Good film?

Good film?

I was dismayed to read in a letter to The Jakarta Post, Hypocrisy is stark (June 15, 1994), that a little group of your correspondents think that the absolutely appalling film The Piano is, and I quote, "intellectual and artistically strong film."

They have to be joking! I am one of those who had the fortune to see this film, however, I don't consider it good fortune. No, I consider it waste of good money and more importantly, a waste of good time.

This horrid little piece of celluloid documents how a married woman deceives and cheats her husband so that she can prostitute herself to buy a piano. She uses her body as an instrument of barter. Falsehood and double dealing permeate the story line as do lasciviousness, lust and a complete disregard for morals. Frankly speaking, what the unfortunate feminist director has achieved here is to create something that celebrates and glorifies adultery.

Now to describe this product (of a twisted mind) as "intellectually strong" is an indication of intellectual weakness. There's little of intellectual value in the film at all. What there is, is old hat. It is banal and naive in its major theme which is the promotion of unfettered individual freedom. If you want to see where that intellectual theme leads try taking a walk down the streets of any major Western city after dark alone, try New York.

So why, you may ask, has this film received so much acclaim in the West? Simple, because it's a politically correct film made by a feminist. Consider the anti-heroin: she's middle class, clever, female, white, disabled and she has complete disregard for the generally accepted social norms of behavior.

I congratulate the Indonesian Board of Censors decision to prohibit the showing of the film here. The members of the Board are not "hypocrites" as your correspondents say, but rather decent and sensible people who do care about weak Western intellectual fashion being promoted here under the banner of "art."

JOHN THOMAS

Jakarta