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writer and critic; Baharudin Latif, film critic; and to Raja Ahmad Alauddin, film director and academic, for our stimulating conversations in Malaysia and Australia. I particularly want to thank Raimy Ché-Ross for valuable assistance in translating the dialogue of the un-subtitled Malaysian films and for perceptive comments on the cultural significance of aspects of these films. Finally, my gratitude to Professor Philip Bell, University of New South Wales, for the faith he retained in me over the many years that it took for my research project to assume its present form; furthermore, Professor Bell improved the arguments herein by his comments and questions. I am grateful to Allen & Unwin for allowing me to use four diagrams from Wang Gungwu's Community and Nation in chapter 2. The photos for figures 5, 10 and 11 were taken by Julia van der Heide. The other illustrations have been provided courtesy of the National Film Corporation Malaysia (FINAS) and the National Archives of Malaysia.

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The very first images of the Malaysian film, Semerah Padi, are of clouds swirling across a turning and gradually approaching earth that eventually reveals a map of the Malay Archipelago and closes in on an area in present day northern Sumatra. The music accompanying these images is somber and the voice-over is incantatory.

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