Phoenix: Rose from the Mess to the Masses

Rock stars and common people are two sides of the world defining each other through the creation of otherworldly distance that at certain stratospheric level of stardom is like believing inherently natural for Michael Jackson to moonwalk his way to the toilet. How we know them, consume their music in form of personalized media bubble packages of YouTube videos or iTunes downloads in our private minds and their disillusioned twitter accounts build its own copy of reality of the embodiment of the artists. A twisted simulacra of getting used to enjoying them acting as a band in a video or hearing over the radio that sometimes it feels more intimate and real than actually seeing them live ten metres away with horn blowing high-pitched decibels ripping your hair off. To somewhat frame the sentiment grandiosely we can refer to what Umberto Eco said of Disneyland, “ We not only enjoy a perfect imitation, we also enjoy the conviction that imitation has reached its apex and afterwards reality will be inferior to it.” ("The City of Robots" Travels in Hyperreality). That is pretty much what swimming in my head when I compare armchair travelling to backpacking and when I went to Phoenix’s concert few months ago without any pre-emptive action to deal with my subconscious uneasiness of detachment and ignorance toward the band for the past 3 years especially their latest album because basically the girls just wanted to have some fun and take whatever the night was offering after rough week of selling bourgeois bohemian products to the Bobos picking up pieces from the recent economic collapse. I was just hanging on the bittersweet whim of my past addiction back in college, toward playing their earlier hits banging my eardrums and half-witted brain at 3 AM, helping me to survive from quoting and overanalyzing Baudrillard for my final thesis. Even Googling first over the who’s who in your Blackberry had been passed as intrusive if not unthinkable (to my defense), and my sole knowledge that the vocalist is having relationship with Sophia Coppola was sufficient for me not to be obsessively remembering what he actually looked like (which became quite a hassle later that night). As Phoenix rose from the ashes of its old-self, they and people watching became a whole different reality for me that night.

Talking about people who came to watch, it revealed to me through an unexpected juxtaposition that I played undermined role of a postman delivering certain strangers’ happiness since I was the one who kept my friend’s and his friend’s friends’ tickets jumbled in my shoulder bag with mine. The plan was I gave them the tickets over quick dinner and dashed off to regroup with my slightly more groupie girlfriends who already at the scene and whose extended knowledge on pop culture and recent Phoenix news would be my guidance post from getting lost in musical limbo. Yet unaccustomed by pre-concert backstage stalking activity, I was pretty flabbergasted under my calm exterior to know from an insider that the band was having dinner at the same place (which considered one of the hippest and classiest restaurant in town - citation needed) I was going to bringing in the tickets. So tracing back to New York caste system in the years of The Age of Innocence or even in today’s Gossip Girls, I was this Brooklyn girl strutting her way and tumbling charm to an Upper East Side dinner only to act like a less composed die hard fan in front of well-reserved strangers, exploiting my beginner’s luck to have a picture with a group of white guys we assumed as the band. After laps of total self-deprecated action and an awkward hi to my ex boss who actually owned the place, sponsored the concert, and probably witnessed my downfall from grace, I was made to believe that I just took the picture with the friendly band mates without its lead man who was acting as the loner guy from Mars, sitting lazily at the table. But without me knowing, this Thomas Mars stood up all of sudden in time for picture and down again to enjoy his tea by the time I thanked the standing members. That’s how the invisible voice accompanied me all these years disengaged with the visible remoteness of an alien showing at the backdrop of a picture. I am that typical girl you meet for the first encounter that says ‘I’m sorry” too many times for no particular reason that usually preceded by heavy courtesy and lingering timidity or even carelessness and childishness of wanting to runaway from any trouble and inconvenience possibly caused during my motor mouth moment or my simply nonchalant behaviour which I exhibited quite frankly at about having picture with Mr. Mars twice in one night, this second time totally an accidental sabotage over my friend’s chance as the band passed through us on their way huddled to the private lounge at the after party. We were just these two girls waiting for our drinks to come when my girlfriend shocked the three of us and proximity itself that the guy she was waiting all night actually coming closely to her direction and the only thing that attracted the other groupie for a signal of celebrity nearby was our utterly amateurish silent panic. He kindly refused to take picture but finding that quite snobbish and pitied over our stubbornness, he relented in the split second only weirdly enough I got to be taken with first as she was holding the camera and I was right beside him. As every twist of the story takes place before we know it, the bouncer already saved him up from the gathering crowd because an insistent girl thrown herself and took my friend’s slot. His final denouement was a feeble and helpless protest yet considerate and humble to our ears, “She was first…”.

This elaborated commotion earlier pretty much making me missing the opening act of rustic Naif and starting in the middle of the S.I.G.I.T (Super Insurgent Group of Intemperance Talent) who apparently had the talent to go live as insanely rocking as it is recorded and burning the night in high anticipation with their scrawny look of long-haired late 70s rock band screaming long riffs of rollercoaster ride in a forgotten rock land. Yet the young night turned an unexpected downslide as their somehow ironic remark onstage of not knowing what Garuda called in English (screaming out loud, “It’s Phoenix...Hello?!” against thousands of euphoric audience apparently a futile action) and the anti-climax performance from Rock ’n Roll Mafia who had the hard time that night and years to come to live up to their name if they kept their inappropriate resilience to play electronic gung-ho with robotic spirit of New Order era.

