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.