In Amanda Nell Eu’s coming-of-age story, “Tiger Stripes,” a young Malaysian girl faces the most awkward phase of her life, the adolescent phase of her life. She finds herself developing a new rapidly expanding set of problems. She recalls a time as a child when she used to be a nuisance. Teasing her classmates in an all-girls school with her new bra strap, and now that she’s on her period, her life seems to be on a downhill spiral as she begins to develop an unexplained rash. Her once lustrous hair and nails begin to fall out, and she gets these fits of uncontrollable rage, while more red flags keep popping up. Growing up is never a cupcake walk, but it definitely gets out of hand when magic realism comes along.
Zaafari, along with her best friends Farah and Mariam, are constantly causing mischief. Zafreen Zairizal’s character Zaafari can be seen as a troublemaker forever taking the lead in the group and forcing her friends to join her on her latest crazy idea. From creating cringy TikTok dance videos to river bathing on their way back home, they’re absolute maniacs. Strangely enough, they do make great childhood memories with all the random stickers they put. But once Farah and Mariam start to distance themselves from Zaafari due to her rude behavior, her world spirals downwards. And it only gets worse from there, Zaafari’s mom harshly reprimands her for the tiniest things while her father remains uninterested in her life.
She is scared to get made fun of and rather shies away from showing the changes that are happening to her such as hiding rashes or showing missing nails, in turn, that only makes her classmates tease her more. While a group of girls are scolding Zaffan in the bathroom, they start to panic and are consequently told by an arrogant doctor that Zaffan’s head is full of evil ghosts. Zaffan, who has been cornered by society begins showcasing her new self in an act of unfiltered rage and aggression.
“Tiger Stripes” has elements of body horror sprinkled throughout, in contrast to “The Fly” This is South Asian as there are small facial prosthetic obstructions on Zaffan’s face as she is also dealing with the mental and emotional turmoil of friend abandonment. As she tries harder to behave and falls in line with her school expectations, she doesn’t realize the amount of damage she is causing to herself by doing so some parts of the film don’t succeed as well. A movie’s impact cannot be diminished by a few inaccuracies.
Amanda Nell Eu’s film debut captures all the extraordinary and the ordinary perfectly in a coming-of-age montage. Eu and Samm Haillay’s film not only highlights Zaffan’s struggle with her body because of the teenage changes but also the household and school drama she gets caught up in.
Zairizal in this context, is the performer, completely immersing herself into this role, while she enjoys her character’s turn angry, she also sees the distress and sorrow Zaffan feels, and causes tinges of pain to herself to refraining is her mother or her tormentors. There are trees with more comic flair kept for Zaffin the gorgeous tiger’s glow here I wonder if they serve as foretelling beacons or if they are regal piercers, the end of the scope never speaks so eloquently about things, especially ideal girlhood. At its core, this film wraps everything up within snug little boxes and believes that a tropical girl isn’t hindered by society exceeding more intense stereotypical expectations in regard to women. We’re all too aware of how this tale would pan out in the end, even then not every love should stand to reason. To begin, watch the fourth episode of Grace and Frankie, which is much more realistic than this one.
The title suggests ‘Tiger Stripes,’ instantly rings a bell that it revolves around Asian folklore, considering the hairier monstrosity that women turn into when puberty invites them in there I can draw jump to turning red and even gingersnap. To sum things up, Zaffran enjoys her character and haphazardly destroys the world which Forgetting is this otherworldly concept.
In every culture, there are ‘monster’ tales that are meant to teach children proper behavior and to heed their parents’ warnings. But what if the monster was the child herself? This monster possesses horrifying ways to disrupt her life and all of it seems baseless until she tries to be “normal” or suppress all these changes overwhelming her. Zaffan for instance wears huge sunblocking gloves to conceal the changes raging her arms and hands or rinses her pads in the hope of removing the blood stains. But gradually, these pad stains unveil a deeper, more complex side to her that she never took into consideration. She also hides her recently discovered monster side which seems to exacerbate her symptoms. Zaffan only finds happiness when she accepts who she has become.
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