Rizal finds his focus as a filmmkaer

Rizal finds his focus as a filmmkaer

Joko E.H. Anwar, Contributor, Jakarta

Rizal Mantovani has many admirers, people who regard him as a
pioneer in the country's music video industry.

There are also many who think that he has not grown as a music
video director, despite his many years of experience. Regardless
of what people may say about him, the 32-year-old director is
refreshingly unpretentious about his passion.

While many aspiring moviemakers here would quote avant-garde
filmmakers such as Wong Kar-Wai as their idols, Rizal unashamedly
cites popular film directors such as James Cameron as his
inspiration.

If you ask him to quickly mention 10 of his favorite movies of
all time, titles such as Titanic and Home Alone will certainly be
on the list.

"I'm very into pop culture and commercial art," Rizal said. "I
love Hollywood movies, I'm not gonna pretend I don't. I like
watching Bruce Willis kill thousands of people."

He will also recommend his own website, rizalmantovani.com, if
he knows that you want to learn more about him.

Rizal's seemingly harmless tastes probably come from his happy
upbringing, spent abroad as the son of a diplomat.

He settled in Indonesia when he was a senior at high school.
He went on to study architecture at Trisakti University here but
his love of music videos drove him to pursue a career in the
industry.

Cynics dismissed Rizal as just another rich kid who had grown
up playing with video cameras and now wanted to make a career out
of his hobby.

They were wrong. He was 24 when he first touched a video
camera.

"People (also) tended to think that I had gone abroad to learn
about movie-making. I never did."

It has to be acknowledged that his path from being a dreamer
to a doer is inspiring for any moviemaker wannabe.

Rizal's journey into the industry goes a long way back.
He loves reading comic books (he is an avid Superman comics fan)
and to draw.

He said that as a teenager, he used to draw comic posters and
sold them to one of the book stores at Pondok Indah, South
Jakarta, to be able to buy more comic books.

"Comics are expensive and I didn't have a day job ... but it
wasn't like a survival thing, it was a comic thing," Rizal said.

One day in 1991, a man named Edward Buntario from an
advertising agency, Creative Concept, saw his drawings in the
store and immediately recruited him as a visual artist.

They soon moved him into the television division and he
immediately learned how a video camera worked by asking the crew
the basic operations.

"I was very annoying really," Rizal giggled.

After he learned how to edit videos, he was then involved in a
few commercials and went on to make a music video for a minor
dangdut song and a forgettable boyband that was never shown.

He got his big break after he made a music video for local
rapper Iwa K. Since then he has been the most well-known music
video director, and one of the most productive, in the country.

However, he said that things would have been different had he
not started his career that early.

"I was very lucky because I was around at the right time and
right place," Rizal said, adding that there were still not many
people working in the industry at that time.

Like many of the American directors he admired, the director
of some 200 music videos and 15 commercials thinks that it is now
the time to move into making movies.

"Music videos is what I do to make money ... there's a bit
more to it in making movies," Rizal said.

He added that he wanted making movies to become a real
industry, like his pioneering efforts in the music video industry
in the country.

Many consider him a man of visuals who lacks a sense of a
story. On this comment, he humbly admitted that he tended to
agree.

"But I think it's in the past tense. That is a 'was' ... I
have to grow as a filmmaker."

The director's first film effort was an anthology movie called
Kuldesak (Cul-de-sac) which was also directed by Nan T. Achnas,
Riri Riza and Mira Lesmana.

Nan recently directed the art house Pasir Berbisik (Whispering
Sands) while Riri and Mira later went to make the commercially
successful Petualangan Sherina (Sherina's Adventure) as,
respectively, director and producer.

The segment in Kuldesak which Rizal directed was an incoherent
piece with images recalling several popular Hollywood films,
including Pulp Fiction.

Rizal said that in retrospect, even he questioned why there
was no story in the movie.

"The big lesson that I learned from Kuldesak was that story
matters."

But his latest movie, Jelangkung, which was codirected by
fellow music video director Jose Purnomo, is still a big hit in
the city.

Despite the fact that the movie is feather-light entertainment
that is more amusing to teenagers than more mature audiences, it
shows his attempt to put the story before the visuals.

Another reason the movie has been well-received by audiences
is that it cares about the logic, unlike most locally produced
movies that insult the intelligence of the viewer.

"During (the making of Jelangkung) I really looked for
loopholes because loopholes leave people unentertained."

He acknowledged that Jelangkung was inspired by several
American films, including The Blair Witch Project and Sam Raimi's
Evil Dead.

He also shared the opinion that art films were often
overrrated.

"Hollywood has bad movies ... but it also has good ones. The
same is true for art films ... But all I heard was that art
movies were mighty," Rizal said.

The director said that his next project would deal with urban
life in Jakarta.

"I want to make a love story, I want to go deeper without
having to go to that line where it becomes an art movie."

He added that this next project would be a cross between Ben
Stiller's Reality Bites and David Fincher's The Fight Club.

The idea may sound like a head-scratcher, but it will be
interesting to see how it turns out.