Tiger Stripes
In “Tiger Stripes,” a Malaysian girl experiences the traumatic event of growing up during the teens years where a range of changes occurs in her body, attended with both excitement and turmoil. She continues to irritate her teacher and parents’ discretion by exposing her bra strap during her time within a girls only institution, getting into trouble for getting her first period, and even more baffling, developing rashes on her arms, loss of hair, nails and seeing only dark red eyes when the lights go out, Zaffan is also experiencing hormones shattering new boundaries. Reaching maturity is not for the faint hearted, and the dread only multiplies when the plot delves into magical realism.
Zafreen Zairizal aka Zaffan is a free spirit with an innocent smile and, along with her best friends, Deena Ezral (Farah) and Piqa (Mariam), they record cringey tiktok dances, swim in the river while heading home from school, place stickers on things that don’t look like they need stickers and are loud in their roughhouse games until one of the girls decides enough is enough. But all of this is short lived as Zaffan is the first one to have her menstruation the time when the rest of the children are hard to call children. She is treated grimly and accompanied by what can only be described as a cold death stare in that as Zaffan is purportedly going through changes, so many lines progress the effect where, Farah and Mariam are avoiding her. Zaffan’s father is resigned that he has a dysfunctional teenager as his daughter, his wife on the other hand is a diabolical monster Harshokai với cô.
She attempts to cover up all the characteristics that mark her evolution, but the fact that she gets rashes and her nails start missing only invites more ridicule from her colleagues. When a pack of girls ganged up on Zaffan in the lavatory, the girls went into a whooping frenzy that made a pompous doctor announce Zaffan had some demonic possession. Alienated by society, Zaffan embraces this new aspect of her self in what could be described as sheer fury and elegance combined.
“Tiger Stripes” touches on body horror to a certain extent without going as far as prosthetics that are used in ‘The Fly.’ In moments like this Zaffan is grappling more with the internal aspects of her story and that is primarily her emotions her worries about losing her friends and how she has no autonomy over her own body. But in the attempt to be more proper and conform to her institution and parent’s demands, she is trying to remain unseen even though she has no idea the implications of such actions upon her. Some of the special effects are not all that successful but few ill-executed elements do not undermine the power of the movie.
For Amanda Nell Eu, it is her feature film debut and Zaffan’s stories about growing up has a youthful touch about it and relates the ordinary with the paranormal with great detail. The screenplay co-written by Eu and Samm Haillay does not ignore school and house drama with the same zeal that Zaffan is at war with the transformation of her body.
In her captivating portrayal of the character, Zairizal is fierce with an almost destructive anger, but she is also compassionate to Zaffan’s quiet despair which makes her mother’s mockery or the school girls’ cruelty affect her physically. Even when a reader appreciates the direction of the narrative, it is intriguing there are some unexplored episode such as when Zaffan spots a pair of eyes on a bough at the tree tops, glowing in the darkness, who could this creature possibly be, a ravenous tigress waiting to pounce on him, or a fellow ‘tigress’ liberated from societal norms? But it all comes back to the initial part, the fun times of a playful girl who is not concerned about what happens around her does not change, even after watching the last scene.
This is not the first time that puberty has been depicted through the emergence of a new alter ego, hairy and mischievous, as a form of chaos examples include ‘Turning Red’ and the ‘Ginger Snaps’ series but in Tiger Stripes, Zaffan’s character, red hair, and Malaysian mythology surrounds the viewer.
We have seen the fairy tales over the years about the monsters that children should not cross, lest they end up being where the monster gets the last laugh, however, in this tale, the child is the monster instead. As the movie depicts her fight to be as normal as possible, we witness Zaffan trying shamefully to wash out the blood stains on her pad while taking a shower so that the damage that is caused by her first period can be somehow undone. She is also seen to be covering her arms and hands with sun-blocking gloves in order to conceal the transformations that are taking place and affecting her. Yet, in trying to suppress her new “monstrous” persona as she terms it, Zaffan is also likely aggravating her already existing issues. There is hardly any joy after the transformation that Zaffan fully accepts, so she has finally learned to love herself the way she is.
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