Indonesia's Out of Focus Cinema

The country's film industry is panting, out of breath. What was once a reputable industry during previous decades has during the 1990s churned out a dozen movies with titles like Nocturnal Passions or Savage Desires every year and nothing else.

1991 marked the end of the country's prestigious film festivals, including the Citra Awards, the country's equivalent of the Oscars, which no longer had any decent films to present. The early1990s also coincided with the American Film Exporters Association's aggressive drive to market its product overseas and the development of local private television, all of which sent Indonesian cinema into a spiral of oblivion, closing down most theater chains in the process.

"Indonesian cinema is in a state of sleepiness," says Rizal Mantovani, 30, a music video director who has joined forces with three other aspiring filmmakers to produce a full-length movie called Kuldesak. "I think the Indonesian audience is thirsting for some homemade refreshment," he says. Kuldesak, in four parts with a different director for each, is about young people's desperation in life as though they were stuck in surprise -- a dead-end! The movie is finished but where and when it will play is another matter.

Run-down cinemas in lower class neighborhoods have remained afloat by playing Indonesian basic instinct-type movies which take as little as one day to produce. At the same time, the Studio 21 group has developed a chain of Dolby-sound, all-comfort theaters in glittery malls, exerting a de facto monopoly of high-end film distribution.. Working closely with the American Film Exporters Association, Studio 21 theaters almost exclusively show Hollywood movies, leaving little room for Indonesian quality cinema, not that many high standard, let alone palatable films are being produced. There are, however, a number of filmmakers who are fighting reel by reel, to make it to the big screen, each in their own way.

GARIN NUGROHO, THE POET FILMMAKER

Garin Nugroho, 37, the country's premier filmmaker, finds salvation through foreign grants and film festivals. His latest offering, Daun di Atas Bantal (Leaf on a Pillow), was presented at the Cannes Film Festival. Co-produced by its star actress, Christine Hakim, the film tells the story of three street kids surviving the big city as newspaper vendors. Unfortunately, the movie will probably never make it to an Indonesian audience - at least for the time being.

Nugroho, whose poetic speech is seethed in Javanese roots - "Indonesian cinema is like a mango tree, we can see the tree but we can't taste the mango," he says - worries little about immediate commercial success.

"Of course, I feel lonely because my movies are Indonesian in essence and they should be seen here," Nugroho says. "But loneliness is also very beautiful. Life is like planting trees, sometimes you die before the tree has grown and others have to take care of the fruit."

Of his thirty documentary and feature films, only three have been screened in Indonesia, the latest a made for TV production on the TPI channel - Angin Rumput Savana (The Wind in the Savana Grass)- made possible by a Johns Hopkins University grant.

Slamet Rahardjo, 49, a leading actor during the1970s and a prolific director during the 1980s, has also reverted to producing television work but he finds this unfortunate. "We still need film for cinema," he says. "When people watch television, they are drinking coffee in their living room and talking to someone. It is impossible to make a statement in such conditions."

Rahardjo is trying to revive the glory days with co-productions, pulling the right strings in government and diplomatic circles. He is a teacher at heart who believes the filmmaker's role is as an intellectual, "to give an objective condition of reality," he says.

Successful cooperation with the French Embassy in Jakarta has led to the Franco-Indonesian co-production of the film Telegram, based on the 1973 novel by playwright Putu Wijaya, directed by Rahardjo, and co-produced with funds from the French sponsored Fonds Sud grant and from the government's Indonesian National Film Assessment Board (BP2N). The final edit has been taken to France for post-production. Again, the whereabouts of the film's release remains in doubt.

THE KULDESAK ENTREPRENEURS

The approach taken by the Kuldesak directors is radically different. According to one of the four directors, Mira Lesmana, the whole point of Kuldesak is to make a commercially viable film for an Indonesian audience and not repertoire or fringe cinema.

"We see film as a commodity. A film needs to have a big audience. When we started out this project, the point was not just to make a movie, but to make a movie that would have an impact," the novice director explains. Two years ago, Mantovani and Lesmana met with two other aspiring filmmakers, Riri Riza and Nan Achnas, with a stated purpose of making an edgy movie that would create buzz. The four directors are thirtysomething Jakartans from the MTV-Asia mold. They have worked in advertising and music video production to make money. They like bright, neon lights, staccato movement and loud music. They feel closer to Manila, Bangkok and Singapore than they do to Indonesian places such as Pontianak, Tana Toraja or East Timor.

"The movie is about coming of age in Jakarta," explains Nan, an IKJ film school graduate. "It is like a roller coaster. It is tripping without ecstasy. This is a city where you think you have everything but in fact you have nothing. When you set foot outside your home in the morning, you can get hit by a motorcycle. In the afternoon, down the street, maybe the shops will be on fire."

Writing the script was the easy part. With a minimalist budget of 50-million Rupiah (about US$4,000), the four directors decided they would make a movie for virtually nothing, calling on the benevolent support of actors, technicians, film students from the IKJ film school and production houses to work for free in the name of the industry's future. A whole slew of upcoming actors were enlisted to give the project credibility, including the MTV host Bianca Adinegoro, the rapper Iwa-K, and the model Sophia Latjuba.

Production houses agreed to lend film equipment for free, but only when the equipment was not being used. This led, of course, to long delays in shooting, compounded by the fact none of the directors possessed a union's license to direct a movie. Under current regulations, a filmmaker has to serve as assistant director in a number of projects before receiving the coveted license. Since there are no movies to work on, for Mantovani and crew, it seemed to be their very own dead-end.

The directors actually received their licenses once the shooting had been completed, long behind schedule. When Lesmana started shooting her part in Kota, north Jakarta, the July 1996 riots erupted, following the ouster of Megawati Soekarnoputri's supporters from P-D-I party headquarters. Shooting had to be postponed for six months.

The final cut was done by June. A trailer is being prepared in India and the question that now needs to be resolved is when and where this movie will be shown. "Our target audience is definitely the middle, upper class, urbanite, cosmopolitan Studio 21 audience," Lesmana explains. Crucial negotiations have begun with Studio 21 executives to give the movie a chance in mall theaters. Apparently, it seems the Kuldesak team will have to cover the costs of marketing and promotion. The directors are trying to find sponsorship through product tie-ins that appear in the movie.

If all goes well, a premiere with free popcorn is slated for the end of October. "Our biggest challenge is actually now," says Lesmana, speaking from a studio with giant replicas of cartoon characters. "For a movie to be successful, it needs hype, it needs commercial support." In the city's cultural underground, at least, there has been a buzz about the project for quite some time. Proceeds of the movie, if there are any, will go to a fund to support new film projects.

In an altogether different setting, Rahardjo is having dinner at the spacious home of the French Cultural Attaché in Menteng, central Jakarta, sipping wine and discussing his philosophy of Indonesian cinema. "We are an agricultural society with many mysteries. Nothing comes from calculation," Rahardjo says. "Indonesians never say 'I think' but 'I feel'. The first inspiration comes from feeling not thinking."

On the southern side of town, Nugroho sits in his studio's garden, with the crow of roosters and the singing of birds in the background. "The concept of the lonely room is essential to creation," he ponders. "Behind every genius and inventor, there is time in that lonely room."