Almost thirty minutes of complete flat lining boredom trying to toss away giant bouncing flattening balloon across the room while the other hand wearily holding the empty glass of overpriced beer with medleys of getting to know your new friends and catching up with some old friends later, the main attraction resuscitated us from a near death experience by revisiting the haunted spirit of Franz Liszt himself in his 18th century glories as the pioneer of mass hysteria catalyst and early fascination inducer on artist as celebrity and live performance, through the beautiful chaos of speedy "Lisztomania". The crowd turning to heated pack of sardines jumping and galloping rhythmically through its every jive. It reverberated “from the mess to the masses.” indeed. With an encore too sweet to last, our crazed hunger over this addictive electrifying rush to the brain seemed inauspiciously unquenchable through their nonstop detour to Wolfgang Amadeus and some classics. We floated through "Love is Like a Sunset", raved over "Funky Square Dance" and the susceptible crowd weathered by nostalgic hearts already beat according to the stormy vibration of "Run", it was running from the core of the gig.

To come to think of how these French alt rock philosophers not only have supported me pulling through my sanity from another French postmodern philosopher but also now through the darkest hours of capitalistic doom adulthood only seems to offer; and seeing them with beatific expression toward us built brief solidarity and mitigating shield in the menacing crowd of self-interested strangers starving for good music to go along with their cigarette breaks and autistic-stomping on other people’s feet-jitterbug. As for my friend, no worries, she managed to make her Cinderella story as she stalked Mr. Mars on his way back to the hotel as midnight struck and get all the pictures she wanted to have with the rest of the rock band who mingled with the commons without that otherworldly distance.

Garuda di Dadaku

Many times we try to defy the loss of innocence and the deformation of our childhood dreams or so called happiness from embodying that mundane greedy soulless molds of adult Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once warned us about in "Little Prince". During the course of our lives to adulthood we caught up in taking for granted small moments whose implications and upon which decisions we made yet were not fully comprehend at the time, afflicted with the kind of cool grownup we'd imagined as a child. We are compromised in so many level. We learn that we easily stranded in that catch of responsibilities, work ethic, money versus love, dreams, happiness etc. And we blamed on what we watch and read and listen or in that matter lack of, during our childhood.

By all means history repeats by itself, we now try to protect what's left of innocence of our children and their magnanimous beliefs for their dreams from the scaring world. Now that the end of school holiday morphing into a cultural rite of passage for family bonding, parents taking on leave vacation to start paying attention on what their kids have been watching and should have been all year and tweens gleefully streaming the malls for shopping spree or being autistic, gathering like a flock to tweet or update their FB status from their crayoned colored BBs and even old fashionably strapping themselves in front of the magic black box all day building reality over drama queen reality shows and sensational infotainments. I was the product of latter imbalanced media fetishism for violence and romance without much space for children's movies, and not to mention my parents lack of inhibition on media filtering and big sister's raging hormones mostly can be held responsible for taking me out to watch Pretty Woman and Ghost as my first family movies. Of course after that I redeemed it with series of Macalauy Culkin's tutti frutti flicks like Home Alone and My Girl among my most favorites and tried to wash away what Demi Moore and Patrick Sawyze doing during pot molding with monstrous dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. None of local children's film I could relate or even remember being made in my generation as the industry went hiatus in the 90s. I was too old by the time Petualangan Sherina came out and it took almost another decade for the same producer to release Laskar Pelangi. And in interval only few films actually showed decent encouraging and edifying story line unspoiled by Ratapan Anak Tiri plot or some money churning vehicle to exploit some child stars.

So it was no wonder that recently that itch, that gap in our development as an adult and the missing link of our childhood entertainment can be temporarily reconciled in Goelali Children's Film Festival and this holiday season's Garuda di Dadaku and King showing hopeful trend to revive the genre.

Despite my misfortune to only manage to watch a very disturbing commodified Bollywood cartoon of The Return of Hanuman (Hanuman is the show off Indian Superman whose songs can be your next RBT if you just follow the one liner ad at the panorama) in the festival and starting to doubt the curatorship and sparse agendas, Goelali is becoming a very omnipotent platform for kids to get various alternative channels to the great invention called movies from around the globe.

And after watching Garuda di Dadaku, we have the sense of urgency to be belittled of having an excuse to giving up our dreams and at the same time enjoy the cathartic quality these kids emitting through their carefree performances in the desert of acting world dominated by dramatic bulging eyes and tremendous fake extravagance. Bayu, the cute talented hero is ambitiously idealistic to becoming the best football player. With his mushroom hair, sun baked face, skinny dirty legs and genuine humble smile, he represents some groundings in imaging Indonesian kids on screen. His sense of realism mostly throttled by his single parent working mom and his overbearing grandfather that equalizes success with anything but being an athlete and specifically prohibits him from playing football due to traumatized by his failed football player son. Like most kids these days, he gets shepherded around from one intensive course to another that left fun nor talent nor interest alignment out of the loaded standardized curriculum that about to produce children of corn. If that's not harsh enough to budge him from joining the U13 national team, his family is too poor to submit him to such luxury of Arsenal soccer school that seems to be the only way to get in the national team and in tradition of Siti Nurbaya, he is forced if not deluded to follow his grandparent high demands. But in the world of cinema, nothing's better than an excessively wealthy and challenged sidekicks for support. Heri, his best friend slash manager is a typical lonely privileged kid in a wheelchair that can buy his dreams for others but not really have it. In this case, he is the philanthropist for his friends' education. Together they roam secretly through the jam packed Jakarta for a field to practice for the selection that not yet turned into urban landscapes of malls and fancy apartments only to find the right place is an abandoned cemetery plot running by Zahra, an odd artsy girl with umbrella entering the scene with one of most thrilling action in the movie. Like a prequel to the Breakfast Club, these three find their way to become the jock, the manager, and the artist.

