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)
Script
Writers :
Salman Aristo, Riri Riza and Mira Lesmana
Casts :
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.
