Actually it was lunch, but you get the idea.

I've learned a lot about Mansor Puteh over the past couple of months. Mansor Puteh wants to publish 57 books he's written all at the same time. Mansor Puteh wants to be the representative of the Muslim World in Hollywood. Mansor Puteh sincerely believes that everything he says, writes, or thinks, is of earthshaking importance.

I sat down for lunch one day with Mansor. He had contacted me regarding an article I wrote for another publication, and was eager to tell me about his current projects. We'd been playing phone tag for a couple of weeks, and he'd been keeping me up to speed on his various television appearances and other media cameos.

He started explaining all the irons he has in the fire; Mansor's creative interests are an expressionist scattergram: painting, photography, movies, writing, music. I asked him his profession. "Storyteller," he told me. "There are stories everywhere. I want to portray the reality of Malays and Muslims looking out at the world, not looking in." What he's most known for, though, is film.

Mansor of all trades

I wanted to find out what made Mansor decide to become a film person (I use the term film person because it's hard to pigeonhole exactly what Mansor does. "Screenwriter" might be the label applied most commonly, but he'd probably disagree with that). I was looking for some heartwarming moment, like in the movies when the kid is given a cheap 8mm camera for the first time and goes on to become a legendary auteur. No such luck with Mansor, though; maybe he's saving the story. But he did describe to me how his time at Columbia Film School in New York City coloured his worldview.

"The story of the world was unfolding, right there in New York. The Shah of Iran was there, as I was leaving the hospital (in NY Mansor had a tumor in his leg which required extensive surgery; he was on crutches for 15 years and still walks with a limp) he was going in as I was going out. John Lennon, Ronald Reagan, and Anwar Sadat were all shot, live on TV."

"Yeah, but doesn't stuff like that happen all the time? It's not like that period was particularly momentous"

"But this was before CNN and satellite television, and in Malaysia I had never seen anything like this. These things brought me to the Middle East. I wanted to see and hear the stories."

He bought an around-the-world ticket and visited dozens of countries on the way back to Malaysia and completed an Umrah. He came back to Malaysia, he says, "because I thought I was needed more here I thought I could be a catalyst for Malaysia." What he had seen and experienced, however, opened his eyes.

Since that time Mansor's been doing movie reviews for Malaysian papers, and I've been told his reviews are somewhat controversial. After several hours of frank conversation, I can understand why. Mansor is not afraid to say what he thinks, and his acerbic assessments of the film scene in Malaysia might ruffle a few feathers: Malaysia is "a cultural desert", "our directors are sitting on the wrong philosophy: they want to copy Hollywood only" I tried to come up with a movie that Mansor actually liked.

"Casablanca?"

"Dated, not realistic; it was shot in a studio, not on location."

"Apocalypse Now?"

"Ah, it was okay in the 1970s, but now its tired and clichd."

"Million-Dollar Baby?"

"It's an old story, boring. Boring characters. Who cares?"

Miss Penang

Mansor has organised two mini-film festivals showcasing Malaysian movies, one each in Manila and London, and is working on another. He's also written a number of television screenplays, one of which, Miss Penang, is currently in reruns. He'll tell you with a straight face that he helped redirect and redefine the careers of Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola. He has a dream, though, like most people do, but Mansor is taking steps to make his dream a reality, which is refreshing. "I want to be the Ambassador of the Muslim world in Hollywood."

Mansor's dream is to make major motion pictures that carry a message around the world. "There's a problem between the West and Muslims, a miscommunication we have to contribute to solving that problem."

He sees TV and cinema as a means for international communication. Currently he's awaiting approval from the Ministry of Culture, Arts, and Education of a RM1.5million loan - which will be the first such loan granted by the organisation - designed to provide financial support to talented filmmakers in Malaysia. Mansor expects approval any time now, and then he will proceed with the production of Malaysian Snow, a feature film set in Malaysia and the United States.

Malaysian Snow is the story of two friends who grow up in Melaka together. Through their lives they are inseparable, and they even go to the United States to attend university together. The movie will chronicle their experiences as strangers in a strange land. It will explore their feelings as they move closer to the inevitable separation that will come upon graduation and their lives diverge. "It's the clashing and blending of two different worlds."

Mansor the superhero

Mansor plans to shoot the movie over four weeks on location at several places in the United States and Malaysia, including Melaka and New York City. Mansor's goal with this movie seems to vary depending on what time of day you catch him. He wants to use it as a crowbar with which to force his way into Hollywood.

He wants to portray Malaysians for the world. He wants to change perceptions of Islam. He's written the script, and will produce, direct, and edit the flick. As I mentioned earlier, it's hard to pin down exactly what Mansor does, because he does so much.

"I had to build my own cinema. I had to find my own money, write my own scripts I had to learn how to do it all," he explains. This might explain the egoism that seems to underlie Mansor's ambitions; he wants to create a magazine called Mansor; his picture graces the working promo poster for Malaysian Snow. And he doesn't argue with this suggestion: "I'm changing perceptions of Americans, not the characters. The characters are an extension of me. The real actor does not appear in the film."

The more I spoke to Mansor, the more I learned about Malaysian Snow. It's part of a bigger, more ambitious project to inject something into pop-culture everywhere that Mansor perceives to be missing. Exactly what it is, though, is hard to pin down.

"I can not explain my film in a voiceover," he explains, which makes sense to me. It seems normal that someone with so grand a vision, regardless of whether or not it is realistic, might have difficulty related that vision to others. During our conversations I find myself compelled on more than one occasion to help Mansor express in words what it is, specifically, that he's trying to do. "I want to affect Hollywood Hollywood has not yet discovered the Malay world," he says, over and over again in different ways.

