Throughout the world, women fight for control of their own sexuality. They are forced into marriages, have their attire policed and, recently in the U.S., lose abortion rights. In cinema, too, women’s sexuality has historically been viewed through the male gaze.
“Tiger Stripes,” a Malay-language film shown at the 50th annual Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), instead centers female sexuality in girls’ and women’s lived realities. Director Amanda Nell Eu shines a light into places hidden by the shadow of religion and ancient taboos, but the movie works on more than one level. It is also a portrait of the horrors of adolescence that manages to still have a sense of humor.
The main character, Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal), is an adolescent girl living in rural Malaysia. The film skillfully imparts a sense of place. Jungle is all around; there are tall trees and the threat of wild animals. The heat means houses have open doors, and people pad around in bare feet. The music often has loud, propulsive drumming.
Carefree and high-spirited, Zaffan behaves like a typical child, splashing in the river, catching frogs and tagging puffy star stickers onto street signs with her friends. But Zaffan’s more in touch with her nascent sexuality than her peers are. She strips off her tudung and skirt in the school bathroom to dance suggestively in phone videos and wears a padded bra under her layers of clothing. Zaffan also makes careful sketches in her Hello Kitty notebook of people having sex. Like the caterpillars Zaffan gently strokes, she is on the verge of a transformation. However, in her repressive environment, instead of becoming a beautiful butterfly, she incarnates as literally a raging tiger.
The catalyst for Zaffan’s change is the arrival of her period. Her mother’s response is only a disapproving “now you’re dirty” while hustling her into the shower. Her classmates are scornful and deeply misinformed; ultra-competitive Farah (Deena Ezral) calls her a slut and says bleeding girls smell rotten like eggs. Menstruation is obviously not a subject that anyone teaches in school or at home. Zaffan’s sense of separation heightens when she isn’t allowed to attend prayer services with the other girls while on her period.
Other frightening transformations subsequently appear. She constantly scratches herself and develops rashes. Long pieces of hair fall out. She tweezes a stiff whisker from her upper lip. The more Zaffan is repressed and shamed, the stronger her tiger alter ego seems to grow.
The SIFF audience enjoyed Zaffan’s transformation. Audience members covered their eyes as Zaffan yanked off her fingernails to make room for claws. She develops a taste for live animals and shimmies up trees in a super-fast and cartoonish way. Zaffan herself seems conflicted about being a tiger. In a scene where she lies in the lapping river clad only in a tank top and shorts, blood circling her mouth, she looks blissfully free. But when a friend calls to her, Zaffan hides, her newfound power turned to shame.
There are few men in the film. Zaffan’s father is a passive presence, but there is also a representative of the village’s implicit patriarchy: a condescending male doctor, Dr. Rahim (Shaheizy Sam), who initially seems merely foolish and vain, but later turns ugly. Failing to extract a demon from Zaffan, he resorts to physical violence, urging his assistants to beat the young girl.
Women’s roles in this society are nuanced. The female teachers uphold the existing structure. Zaffan’s relationship to her mother, Munah (June Lojong), is not easily defined. Munah constantly berates and hits Zaffan for indecent behavior, but the strictness seems like a warped form of love, perhaps preparing Zaffan for a world stacked against women. There may also be an element of jealousy. She sees Zaffan enjoy the freedom of an uncovered body, but Munah can’t allow herself to do the same. Though it is a hot climate, customs in their village dictate that women and girls swathe themselves in clothing from head to toe.
Zaffan is the most rebellious of the girls. The others seem content to vie for dominance in the small sphere of their school and friend groups. Teasing Zaffan, they seem curiously unaware that they, too, will get their periods.
The tiger metaphor is effective because adolescence is a time of extreme feelings and raging hormones. For girls in a repressive and highly religious environment, there are few outlets for the emotions and urges they feel. Tigers are brave, strong, vibrant and feared — the very opposite of the modest, obedient, chaste behavior expected from young girls.
Yet one weakness of the film is the tiger persona’s lack of clear definition. It was hard to tell what exactly brought on this alternate personality. It didn’t happen only at night, like a werewolf transformation, or with extreme anger, like the Hulk. Was Zaffan able to control her alter ego at all, or was it completely random? It was also questionable if other people could see Zaffan as a tiger or not.
“Tiger Stripes” debuted at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and won the Critics’ Week Grand Prize. Yet in Malaysia, only a heavily censored version was shown. One excised scene has Zaffan hosing off a sanitary pad. Periods should be demystified; in many parts of the world, girls needlessly skip school or even drop out due to lack of support while bleeding.
But this isn’t only a film about periods. Everyone can remember the intense feeling of being caught between childhood and adulthood, and the young cast brings lots of energy and fun to the screen. Though Zaffan suffers, she also expresses joy in her female body, dancing gleefully — without a tail in the beginning and with one at the end.
Read more of the May 29–June 4, 2024 issue.