Book on film appreciation glosses over issues

Dasar-dasar Apresiasi Film (The Basics of Film Appreciation) By Marselli Sumarno Grasindo, 1997 127 pages

JAKARTA (JP): It's ironic that at a time when Indonesian films are all but obsolete, film critic Marselli Sumarno publishes a book titled Dasar-dasar Apresiasi Film (The Basics of Film Appreciation). Marselli's conviction about the importance of film appreciation is commendable, but more admirable is his persistence in the face of daunting obstacles. At times, he must feel like a lamb lost in the woods.

Not that there aren't others like him. Considering that the number of Indonesian films made this year can be counted on two hands, this year's National Film Day will likely pass with a whimper. But preparing a bigger bang are the nation's young film- makers, such as Garin Nugroho and Nan T. Achnas, who have prepared or are preparing new works that they hope will revitalize the ailing industry. As befitting a country relatively poor in production infrastructure and defenseless to Western cultural influence, the film community in Indonesia is small. But the few involved, including Marselli, refuse to be silenced.

Marselli is particularly noisy, being a film critic for local publications, and a correspondent for the U.K.-based International Film Guide. Currently he is head of the Faculty of Film and Television at the Jakarta Arts Institute.

The lack of film appreciation here, Marselli says, is particularly noticeable by its absence in school curriculums compared to art or music appreciation. Marselli adds that only one other film-centered book, A. Margija Mangunhardjana's Mengenal Film (Getting to Know Film) has been published in Indonesia, and that was in 1976.

Since then, Indonesia's film industry has nearly vanished. Yet surprisingly, Marselli does not discuss this dire situation and instead focuses on the aspects of film production. This is not a topical book, this is a technical one.

The clinical perspective is perhaps not what armchair critics want to read, but it offers unschooled cinemaphiles a cheap opportunity to bypass film school and learn the art of cinema at home. Marselli diligently runs through all the factors of movie- making, from set design to cinematography, sound systems to scriptwriting, acting to esthetics. After all, a good film is the sum of its parts, and the world of film is a web of artists, technicians, and marketers -- a major film can involve more than 200 professions.

To properly assess the quality of these disparate but contiguous parts, Marselli presents five questions for each, in a chapter titled the Basics of Film. For example, in judging a director's work, a critic should ask: Has the director worked in unison with his team, and got the most from them? Has the director realized his ideas with clarity? How creative was the direction? Has the director successfully steered the camera to produce effective visuals? Is the work a cliche and is it believable? The function of the film critic, writes Marselli, is to recognize and analyze the importance of both anesthetics and ideas in a film. Film appreciation, he suggests, is not just about art, but it's about culture.

These discussions of cultural value, in a segment titled Film Appreciation, show Marselli at his best. He says that although film is generally viewed as entertainment, it actually elicits a mental process which teaches its audience how to see and read a story. Film, Marselli writes, is not just an escape from the dreary everyday, but provides education and reflection. A film is a document of social phenomena (whatever it may be), and also offers audience comparisons between the reality at home and the "reality" onscreen. It's educational not only in factual or documentation terms, but in psychological, emotional terms.

However, this cognitive ability to benefit from film is acquired through experience -- as with any form of education, an ardent film-goer will find more meaning in a film than passive audiences.

Yet the persuasive nature of film is often overlooked, although not by propagandists. The potential of film to portray, educate, and influence, Marselli writes, is limitless. This can be seen both as praise or warning.

These conjectural discussions of film's power is preceded by a studious outline of cinematic history. Marselli begins with the advent of photography (in 1826, by Frenchman Joseph Niepce) and follows through the U.S.'s Nickelodeon (nickel is for the cinema's entry fee, and odeon is latin for small exhibition hall) era of the early 1900s, and the arrival of color motion pictures in the 1930s. Marselli praises the pioneers from different countries (Federico Fellini in Italy, Ingmar Bergman in Sweden, Satyajit Ray in India, and Usmar Ismail in Indonesia) and thoroughly presents the various genres of the industry -- documentary, animation, and in fiction: musicals, comedies, horrors, dramas. If you're interested in film, Marselli will keep you turning the pages.

Then he bravely delves into the issue of censorship -- although with reference to Indonesia, not brave enough, as Marselli discusses the toning down of sex scenes while making little mention of the stifling of political themes and scenarios. In Indonesia, this is a particularly relevant, sensitive, but often neglected issue -- one that a proper attempt to save the local film industry cannot shy away from.

Yet Marselli's excuse may be that Indonesian film is not, from the outset, the central focus of the book. Marselli tries to include Indonesian films, directors, and actors (particularly with the photographs), when illustrating a particular genre or problem, but the light he shines on them is, to use film-talk, low, not high-beam. It was a surprise to find the book amid the demise of the local film industry, but it more surprising yet to find this book, so rare and welcome, failing to save the object of its

-- Dini S. Djalal