Controversial RI film to hit Tokyo cinemas

Controversial RI film to hit Tokyo cinemas

By Masayuki Kitamura

TOKYO (Kyodo): An Indonesian film about the adventures and
friendship of a rich body and a poor boy that was yanked from the
screen at home will be shown at an independent Tokyo cinema this
summer.

Through the eyes of innocent, Slamet Rahardjo Djarot's
Langkitku Rumahku (My Sky, My Home) touches on the many sides of
Indonesian society and was made with the hope of boosting
awareness among Indonesian people in their struggle against
poverty and ignorance, Rahardjo said.

My Sky, My Home which was co-authored by Rahardjo's brothers
garnered four awards from the prestigious Indonesian Film
Festival in 1990, won the Jacques Demi special prize in the
Nantes film festival in 1990 and the UN Children's fund prize in
the 1991 Berlin International Film Festival.

But the film met with unforeseen course in its home country,
when the sole film distributor abruptly suspended a first-run
showing in Jakarta theaters only one day into its release in
November 1990.

The film's distributor cited low viewer attendance, but
Jakarta-based observers say the film was given a de fact ban
because it highlights negative sides of development.

Rahardjo, 46, a former star-turned film director, filed a
lawsuit against the distributor and is awaiting a ruling after
rejecting an out-of-court settlement.

The story for My Sky, My Home evolves around the friendship of
the son of a rich company president and a boy from the Jakarta
slums.

Sunaryo, a poor farmer's son from East Java, starred as the
skinny poor boy, while Banyu Biru, a nephew of the director,
played the role of the rich boy.

In his own real-life "rags-to-riches" story, Sunaryo, 19, was
adopted by Rahardjo and is now attending a Jakarta high school.

At a press meeting in Tokyo in mid-June, Rahardjo said he
tried to portray through his film certain "universal" issues in a
developing nation such as poverty, ignorance and the problem of
identity crises under the overwhelming influence of U.S. mass
culture.

He expressed concern that the ethnic Indonesian culture might
be destroyed by U.S. "instant" culture and looking at that the
situation in Japanese cinema, he asked what had happened to "the
wonderful Japanese cinema world which once produced such
masterpieces like Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story?"

Rahardjo was in Tokyo prior to the July-August showing of his
film at Iwanami hall to celebrate the governmental Japan
foundation's promotion of a Rahardjo cinema week at its Tokyo
theater.

Etsuko Takano, general manager of Iwanami Hall, said she chose
the film to mark the 50th Anniversary of the end of the world war
II, saying, "It is the right time for the Japanese to think over
Asian neighbors."

Takano, a pioneer of Japan's art theater movement, said she
thinks "the Japanese and their Asian neighbors cannot establish a
true friendship unless their relationship is based on mutual
respect."

"Rahardjo's film shows us there are so many respectable Asian
neighbors," she said.

A graduate of a national drama academy, Rahardjo became a
popular star in the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1988, he and his younger brother Eros Djarot made Tjoet
Nya' Dhien, a film about a legendary Acehense woman guerrilla
leader who fought against the Dutch colonial rule. Rahardjo
played the role of the husband of the charismatic guerrilla
leader while Eros directed the film.

The movie gained enthusiastic support in Indonesia and abroad,
and in 1990 became the first Indonesian film to have a road show
in Tokyo.