Directed by Ifa Afansyah to bring up the comical struggles yet easily underdeveloped and lack of depth due to digging what's left from bubble gum script writing by Salman Aristo; Bayu is striving for his dream against the failing grades, the typical competition with bullying kids and adult authorities that try to shape him respectively with common shortcomings like the loving yet poor parent (Maudy Kusnaidi), the rich yet busy parent, one joker driver that is more of a parent than the real ones (Ramzi), the perfect clean coach (Ari Sihasale), and lousy authorizing grandparent (Ikrarnegara) from the world of New Order who claims to know what best for his family and uses all his pension money from his past career in national oil company for his grandson's art course instead of saving for college, and finally a dramatic heart attack (which scared shitless of a kid asking her mom, is he dead?).

Meanwhile, it is a false start to think of Garuda as more trying to jack up the diminishing prestige of our sports world and patriotism less than an ironic background which works better in Iran because of its uber restrictive policy in film making that makes innocent children's film flourishes. The catchy theme song "Garuda di Dadaku" by alternative band Netral really boosted that disjointing sense of pride and sportsmanship against the unparalleled world of our real catastrophic hooliganistic national football not to mention the scattered patriotism that only arouse when outside threats coming to out borders. It is merely using football as an effective mean to an end of fighting for your dreams no matter impossible it is.

And it is not the first time Ifa playing the wild card of childhood dream and football craze, something that most Indonesian can relate to. His previous short film about how Acehnese boy copes with the trauma of tsunami through his fascination for the World Cup staples his ability to extract what producer Shanty Hermayn reflects as the impressive side of each character and less compromised by glaring product placements and Hollywood like narrative in Garuda. Yet common slapsticks trap in Indonesian comedy by overwhelmingly exploiting the lovable Bang Dulleh, Heri's driver actually glues up with these trio precocious idiosyncratic kids sparks a dynamo to keep the movie running against the dragging scenes with over dramatic grand dad and anticlimax scenes of the football match.

Still, with his wide innocent smile and signature banana curve ball goaled through a window bus we revisited our childhood dreams.

SOL PROJECT - 28 May 2009 BBJ

I was unexpectedly pulled out of my corporate slave daily routine that Thursday night. Coming late to the show after charming dinner with coworkers who happened to be a nice-yet-they-don't-realize couple, made one left drained and exhausted by the vicarious happiness yet to be materialized and the thought of that desperate hope which led to abiding loneliness; one started to feel if the whole idea of coming to such a free crowded live performance of fusion music (like life is not complicated enough) two hours from home at past eight PM was still a good idea. Yet paradoxically this corruptive mood can bolster me further to embrace my true nature of an escapist on any given chance, not only makes me perceived as the affirmative buddy who always says yes to any invitation, I could easily beam the contrite smile of being late and grateful to finally come.

As I jumped out of the cab, the heat and the rhythm of funk jazz building on the vibrating walls of audience spilled over Bentara Budaya Jakarta's narrow opening ground swapped into intimate music carnival, I regretfully missed half of the attractions and grateful for the half full cup of surprises heading towards me. I was moving into the transfixed crowd cheering supportively of what it seemed an elegant Balinese lady dancer unmoved on her solid twisted pose getting ready to groove along the manga-like background of lead singer in glittering mini kimono, brass players in batik, kendang beater which without the instrument some might consider the guy in stripped red-white shirt and heavy mustache as a street mobster/satay seller/Wally in where's Wally, a drummer with Balinese black and white checkered drum sets; and to surmise all the oddity of the night's juxtaposition, the mighty punk with spiky hair, boots, and truck driver sleeveless shirt playing the melody on less tuggish keyboard: TAFKAR (The Artist Formally Known as Rudy Octave) as the band leader and provocateur of Sol Project. Not to mention featuring artists and definite ingredient of the fast tempo of Latino beat in a jukebox:the duo Colombian, sizzling singer Wilson Novoa and Faiser Forez on never ending percussion.

Visually speaking, the scene of this mini Taman Mini Indonesia Indah just might intimidate me into third world Alice in Wonderland situation where my working outfit and ten pound bag of laptop and capitalist burden easily out of context with the rest of casual, beatnik audience, and dreamlike ethnic performers (and have I mentioned I was invited by a reggae fanatic who always wears apparels with green yellow red stripes and Marley himself on the chest of his T-shirt for this occasion?); yet surrealism behold, everyone felt belong to this chaotic costume party, danced along with the cross dressing music and became the literal melting pot. The banner suddenly sang the loudest, something to do with mutating Indonesian ethnic music with Latino groove in contemporary world. That would make the main courses swarmed with the resurrection of traditional songs and national heritages as well as Bali Dancers swirling around on already packed stage, Borneo Picollo jamming, sinden serenading in Javanese with drowning rock ambiance, a Colombian doing some rap and covering "Rocker Juga Manusia" in Samba, and North Sulawesi pop cult "Poco-Poco" served with hot Salsa.

