![]() ![]() Most depict everyday scenes of life in the colony, such as the scene below of buffaloes and rickshaws against the backdrop of Kuala Lumpur in 1910. Several of these films, each under a minute long, survive in the Huntley Film Archives. This essay seeks to trace the changing perspectives of Malaya through films, from the early 20 th century to the post-independence period, showing how the narrative of Malaya was encapsulated through both Western and local filmmakers lenses. These films became particularly important in the construction of national identity after the war, when Malaya was finally projected as what she was in the eyes of her own. ![]() In the early 20 th century, films became an essential tool for the continual reinforcement of the Western projection of Malayaa tropical nation with dense jungles, rich in natural resources for potential exploitation, and with uncivilised natives to be tamed. It was therefore unsurprising that 17 th -century Dutch travel writer Johan Nieuhof (considered a credible source on the Far East by his contemporaries) wrote of a fanciful and mythical strain of the Malay race in Malacca called the Kakerlakken, who looked like Europeans and were blind in the day but could see at night.
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