Reviewed by Arel Koh
Tiger Stripes is Malaysian director Amanda Nell Eu’s directorial debut that stars Zafreen Zairizal as Zaffan, an 11-year-old girl who experiences physical changes to her body resulting in supernatural occurrences happening around her. As her body undergoes its metamorphosis, she constantly struggles with her identity and place in society. It had its World Premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Critics’ Week Grand Prize.
What really stands out to me is how the film can be seen as an interesting exercise in genre blending. In the first half or so, it plays out like a teenage drama (minus the romantic subplots) touching on typical woes that teenagers face (e.g. fitting in, bullying, friendships etc.). But what makes Tiger Stripes stand out from its contemporaries is the way that it slowly devolves into sort of a supernatural horror/thriller without taking itself too seriously.
Something I find interesting is how the film portrays the ‘supernatural’. To me, the supernatural beings seen in the film are very reminiscent of an Apichatpong Weerasethakul film à la Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. The jungle setting, the supernatural beings lurking in the trees at night, the audience only able to see the glowing eyes of the ‘other’…are all distinct traits of Weerasethakul’s, and now Eu’s, cinema.
The ‘supernatural’ can be said to be the impulse and the sensibilities of South-East Asian cinema that Eu is tapping into, which I believe is no coincidence on her part, as she shared during her Q&A session during the Festival Opening of Tiger Stripes at the 2023 Singapore International Film Festival, “…it’s more special screening it in South-East Asia, I don’t know we just get it. I mean it’s the visual language that we know and maybe we don’t see it enough on the screen but we have heard of it and we know of beings that sit in trees or live in trees. We know of like people who turn into animals or animals who turn into people. This is all language that we are used to and it is not just Malaysian but all over South-East Asia we have this kind of shared folklore or shared oral story traditions…”
Tiger Stripes ultimately is a great look into the existence of “Gen Z” girls living their best lives which I feel Eu captures so tenderly. The girls record each other dancing to music, gossiping with each other, having their own ‘hazing’ rituals… all of the things which bring me back to my days in secondary school even though I come from an all-boys school and I love it for that. As Eu puts it, “the film has very universal themes [and] that was always my intention to… you know everyone somehow felt like an outsider someway or maybe had expectations that society somehow pressured them to kind of fit into and I think that is very universal everywhere…”
However, that being said, a teenage drama meshing together with supernatural horror elements does not quite work for me. The film tries to deliver on both fronts but sadly falls a bit short on either side. I would have appreciated it more if the film delved into the supernatural themes more in the first half to prime us for the eventual transformation of Zaffran and the story’s climax that happens in the second. Overall, it is a great effort by Eu on her directorial debut and I will definitely give Tiger Stripes another try when given the chance to watch it again.
Arel loves people, including all the messy parts that come with it. He believes that everyone has a story to share and strives to share them meaningfully on the big screen. Other things Arel loves are his guitar, his blu-ray collection and his bed. You can catch more of him at bio.site/arelkoh.
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This review is also published on Singapore Film Society as part of *SCAPE’s Film Critics Lab: A Writing Mentorship Programme.