At the near end of the show, last Balinese dancer showed up, a young girl incessantly being beautiful with many facets of extreme expressions and in matter of seconds from being total dead serious when she stared at us, smiling eerily as she shied away; one might get the feeling of overdone tour de force of circling the mosaic world in less than two hours and consuming all the mindboggling Indonesian ethnic music mixtures could offer in this fast track package. Yet some also craved for some more and better than what easily trapped as generic production of funky ethnic jazz performance that sometimes all the varieties on stage can be slightly kitschy after a while, you could have believed a troop of oompa loompas rolling on stage.

Two Lovers

Based loosely from Dostoevsky's "White Nights" yet probably will be more memorable as Joaquin Phoenix's last curtain call and the premature more of omnipotent actor of our generation; Two Lovers is the bittersweet entanglement between confused emotions of what contemporary culture defines as modern love story. Sadly, we are given evidence of his metamorphosis into a hip hop artist through the heartbroken character of Leonard, the Russian lit-morose and suicidal lover archetype who tactfully and blissfully throws a few raps, slapsticks and later on some slick dancing moves among other sweet painful rendering of devotion to win the heart of this tantalizing blond, Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow as the M.I.L.F of our generation in real life) who prefers rejecting and using him for her obsessive affair with a married hotshot lawyer. The other lover, Sandra, not less tantalizing yet not so tucked up as Leonard and Michelle (this similarity makes him falling more into Michelle as Sandra into him paradoxically), is the daughter of the respective Cohen clan who about to absorb Leonard's parents' dry cleaning business into their chain and his life into the safety net of Russian Jewish middle class. Along the action of en tangling and distancing between these two love interests, Phoenix shows the hopelessness and inner fragility of a mad crush over an impossible love that paralyzes him in the wicked subtleties people around him have to afford the consequences just to make him happy. Paltrow plays crucial axis in turning the mood of the characters around her. Michelle is manipulatively powerful over Leonard without her really admitting it as she is focusing attending her own wound through one of the best shots conjured of the window scene when Leonard helpless voyeuring and talking to Michelle across the building. Even with standard dialogues and romantic catch phrases in the world of media exploited amour such as, "I want to take care of you" and the very magnum opus cliche of "I love you", you find them some sense of truism in this mundane landscape and come out of their mouths without regret, reverberate honesty and desperation to have, to love, and be loved you have not find in a while on screen. Without a strong casting and directing, the somber winter of Brighton, New York will not help much in saving the plot from becoming another soap opera subplot episode 210. As most love triangles end up in terrible tragedy, James Gray as director/cowriter/anything in between learns from his meticulous study on cinema history (the guy is believed to know the name of every director in every movie ever made), manages to make a graceful dance to come up with the beautiful notion of human redemption and practicality of love, most people end up vicariously relate with Leonard, the poor guy not so lucky in love.

when will it stop?

How to Mend a Broken Heart

Al Green sings about it. Britanny Murphy in Ramen Girl, mastered the art of cooking Ramen evoking eaters to shed tears to their bowls in the very cheesy fashion. Maroon V made megahit on songs about Jane, Adam’s ex. Throughout the history of pop art and men in general, breaking up can never be more platitudinous yet productive and enlightening. As any Cosmopolitan columnist might write all he-is-just-not-into-you wake up call in different lights, if you cannot move on from a fractured relationship at least what you should do is picking up the pieces you have left behind to build something purposeful for you to get by.

 

Of course in my case, the so-called four steps from divorce to happiness according to The New Adventure of Old Catherine easily blundered and blended with the rest of the phases conjures no less than lethal roller coaster ride of melancholic overdose and rustic self-pity. In Christine’s world, first you get angry then come the resentment, denial then the anger creeps back. In my world, it’s just another day of a perfect vicious cycle of love-hate juice. This is not a Meg Ryan movie, and you get to stop wanting to be in one. Meg Ryan off screen is the living testament to all the saccharine love the cathartic industry has sweetened your life with. And the lowest pit was when you could actually reflect your break-up with the ever raunchy national politics situation. Apparently, the feeling of getting denied by your own country when you checked that you were not in the voters list at the morning of Legislative Election Day (therefore denied whole access to any discount privileges promoted by the consumptive world that day for being politically active and a shopaholic) was shockingly vexing and ego-demeaning because you had played the idea of not using your right in the first place. The very notion that you actually get ripped off something you have taken for granted was connecting the dots to the emotion when one gets dumped, I just wanted to scream at the top of my lungs on how pathetic life can be.

 

Nevertheless, in the spirit of vengeance, competitiveness, and sad bliss, I try to do all the things on my dusted wannabe list pending for over quarter of century as a standard defence to any suicidal urge to sleep off with suddenly lucrative sleeping pills. I learned to swim like a frog after laps of hard adjustment to my new amphibian nature and vanishing act of taking benefit of cool dives to hide my tears inside the deep blue. When pool revisited a couple of days ago, in one of my long haul back and forth from the 1.5m area to 4m blanketed by the turquoise fluid, I ducked and watched the glimmering afternoon sunlight crisscrossed against my palms trying to define new lines of destiny as I am kicking through.

