The last two "big movies" in Indonesia
Movie posters are originally taken from Wikipedia and a Facebook group.
On the contrary to my previous post about Indonesian movie shame, we actually have a lot of good movies as well – that I would say can make us a bit proud. And they have been there for years too. Well, since we have our own great cinema workers, of course we can [also] have some high quality movies (my point is: don’t just underestimate our movie culture based of my previous post).
Within the last 15 years for example, the emerging young and talented directors, as well as actors and actresses, have made our movie scheme stands strong again. So, while “old schools” like Christine Hakim, Slamet Rahardjo, or Deddy Mizwar is still there, the young ones such as Dian Sastrowardoyo, Nicholas Saputra, or Nirina Zubir and others, come to the spotlight along with moviemakers like Garin Nugroho, Riri Riza, Mira Lesmana, Rudi Soedjarwo, or Hanung Bramantyo.
Indeed, talking about themes, most of the recent Indonesian movies are still about romance or similar kind of relationships. But there surely are other topics as well (including the over-exploited ghost theme). However, it is also a fact that a touch of “love” element to a movie can always make it very popular.
The two movies that I’m featuring on this post are perhaps not the best of all, but can be regarded as two of the most popular ones (at least in my perception). As far as I’m concerned, it’s been quite a long time since an Indonesian movie got so much attention and made a very long list of moviegoers on the queues. And if I’m not mistaken, it was AADC a.k.a. Ada Apa Dengan Cinta (What’s Up with Love) that has made such thing happened for the first time a few years back.
Now, this year, there come these two movies: Ayat-Ayat Cinta (Verses of Love) and Laskar Pelangi (Rainbow Warrior). Both are based on popular novels with similar titles. The first one being an adaptation of a book written by Habiburrahman El-Shirazy, while the second one is from a trilogy novel by Andrea Hirata.
The first movie, with the setting in Egypt, is basically about love and relationship – that can be said – wrapped in Islamic concept. It was released early this year on February, so there are already some data about it on Wikipedia and the IMDb. Also, there are some reviews on it, such as from the Jakarta Post or the one from VOA here.
The second film tells a story about a group of children (with their teacher) and their days of struggling for education, on a beautiful island called Belitong, off the east shore of Sumatra, Indonesia. This movie has been said really attracts a lot of viewers with its breathtaking landscape views, besides the story itself. Here’s a review about it on the Jakarta Post, and a note from a blogger.
