'Marsinah' fails to portray the truth of the controversy

Joko E.H. Anwar, Contributor, Jakarta

Marsinah, (**1/2 out of four stars); Drama, 115 minutes; Starring Diah Arum, Megarita, Intarti, Tosan Wiryawan; Directed by Slamet Rahardjo Djarot; A Gedam Sinemuda Perkasa Production.

When a director as prominent as Slamet Rahardjo Djarot sets the stage for a drama involving a highly controversial case -- the brutal murder of the woman laborer Marsinah -- expectations are high.

You may hope that: a.) you will get to know more of the title character; b.) get more information from the incident which shook the country in 1993, or c.) expect the film to provide a theory of what really happened.

There's also hope that your disappointment from watching the disastrous Ca-Bau-Kan, which also tried to take on a historical event, would be worth the time spent watching it.

Since word spread about the Marsinah project two years back, many had been eagerly anticipating how it would turn out.

Well, the highly-anticipated film has finally been released and the verdict is: none of your hopes as listed above are likely to be fulfilled.

The film fails to let us get to know Marsinah better, or provide more information about the much talked-about case than what we already know from the news.

It simply plays out like a dramatization of the news without giving us anything new.

The film opens with a thud, even though it promises to grab the audiences by the collar and never let go. It seeks to recreate the events so vividly as to make the actors seem to be breathing down your neck.

Slamet does not want to polish any element of the film which makes it very raw. Unlike the works of many local new moviemakers who are desperately trying to imitate Guy Ritchie, there is no fancy camera work here.

The film recounts an arrest by several officials at the watch- making factory CPS who were accused of brutally murdering the laborer Marsinah.

Among those arrested was the company's head of personnel, Mutiari, who has a law degree from a local university. Mutiari was later charged for not reporting the crime, before those who were actually charged with the murder were tried.

The film revolves around Mutiari's traumatic days of being kidnapped by the military along with the psychological and physical abuses she was forced to experience.

The torture scenes, not as graphic as you might expect, are nonetheless so well-staged and disturbing they make similar scenes like in In the Name of the Father seem like something from out of a Disney film.

I also cannot praise the cast enough.

The filmmakers really have done a great job to find performers who can do the real characters justice, especially Megarita, who is very well-cast playing Marsinah.

In fact, the acting department is the film's main attraction. Even small parts contribute a lot to the realism of the picture.

Unfortunately, the film becomes less and less gripping before it eventually becomes uninvolving and, in the end, fails to give us enough reason to root for the characters.

Although the film centers on Mutiari, it fails to let us know the character well, let alone the title character.

The film only has a flat rhythm. No building of tension, no climax, it and falls short of having a satisfactory ending.

The filmmakers mean well, as can be seen in the opening where the film claims itself as a "reflection on humanity."

But the filmmakers also should not expect Marsinah will do well in the box office since they have, presumably by choice, ignored the proven style which made recent releases such as Ada Apa Dengan Cinta (What's Up With Cinta) such a big hit.

Most people will also wish the film focus more on the title character instead of Mutiari. The expectation is not wrong since, from the very beginning, the film promotes itself as being about Marsinah, or it should be titled Mutiari instead.

Slamet admitted he never wanted to make Marsinah a biographical picture. "Marsinah has been an idiom for all of us," he said. He added it was more urgent to introduce other characters involved in the case, since they all existed because of Marsinah.

Slamet's argument may sound more like an excuse. The audiences can only respect the filmmakers' angle on how they want to portray a true story.

Let's take a look at Oliver Stone's JFK, for example. Stone also spent most of the film's running time digging into the aftermath of the assassination.

However, we can accept that decision since everybody already knows JFK very well and, most importantly, Stone dares to speak up his mind about what he thinks really happened.

But we cannot say the same thing about Marsinah since Slamet does not want to speculate. And the result rather looks like an episode of The Unsolved Mysteries.

Despite the film's daring, uncompromised portrayal of the cruelty of the military and police officers, the film is still very lame in terms of taking a stance to spell out the filmmakers' beliefs about the truth.

In other words, this film which tells the story about a big event in the country is no event at all.