'Belahan Hati' spins a tale to win hearts of viewers

'Belahan Hati' spins a tale to win hearts of viewers

By Sri Ramadani and Bruce Emond

Belahan Hati; 8:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays; RCTI;
Cast: Anna Tairas, Aurora Yahya, Risdo Alaro Matondang

JAKARTA (JP): Rich pretty girl meets poor pretty boy. Girl
plays hard to get. Besmitten boy (on motorbike) crashes into girl
(on horse, because she's rich). They lick their wounds and start
to like each other.

But standing in the way of their "forbidden love" are mighty
problems of class, religion and the girl's mom, who knows a deep,
(potentially) dirty secret. Hint: They were born on the same day,
same year, same place, same mom.

And that's only the beginning.

Such is the stuff of TV melodrama in Belahan Hati (it
literally means "matching hearts"), promoted as a "revolutionary"
development in Indonesian TV soaps. It delves into taboos and it
airs as a daily show under the Grundy system (a team of directors
on a rotating schedule), which its production company claims is
not just a first for Indonesia, but also for Asia.

The producer is Pearson Television Asia, part of the London-
headquartered firm which has made such diverse fare as Mr. Bean
starring Rowan Atkinson and Neighbors, the soap which launched
the careers of such stars as Kylie Minogue, Russel "The
Gladiator" Crowe and Natalia Imbruglia. It has produced more than
150 programs around the world since 1998.

Many of its soaps have explored the theme of "forbidden love",
but can its formula cross over to our shores?

Sukarya St. Marajo, one of the drama's four directors, sure
hopes so.

Sukarya said the drama was in a multiplot format, full of
conflicts and twists that each of us might be able to identify
with.

"I hope that everyone who watches the drama will feel that the
drama's story is his tale."

He said there would be lots of heart-tugging scenes befitting
a drama, but it would be interspersed with humor and action for
variation.

According to him, the drama's target audience is adults and
teens. Children will be included in the next episodes, including
a story about a transit shelter for street children.

The verdict so far?

Well, a bit creaky at the beginning, with some very pat scenes
(i.e. the premiere's party scene, with lots of overdressed "rich
folks" drinking rose syrup and looking like they stumbled in from
central casting) and cliched character delineations (rich mom in
all her finery, poor mom in her dowdy housedress).

But give the writers and the largely unknown cast (only former
top model Tairas is a name) a chance to get going and it might
have the makings of something. This will be especially true if it
gets into the juicy stuff and if it lives up to its pledge to be
"revolutionary" in tackling those loves that until now have dared
not speak their name on Indonesian TV.

Remember that Dallas and Dynasty took their time to win a
place in the hearts of viewers around the world in the early
1980s. But it's all about that definition of revolutionary.

When asked about how far its exploration of the taboos would
go, Pearson public relations officer Lukmanul Hakim did not sound
like he was ready to shake, rattle and roll our collective
morals.

"We have to be careful in creating the scenes and have to be
clever in choosing what scenes are suitable or not for our
society. I think this is a challenge for us," he said.

Well, let's wait and see.