 

I started writing again, setting up awkwardly my first blog, submitting some rushed sappy contemplative film reviews none ever finished reading yet hoping lowly I already got even. But I also learned the power of absence could be so damaging, it broke you on the very sight of his constant disappearance and unexpected appearance. You either wanted to smile or punch him in the face. It just put you back to square one and made you find all along the wallpaper of your mind is the replenishment of him, it tested your very nerve not to flip out silently again in the toilet booth. As I open my eyes every single day, there is the regret, rage, and desolation succumbed to suppressing routine of saving myself from myself and trying to escape the world. It is a personal struggle and he is just another trigger. I became so downcast and wry enough, I helped my friends reworking the timid effort of a screenplay on short film tribute to the very master of romance Wong Kar-wai. I shone my undone complexity and babbled out my ever changing philosophy to any of my new friends who cared to listen and I knew no one including myself understood a word. I just wanted to get it out of the system. I wanted my words printed on the paper and people read it aloud to less the loneliness.

 

Another escapade that gave a whole new landscape like Bali actually would not hurt and I ought to consider myself a lucky bastard to distract myself from my own paranoia of him through expensive yet half-priced-since-my-aunt-owned-the-town leisure facilities. Coping a crash course of basic survival tricks in diving and my ears hurt so much due to the water pressure of seven metres down sea level, I just concentrated on my breathing and sat dumbly on the bottom of the sea only to find the wonderful view of colourful corals of diminishing National Geographic panorama and overrated mini Nemo swimming serenely through the sticky anemone. Yet the thought rushing all back even as I hopelessly tired of trying to beat the powerful Kuta waves by riding them on the damaged slippery surfing board and easily beaten by enviable lame clothed Japanese couples. The scenic Ubud Mountains and cold air brushing against my opened eyes in the morning of my 25^th waking up in the honeymoon suites of all stars resort also could not help me to be less numb and irritated remembering how he had called a night too early for my birthday. I was a fortunate’s fool and sincerely apologize for my inadequacy to appreciate my luck.

 

The irresistable gluttony over movies marathon, overrated high school moments, delis hopping, ramen, cold beers, and coffee across the town was wiring as much as enlivening times with friends I never thought I had before. Good randomness in life can surprise you most in details and its banality that you just want to have a long-lasting blast of rambling along with your friends until the sun rises and sets. They could be very beat and ordinary at the same time.

 

And there are those constantly there for me to slap me in the face, the angels of loss times pinned in their own inflictions from flying away yet never once glitch to offer me their wings. I literary take their words of advices letter by letter like jagging the pill into my throat because I can no longer trust my pathetic judgement. The latest powerful top-notch bitterest pill one of them gave me was in a casual talk over after work dinner on how our male friend turned out to be quite a champ in the gentleman department by giving sincere snack and milk rations to his girlfriend during working hours secretly through this friend of mine. Call it lame and unsubstantial, but he just did that little gesture because he was happy if he could make her happy. The very essence of love is in that little tetrapack of milk. That is how I get to call him the Milk Guy.

 

To add the drama, the ultimate denial came in the form of so-called prophecy of the upcoming match showing up in three weeks since my excited family spilled it one day after visiting the trusted oracle without realizing it would hurt me more to know. I felt ridiculed and lost more than ever to hang on the mere notion of artificial hope. Thus, began the extensive un-self-fulfilling prophecy effort from my part to test the Big Destiny and wondered how in the world I got into this situation in the first place.

 

Somehow the unlikely zoo trip on a boring Saturday could be the very likely moment for redemption. It was my first time visiting Ragunan. I already visited the zoo of Basel, Ueno, and bird park of Singapore, but never before I went this ecstatic meeting the flimsy giraffe and dusty zebras nor getting jumpy for taking a ride in the undersized monorail car for kids ten feet above the ground with my overweight friend. We walked a long way around, pouring enough sweat against the balmy warm noon and stinging insects then hunger kicking in as we watched the gorilla having lunch gracefully peeling off the orange skins. Hundreds of photo sessions later and waiting the rest taking swan boat rides on the most polluted pool turning to swamp (with seems like the biggest alligator in town sunbathing separated few metres away by a shallow gate), we got back and get our portions of good Tonkotsu Ramen. Then I felt the sad happiness. The feeling that you are alone but no longer lonely and it is okay. That life is manageable once again and you can reach towards any direction you want because you know you can. I guess I stopped to want.

 

So there goes curbed anger, unbridled resentment and then self-fulfilling denial in my most sobering and exhilarated activities with friends and family, and the scariest part, with myself to forget how much I miss him (or the very idea of a boyfriend to be exact). All these started from the wrong reason of getting over a guy, yet it tries to save me basically from my self-sabotaging urge towards good things; which ironically confused me as this same self-sabotage recently cost me back to the final step of being angry all over again and bailed me from further denial as I dropped old bombs on him and future knowledge that he wouldn’t change to be the Milk Guy when he tried to reconnect and have another self-centric parasitic all-too-familiar catch ups. In a nutshell, I think I finally had the courage to dump and not wanting him back. What a leap of hate, but do I really being honest with myself? Does it mean it is mended?

