Major film festival draws attention to quality cinema
Major film festival draws attention to quality cinema
By Jane Freebury
JAKARTA (JP): Jakarta played host to film culture and its
practitioners with events in 1995 that ranged from visits by
filmmakers from Germany, eminent guest film critic Tadao Sato
from Japan, to festival screenings of environmental videos and
films, festivals of recent films from Mexico, Australia and Korea
-- to this year's high point, the advent of the 40th Asia Pacific
Film Festival. Delegates from around the region descended on the
city's hospitality infrastructure to view, evaluate and compare
some 40 entries from participating countries. And to do deals.
In this year of the centenary of world cinema and in this city
of "business", film culture still managed to slip in, sometimes
unnoticed, but it was there nonetheless. It was happening
somewhere. From the established venues of certain cultural
centers -- the French in particular, and, on a more occasional
basis, the Goethe Institute, the Australian Embassy auditorium,
Erasmus Huis -- to Teater Tertutup at Taman Ismail Marzuki Arts
Center (TIM), even to viewings in restaurants and private homes,
cultural events showcasing film were at least a modest occasional
option for Jakartans.
The French Cultural Center probably contributed the most to
film culture in Jakarta by maintaining its solid year-round
program of quality French cinema. September was a typical month
at the Center Culturel Francais with screenings including the
late Louis Malle's (He gave us Atlantic City and Lacombe Lucien)
Zazie Dans le Metro from early in his career, Eric Rohmer's Ma
Nuit Chez Maud and Melo from Alain Resnais ('Auteur' of modernist
journeys into memory in Last Year at Marienbad and Hiroshima, Mon
Amour). October brought Les Quatre Cents Coups directed by
Francois Truffaut with whom audiences at a TIM retrospective
became acquainted last year. Also on the program were Claude
Chabrol's Madame Bovary and from the remarkable Luis Bunuel, (Un
Chien Andalou -- with Salvador Dali) to The Discreet Charm of the
Bourgeoisie) his 1974 classic Le Fantome de la Liberte.
Korea made its presence felt with a festival of films in May
that offered us aspects of South Korean culture from the epic
flourish of historical dramas by top director Im Kwok-taek, Fly
High Run Far Kae Byok and The Diary of King Yonsan, to the social
comedy of marital muddles in Lee Myung-se's My Love, My Bride.
Korean cinema enjoys a deserved reputation which was enhanced
this year in Jakarta by the program of this festival, and by the
films submitted for competition in July in the Asia Pacific Film
Festival -- The Two Flags, Out of the World and Bitter and Sweet.
Earlier this year Erasmus Huis screened Mother Dao the
Turtlelike, that documented life in the Dutch East Indies between
1912 and 1933, in a compilation of silent images originally
recorded on 260,000 meters of nitrate film. Who was she, "mother
dao the turtlelike?" A no one and an everyone. The title is a
mythical namesake for one of the countless, nameless indigenous
workers who toiled for the colonialists during that period.
Like the remarkable American 1980s documentary Atomic Cafe,
Mother Dao the Turtlelike turns the table on what was originally
intended. Atomic Cafe is a contemporary reworking of the positive
propaganda disseminated by the U.S. nuclear industry during the
1940s and 1950s. Same images, (and in this case) same voices but
an entirely different approach to editing -- making the images
work against each other.
Some audiences believe that documentary should be just so. To
exactly replicate a perceived reality. Some negative response to
the film pointed out that the filmmaker, Vincent van Monnikendam,
had not been to Indonesia, had only visited it while splicing
away in the editing suite. Others pointed to the
incompatibilities of images and soundtrack, whereby, for
instance, Javanese tones were laid down over images of Nias.
Creative license is something audience don't often allow in a
documentary, but I found entirely apt (if not appropriate) the
soundscape mix of Kalimantan forest sounds, noise from Toraja
ceremonies of the dead, mournful poetic lyrics overlain. The
high-contrast images of armies of Indonesian workers, with the
dignified activities of Dutch colonialists, sights of diseased
bodies, cock fighting and of Idul Adha were enhanced by the
soundtrack. And what of those women -- were they mothers? --
popping lit cigarettes into the mouths of small children! Was it
real or just for the cameraman?
This December, Erasmus Huis screened Oeroeg that Century 21
mid-city experimented with for an abbreviated season in June
shoulder-to-shoulder with Legends of the Fall and Outbreak. No
doubt it was difficult to market, was screened without English
sub-titles (Dutch and Bahasa Indonesia only) but was probably of
most interest to the expatriate community, being in the main from
the European point-of-view. One can only hope that the brief
exhibition history of this European-Indonesia co-production won't
be used to drive another nail in the coffin of local film
production.
