KUALA LUMPUR: Award-winning local actress Maya Karin (Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam, Anak Halal, Ombak Rindu) battled mosquitos, leeches and the sweltering heat in the Sarawak rainforest for her upcoming psychological thriller, Nota.
“No luxuries whatsoever, no TV, air conditioning or hot water and we had to watch out for wild boars in the jungle,” said the 35-year-old beauty of German and Malaysian parentage about the filming experience.
Filming took a month to complete which included outdoor scenes at Bako National Park in Sarawak.
In the film trailer, she is also seen struggling in a muddy fight scene, which she said took "a whole day" to shoot.
“It was intense and I still had mud in my ears several days after,” said Maya, who plays Erin in the movie, set to meet audiences nationwide on Aug 13.
The film follows Erin and her estranged husband Kamal (played by Hans Isaac) who have been trying to start a family for the last 10 years without any success. They decide to make a trip back to Bako National Park where they visited a decade ago to jumpstart their flagging relationship. But everything takes a progressive turn for the worst when Erin accidentally discovers a note written by Kamal along the way.
“My character appears as an innocent soul in the beginning but as things unfold along the way in this murder mystery, the viewer will see that she’s capable of doing things that no one would’ve expected her to do,” said Maya, who added that she always takes on roles that are challenging and meaty.
She explained that an interesting aspect of the film was its lack of dialogue.
“From what I’ve seen so far – although I haven’t seen the final cut – 70 percent of it is without dialogue. It relies a lot on the cinematography and composition of the shots, as well as the physicality of the acting,” she said of the atmospheric 94-min feature film, which contains dialogue in both English and Bahasa Malaysia.
She added that not being a native Malay speaker meant that she had spent many years throughout her long career to learn the language.
“That process sort of helped me with this film because most people fluent in the language could express themselves better verbally and could pick alternate words to convey things.
“I had to rely on my physicality and expressions to communicate those same messages,” said the talented actress, who also dabbles in dramatic and musical theatre and is a recording artiste with three studio albums to her name.
Another facet of the film that peaked Maya’s interest initially was the international crew for the film, produced by 42nd Pictures. Nota is directed and co-written by Japanese filmmaker Yasu Tanaka and it features the work of German cinematographer Maximilian Schmige.
“Yasu has a unique working style. He doesn’t speak much English and I don’t speak Japanese but we communicated well by feeling things through the gut,” she said.
A fan of European films, she added that the film has a distinctive look. “Viewers will definitely see that apparent style when they watch the film,” she said excitedly of the film which also stars the late Ramli Hassan as the boatman Jemat.
On sharing the big screen for the first time with dashing local actor Hans, Maya was glad to be able to work with her long-time friend.
“It was by chance that we finally ended up working together. We were together most of the time on set and at the hotel, since Ramli had his own place in Sarawak. It was great to have a good friend around,” she said.
She added: “Chemistry between the two of us wasn’t a problem because we played an estranged couple so and I had to be cold anyway.”