On the Margins 亚细亚探奇实录

Jess Kohl is a British filmmaker whose work focuses on underground subcultures throughout Asia. Her documentaries have featured punk rock activists in the Philippines, transgender communities in India, and skinhead tensions in Malaysia. Kohl says that a feeling of being different is a big drive behind her exploration of such obscure scenes. “People immersed in subcultures are often struggling with identity, trying to figure out who they are in the world,” she says. “I’m very interested in the contrast and layers of identity that are found with the adoption of Western subcultures in different parts of the world.”

Kohl’s first film was Anarchy In the Philippines, which followed a collective of punk rockers hitchhiking around their island playing gigs and doing charity work under the specter of a violent drug war. It was a passion project and she flew to Southeast Asia alone on her own dime, working only with a driver who helped out wherever he could, helping with translation and such.

She stumbled onto the Filipino punk scene when she fell down a social media wormhole while living in London, quickly becoming online friends with many members of the punk-rock community. Kohl subsequently began learning about the violence of the drug war, which was launched in 2016 by President Duterte and by some estimates has led to the deaths of up to 27,000 people. She knew a focus on musicians would be a useful way to engage a younger audience with an important issue. One of the older punk rockers she befriended urged her to visit and eventually became an indispensable collaborator in telling the group’s story. “He was sending me all these videos and photos of him and his friends,” she says. “It sounded amazing to me and I felt like I had to go do this, so I did.”

The film follows the group of punk rockers as they perform, dance in mosh pits, and discuss what it’s like to be a punk in the Philippines. Despite their outspoken nature, she found many of them reluctant to speak about a brutal but popular drug war. (Many Filipinos think it’s risky to criticize the administration.) “They were very open in speaking to me, except for what was happening politically. I kept trying to bring it up with people and they’d usually avoid the question,” she says. Some did mention that friends had been killed because of drugs, and one says he was wrongfully accused and imprisoned for no reason. “He’s one of the originators who brought punk rock to this generation but had taken time out from the scene because of what had happened. It was a traumatic experience. It was sad.”

One thing that’s notable about the punks in the film is their willingness to give back to the community. The main gig they play is a fundraiser for someone in need, and at the show, they hung up “Food Not Bombs” banners, which is an international movement to provide food to the hungry as a way to advocate non-violence. “They’re very interested in supporting people who are less fortunate, even though these guys have very little themselves,” Kohl says. “They’re actually very political and care about what’s going on in their country and want to give back.”

Not long after completing that documentary, Kohl began work on Nirvana, a film about transgendered people in India competing in a beauty pageant called the Koovagam Festival, which is said to be the largest trans gathering in Asia. It starts off with a series of portrait shots while a voiceover recounts the story of Mohini, a Hindu goddess that some consider trans since she’s the female avatar of the male deity Vishnu. “India, in particular, has a history of gender nonconformity; it dates back hundreds of years,” Kohl reasons. “The idea of being non-binary feels like a very modern thing, but it’s been happening for hundreds of years in different cultures across the world.”

The subjects discuss their lives and the discrimination they face as the film builds up to the day of festivities. She met one subject by reaching out to a local LGBT charity and met another while filming on location. The first subject makes it far along in the competition but eventually goes home without a crown, returning to sex work. The second subject also doesn’t get chosen, and her hopes are shattered, depicted through an emotional scene full of surreal reverb and slow motion. “For the people in the competition, it’s a really big deal. They see it as a way out, although the reality is that it’s probably not going to change their life,” Kohl says. “Losing is devastating to them. Highlighting trans people—who are the subject of so much prejudice—in a humane way that gets under the skin of their experiences, helps to promote tolerance through understanding.”

Her latest film is Disciples, which also takes an unflinching look at controversial subject matter: skinheads in Malaysia. Although the story is similarly tied to punk rock, it deals mainly with tensions over race between two related groups: One is a group of antifascists dedicated to a pluralistic, multi-racial society; the other is comprised of neo-Nazis who are Muslim nationalists and Malay supremacists.

Some think that nationalists and racists shouldn’t be given media coverage unless it benefits the public, and while this is a tiny subculture adopting Western ideas in a small, developing country, Kohl thought that documenting them was indeed important. “It’s a really difficult thing to navigate whether something like this should be given any air time at all,” she says. “And it’s hard to make a film like this without explicitly stating an opinion. But if we’re too quick to censor ourselves, we endanger our understanding of the world around us. There’s a lot of racism around the world, across different countries and cultures, and it feels important to show that.”

The film joins both groups at home and during their daily lives, meeting family members and observing them interact with each other. All of it builds up to a dinner where both are invited and the tension builds as the night approaches. Although both groups don’t end up at the event together, we’re privy to why they adopt each stance and the way those close to them view their outlooks. There’s a woman involved with the antifascists who complain that their parents won’t let her marry because of her partner’s style of dress. And the father of the neo-Nazi’s leader questions what place Western ideas have in a Muslim country. The leader is shown practicing kickboxing in top form and dressed in neat, fashionable clothing, displaying a charisma that’s unnerving. “He also came across as kind of smart, which was pretty scary,” Kohl admits. “But the rest of the neo-Nazis seemed quite dumb, just kind of following whatever. They almost didn’t know what they were doing.”

Kohl says that while there was a lot of aesthetic overlap between the scenes in Malaysia and the Philippines, their lifestyles were also very different, and it really speaks to the diversity of the region: “The Philippines was a lot more DIY, I think because the country allows for that culturally. Whereas Malaysia is much more structured. You couldn’t just do a gig in a backyard. Plus drinking isn’t allowed since they’re Muslims, which definitely changed the energy.”

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Website: www.jesskohl.com
Instagram: @jess.kohl
Vimeo: ~/jesskohl

Contributor: Mike Steyels
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li