Being a Quarter

What my quarter-of-century nearsighted eyes waking up to first thing  in the morning of 25th

As reality mirrors its own reflection

Accomplished Underdog

Following the high-voltage success of Slumdog Millionaire’s Bolly-goes-Holly-here goes-8 Oscars this year, a newscaster was excitingly reporting its two child stars from the poorest part of Mumbai would be receiving from the Indian Government a couple of hundred millions rupiahs houses with solid bricks and roofs, a stratospheric improvement from one of their current residences of tarpaulin roof set above endless heap of trash. The myriad of their slum neighbours welcomed their return home from the red carpet at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, with beatific looks and manic cheers bloomed with proud and dreams they once never dare to imagine. Who says real life cannot be more miraculously Cinderella-like than all the bittersweet things they offer on screen, you can even dance along with the high-spirited soundtrack "Jai Ho" — "Be Victorious.” over the parade. Yet future life is unpredictable and the credit has not yet rolled, the sudden immense financial success can be troublesome and stir deeper cultural shock and its ugly sides as many already happened in the industry to its meteoric stardom. A wiser action from the director, Danny Boyle prefers to enrol the kids to school and set up trust fund that can be drawn once they finish their educations instead of giving a Rags-to-Rajs treatment as the government did.

It was endearing and engorging with pathos and deep respect from the first time you set eyes to these “Slumdog Kids” performing what should be acting as street urchins seemed to share a very thin line with what they are experiencing everyday in the streets. The three musketeers, Jamal, Salim, and Jamal’s love interest, Latika, striving with honest smile and subdued tears against the harshest odds and injustice street life can offer them in order to survive and pursuing true love. In this modern Dickensian world mutates with Bollywood storyline, it involves meeting Amitabh Bachchan, the very God of Bollywood, covered in your own feces; losing your parent amidst racial riots; lured by a bottle of coke into one of the most horrifying child exploiting powerhouse producing organized child beggars with exceptional voices for poetry; to selling your poverty to sympathetic First Worlds against the backdrop of touristic Taj Mahal. And of course, the plot should thicken with missing your genuine love to your treacherous brother, human trafficking attempt and gang arrest and only to win her back by joining Hindi Who Wants to be a Millionaire hosted by Anil Kapoor. All the basic formulas covered yet with visual sincerity not many films conjure these days, that is laughing with all the marginals against social injustice instead of advocating sanctimoniously.

Even in this flatter world with everything is being outsourced to India, it is thought as irksome to some xenophobic groups in India who protested the film as disparagingly commercializing Indian slums despite its economic surge for the past decade is quite a paradox against the whole country mood in glorifying the pipedream of glamorous Bollywood industry which upholding its buffed- apotheosis actors’ next to the holy deities. Both climates that inclined toward brandishing this film as a westernized flick are what Danny Boyle and the film’s screenwriter Simon Beaufoy tried to avoid in the first place (such actions is notably exemplified as not putting any cow wandering around in the picture as Mr. Boyle felt it was so stereotypically what westerner filmmakers would do). Derived from Vikas Swarup's brilliant yet under appreciated debut novel (felt through a professional experience in a bookstore of having it reviewed on prominent display, re-promoted, dusted off from the bin sale to be tagged re-sale only to find the last copy disappeared into obscurity), the tale is revamped with Boylean rushing saturated urban pace that propels a typical love story or even the quotidian aspects of the genre a fresh air and hard knocks on the walls just like when he deconstruct zombie flick on 28 Days Later into primal psychological ride on humanity and survival without losing the sheer  entertaining terror. Mr. Boyle juxtaposed satirically in the course of his interesting filmography from the early days of the raunchy Edinburgh slumdog in Trainspotting with unworldly kid in a very worldly situation in Millions against the backdrop of the successful outsourcing scheme in movie business to India. Yet to believe, he directs the best as underdog telling stories about underdogs who believes on miracles and that makes his films on odd tales of a very even world so miraculously small, warmly amusing yet omnipotent in giving you qualms, that in the end you just want to hug him for making your day and feeling cool on being an underdog.

Please Keep the Door Shut

To call Joko Anwar’s latest neo noir as another ostentatious creative engulfment and compliance with the bits and tricks of the genre following his previous effort on superfluous Kala, would be understating the impression of a contemporary work that is trying to convey heavier moral duty of building awareness on child abuse as its main plot and not just a mere stylistic retro showcase of daily menaces and urban crime stories headlining yellow newspapers. The understatement of course may not be derived from such binary thinking that hard realistic themes only find its right place in drama film and not in a hard-boiled psychological thriller. It may, in other hand, be deduced from our own media consumptive culture with insatiable appetite for entertainment of trespassing voyeurism, excessive display of violence, and kinky sensationalism which the whole franchise is based upon to polish best with their overwhelming cinematic and artistic progress against dumbfounded creative writing and poor storyline.

The latter being closely guarded this time as the director/writer adapting from Sekar Ayu Asmara’s novel, improves the mood and coherency of the plot and characterizations tighter than canon loose Kala’s. Gambir is a successful sculptor with power and conscience issues as people surround him especially his wife and mother (as the very femmes fatales to align with the genre) live to control and ridicule the most of his masculinity, his impotence, and his trauma over his then-girlfriend abortion. Here the plot thickens to unbelievable subplots as Gambir keeps having mysterious remarks to save a boy from his abusive mother and a secret society exploitation that gives voyeur service (it is Sliver with per hour rate) to it as pure sick entertainment of all deviant activities in private rooms possibly recorded around the city; he entangles himself in a psychological limbo and dark sides of humanities only to find a forbidden door as his final answer to all the secrets hiding. Watching Forbidden Door is like waiting for Pandora, out of curiosity, opens the box and sets all evil in hell loose to the outside world, only to close it in time to keep Hope inside. Watching it closely, the story centres on Gambir’s relationship with the femmes fatales as part of the noir’s Pandora to stereotypically burn down the house and weaken the male hero. Gambir, played ever strongly by Fachri Albar emanates all the vertigo, delusions, sorrow, and later on cryptic anger after finding out the boy is dead; against quite unbalanced performances from shrilly Henidar Amroe as his dominant mother and lacklustre Marsha Timothy as Talyda, his overruling wife whom both have one mission in mind that is getting Talyda pregnant in anyway possible even if it means having it from his two best friends only to be watched rerun by Gambir through the voyeur service. And revenge is just around the corner for the massive gory contemplated killing field scene by the sculptor-turned-Jason.

