'Pernikahan Dini', unique teen romantic series
By Tony Ryanto
JAKARTA (JP): A 26-episode, one-hour TV drama series entitled Pernikahan Dini, with Saturday prime-time airing (8:30 p.m.- 9:30) by RCTI, is enjoying immense popularity. Its rating of 17, compared with most, lying only between 7 and 9, is exceptional, according to Rukmi, of the station's programming department.
Pernikahan has been described as unique, boasting a strong cast, a fine storyline, making it completely different from most teen drama-romantic-comedies. But if you look at it objectively, it is an updated version of a Mira W. novel-based-35mm movie called Di Balik Jendela SMP (SMP standing for Sekolah Menengah Pertama or Junior High School), a Gramedia Film production.
In the 1980s there was a theatrical movie entitled Pernikahan Dini, starring Mathias Muchus and Gladys Suwandi. That happens to be the movie that has inspired the current series.
Thus the principal magnet must be the neat packaging and the powerful come-hither appeal of its leads: singer Agnes Monika and teen heartthrob Syahrul Gunawan, of the "Jin and Jun" series fame, observes one weekly tabloid editor.
Monika is Dini, a junior high student who's bright, smart, but a little out of control -- the idol of today's teenagers. Not surprisingly, what she does often goes beyond the boundaries of propriety. Subsequently, her parents (Rudy Salam as Duta and Lydia Kandou as Shinta) are over-protective.
Running parallel to this is a subplot centering on Dini's brother Dody (Attlariksyah), who is unjustly accused of raping a woman named Dyah (Verra Rachmi), while in fact he is the one who had come to her help shortly after the mishap.
Seeing the woman in pain, with her dress in disarray, he took off his jacket and covered her.
When asked by her mother (Asniar, played by Yatty Surachman) whom the culprit is, Dyah does not say anything, but the jacket makes Dody a suspect.
Without giving viewers a moment of relief, the first few episodes are full of shocks and surprises, leaving the viewer wondering where the story will lead to.
Gunawan (Syahrul Gunawan) is a country boy who leaves Lembang, West Java), for Jakarta, attending the same junior high school Dini goes to.
The high point of tension in the story is premarital sex between the two leads. As Syahrul Gunawan put it to The Jakarta Post, the MBA (married by accident) story is expected to open the eyes of ABGs (anak baru gede or teenagers) to the realities of life.
He adds that shooting is still going on. "But due to good planning, we are not doing things in a hurry. This means that we will be able to concentrate on standards."
Similar to the male lead in the just-concluded drama series Aku Ingin Pulang, the male lead is loved by two women, one a big city girl, the other from a small town.
As could have been predicted, Gunawan and Dini will get to know each other and get closer and closer. The girl in Lembang, Ratna (Della Puspita) loves him, but is fiercely opposed by the young man's mother, Bu Drajat (Meriem Bellina).
With this in mind, it is easy to comprehend why viewers are curious to know how the story will end following the "accident". To whom will Gunawan get married: Ratna or Dini?
The title itself is interesting because "dini" can have two meanings. "Pernikahan Dini" could be either "Marriage of two people that are too young to enter matrimony", or simply "Dini's marriage".
Understandably, Pernikahan Dini could not be too closely based on the Mira W. story, because a 26-episode series is too extensive and voluminous for it, giving ample opportunity for the writer to improvise, thereby enriching the positive and negative aspects of premarital sex and how they are perceived by society in different parts of Indonesia.
Back in 1940, Indonesians had occasion to see an unforgettable black-and-white Italian film called Tomorrow is Too Late. Directed by Leonide Moguy and written by Oreste Biancoli and Alfred Machard, the film marked the debut of Pier Angeli.
She and a fellow junior high school student, while on a school excursion, are "stranded" in a forest hut during a rainy night. An "accident" could not be avoided. The teachers and students are shocked, but everything has to be solved, and a solution is ultimately found with the help of Vittorio de Sica, who plays Prof. Sandi.
Tomorrow became all the talk among junior as well as senior high school students in Jakarta at the time.