the assumed questions the viewers has in mind.
Who? – Himself, a while ago. Where? – A dorm room, Alam Shah School for the boys, probably the best boys-only boarding school in Malaysia. He then begins to give a little back-story about the institution, from it’s history to it’s excelling overall academic achievements. What? – What is that hideous pose he’s striking ? The Njet-steng, a form of punishment that is practiced there, he then admits he has no idea how to spell it even after all his years there. How? – How did he get himself into this situation? – He was the last to leave dorm and he forgot to shut the lights, and what his going through is a form of disciplinary action. Why? - Why didn’t he report this? – He gives an example of another student who reported seniority abuse to the principal. The seniors that abuse him got expelled from the school. Thus their unhappy batch-mates did everything in their power to brain wash him into dropping out. They turn the whole school against him, making him feel alienated, they ransack his locker everyday, and many other things that eventually led him into dropping out of school. He later explains that no one wants to leave the school without graduating. Being an elite school, a graduation certificate from the institution can guarantee them a lot of things – Scholarships, Guaranteed places in local Universities, Guaranteed SAT results and such.
He then continues and mentioned that most of the blows he got didn’t really hurt as much. Except one, that caused him a broken rib. Even so, he still thinks he was lucky, and points out that a few true cases (presented through actual newspaper cutting) of people that have gone through his similar situation, only with much worse consequences – Permanent immobility, Comas, and a few that even resulted to the death of the abused.
A friend escorts Adhi to the warden’s room. When the warden asked him what happened to him. He said that he fell down the stairs. The narrator then stops the film for a while and tells the audience that the warden wasn’t necessarily stupid either, but since he has chose to shut up about it. There is nothing the warden can do.
He then says that if he had to go through high school all over again, he wouldn’t change a damn thing, because it made him who he is today. But still, prefer to have his ribs intact.
