“I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven or fear of hell, but because He is God.”


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This isn't much of a constructive review, more of just my observation and opinion on this movie which I myself do not rely on being anywhere near true or accurate, but I welcome anyone who wants to discuss(argue) this movie with me.

For those of you who don't know, Kil is in fact a malay movie, about . . . [SPOILER ALERT!]
this guy, named Akil who wants to kill himself, but ends up not doing it. Really, that's just it.


a more detailed summary: So Akil wants to kill himself, but all his suicidal attempts comes to a halt. He comes across this advertisement that literally says "Ingin bunuh diri?", and after a phone call and a visit to the actual office, LAB(Life Action Bureau), Akil agrees to obtain services from this company that 'solves problems for depressed people with suicidal tendencies'. Later on, he meets Zara, this quirky fun manic pixie dream girl who happens to be his new neighbor. Things then turn out pretty well for him; he gets his first bonus in his four years of working his current job, his colleagues starts talking to him, and he hangs out with Zara on a daily basis, which makes her not only his friend, but also a potential girlfriend. Then, someone comes and kidnaps him and robs his house and he gets mad and wants to cancel his deal with LAB, but he is told that he can't go back after agreeing to the terms. He figures out Zara works for LAB, and accuses her of false friendship for the sake of work and they get in a fight, but then it turns out that Zara isn't the agent assigned to Akil's case, and a bigger plot twist is that LAB doesn't exactly kill people, on the contrary of what it was made to appear to be. They simply instill fear in their clients with all the stalking and polaroid photos and guns pointing towards their heads so that it awakens their desire to live. ( Subplot : Akil family dies in a car accident. Zara had a kidney transplant. Johan Iskandar, who is this movie director that makes flop movies is also a client of LAB. ) In the end, Akil is alive, eating ice-cream with Zara on the rooftop of their flat.

It was fine and all. It is better beyond most of the malay movies out there by a margin. But in the midst of immersing myself in this movie, I couldn't help but to be distracted by a few aspects of it that are lacking such as...

Plot Holes

Inconsistent timeline - Okay, the movie starts with him dealing with the mechanic about his overly damaged car, so this must be at least a weeks after the accident. Zara took a picture of Akil and the mechanic outside his shop. Akil mentioned during the first scene that he wants to pay the cost in two months, half during that month and the other half the next. Now I know janji melayu is not a certainty, but assuming that he did manage to pay it in two months, that means he went to the LAB before he met the mechanic for the second time, which implies that these suicidal thoughts that are compiled in a moleskin notebook, and doodled on his chalk wall, and have been experimented even, all happened within 2 - 3 weeks. But when his boss called him in, he talked about the four years Akil worked for him and how efficient his work is but he doesn't mingle with people.

So wait, did he just recently wanted to kill himself because he lost his family, or had he always had these suicidal tendencies?

Delusions  -   I  didn't like how the movie dealt with Akil's delusions, because they seem real and not in the delusion-felt-real kind of way that you can look back and think 'yeah he could be delusional and talking to himself', his phonecall with his mother was like... he was annoyed that she called,  and when his brother was up and was doing his stuff "kenapa kau tak tidur lagi ni?" "ada keje nak buat, abang tu?" "abang mamai.", I mean if it were from Akil's perspective, if only he was in the first shot, discovering that his brother was still up, I mean it could be plausible, but this was a bit too real, if he were delusional and was effected by his longing towards their presence, I would expect him to hallucinate them as... at least wanting his presence.

And they are hallucinations, not flashbacks, because when Zara asks if he lives alone, he says that he lives with his brother. Present tense. And when Zara came in to help unpack his stuff, she asks about his brother and he just casually say "Adik I jarang ada dekat rumah. Kadang-kadang rasa macam duduk sorang-sorang." without hesitation, like it was reality for him, that his brother is still alive and his mother calls him once in a while, and he's not even distraught that they're possibly gone, he just simply denies the truth.

But then after that, he looks at the picture of his family longingly and then it's implied that he is actually accepting the truth, so what is it then? Why lie to Zara? It's not like she knew his family before, or that it's weird for a 20 something guy to live on his own. There is absolutely no reason why Akil should even lie to Zara, unless there's a medical explanation towards his psychological health. But that's the thing, it's never mentioned how deeply damaged his mental is. There are exactly three scenes that could possibly describe his mental condition:

a) the one where Akil gulps down a suspicious pil,
b) the scene in the lift where Akil disturbingly hallucinates that Zara is on to him and the walls are crushing on to him,and
c) on his chalk wall, "overdose" is one of his suicidal option which was not marked off as failed.

