Imax theater thrills young audience with wild sea film

By Ida Indawati Khouw

JAKARTA (JP): Want to feel the power of thundering waves off of Hawaii or surf to the bottom of the sea and have a close encounter with strange sea creatures? Just visit the Keong Emas Imax Theater at Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII) in East Jakarta.

Starting on July 1 and scheduled to run for a year, the theater offers these treats and more with the film The Living Sea, which explores oceans around the world.

While picturing the beauty of the sea, the film tries to educate audiences about the large role the ocean plays in the lives of humans, which is understandable considering 70 percent of the earth's surface is sea. The film, which originally was narrated by Meryl Streep and has been dubbed into Indonesian, invites the audience to play a role in conserving the oceans.

"We seldom get in touch with the deep side of the sea, our relationship is on the surface level only," the narrator says.

Within the first 15 minutes of the film, the audience is entertained with the experience of playing on the surface of the ocean on the 623-square-meter screen. One can feel the power of the ocean when surfing the thundering waves in Hawaii or riding aboard a Coast Guard rescue boat in rough waters, accompanied by the music of Grammy Award-winner Sting.

However, the 40-minute motion picture tells more about life at the bottom of the sea, or what we know of that life. At the depth of 1,500-feet live species we have never seen.

The film mainly focuses on the sea life around the beautiful and relatively isolated Palau Islands in the Philippines, considered by an international group of ocean experts one of the seven "underwater wonders of the world".

It is in this complex of 200 coral islands that people can still see what the oceanic ecosystem was like 500 years ago, as the Palau islanders continue the tradition of respecting the life-giving waters and nurturing the ocean, while also harvesting the sea's treasure without destroying the underwater environment.

The Living Sea pictures scientists swimming among millions of golden jellyfish, which have evolved from predators to "farmers which have a vegetable field within their bodies", in an isolated saltwater lake in Palau.

The film reminds people to consider the pitiable consequences of destroying the vital heritage of the oceans.

The film has been a success in attracting audience, mostly children, who reluctantly got up from their seats when the film ended.

The head of the theater's administrative department, Ngadiyat, said the film was chosen as a way of supporting the government's resolve to focus more attention on caring for the ocean.

"We immediately chose the theme when the government announced their focus, while at the same time we also wanted to have educational entertainment during the school holidays," he said.

He said negotiations with the film's distributor, MacGillivray Freeman Films, were completed in early April, but he refused to say how much the theater was paying to screen the film until June 30 next year.

This is the 10th imported film to show at the theater, which until 1994 had the biggest permanently installed cinema screen in the world.

Keong Emas (Golden Snail) theater was built in 1984, modeled after the shape of a snail shell. The theater seats 800.

The name of the theater was derived from the legend of the separation and reunion of Panji Asmoro and Dewi Sekartaji.

The theater has mainly relied on imported Imax films, but it has shown three local films, Indonesia Indah I, II and III, which picture the beauty and diversity of Indonesia's wildlife and cultures.

Ngadiyat said the theater only showed films that dealt with the environment, technology or culture, "because we not only serve people with entertaining films, but also with those which have educational value".

The theater is quite a popular draw, attracting 10 million visitors in 1998.

During the school holidays (July 1 to July 17) Keong Emas is airing five films, each with a duration of between 30 and 40 minutes, including those on Indonesia. They are screened every hour, starting from 11 a.m. The Living Sea is screening at 11 a.m and 1 p.m. As of July 18, there are only three show times, starting midday, and The Living Sea will be shown at 1 p.m.