Cinema Case

One of the buildings that has been chosen as a Malaysian National Heritage is the Cinema, Panggung Wayang as it needs to be considered as part of our national heritage, preserving its cultural heritage and keeping it alive for future generations. Panggung Wayang was erected as early as the 1920s by colonial architects, blending in with the times cape of parks, the Bangsawan and the Chinese Opera. The Malaysian films capes were first exposed to colonial ideologies (in the 1900s) and cultures of the Indians, Chinese and Indonesians between the 1920s to the 1960s. A rich mixture of varied metamorphosis sped it into the Film's Golden Era in the 1960s into what is the Malaysian film industry today.

The reason that why Panggung Wayang should be consider as a Malaysian National Heritage is because it is envisaged that the Panggung Wayang can be proven to be a tangible past or present national heritage that unifies the intangible such as film that viewing with past or present unification of race and culture and perhaps its potential as an educational tourism attraction. Films were made from Chinese money, Indian directors and Malay casts with Bahasa Melayu as the main language. Stevenson (1974: 219) had suggests that apart from the racecourse, "the cinema was the only place in colonial Malaya where 'all races and classes freely congregated".

Moreover, in the 1950s there were more than 160 theatres throughout Malaya and Singapore. The attorney general at that point in time saw Panggung Wayang as the most universal means through which national ideas and national atmosphere can be spread. Somehow, the physical Panggung Wayang have become a meeting point of national lingual, racial and social atmosphere, screening lives of those outside the screen, onto the screen itself.

Nonetheless there were pleas made by certain sects to 'Love Malaysian Films' as the industry faces an influx of films of the west, the rise of independent filmmakers with seemingly low national content, limiting screening for local films and its production. The rise of digital multiplexes fulfills the current demands of cinemagoers but it too depletes a sense of unity as has been described in the paragraph above. In a society obsessed with youth too, old buildings are often regarded as relics that no longer serve a purpose. The Panggung Wayang of today despite its historical value has been converted into furniture shops, abandoned and demolished. These historical monuments have somewhat being stripped of its dignity, literally (Hooi You Ching, 2008). In such an instance, a research on its tangible and intangible values needs to be documented and presented.

Overall, the Panggung Wayang is a history with a sense of unity in identity that must be preserved as challenges of cultural sovereignty, cultural imperialism and heterogeneous cross-cultural identities becomes central in Malaysia today.