But scene a was right after his first meeting with LAB, and during that scene he asked if they knew how to get rid of anxieties and the consultant says "I think I know just the thing for you.", which implies that LAB gave him the pil in the first place. Which leads to

LAB's unorthodoxed methods of healing the depressed  -  i just really don't how LAB deals with all this. I like the idea, but I don't like their practices. It's such a gamble. It's not the first time I've seen the plot, but a human's life is a delicate thing, and a human with suicidal tendencies are just the more fragile. You can't prompt a kidnap and thievery and just expect that someone would opt to not end his life. I mean what are the company's strategies even? The level of depression a person has varies, and I don't see any psychological approach towards their clients to determine the seriousness of their problems aside from 'Describe yourself in five words!', really, that's not the most accurate measurement tool for depression, a written questionnaire is hardly even recommended. LAB just simply assumes that everyone fears death, and they're near to certain that their clients won't kill themselves (as if they don't have these thoughts at all)

He could do it anytime. but why didn't he do it? And that's another thing i was bothered by, why. didn't. he. do it? What was the actual reason? Was it because it failed technically, or did he not had the guts to do it? If so, then why was it so easy for him to establish an agreement with LAB in the first place? And then after he easily said 'yes', to the possibility of death, people kidnap and beat him and he's mad about that? What? It's not like he wasn't aware of the situation, he goes to the police station and explains clearly that he hired someone to kill him and then someone kidnapped him, and why exactly is he complaining? He didn't die, he got beaten up. I guess saying it out loud to the policemen made the idea look stupider than in his head.

In what way was LAB helpful?  - I'm not even clear what Akil's agent actually did aside from stalking him, taking his pictures, kidnapped him, robbed him, and . . . what? Point a gun to his head? Zara was the one became friends with Akil, his colleagues's interactions was not induced by the agent, and neither was his boss's decision to grant Akil a bonus, and if they were, the movie did not point it out. The reasons that possibly made Akil want to want life had nothing to do with his agent. And let's face it, the only reason Akil is still alive is because LAB's timing was spot on. The gun was pointed to his head during the peak of his life. He didn't want to lose it just yet. But imagine if things didn't change, and LAB came and asked, "Any last words?" I can just imagine Akil saying "So long suckers!". The life events that influenced Akil to stay alive was not controlled by LAB, and having the air of mystery earlier in the movie, they surely shredded it by the end of the it.

Also, does it not strike weird that the agent who was assigned to him was not the one 'handling' the case? When Zara snooped in and asked who handled Akil's case, the file says it's the consultant. But Zara was the one who pointed her pistol to Johan Iskandar, because he was her case. It's almost as if the scriptwriters just simply pushed the consultant in the scene for the sake of a friendlier conversation. The audience knew the consultant, and grew to suspect him even, so he was perfect for the plot twist revelation conversation, although his presence was really not relevant to the scene at all.

Also, it seems as if the writers deliberately created another male character of no significance to play Akil's agent. Like it was initially Zara, but for the sake of avoiding cliche and not wanting to tarnish Zara's perfect character, they changed it. Rushed I say, this leads to very loose connection in the plotline.

Confusing Editing

It was like two puzzle pieces deliberately put on two ends of a room. The editing was terrible. You had to figure out what happened in the span of the whole movie. The movie opens with the guy trying to off himself by connecting a hose from his exhaust to the inside of his car, and just drown in smoke. Then it cuts to a scene of him at the mechanics repairing everything in his car; his brakes, his windows, his exhaust, and every other part of his car. I know nothing about cars, but how does internal exhaust smoke exposure in any way effect the brakes? It's like something happened before that they're not telling, and before the climax of Akil being pointed a gun, it's revealed that he was in an accident with his brother and mother. So we had to wait the whole movie to make the connection? Because to be fair, it did not stand out to be significant enough to have a supplementary explanatory pre-scene. People just assumed the car was damaged because of the exhaust smoke.

Then cut to him watching the news. Then cut to him wanting to jump off a building. Then cut to him pulling someone from jumping off a building. These scenes are loosely connected, some scenes weren't even prior to the plot in between but there were no signs of indicating the significance of a scene and whether or not shall we pay attention.

(okay so bear with me for this scene, it was simultaneous with zara's scene with her donor's mother)

his mother was cleaning the lawn and he approached from behind salam peluk cium and all that. Cut to zara approaching the indian lady's house, cut to akil's mother asking him why did he come back home and get this, he answered it very logically something like "lama tak balik kampung", and then cut to zara talking about the indian aunt's son being the kidney donor to her a couple of years ago. the cut to akil. same scene as before only his mother is nowhere to be seen and there's an aunt at the place his mother was there just a minute ago asking why did he come back home. same answer different tone emotion and facial expression. then the aunt says something about a box of stuff that the mother left for akil. and cut to the indian aunt crying about his son's death and he gave zara a picture of his son(?)

This was really the messiest bit of the whole movie. Both were intense significant scenes but I don't see why they had to intertwine those scenes. They weren't even connected to each other. Zara's story wasn't even a plot twist, it was something that the audience didn't know existed, or even relevant. There were no equivalence in both the scenes, I just really don't see why it was necessary to mash them up like that. We had to focus on two different things, and one of them wasn't even within our curiosity. It's more like "Wait where is his mother? Did she- she died? Oh Zara had a kidney transfer- So his brother's dead too?- who is this Raj guy and why is he suddenly relevant?"

