This film rocks Cannes Film Festival 2023: awarded, Tiger Stripes is a must-see at the cinema

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12-year-old Zaphan lives in a small rural community in Malaysia. During puberty, he realizes that his body is changing at an alarming rate. His friends shun him while the school seems to be under the influence of mysterious forces. Harassed as a tiger and banished from his habitat, Zafan decides to reveal his true nature, his anger, his fury and his beauty.

3 good reasons to see “Tiger Stripes”.

After ten months on the Croisette, the feature film will hit our cinemas from March 13th. And here are the reasons not to miss it.

1 – awarded in Cannes

Its status as a parallel department puts it in less of a spotlight than the official selection and its competition. But that would be to ignore the Critics’ Week review, which featured a few gems. Just like, recently, nothing cares about our ceremonies, about Kim Soo or even about Aftersun, whose trip to the Oscars stopped.

Also, 2023 saw Vincent Must Die, The Rapture and His Father’s Daughter, all three nominated at the 49th César Awards. Sleep, was awarded in Gerardmer at the beginning of the year. And thus Tiger Stripes, which won the last Critics’ Week Grand Prix to date. Which, given the quality involved in this piece, is a strong argument.

2 – Puberty as a driver of horror

The first feature film directed by Amanda Nell Eu, a Malaysian filmmaker, Tiger Stripes, is located at the crossroads of teenage drama and horror films, the puberty of Zafreen (Zafreen Zairizal) is accompanied by sometimes supernatural and uncontrollable phenomena, a metaphor for the changes that live. The hero of the story and people’s view of him.

From Ginger Snaps with werewolves with teeth and its protagonist discovering that her vagina has teeth, through Carrie at the devil’s ball, it’s not uncommon for horror cinema and adolescence as a subject to do well. This is also true of Julia Ducournau’s Grave (also awarded at Critics’ Week), which comes to mind before Tiger Stripes, as well as Junior, a funny short film by a future Palme d’Or winner.

By sparing the means (which give the rare special effects a little kitsch aspect, where the makeup is more convincing), Amanda Nell Eu’s film is in line with the aforementioned feature films. Setting the story in Malaysia makes it stand out.

3 – Feminist horror

In Malaysia, 61.3% of the population is Muslim, and the characters in Tiger Stripe are part of that majority, in a small rural community where all women are veiled and required to remain discreet and in place. An environment in which progressivism is not appropriate and where Zafan’s changes are frowned upon (“Now you’re dirty.”Her mother told her on the day of her first period, before her friend described the situation like this “disgusting”).

equally inspired “The Ugly Duckling” rather than from his own experience and because of puberty that he had a bad time (“I felt bad, I hated my body and I was afraid of all the rebellion”According to him), the filmmaker orchestrates a story of transformation and emancipation that emerges from the first seconds when Zafani removes her veil and dances to techno music, privately defying the traditions to which she is publicly subjected.

An energy that turns into rage and anger, depending on how it reacts to the changes it undergoes, in a reverse reinterpretation of a very popular myth in Southeast Asia: that of a tiger that transforms into a human to integrate into society. Tiger Stripes follows a heroine who returns to nature, and the fact that she chose an animal that symbolizes strength and courage in Malaysia allows the director to support her feminist message in this unique first film.