Historical names the offering of TUK's film program this month
By Tam Notosusanto
JAKARTA (JP): The titles of the five films programmed by Teater Utan Kayu (TUK) for this month are not long. They are just names; famous, historical, legendary names.
Between Aug. 11 and Aug. 15 visitors to TUK will be treated to some quality motion pictures, which will be a little more than just history lessons on celluloid. The titles say it all: Gandhi, Malcolm X, Nixon, Stalin and Michael Collins.
"For the national day event, amid this atmosphere of independence and atmosphere of change, historical figures are very important," said columnist Goenawan Mohamad, who supervises the Utan Kayu Community -- of which TUK is a part -- on why the theme was chosen for this month's film program.
"Originally, since we are commemorating Aug. 17 (Independence Day), we were going to screen films about Indonesia made by non- Indonesians, in this case, the Dutch," said Mohamad. "We tried to collaborate with Erasmus Huis, but Erasmus Huis didn't really open itself up for it. It's a pity. We then had to switch to another plan."
The new plan isn't such a bad plan after all. We get to see five excellent movies from five distinguished film directors with leading performances which have won numerous awards and accolades. These films take us to India, Ireland, Russia, and the United States to get up close and personal with five real-life figures who have left their mark in the pages of history books.
Gandhi is definitely the most prominent film of the five. Sir Richard Attenborough's 3.5-hour epic features one of the most easily recognizable figures of world history. The film pays magnificent tribute to the man famous for his passive resistance in the history of India's struggle for independence from British colonialism.
It boasts the Academy Award-winning performance of British actor Ben Kingsley as Mahatma. Of his acting feat, film critic John Walker said: "Kingsley burns with a keener and purer flame. His Gandhi is an outsized but understated performance, full of subtle gradations."
The least famous of the five men is maybe Michael Collins, who may be unheard of for those unfamiliar with the history of the Irish Civil War. Oscar-winning Irish director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, Interview with the Vampire) steps out of his usual, modest independent fare to come up with this colossal spectacle depicting the life of the IRA's Director of Intelligence. Michael Collins is an intense, powerful film which contains the memorable appearances of Julia Roberts and Alan Rickman. And as Collins, Liam Neeson turns in a Golden Globe-nominated performance that carries the same energy and charisma he lent to his portrayals of other historical figures in Rob Roy and Schindler's List.
What's interesting about these five films is the way they demonstrate that biopics do not necessarily lionize people. They present those people as they were. Contemporary biopics have left behind the tradition of feel-good movies about exemplary, heroic figures such as The Glenn Miller Story and The Pride of the Yankees. Directors these days relish the controversial; the nastier the better.
That is why we have films like Spike Lee's Malcolm X, in which the Oscar-nominated Denzel Washington interprets the role of the charismatic leader of the Black Muslim movement. Whether you like Washington's performance, or even the whole movie, depends largely on how you perceive the real Malcolm X himself.
Or take Nixon. Whether you can really appreciate Oliver Stone's absolutely mesmerizing film or Anthony Hopkins' magnificent acting will rely on how much you can forget your disdain for the late U.S. president and see him as a flawed human being.
And of course, there is the cable-TV movie Stalin, directed by Ivan Passer, in which Robert Duvall, unrecognizable under a thick hairpiece and an enormous moustache, delivers an Emmy-nominated portrayal of the notorious Russian leader.
Perhaps TUK really intends to show that behind every great figure, there is actually a human being we can feel sympathize with, or feel sorry for. Goenawan Mohamad expressed this in a simpler way.
"The criteria is, they are historical figures and not many people here have seen them," he said. He added with a smile, "and the films are available".