Are you a film enthusiast? If you are, you might be interested in this upcoming film screening event by Teguh Karya. Kelab Seni Filem Malaysia presents ‘Doea Tanda Mata’, an Indonesian war film directed by Teguh Karya. Set in the early 1930s in West Java during the right-wing and repressive Dutch colonial rule, the film depicts the efforts of a young man, Goenadi in avenging the death of his friend Asep who has shot by the Dutch while both were involved in undercover activities.
The cinematography is gorgeous thanks to the exquisite use of colour that lends the film an atmospheric depth it deserves, considering it depicts a time only a few years after the Youth Congress of 1928 which declared the aim of a future Indonesia united as one nation under one language.
Yet as the critical writing in the Jakarta weekly Tempo has noted, this large historical theme of the struggle for national freedom is allowed to exist only as background to the more personal and individual story, which has a kind of autonomy from the historical theme. The characters in the film include members of the independence movements (forming an underground network of resistance) and theatre people, in particular members of a type of opera troupe found throughout South East Asia at the time known as Stamboel theatre.
The nationalist movement had contacts with the Stamboel theatre that was regarded as low class and beneath Dutch society. But the theatre people had printing presses for printing their programmes and such presses could be used by nationalists in printing political pamphlets. Here, as well, contacts could be made with journalists and writers.
If the backstory behind this production has stirred the dormant history buff in you, do catch the film screening this Friday, 22nd April at 8pm onwards for free!For more information, feel free to head over to their Facebook page.
