Tina Kakadelis
Tiger Stripes is the directorial debut of Malaysian filmmaker Amanda Nell Eu. The movie premiered in 2023 at the Cannes Film Festival and was the first female-directed Malaysian film to play on the Croisette. Tiger Stripes went on to play at other prestigious festivals and was selected to represent Malaysia at the Oscars. Inadvertently, this Cannes milestone speaks to the heart of Tiger Stripes, a story about a pre-teen girl who is coming into her skin in a society that looks down upon the rage of young girls. Tiger Stripes is a monster movie, one that’s ravenous to prove its place in the world much like its main character.
Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal) is eleven-years-old and lives in a rural community in Malaysia. She has two best friends, Farah (Deena Ezral) and Mariam (Piqa). Together, the three of them feel unstoppable in the way that is oh-so-common at that age. Of course, unbeknownst to them, a little thing called puberty is right around the corner to knock their world off its axis. Zaffan is the first one in her class to get her period and her body starts changing in unexpected ways that go beyond the normal growing pains. Farah and Mariam begin to distance themselves from Zaffan and a strange hysteria begins to spread through the school.
Female coming-of-rage stories, especially those with a horror edge, are inevitably compared to Stephen King’s Carrie. Tiger Stripes will likely draw similar comparisons with the entire school turning against Zaffan. However, the more apt comparison is to Anna Rose Holmer’s The Fits from 2015. Both Tiger Stripes and The Fits see a strange hysteria overtake the young girls of a school as a metaphor for the changes their bodies are experiencing. In The Fits, the strange fainting spells become a rite of passage and something to be desired. For Zaffan in Tiger Stripes, her period is something shameful that needs to be buried away. When Zaffan wakes up her mother the night her first period arrives, her mother says that Zaffan is “dirty now.”
When thinking about comparisons to other female-centric coming-of-age stories, it’s hard not to be reminded of Inside Out 2 given its recent release. Both are about girls who are roughly the same age as they are undergoing this massive bodily change. There’s no puberty alarm like the one in Inside Out 2, but the glowing red eyes in Tiger Stripes might as well be the same blaring warning signal of life about to change. It’s isolating to feel trapped inside one’s own mind and body. Zaffan and Inside Out 2’s Riley (Kensington Tallman) are fighting to be accepted by their peers and society, but don’t feel as though they can live up to the societal expectations laid out for them. Tiger Stripes takes that feeling of imprisonment far more literally by having its main character turn into a literal tiger. Young girls are often thought of as cruel and monstrous, but often do we get to see a movie that revels in this specific anger. There’s only so many times you can poke and prod a caged animal before it attacks and make no mistake, Zaffan will fight back.
Tiger Stripes is a vibrant debut from Eu. The colors of the film are highly saturated which adds to the slightly mystical feeling of the film. Gabber Modus Operandi’s score is thrilling. It’s a lively soundtrack that supports Zaffan’s own exuberant nature. The other characters in Tiger Stripes are actively working to take the spirit of the bubbly pre-teen girl and force it into a socially acceptable, modest, proper young woman. Zaffan wants to revel in the carefree feelings that come from being eleven-years-old, but the culture she was born into has other plans. That thematic note took a literal turn when the film was released in Malaysia in October of 2023. The version of the film that was screened in Malaysia was heavily censored and ultimately disowned by Eu. Her film about the ways society can fundamentally alter a young girl’s sense of self was stripped of its own identity which only makes Tiger Stripes feel more urgent and necessary.
There will always be something inherently horrifying and gruesome about growing up. Puberty is a nightmare and nothing can prepare someone for the overnight changes that occur. Tiger Stripes leans fully into the ravenous feeling of being a teenager and all of the gory details that come with it.
