Random Shorts (6)

I spent almost an entire evening reading Hanung's blog regading his next film, Ayat-Ayat Cinta. The film has seen and missed many deadlines. I'm not entirely keen on any Indonesian film schedule so i had really assumed that the Valentine's day's slot at February 14th - which rather unappropriate really, considering the breath of this film wasn't exactly inlined with Valentine's day - but then, it was slated for February 28th, 2008 instead. Further look into the various forums informed me that this wasn't the first time the film had seen a pushed date. Anyway, that is what led me to Hanung's blog. A versatile director, if you asked me, and the only director who had the distinction of being the only Indonesian director whose one of his film i legally owned the DVD.

Ayat-Ayat Cinta was adapted from a book with a same title, this book is supposedly a highly popular book and effectively translated into 'hip', 'pop' and 'you-are-not-cool-if-you-had-not-read-it-yet' nowadays. Especially with a film coming up. This is not a review of either, anyway, because i had no interest in the film whatsoever. Somehow, the film's promotional poster irked me, rubbed me in a wrong way, and i had simply decided that i won't lose or missed anything by not seeing this film. Call me a simple, but i think that in a way, for me, film is like a food. You need to fall in love with it at a first sight before you decided to take a bite.

I was mostly oblivious and ignorant when it comes to Indonesian author. I had tried, several times actually, to read some works that were deemed prominent by many and meet a certain standard to get acknowledged by the public (Dee, Ayu Utami, and Andrea Hirata, for example). None impressed me. The only author that i was rather interested in was Eka Kurniawan. And he doesn't even get mentioned by many. His works were rather surreal and slap-in-your-face that almost, ALMOST remind me of Seno Gumira Ajidarma. I'm not a critic, by the way, i just read a lot, and knows what i like and don'ts. So probably, some of you won't entirely agreed to the comparison i just made. But, let it just be like that, okay? Let just agreed to disagree.

Anyway, as i was saying, the book was a highly popular. The comments on its sleeve pompously making a statement that the book simply outsell Harry Potter, among others. And if you knew me at all, the more things get popular, the less i was interested. My girlfriend, out of her curiosity that everybody she knows were talked about it and highly anticipated the film, took a book from one of her co-worker and, an avid reader she is, she read the first chapters, randomly picked the middle chapters, and read the end chapters. That's how she read books, anyway, to actually decide wether it is worthy to spend her time to actually read the book. She mocked the book, stripped it by its spine and literally laughed at it. And of course, since you know that the book was supposedly to made you cried, to get laughed at wasn't exactly be a good sign. Maybe it's just my girlfriend's taste. She doesn't really liked a story that was too descriptive, nor was she really into a sort of drama that tried too hard to conceal and prolonged the inevitable and supposedly twisted-ending. But, hey, it's your words against hers. Should be easy to see whence my allegiance lies. After all, it further confirms my suspicions that the book wasn't really up to its hype.

Finally, as much as i respected Hanung and sympathized with the ... challenges he faced during the shooting of this film, i think that it is safe to say that i won't be in any line waiting to see this film. Because from what i had read from his blog, this film faced many obstacles that i believed has marred Hanung's original envision of the project. Granted, his passions were palpable, and that should count on something. But of course, it'd still a long shot to convince yours truy here. Unless, i really had nothing else better to do when the film hit the theater widely.

Anyways, the recent trend of Indonesian films were seemingly heading into the right direction. Sure, we'd still too many teenage screamers or 'tear-jerkers-wannabe'. At least too many to my liking, but it would seems that we should see some improvements along the way. Ayat-Ayat Cinta probably, probably one of the first of these improvements. Some friends of mine who had seen the film was really satisfied (though, i'm still not interested). And surprisingly, Love (a film, titled 'Love', released recently, appropriately at the Valentine's Day), based from what i heard from my friends at the office who had seen the film was a surprisingly a felt-good film that features some memorable performances. Well, of course, since my friends at the office were mostly female at the age of 25-ish, that shouldn't be counted. Then there's this film called "Babi Buta Yang Ingin Terbang" (The Blind Pig that Wishes to Fly), and then further back, there's a film called "Fiksi" (Fiction) which credited as written by Joko Anwar. If anything, i would keep an eye on the Indonesian films, though not necessarily excited about them. Yet.