Yet the prolonged twists, suspense and eternal exploitation of the traumatic childhood that keep you at the edge of your seat cannot help us but to shrug off and see in bigger picture that it may be just an impression of a false solidity with exaggerated storyline that craves more bloody theatrical scenes to push noir to its limit and fancy art direction only to keep (and be sacrificed for) the sensation of opening the mysterious gimmicky forbidden door (which we can actually already guess what’s behind it when Gambir shouts out loud the kid must live nearby).

It will be the harshest remark in this article to say that ironically and sarcastically, the film is laughing at itself with the audience. As it criticizes the very kernel of the faux pas of the society (even the term sounds pretentious), it also juxtaposes the characters (often in Dutch angles) and settings to meet the sense of noir with the retro urban lifestyle surrounded by minimalistic model houses and vintage furniture and plaza of swarming European old cafes and colonial buildings with tall columns and spiral staircases. Yet intrusive advertising approach from cigarettes and telecommunications provider sponsors fitted compromisingly to the set whilst the modern pink advertising billboard satirizes the good housewife picture from US Industrial revolution that intended to vibrate with all the femmes fatales’ characters in the film. The sense of out-of-place and out-of-time has become the eminent trademark of Joko Anwar’s, but Forbidden Door has a good alibi to be not in one group with all those video clip-like motion pictures with unrealistic and out-of-sync beautiful settings: all these wonderland props and plots are made up as the final twist from Gambir’s imaginations and cognitive knowledge built from all the magazines he reads in the asylum and re-enactment of his early childhood about the outside world and his alternative life will be if he did not kill his parents. To connect the dots, he is the kid (Oops).

Guess the best advice given in the movie comes too late at the last scene and most absurdly detached of all in the Church where Gambir shows up suddenly as a priest listening to a sinner who confesses murdering his wife, only later on he is advised to keep the door shut. Then the film closed with ambiguous shot of Virgin Mary statue praying (once again with Dutch angle), would she be deemed as the femme fatale too in this franchised thriller world?

Can The Blind Pig Fly?

“A word is a word, and I want ‘black’ to mean love…We wanted people to be proud of being black.”

--Berry Gordy, Motown Founder

One may hope life is easy. At least easier than living a life as a Chinese in Indonesia that is, as the common knowledge often builds a picture of slanted guy with weird accent parading his prosperity amidst the poor while unaware of the lurking hatred and riot where the so called victims can victimize back. Then the word “scapegoat” for the Asian crisis economic fall that led us to the reformation era was reforming solidly around Chinese descendants once again only to prove that we are all victims of the past and let us move on without any class action or political and social apology for the apartheid-like policies enforced since the Dutch reign. One may be going to feel very disappointed and question if it is at all important to move on being Indonesian or Chinese or both after generations of discriminations and subtle identity attritions.

 

Many might be trapped in chaotic–double standards social political system, conformed to, or ran away to overseas in hoping for new ground of identities where they won’t question you for the ridiculous Indonesian Citizenship Certificate - SKBRI (which seemed only Chinese from all myriad of ethnics obliged to have) nor the extra cash without any ridiculed corrupted officer’s face at the municipal office. Many may decide to stay and make movies about it. Yet one finally did with stark honesty and bold subjectivity in disclosing the personal and collective hidden wounds after a decade of rushed formal reconciliation and reformation of ethnic Chinese rights and culture against the terminal racial riot of May 1998. Edwin and his feature film, “Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly” seemed to land at the time where Chinese is more dazed and confused than ever with recuperating their lost identities and sudden freedom to re-embrace (some do the baby crawling) once banned language and cultural practices and the China-mania that flourish over the globe as the Mainland raising into new world’s economic power. In a short while, everybody’s learning Mandarin next to English, Peranakan culinary becomes the cherished national heritage and haute couture of Indonesian cuisine, and Chinese culture (and its stereotypes) is commercialized and exposed in our media more than ever. Without lessening the gratification and enthusiasm on such openness, it still gives me a cringe and watching this movie is like a homage to our own personal woes that are still there to claim.

 

And yeah, this guy certainly has many loads to discuss about. Two years in making with endless juggling on ideas, fund raisings, guerilla shootings, and other hardcore impediments that put an indie caps in front of a movie; even then, we can see the film has outgrown with him and the crew and become the life of its own that both evolved from the perspectives of the maker and (hopefully) moviegoers on what it is like to be Chinese in Indonesia. Unlike most Indonesian movies on the booming Chinese theme which trying to introduce the pretentious culture with excessive accessories of bright red colors, ever-jumping traditional lion dance, eternal heap of smoking incenses in the temple with Chinese characters all over the place, and people talking with Chinese slang – all of those that were  prohibited to show for over 32 years and make you end up feeling like watching a dubbed Hongkong productions; it just stripped all the stereotypical and textbook images of Chinese traditions by imposing altogether the opposites and more realistic  and dramatic pictures of Chinese Indonesian characters that you can seem to get naked truth out of fiction. It strokes the cord inside as the characters parade themselves in a non-linear almost-chaotic storyline and reveal to screen that dissolve into mirror of our many faces.