Throughout most of the year, the British Council maintained a
program of films, offering enticements to visit the Wijoyo Center
building in Jl. Sudirman, South Jakarta, such as the James Ivory
productions Howards End and The Remains of the Day and in a comic
update of My Fair Lady of yore, an amorous Michael Caine and an
effervescent Julie Waters in Educating Rita. All good solid
wholesome stuff, but why not try more Bhaji on the Beach on us?
Most adventurous
Most adventurous of the cultural centers was the Goethe
Institute. It challenged us with its film program, arranging for
an exposition of very recently assembled German video, 1992 -
1994, and for visits by practicing young German filmmakers like
Christian Wagner (Transatlantis) and Christoph Hubner, who was
present at a screening and seminar weekend of his work.
Cheerfully called "cornerstones", each of Hubner's films
looked very different, widely contrasting approaches to the
material. In one, the interviewee, a Ruhr Valley miner,
reminisced while looking straight to camera for the duration,
interrupted occasionally with a relevant illustration. More
"creative treatment of actuality" (in the words of 1930s British
documentarist, John Grierson) unfolded in Anna's Quest, a
fictionalized "documentary" of a woman collecting sights and
sounds in Germany during the time of reunification.
The Japan Cultural Center had a busy year that included a
significant film festival retrospective on the national cinema,
post-World War II, that brought eminent critic Tadao Sato to
town. He introduced his festival selections, discussing how they
reflected moments of social change on the road to democratization
in Japan. The occasion was also marked by other rarities --
screenings of Indonesian films of note, Ucik Supra's Badut Badut
Kota and Arifin C. Noer's Matahari Matahari.
For the third year running there was no Indonesian Film
Festival in Jakarta and the strongly-worded debate about the
state of the local film industry continued -- while noting that
major production efforts had migrated to the made-for-television
drama of sinetron, bringing the number of local films produced
for theatrical release to a struggling few.
Commercial television may seem to have dealt Indonesian cinema
a body blow but time and other factors may reverse this and the
future may see interdependence and cross-fertilization among the
audio-visual media, as in other countries.
There was no festival, nor was there any retrospective of
Indonesian cinema during 1995. Film archaeology was confined to
visits to the Sinematek, which keeps this country's film archive
under pretty dismal conditions.
An Australian film festival tour followed on just before the
door closed on the movie feast of the Asia Pacific Film Festival
program. While audiences were still primed, this set of titles
went on the road: A Saucer for the Birds, Mr. Electric, Bedevil,
Rabbit on the Moon and, finally, with a title to confirm the
stereotype No Worries. The latter was no stranger to Indonesia.
It was seen on SCTV last year.
Opening night feature Bedevil was directed by Tracey Moffatt,
talented Aboriginal woman director with a background in still
photography and film credits in two highly original shorts Night
Cries and Nice Coloured Girls. Structurally a triptych of short
stories, Bedevil suggests that Moffatt has yet to tackle the
feature-length narrative. In other respects her filmmaking is
passionate (as a cri de coeur for the Aboriginal people) and
striking, with stage sets representing indoors and out with a
highly formal approach to mise en scene.
Coming from a very different direction was David Elfick's
outback-to-city saga No Worries, previewed on these pages last
year. As a long-established producer (Newfront, Star Struck)
Elphick represents the mainstream of Australian feature
filmmaking, yet his film and Moffatt's, from the alternative film
scene, have a shared sense of life at one with the land -- a
motif constantly asserted in Australian film.
A Saucer of Water for the Birds directed by Anne Shenfield and
Monica Pellizzari's classic short Rabbit on the Moon considered
the problems of making a new home in Australia -- the multi-
cultural contradictions faced by migrant parents and their
children and grandchildren, who are first generation Australian.
The Asia Pacific Film Festival held July 23 to 27 eclipsed all
the other festivals in Jakarta this year with Indonesia hosting
the 40th event which attracted fiction feature and documentary
entries from participating countries. Sylvia Chang's Hsiao Yu,
the story of an illegal Chinese immigrant in the United States,
won the Best Film Award through its dignity, restraint and social
relevance. Other films of note were those that won awards --
including Turning Point, 47 Ronin, The Lovers, et al -- and those
that didn't -- namely Vive l'Amour, Bulan Tertusuk Ilalang and
Once Were Warriors.
This major international film festival, the Asia Pacific, drew
attention to the quality of best cinema in the region to -- but
also to the ground Indonesian cinema has lost lately.