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