'Sinetron' mogul's biography a tale of an industry

'Sinetron' mogul's biography a tale of an industry

Rudijanto, Contributor, Jakarta

Panggung Hidup Raam Punjabi
(Raam Punjabi: A life's stage)
Alberthiene Endah
Grasindo
287 pp

"It was just 15 minutes after the film had started. Suddenly, the movie theater became very bright. The lights were turned on. It seems the police were conducting a raid. They wanted to find out if underage children were in the audience."

This is an anecdote told by local television soap opera -- or sinetron -- producer Raam Punjabi, describing his early childhood indulgence of watching movies, even though he was still below the admissible age of 13 years to watch Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp at the Orion theater in Surabaya.

Written by woman journalist Alberthiene Endah, Panggung Hidup Raam Punjabi (Raam Punjabi: A life's stage) tells of the sinetron mogul's personal life, career struggle and even his philosophy of life. Using a story-telling technique, Alberthiene presents Raam as his own narrator as he vividly expresses his sadness, joys and hopes.

We learn, through the narration, that the great grief that compelled Raam to face a harsh life in Jakarta when he was 15 was his father's death.

"My heart reacted quickly. Has Father passed away? That must have been wrong. I wanted to protest. My feet started shaking. For several seconds, my whole body seemed to gather strength. Something sad would happen."

The loss of his father, Jethmal Tolaram Punjabi, an immigrant trader from India's Hyderabad, turned Raam's comfortable childhood upside-down, and the family fell into almost a hand-to- mouth existence, having lost their sole breadwinner.

The determination to change this hardship motivated Raam to seek his fortune in the Jakarta. Years of struggling in the capital, including working as a textile shop attendant and operating a mail-order business, finally led Raam back to the world of his childhood dreams: movies.

Aside from detailing Raam's struggle to develop his film import and production company, Panggung Hidup tells of the ridiculous and sorry state of the domestic film industry during the height of New Order regime.

While the flood of imported film was irresistible, particularly with the trend of centralizing import licenses solely for a single, favored group, the growth of the domestic film industry was hindered by various regulations, some of which were really ridiculous.

"Pressures came from regulations that were baseless... At that time, there was a rule that prior to the start of shooting a film, a producer had to make a report on all these unnecessary details related to the film he is going to make to the KFT (Indonesian Television Workers Association)."This agency would then assess whether the film crew had met their obligations to the organization, and whether the film crew were not involved in another production. Then, we had to register the title of our film to the PPFI (Indonesian Film Company Organization).

But that wasn't all.

"To PARFI (Indonesian Actors Guild), we had to submit the screenplay, including the characters' names... The screenplay also had to be shown to the information department and the Film Directorate."

Aside from these tiring and convoluted procedures, Raam also tells of the Department of Information's interference in determining the titles and even the names of the characters in the film.

An example of such interference is evident in Raam's Warkop Films -- the name literally means coffee shop, but refers to a group of local comedians -- 1984 production, Semua Bisa Diatur (All can be settled). The information department protested at the title and warned Raam to change it.

It turned out that the phrase was frequently used by a certain high official of this country, and the information department worried that the title would offend the official.

Another such ridiculous example occurred with another film, in which an antagonistic character was named Sisca. After examining the screenplay, the information department asked him to change the name -- because Sisca was the name of a high-ranking official's wife.

With such arbitrary, unnecessary regulations and "unofficial" rules, the local film industry could hardly produce high quality, creative films. Raam's film production business was at its nadir.

But it is not all negative, and the book also highlights positive developments, not only in Raam's life, but also in the film industry. The arrival of the era of television, starting with RCTI, owned by Suharto's son Bambang Trihatmodjo's Bimantara Group, is one such episode.

Herein lies the seeming contradiction. Restricted by the information department's regulations and related associations that slowly killed the industry's creativity, Raam found a new hope through his ties with the powerful New Order elite.

While others nowadays tend to conceal their relationships with the New Order circle, Raam is open about his close friendship with well-connected businessman Peter Gontha. Peter was instrumental in inviting him to meet Bambang and Indra Rukmana, the latter Suharto's son-in-law.

These ties brightened Raam's future, especially when private TV station RCTI started to operate. Demand for Raam's sinetron started to rise as other private TV stations came on air.

The high demand for sinetron, along with an increase in TV sets quickly transformed Multivision, Raam's sinetron production company, into the national industry leader.

Criticized for selling "dreams" through his sinetron, which often feature luxury cars and houses, Raam appears unshaken in his conviction that his sinetron send a message to the public.

But not all people agree with Raam's way of delivering his message, as was clear in the controversy surrounding the opening of Buruan Cium Gue (Kiss me quick). No less than popular Muslim scholar A'a Gym and the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) called the film "pornographic".

Raam certainly has his own way of looking at things, and readers may disagree with many of them. His ties with the New Order elite, his shares in the Studio 21 cinema chain -- owned by Suharto's brother Sudwikatmono -- have raised questions as to whether Raam was a victim of the New Order's regulations and monopolization of the film import business or that he was simply a beneficiary of the regime, which bestowed its bounty on whomever was willing to cooperate.

Still, Panggung Hidup is a must-read for those who want to know about the nation's film and sinetron industries.

The reviewer is a freelance journalist and can be reached at frudijanto@cbn.net.id