Selasa, 18 September 2012

A FILM THAT DARE TO AGAINST THE FLOW (A FILM REVIEW)


A FILM THAT DARE TO AGAINST THE FLOW
(A MOVIE REVIEW)
By: Eka Novita Damayanti
The title of film              : Sang Pemimpi/ The Dreamers (this film is a sequel of the movie Laskar Pelangi/ The Rainbow Troop)
Director                       : Riri Riza
Producer                      : Mira Lesmana
Script Writers              : Salman Aristo, Riri Riza and Mira Lesmana
Casts               :
Vikri Setiawan (teenage Ikal)
Lukman Sardi (adult Ikal).
Zulfanny (small Ikal)
Rendy Ahmad (teenage Arai)
Nazriel Ilham or Ariel "Peterpan" (adult Arai)
Sandy Pranatha  (small Arai)
Mathias Muchus (Ikal’s father)
Rieke Diah Pitaloka (Ikal’s mother)
Nugie (Mr. Balia, the teacher who was inspired Ikal and Arai to pursue education to Sorbonne, France)
♥♥♥
            For Ikal and Arai, two young men of a quite country side in Belitung Regency in South Sumatera, the dream to pursue higher education to University of Sorbonne Paris, is like to hope the sun to rise from the west: IMPOSSIBLE!!!!People underestimated them. Even their teachers argued they could graduate high school despite their economical disadvantage.
Did they give it up? Not at all!!  They kept on studying and working hard as porters in a fish market and they did it. They managed to graduate high school and wanted to go to Jakarta to enroll to University of Indonesia as the next step. Of course this was not an easy thing for the two poor young men. Ikal could not rely on his father supporting him with the money since his father earned only a little as a manual worker in a tin mining, and neither could Arai.
There was no other choice for them but to study and to work at the same time. They finally graduate their under graduate, but they wanted for more! They wanted to reach higher places and they both strongly believe Sorbonne was the gate for it. After long steps they have been through, again, Ikal and Arai proved that with hard work believe and prayer, nothing is impossible including pursuing education to Sorbonne.
The film managed to have two sides: commercial and inspiring. We learn about friendship, good spirit, and hard work from watching it no matter how hard the problem Arai and Ikal faced. Unlike other film that only sale fantasy, sex and violent, Sang Pemimpi or The Dreamers is so close to our everyday life, but it succeeded to make people fall in love. From a local newspaper I found out that the film made a fantastic income of 1, 9 million viewers in 2009.
Before The Dreamers (and The Rainbow Troop), there was only a few tourists came to Belitung, but after the films were published, many got curious to see themselves the beauty sceneries and the unique culture of Belitung as they see in the film. No wonder Belitung tourism has expanded greatly. Another good point is that the film brought good impact in using more pure Indonesia words in the modern manuscripts and everyday conversation, which had been long forgotten.
Watching the movie, we could also see the very good effort of all crews that successfully changed the scene of Belitung these present day to Belitung when Ikal was a teenager (I suppose that was about the late of 80’s) and the actors and actresses tried hard to learnt Belitung dialect in order to get ‘the feel’. Take Mathias Muchus for instance, he met the real father of Ikal couple times (Andrea Hirata, the writer of the Novel of Laskar Pelangi) to get to know how he talks and acts, Etc.  Fortunately, I could not see the same effort of Nazriel Ilham, Ariel "Peterpan" (adult Arai). Nazriel Ilham talks like Nazriel Ilham, not like Arai does at all, both pronunciation nor dialect.  Some people (including me) believed he was chosen because of his popularity as the vocalist of a huge band Peter Pan (now Noah Band) not because of he has gotten the quality to act, though the producer Mira Lesmana denied it.I believe Baim Wong, Dalas or Oka Antra would do it much better.
I noted that Sang Pemimpi or The Dreamer had perfectly described the beginning of the story, but it failed to ‘catch’ the middle and the end. The moment when Ikal and Arai pursued education to Sorbonne, how they mingle with students from all over the world and how the two young fellows amazingly travelled Europe and Africa should be ‘a more selling point’ to capture, but it was not included in the film. The moment was represented by a scene when Ikal and Arai played with their first snow so happily. So they did as ‘the plan B, to set studio as it is in Europe of winter time. This might be caused of the budget. I could not imagine how big money the directors needed, if they insisted to capture those interesting moment.
Beside the film great success, some readers of the novel Sang Pemimpi or The Dreamers believed that the film was not as good as the novel. I think this should be consequence of films that adapt novels; they would always be compared on all aspects with the novels by the readers and viewers. Should they are better than the movie, people would give only a few appreciations, but should they worse, and they would surely gain many bad comments. But over all, this is a very good film for its commitment to inspire and entertain viewers. A film that is dare to against the flow of industrial commercialism.  


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