The Kinta Story (1949): Heritage representation and image construction behind a historical documentary film production

The documentary film The Kinta Story (1949) was a work of the National Film Malaysia (then known as Malayan Film Unit) about the struggle of the local people, miners and the British colonial authorities against the communist scheme in the tin mining areas of the Kinta Valley. Every aspect in this documentary film symbolises this struggle against the communist threat. In this paper, the documentary production techniques were analyzed to identify the specific message of this documentary through its six film sequences. Bearing the mark of the interplay of social factors, technology and foreign cultures that influenced the construction of the meaning of literacy and audience, the documentary film was a historiography of the communist atrocities. The question is whether the message conveyed by the documentary film through its production techniques able to achieve its target groups? The analysis techniques of meaning behind this production was based on the approach of Blumenberg (1975), Bordwel and Thompson (1997) and Zettl (2005) that covered the types of shots, camera movement, camera position and the editing techniques used. The existence of linguistic index in conjunction with a discourse allowed the audience to understand every visual presentation by associating each index with real world conditions thus enhancing the attraction of natural performance of the documentary. As a result the production techniques of this documentary has managed to produce an effective propaganda documentary to gain public support in eliminating the threat of Malayan communism.