'Api Cinta Antonio Blanco' despicts painter's life
'Api Cinta Antonio Blanco' despicts painter's life
By Tam Notosusanto
JAKARTA (JP): Don Antonio Blanco should be proud. Not only is
he an artist in the league of Van Gogh, Dali and Picasso, but now
-- like those legendary masters -- he has a film based on his
life.
Api Cinta Antonio Blanco (Antonio Blanco's Flame of Love), an
eight-part miniseries airing on ANteve every Tuesday since March
23, is the true account of how the Spanish painter arrived in
Bali, fell in love with a local girl and became a life-long
resident of the island.
Even though eight hours sounds more like a project of personal
aggrandizement, the series proves otherwise. Blanco is not
portrayed as a nice, well-mannered artist. He is a loud, self-
centered, pig-headed man who also is an honest, passionate and
romantic artist. In short, he is portrayed as a human being.
The filmmakers did the right thing by skipping Blanco's
(played by Michael Pas) early years in various countries and
beginning their film when he lands in Bali and begins his new
life there. With help from locals, he makes himself comfortable
in Ubud, where he sets up his humble shack of a studio and begins
painting.
In Ubud he meets Ni Ronji (played by Ni Ketut Melati), a
village girl whose raw beauty and mixture of warmth and
hardheadedness drives him crazy. Blanco manages to persuade Ronji
to become his model, and from that moment on she becomes his muse
and later his wife.
Api Cinta Antonio Blanco naturally invites comparisons to
other films about great painters such as Lust for Life (about Van
Gogh), and films about the lives of Basquiat, Dali and Picasso.
But unlike those films, Api Cinta is nowhere near the territory
of bleak cinema.
Sure, Blanco has hardships: he has to strive to convince
Rondji's family to let her be his model, he has to deal with
Rondji's occasional mood swings whenever he is ready to pour
himself onto the canvas and he has to constantly struggle to
adapt to the values and traditions of Bali. But at no point in
this film does Blanco get close to cutting off his ear or
surrendering to drugs.
Director Rima Melati shows that a biographical movie about a
painter need not be depressing. This movie shows that such films
can be upbeat, inspiring, old-fashioned entertainment whose aim
is to let the audience have a good time.
This series reminds us instead of cross-cultural films like
Sayonara, Dances with Wolves and Witness, where two different
cultures come together through the passionate love of two people
from different worlds. This is the best Api Cinta has to offer:
showing how two different value systems come face to face, clash
with each other and eventually live in harmony.
A memorable scene portrays Blanco furiously attempting to
chase away the villagers who come to help him build a house,
unaware the villagers expect no payment for their efforts. He
also has a hard time understanding why the Balinese prefer to
forgive a local criminal rather than turn him over to the
authorities and he is at odds with Ronji and her family over the
raising of his and Ronji's child.
Screenwriter Putu Wijaya gives no clue that he is the
Indonesian playwright best-known for his "theater of terror",
giving us a tame and sober teleplay with sharp, clear, linear
storytelling, free from experimentation.
Blanco's marriage to the Balinese culture comes out
beautifully in Putu's subtle hands, even though the opening
credits -- which clearly underestimate the audience's
intelligence -- pound that point in, with "EAST & WEST" in
uppercase letters splayed across the screen.
Putu does, however, become bogged down with the framing device
which has the real Blanco and his wife reminiscing about their
past -- segments which don't seem to fit anywhere in the film.
For those who yawn at the premise of East meeting West, the
film's villain, I Lodra (Eko Noah), will keep the audience tuned
in every Tuesday night at 8 p.m. with his jealous attempts to
disrupt the happiness of Blanco and Rondji. And the thrill of
seeing a portrayal of Indonesia's first president, Sukarno, may
spark the interest of channel-surfers (at least for episodes 3
and 4, in which the late president appears).
The director's spouse, Frans Tumbuan, plays this part, and
although he seems a bit awkward in Sukarno's uniform, his
resemblance to Indonesia's founding father is rather arresting.
The best aspect of this series is, of course, Michael Pas, the
Belgian actor who breathes life into the title role. He finds a
way to visualize the artist's ebullient eccentricity through his
mastery of acting grammar.
His Blanco is a lovable, conceited artist, whose egocentric
manner deserves a slap in the face (and in the last episode he
finally gets one from a little girl). Ni Ketut Melati complements
him with her tough but loyal Rondji.
Pas meets his match, however, in Kadek Suardana, who plays
Rondji's father in a restrained but powerful performance.
Suardana (who also wrote the series' award-winning score) looks
like a simple, middle-aged man with a sheepish smile, but every
time he walks into a scene, his presence commands attention and
respect.
Pas and Suardana share the series' best dialog, and the scene
in which Blanco persuades Rondji's father to let his daughter
work for him is an exciting display of the beauty of acting.
Rima Melati's third outing as a director is quite an
achievement. And although 1950s Indonesia in this series looks a
lot like present-day Indonesia (save for the fancy period
automobiles), overall, this is a nice piece of entertainment.
Amid all the other television series which make us feel bad
about matters not even worth considering, Api Cinta Antonio
Blanco is a welcome delight.