In short: Roh (2019)

aka Soul

The film takes place in a not clearly defined time in the past. Mak (Farah Ahmad), dwells together with her daughter Along (Mhia Farhana) and her younger son Angah (Harith Haziq) in a hut in the forest. They are desperately poor, Mak’s husband clearly having died, though she seems to treat his absence as if he could return any day now, from wherever he is.

One day, the children encounter a strange little girl (Putri Qaseh) while checking traps in the woods. She’s covered in clay and seems destitute and confused, so the they take her home with them to clean and feed her and find out where she belongs. That night, strange things start happening when Mak tells a story about a forest spirit. The next morning, the family awakes to the little girl eating raw birds in a mess of blood on the floor. After telling them they’ll all be dead on the next full moon, she cuts her own throat. Mak decides to drag the dead body further into the forest, fearing to be blamed for the girl’s dead. From here on out, bad luck and supernatural ill omens seem to haunt the family. Nightmares and bodily sickness as well as apparitions of the dead girl and violent possession follow. There might be help from a new neighbour (Junainah M. Lojong) living a couple of hills over; there’s also a Hunter (Namron) looking for the girl who might be of help or a threat. If there is any help to be had for the family at all.

The Malaysian Roh, directed by Emir Ezwan, is a fascinating, practically hypnotic movie. Tonally, there’s a folkloric quality to the narrative, with characters that take on very specific archetypal roles, yet it is still emotionally wrenching to watch the family of three that’s hardly getting by being destroyed in the cruellest manner. There’s a degree of sadness and hopelessness, combined with a certain ruthlessness towards the audience and the characters on display that seems parallel to the spirit of Western 70s horror movies. And make no mistake, while the film is clearly coming from the arthouse side of the tracks, with the slow – or rather, careful – pacing that comes with that approach, it is also perfectly willing and able to very explicitly show horrible things happening to these people. It’s not a film lacking compassion while doing this; it’s just one willing not to let its compassion rule its artistic instincts.

There’s also a religious aspect to the tale, but I’m not really knowledgeable enough about the roles of the iblis in Islamic theology (or the point where theology and folklore meet in Malaysia) to have much understanding of what’s going on there. I can say that my lack of knowledge didn’t hurt my being very impressed by the film.

Visually, this is a beautiful and brooding movie, Ezwan repeatedly creating the kind of haunting shots and compositions that can stay with a viewer for a very long time. The burning tree, the little girl staring, or the final revelation are moments I can’t imagine to forget any time soon; neither will I forget the rest of Roh.