 

The provocative title with non-halal animal in it cannot help itself to be more Shakespearean than it is in the real life of being Chinese Indonesian in a nutshell. Taking the background of Semarang over typical three Chinese Indonesian generations pictured respectively the grandfather, reliving colonial segregation of Chinese and non-Chinese in his inclusive community, his reluctance of getting laid with non-Chinese courtesan, and having his descendants marrying a Montague.  At the center of the tragic generation of the 60s is the ex-national badminton player and her dentist husband with guinea pigs mentality, struggle to find their way in the society which torn them apart from being to be or not to be, and trapped in their own devices to buy ambiguous freedom and justice from the slick powerful authorities only to be forfeited worse than Shylock. The third generation, Linda the firecracker girl and Cahyono the video editor of ’98 riot reports, are raised as eluded observers with live ticking bombs of racial unrest inherited to their genes ready to expected reactions that will keep them apart in their childhood. Whilst Linda with her rebellious silence keeps questioning and playing with her wounds (later on ready to explode with them), Cahyono goes into denial and efface himself until the past confronts him.

 

What may not being mentioned explicitly in the film, yet historically scorched the Chinese realms and made this constant fear embedded in those generations and their children is the traumatized Cold War event of 1965 failed coup d’état by national communist party whose close alliance with Republic of China backfired to Chinese Indonesian that were forced to choose to stay with stifled freedom and coerced identity in their birth country or off to become another minority club in ravaging foreign Red China and its counterproductive Cultural Revolution. There went the lost generation one-ticket exodus to the mainland that were denied their Indonesian citizenships and existences. There stayed the lost generation that were denied their Indonesian citizenships and existences in a softer way.

 

This bleak historical background creepily resonates deeply with all the trivial yet subtle day-to-day scenes of little Cahyono being bullied and called the once degrading “Cino” after school and his parents decision to put him in public school to “assimilate” and erase his Chinese side. Of Verawati being deteriorated by the public who disown her dusted trophies as national athlete against the Chinese athlete because her physical appearance seen to be in league with the enemy (it struck as another Hendrawan moment – a Chinese Indonesian badminton World Champion whose citizenship was doubted even in the reformed era because he could not produce the obsolete SKBRI and about to be canceled of joining world class tournament).

 

Still some can be disagreed with Sir William when it comes to names, the most common subject of quasi-assimilation-gone-awry policy that repressed (or disseminated?) further paranoia of being THE minority. A rose somehow smells differently if we stop calling it a rose. Hence, a group of considered Indonesian names applicable for Chinese distilled mostly from New Order’s Javanese hegemony, laconically used by Halim, Verawati, and Cahyono. Further on, ironically, religious hypocrisy (shown sarcastically through the eye of our current insipid television industry along with money maker contents of sensationalism and reality shows), and physical makeover intertwined to help you be more indigenous Indonesian. In Halim’s case, being Muslims and having rounder eyes will negate and cleanse the anathema of him as Chinese descendants. Yet greater freedom comes with greater price he blindly gives to the powerful. That is when the cord is about to snap as we get to watch the difficult scene of trading favors between Halim and the most manipulated closeted gay authority figures in the history of Indonesian cinema.  They thrust their way in and out of Halim (figuratively speaking) and all patronized minorities’ psyches in exchange of his so-called freedom in form of US citizenship and his non-Chinese mistress’ show-biz career to be another idol in another reality show of saccharine Indonesian life. Situated in his stark sterilized dental office against the background of wide glass pane window seeing the robust view of evergreen Eden-like garden; he gritted, gushed, and relented as another piece of his humanity taken away. A lifetime performance from Mr. Pong Harjatmo burned stamps in our consciences that would not easily be revoked as fellow moviegoer found other films or life itself to be banal after a while.

 

Some people find this film depressing and loosely letting the shit hit the fan at times when civil rights and political freedom and cultural empowerment as the political correct attitudes toward Indonesian Chinese, but they also face the unlikely paradox of a more tolerant time to rethink on what’s been taken for granted, the subconscious issues only time seems can heal. It depicts Chinese not so much as insolent pigs as silent amicable lambs, trying their might to self efface themselves into such incognitos that either actively denying or too ignorant or just going with the flow. Even in the face of oppression, the most violent act they do was to them selves, instead of barking against the hostile world, projected by the strong image of the poster girl with firecracker hotdog in her mouth, waiting for all the things to catch up with them. That is the closest they can get in being defensive slash masochistic stunt to expel evil spirits.

 

It is less of seeking for revenge or redemption than evocation to pain and lost. The ever reverberating soundtrack of another powerful black Motown artist (not even to consider he is blind like the dentist) Stevie Wonders’ “I Just Called to Say I Love You” is not only the cacophony symphony of the deafening silence of Chinese Indonesian over the years living dangerously but also the voice of hope for power and freedom to find one’s identity and peace with one’s humanity.

Related link

http://www.babibutafilm.com/blindpigwhowantstofly.html