Simpati (2019)
★★ — Simpati (2019)
Brunei is not a country that tends to crop up in most people's film-watching calendars. Its domestic cinema industry is, by any honest measure, still in its early stages, operating without the established infrastructure or funding frameworks that support film production in neighbouring Malaysia, Singapore or Indonesia. That makes Simpati (2019) something of a rarity: a short drama from Brunei Darussalam that made its way, however quietly, onto the international radar. Running at just thirty minutes, the film centres on a friendship between a Malay boy and a Chinese girl, and the communal tensions that friendship surfaces. It is a story rooted in the specific social landscape of modern Brunei, where questions of race, identity and inter-ethnic relations carry their own particular weight, distinct from the broader regional conversations happening in, say, Malaysia or Singapore. For anyone curious about the kind of films coming out of South-East Asia's smaller nations, it sits in interesting, if rough-edged, company alongside other drama-led work from the region, such as Tiger Stripes (2023), another drama film reviewed here that deals with identity through a similarly personal lens.
The film was written and directed by Syafi Halim, who also appears in front of the camera as one of the principal cast. That kind of double duty is common enough in low-budget, emerging-market filmmaking, and it speaks to the collaborative, get-it-done spirit that tends to characterise productions working with limited resources. Halim is joined on screen by Wazif Zamri, Yea Wen, Sara Jowell and Joshua Belayan. New Wave Films (BN) handled production, and on the evidence of the finished film, this was a lean operation in every sense. There is no known budget figure to speak of, which is probably telling in itself. What the production does have is a premise with genuine social relevance: the prejudice that can surface around cross-ethnic friendship is not a comfortable subject in any context, and choosing to put it at the heart of a short film is a choice that deserves some acknowledgement in itself. For a sense of how other small-scale dramas from outside the mainstream have handled questions of race and community, it is worth looking at Sugar Cane Alley (1983), another drama reviewed on this site that takes an unflinching look at ethnic and social prejudice through intimate storytelling.
As a piece of short drama from the 2010s, Simpati also sits within a broader wave of independent, socially conscious filmmaking that characterised the decade internationally. Films like Lost Boy in Juba (2017), another 2010s film covered here, showed what could be achieved with limited means and a clear-eyed social purpose. Whether Simpati reaches that bar is a question worth considering.
A-Z World Movie Tour Brunei I'm the first person to ever review this from Letterbox'd. Well, this was… an experience . Sat down with a cuppa after the kids went to bed, thinking I’d tick off Brunei on my global film challenge. Fair play to the team behind Simpati, making a film in a country where the industry’s still finding its legs is no small feat. You can tell there’s heart here, even if it’s delivered via a shaky cam and a sound quality that sounds like it was recorded through a tin can. The sound quality really is one of the major issues and the lighting… I’ve seen better done by school productions but hey, at least they made something! Now, the story. It’s got a lot of good intentions (trying to tackle racism toward the Chinese community in Brunei) but I don't think it's particularly well handled. The messaging feels… clunky, and while I respect the effort, it left me feeling like I’d been lectured over dinner rather than told a story. Would I recommend it? If you’re a film student writing a thesis on emerging world cinema, sure. If you’re just after a cozy Friday night flick? Probably not. But here’s the thing: Brunei’s film scene is still in its infancy, and Simpati is a start. Maybe next time they’ll get the sound guy a proper mic and let the themes breathe a bit more. For now, I’ll raise my mug to the effort at least.
I do find myself thinking about what a second or third film from Halim might look like, with a bit more time, money and a sound recordist who owns decent equipment. The ambition is plainly there, and frankly, for a country where making any film at all requires a certain stubbornness of spirit, the sheer existence of Simpati counts for something. The social issues it reaches for are real and worth putting on screen. Whether it earns its place in your viewing queue depends entirely on what you are looking for, and my honest answer is that it earns your patience more than your enthusiasm. Still, as a first step from a film culture still finding its feet, I have seen worse foundations to build on.
Rating: ★★ | Year: 2019 | Watched: 2025-05-27
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Simpati (2019) on YouTube
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More from the 2010s: Wonder (2017) · Beautiful Boy (2018) · The Witch (2015) · What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)
