I think I've been sold a bill of goods! I wasn't the least bit tempted to see this 'gamelan musical' from Indonesia when it premiered at last year's London Film Festival. However when the National Film Theatre decided to devote a month to it, hyping it as a one-of-a-kind experience and when several reviewers reinforced this come-on, I gave in. It's a retelling in modern dress of the most famous episode from the "Ramayana" where a good king and an evil king spar over the affections of the good one's queen and how she is destroyed by him in the name of love, except in this film the tale is translated to a poor potter, a former temple-dancer, and the local butcher.
What makes this film so unusual is that the whole tale is sung by the ( mainly dubbed) actors and by singers of varying ability to the Western ear, ranging from a positively obese market storyteller to an older woman with a very distracting huge mole on her nose. Much of it is danced too. Finally local artists have designed a number of art "installations" amongst which some of the action takes places; these range from an abattoir filled with red wax human-head candles through a market of television sets carved from stone and a "wrapped" red roadway. While some of these are visually arresting they add little to the cinematic quality or overall success of the movie which was, I thought, poorly cut and edited. If I were to compare this film to another that was a true visual treat and really unusual, like "Princess Raccoon", this movie comes up short, especially at its two-hour running time.
As Michael said afterwards, seeing this movie twice would be one time too many. I won't go as far as to suggest that seeing it once falls into the same category, but shorter would have been far less boring. I'm sorry; for my money strange does not necessarily equal good.
It's that time of year again when I'm off to New York for one of my regular trips, so there will be no new musings before the end of the month. But do check back then...
2 comments:
On reflection, not knowing the story on which the film is based did not matter as it
was really a series of striking images - the head-shaped candles for instance - of
which some were surreal. The wife's murder in the netting on the shore was more than effective and, while it took a while to attune to it, the gamelan score
was pleasing.
Off to New York...sounds nice..I hope you had a great time...will have to tell us how it went! Have a good weekend! Hugs,TerryAnn
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