Contradicting Characterization or lack thereof

They make Akil this stereotypical depressed dude who wants to off himself because he's lonely, sad and has noone in his life, but really doesn't actually want to. They make suicide look stupid. I mean of course it is, but depression isn't. It's as if the writers read a wiki about depression, watched a few depressing dramas, read a few depressing tweets by people who use the term ' being depressed' as an adjective to express sadness and defines depression in such lack of glory, that it's not sickness, it's just an emotional side effect of being lonely, and I just find that personally quite disrespectful. Of course, some suicides were committed on impulse, but depressed people are rarely rash. Teenagers with raging hormones, yes. Fully functioning adults with pet cats, no.

It is very unclear the reason Akil is depressed. The movie makes it look as if he was depressed because of his recent loss. (It's not exactly clear whether it was recent or not, but from my deductions, it looked recent), but from the talk with his boss, it seems that he was depressed for a while now. And his mention of him never having friends, or people coming over. And that his colleagues were avoiding him / just recently trying to strike conversation and giving out kuihs and stuff. I mean, depression could be a side effect of being lonely and not having a human presence, but from his talk with juliana evans at the rooftop it seems as if he's quite the talkative guy. He knows how to persuade someone to not jump off a building (hypocritically so), and so what was his problem really?

And Zara is this quirky fun girl who just suddenly appears. All of a sudden. Out of nowhere, and makes Akil's life a bit fuller, a bit meaningful because for once he actually HAS someone, but it seems a bit too coincidental  like it was planned, it really looked as if she was her agent, but it ends up that she's. . .  not? That wasn't clear either, Zara was too underdevelopped to be the second lead of this story, and that's quite disappointing because her character had so much potential. It seems like she has a dark past (darker than what is shown on screen), her mind's probably more twisted than Akil, but she wasn't unfolded. There were mentions on her past, but nothing significant that makes her character any more interesting. She's a girl. Comfortable with people. Worked with LAB. Buys Akil ice-cream. That's all to know.

Technical Errors

Ridiculously excessive usage of Polaroid Cameras  -  There is no way a polaroid camera can zoom that far. It doesn't have micro, how on earth did they take pictures from far distances? It looks more like they took pictures with DSLR cameras and edited it to look like polaroid pictures. Some of the pictures really do look as if they were taken with polaroid cameras, but I don't think it's possible that they take those pictures without being noticed. You just don't stalk someone with a polaroid camera, it doesn't work. I mean it could work, but the subject would look like a speck of dust, and those things are no use in low light unless you have flash. It's just very inconvenient for stalking.


Ends on a low note

And the ending. The, eating icecream on the rooftop. That's it? There wasn't even a solution to his depression. The only reason he wants to live is because things are turning quite well for him. For once, he has a potential girlfriend, a bonus, his colleagues are talking to him, he's coming to terms with his lost, and he just wants to live because there's hope, which, I must point out, was not done by the agent or LAB itself. Unless Zara was her actual agent which would explain a lot.(but only reduces some plot holes, doesn't solve everything)

And then what? What happens when their relationship gets rocky? and things don't go well with his colleagues, and he doesn't get appreciated periodically?

Then he's lonely again. I mean, LAB should've taught him about the value of life, the potential he has as a breathing living human being, the things he should be grateful for, and the things to live for. It's not JUST company. You can't depend your happiness on people, that means you're not trying. But teach a man the value of breathing in, breathing out and all the wonderful things he could do with his life, then he could explore the world, put wonder to him, change him as a man with a different perspective. Not just point a gun to his head and inflict fear in him when he hears "Any last words?" I mean, it was expected. He hired someone to kill him, he knew this was coming, why was there fear in the first place?


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Can I just take a minute here and gush over the cinematography of the whole movie? It was amazing. I was really impressed, they didn't play with colors as much as Istanbul, Aku Datang did, just lighting and composure, and the angles were nice and the simplicity of it all makes it the more impressive. Marvelously done.

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A lot of these plot holes just made the whole movie more confusing, nonconstructive, has a very loose canon, a rough edit, and the arrangements were just plain messy. It simply didn't make much sense, and I do not agree to some of the implications that this movie tries to convey. It, for one,did not in any way made me want to live more. If I were to have suicidal tendencies, this movie does not in any way help me deduce my suicidal thoughts and remove my anxieties. It's not mind-blowing, paradigm-shifting, or even dead right accurate of the pain and sufferings of a depressed person with suicidal tendencies. It pointed out the obvious and that was honestly a bit disappointing. It didn't even convey the desire to die that well, Akil clearly liked the idea of not existing in this world, but his want did not overcome his refusal towards death. It was neither underwhelming nor overwhelming. Just plain okay. Entertaining, I enjoyed it, but didn't give much of an impact than I expected a movie with such plot would.

The plot had so much potential, I mean if it were to be a book, it could be expanded to at least a trilogy. It looked so promising, but by the middle through the end, it just went downhill and didn't go up. It was an okay movie, truthfully a breakthrough in the local film industry, but as a movie in general, there's still a long way to go. Technicalities aside, I really enjoyed this movie and it gives me faith that this is the first few good Malay movie of many more to come.

All and all I give a 3.5/5 verdict (a bit more generous than Sha's π/5)

Labels: kil, movies, redza minhat, review