Mansor invited me to be his guest at a dinner for the alumni of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the New York university that Mansor has selected to be one of the locations for the shooting of Malaysian Snow. He was going to meet some of the university bigwigs and asked if I would like to accompany him.

The event was to be at the Carcosa, so I figured what the hell, because I'd never been there before. I reasoned that they might have free booze. On the way through the Lake Gardens I found myself imagining my own screenplay, called Mansor Needs a Map, telling the tale of two people who get hopelessly lost on their way to a dinner party, to be based on a true story.

Freeloading

We finally made it to the Carcosa, though, and as we walked in someone recognised Mansor and complemented him on something or other. We met with the president of the university and several various and sundry deans, all of whom seemed to be perplexed by the idea of this scraggly-haired Malay guy shooting a film on their quiet and (according to their literature) prestigious campus.

In the end, though, they all seemed supportive. Mansor called me a week later to tell me that the mayor of the city of Troy, New York (where Rensselaer is located) had written to him to inquire if there was anything the city of Troy could do for this Columbia-educated filmmaker. Mansor promptly asked for a 15-passenger van and a vacant house where the crew could crash.

The 57 books thing refers to Mansor's uber-boleh stunt to release a massive mini-library of titles, both in Bahasa Melayu and English. He's quick to point out that he's written more than 57 books, but 57 commemorates the date of Malaysian independence. Keeping with the theme, he plans to sell the whole kit and caboodle for RM1,957.

"We have a shortage of books from Malaysian authors," he explains, "so I have to double up my efforts." The books cover the whole gamut of plots and genres, ranging from tales of fractured love and the Japanese occupation to a book about two friends who introduce dunia-kola to the Muslim World.

There is a collection of Mansor's film reviews, a tribute to keroncong master Pak Gesang Martohartono, a couple of collections of Mansor's photos and poetry from trips to Bali, and a collection of hitherto unreleased pictures of Tunku Abdul Rahman and family at the official residence. There's even a children's book.

"I work on ten books at the same time I used to write on everything, tissue paper, napkins, newspapers, but since I got my first computer in 1997 it's much easier I've simplified everything, you know, to write a novel you only need three things: character description, place description, and dialogue. By creating a life, you create a story."

What the... ?

"Some people might call you crazy, based on what you just told me, and I don't mean in the rhetorical, conversational sense," I suggest.

"I am always aware of who I am and what I am doing," he responds.

"What has been the response to this project?" I ask.

"The Malaysian Intelligencia is embarrassed," says Mansor, with a grin.

If releasing 57 books seems like a daunting task, it is. "The last detail is the publication. I need to some up with a new system, because no one has ever published 57 books at the same time before," he explains.

Although most people would regard publishing all these books simultaneously as more than a "detail," it seems that Mansor sees it as just another part of the process. And as unrealistic as it sounds, Mansor remains optimistic: "I'm confident that they will be published by the end of the year."

"Have the papers written anything about your books?"

"They think it's below them. But this is beyond Malaysia Boleh. If they support somebody swimming across the English Channel, why can't they support someone who wants to publish 57 books?"

Mansor has also created the cover art for each of these books, and they were recently on display at the Alliance Francais in Kuala Lumpur. I missed the exhibition as I was out of town, but Mansor brought me one of the handbills for the show. "An exhibition of 57 book cover designs, paintings and photos by Mansor bin Puteh, Malaysia's most extraordinary creative talent."

"Who said you're Malaysia's most extraordinary creative talent?" I ask.

"I think my computer must have written that itself," is the reply.

Meeting Mansor again

I met Mansor again at the National Blood Centre to donate platelets. I was ready to surrender my precious bodily fluids for the benefit of mankind, but the bloody people at the centre rejected me because I haven't been in Malaysia for a whole year yet.

So I sat there with Mansor, watching the oozy yellow substance accumulate as it was separated from the hemoglobin. We talked about this and that, the meaning of expression and the relativeness of good and bad, alongwith cultural and nationalistic contexts of artistic endeavor.

Mansor told me that during one of his trips across Indonesia he bought 20 cassette tapes of keronchong music, which he later donated to Best 104 Radio in Johor Bahru because he was tired of hearing the same 30 songs over and over on the nightly 10pm-2am keronchong showcase. Even though he received a T-shirt, keychain, and hat for his donation, he regrets that he didn't make copies of the tapes before he donated them.

He also expounded upon what he feels to be his role. He wants fill a void and to open the door for others. "We only see American films because they are supposed to be universal, but you have to relate to other people." Mansor echoed a complaint that I've heard numerous times before: "We have an inferiority complex." So maybe Mansor is trying to take up the slack, to make up for lost time.

Is Mansor Puteh a genius? It depends on who you ask. Can he do everything he says he's going to do? Who knows, but nobody ever did anything like Mansor wants to do without actually trying to do it. It's hard to miss Mansor's idealism and perceived obligation to his people and country when you it down with him.

"Stories of Malaysia are for the world," he says. Will he make it to Hollywood? "I've been there, passing through I saw the stars on the sidewalk I slept in the bus on the way there." He'd definitely add some colour.

Maybe Malaysian Snow will flop. Maybe it will hit the college film society circuit. Or maybe it will become the first Malaysian film ever to be distributed in the US, which is one of Mansor's goals. Whatever the case may be, though, you can bet there is already another project in the pipeline.

KEITH BETTINGER is a Fulbright Scholar based in Kuala Lumpur. He's always up for an adventure though this particular one left him with a massive migraine for days. Email him at kisu1492@hotmail.com. He's already cooking up another adventure, in his kitchen, literally.