`Schindler's List' fails first censorship hurdle

JAKARTA (JP): The Oscar-winning film Schindler's List failed the first censorship test when it was reviewed by five members of the Film Censorship Board.

Soekanto, the Board's executive director, told The Jakarta Post yesterday that there were disagreements among the five members on whether to pass the film. A unanimous decision is required to allow its showing to the public.

Soekanto declined to say how the five members voted but said that some of them, including himself, did not see any particular objection to allowing the film to be shown to the Indonesian public.

This means that the fate of Schindler's List will be decided by a vote at a plenary meeting of the 45-member Board scheduled within the next few days.

The movie by producer Steven Spielberg is a dramatized account about a German profiteer who saved more than 1,000 Polish Jews from the Nazi concentration camp during World War II.

The movie, which won seven Academy Awards, including the Oscars for best film and best director, has stirred controversy in at least three Southeast Asian countries.

Malaysia originally barred the film but then changed its stance but still insists on censoring the movie. The Philippines agreed to show the film uncut after Spielberg threatened to pull the movie out altogether.

Many Moslem leaders in Indonesia have urged the censors to bar Schindler's List on the basis of its being Zionist propaganda, although they have not seen the film which has come to Indonesia on the heels of last month's massacre of Palestinian Moslems in Hebron, West Bank, by a Jewish doctor.

Soekanto said he personally liked the movie and did not see any particular message representing any particular religion. "I don't know what Zionist propaganda is."

He recalled that in the 1970s, the Board passed the movie Diary of Anne Frank which also tells about the situation of the Jewish people during World War II.

He added that even if Schindler's List gets the vote, parts of it would have to be cut. "There are certain scenes which are not appropriate for our public, such as scenes of nudity and sexual intercourse."

"If the owner of the movie does not like our cuts and decides not to distribute the movie, it's his right to do so," he said.

He declined to predict the outcome of the vote, stressing that the Board comprises people from different backgrounds who will be looking at the film from different perspectives. (01)