'Cinta 24 Karat': A sparkling example of inept filmmaking

Joko Anwar , Contributor, Jakarta

--------------------------------------------------- Cinta 24 Karat (24-carat Love) Comedy Starring Rena Tabitha, Ivan Gunawan, Uya Kuya, Ferdy Ardiansyah, Indra Bekti Directed by Richard Buntario Zero Stars (out of ****) -------------------------------------------------------------------

Real filmmakers and moviegoers who wish to see a thriving local film scene better start praying -- and praying hard.

For there is the very strong danger that its incipient revival will be dragged down by those non-talents and profiteers who seem hell-bent on keeping people from returning to movie houses.

This new local comedy is not just the most amateurish thing ever foisted on us in our cinemas (and that is saying something), but it also serves as a perfect example of irresponsible filmmaking from someone who professes to know the art.

Although dubbed by its director "an urban hip comedy", it is so ineptly made it insults everybody who works in the film business, not to mention those who are ripped off by paying to see this mess.

Cinta 24 Karat was shot on the cheap medium of digital video, which most of our local filmmakers seem to be fond of.

There are some real filmmakers who make good use of the look and feel which this medium gives, including director Riri Riza with his gritty urban road movie Eliana, Eliana, but Richard is certainly not one of them.

Cinta 24 Karat seems to have been shot with no concept, let alone vision. There is no effort even to try to make it coherent by referring to the very basic rules of filmmaking; it seems to have been directed by someone who was blindfolded.

The quality of the camerawork often matches that of local prank TV show Spontan, where the camera aimlessly follows the actors just to have them in the frame.

And the transfer from video to celluloid is so poorly done it appears the technician was distracted cooking his dinner while doing the job.

This is even worse than Richard's first feature effort last year, 5 Sehat 4 Sempurna, which the director proclaimed as marking the birth of the new film genre "urban hip comedy".

The shooting mostly took place in Australia but the nonsensical story does not actually have to do with the characters being there.

A young Indonesian woman studying at college in Australia is such a little rich girl that she has a diamond stuck on one of her teeth.

Her roommate is an androgynous boy whose most sophisticated hobby happens to be matchmaking.

One morning, another Indonesian boy comes to their house to meet the rich girl but the roommate does not allow him to come in. They end up having a fight with cheap-looking "bullet-time" effects ripped off from The Matrix.

The next scene deals with another Indonesian boy who comes to Australia to take an English course he got in a scholarship program. He is so naive and provincial that he breathlessly recounts to his friends his introduction to that fascinating invention called the elevator.

His new friends decide to make fun of him by teaching him a "cool" way to speak without opening his mouth.

As an example, they say that the new boy should only give someone his right middle finger to say "I love you" and his left to say "I'm sorry." Of course, trouble ensues.

Ouch: Slapstick comedy trio Dono-Kasino-Indro came up with far more sophisticated gags in their heyday in the 1980s than this lame joke, which will leave you cringing that it actually made it into a mainstream film.

Anyway, the plot moves on (sort of), with the mother of the rich girl coming to Australia to tell her daughter that she should find a suitor before her next birthday. Otherwise, her father will force her to marry a rich old man.

The rich girl ends up liking the new boy but he goes back to Indonesia because his little brother is sick and needs an operation. Of course, since his family is poor, they can't afford it.

The rich girl comes to the rescue and sells the diamond from her tooth to raise money for the boy's operation.

Richard, who also served as the film's producer and director of photography, also penned the script, so responsibility for this cringefest lies squarely in his hands.

I am sure that there are plenty of unemployed but able scriptwriters who would have been willing to write a script for him, instead of him forcing himself to do things that he apparently has no idea about.

In an effort to give a little "Hollywood-feeling" to his movies -- perhaps to make it "hip" a la Richard -- the director resorts to some very tasteless scatological humor.

One of the characters constantly farts and scratches his rear end, and then touches people.

We also see a character pee on his hand and then shake hands with somebody. And for your complete enjoyment, there is also a scene where the rich girl has to turn on the faucet in the bathroom because she has a very loud bowel movement.

As for selling your idealism in the name of product placement, Cinta 24 Karat has certainly set a new low.

Characters suddenly come up with lines plugging a particular brand that has nothing to do with the storyline. Yet that's understandable since Richard does not actually have a story to maintain.

At this point, it is safe to say that the local film business must be on red alert. If movies like this keep dominating our local film scene, posing as worthy cinematic vehicles, the audience will be turned off in no time.

When that happens, it will take a far greater effort to lure them back to theaters to watch deserving local films.