Rambo (Extended Cut)

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" Even with its flaws, Rambo is an entertaining ride.

Extended Cut

APPROX. 99 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 2008 - MPA RATING: NR

FIRST PUBLISHED Jul 26, 2010
By Ranjan Pruthee

When the first movie in the "Rambo" series, "First Blood" (1982), was released, the "Rocky" series was already in its third offering, "Rocky III" (1982). It became increasingly clear that each sequel in the two series was worse than its predecessor. Over the years, the characters of "Rambo" and "Rocky" became fodder for countless parodies. Weird Al Yankovic´s "UHF" (1989) poked fun at "Rambo" by copying Rambo´s action sequences and his dialogue delivery style that now has its own cult following. No doubt by the late Eighties: "Rambo" and "Rocky" were shunned and renounced by critics and moviegoers. Then in 2008, Stallone decided to resurrect his American Hero, John Rambo, in "Rambo," perhaps for the last time. The movie was well received by audiences and became a decent earner at the box office.

In the story, John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) now lives in Thailand in an area close to the Burmese border. He makes his living by hunting snakes and selling them in a nearby local region. Soon, a missionary, Michael (Paul Schulze), approaches Rambo and asks him to take a group of missionaries to a region in Burma so they can provide the needy with food and medicines. Initially, Rambo refuses to take the job, but at the insistence of Sarah (Julie Benz), he decides to help the missionaries. Along the way, Rambo´s boat is stopped by pirates. After getting rid of the pirates, the group arrives at the destination, and Michael tells Rambo that their group will travel by road for rest of the journey.

Upon reaching the village, Michael´s group is attacked by an opposition military leader who later kidnaps the missionaries. The pastor soon comes back to Rambo and informs him that the missionaries have been missing for the last ten days. He asks Rambo to lead a group of mercenaries that will eventually rescue the missionaries. Meanwhile, Sarah and the other members are rescued, but the group is again attacked by the Burmese army. Rambo engages the entire army and saves the group.

I was actually surprised how much I enjoyed this movie in my second viewing. "Rambo: First Blood Part II" and "Rambo III" were downright miserable, and I had no hopes from "Rambo." Surprisingly, I was pleasantly entertained by Stallone´s latest Rambo movie. One thing that struck me about "Rambo" was its serious tone, which connects at an emotional level. Stallone fabricates Rambo´s character in a manner that is, in fact, a continuity of his character from the first movie. Here, Rambo is disillusioned and angry with the world just as he was in the beginning of "First Blood." He retreats to a quite village in Thailand away from his home in the U.S. All these years, he has become emotionally cold and rigid. Considering his past, Rambo´s behavior is completely understandable and realistic. In addition, "Rambo" deals with a similar theme about war and its harmful effects on the community, as seen in the previous Rambo sequels.

"Rambo" succeeds because of the prevailing on-screen tension between the characters, which was also evident in "First Blood." Sarah´s persistence in getting Rambo onboard and Michael´s disapproval of Rambo´s maverick ways inject adequate drama to the story. The action occurs much later in the film, and the buildup to the action is carefully planned and executed. The editing is superior, and the movie breezes fast in its nine-nine-minutes of duration. As an action movie, "Rambo" erases our memory of its dreadful sequels and comes very close in the entertainment value to "First Blood."

Nonetheless, "Rambo: First Blood Part II" and "Rambo III" were both criticized heavily due to the filmmakers´ propensity to show out-of-context and overextended action sequences along with sloppy stories. "Rambo" is no less in this aspect, but the action has a place in the context of the overall story. Then again, the action is overly stylized with a high body count, in which people are blown to bits, not once, but on numerous occasions.

Twitter: The Killer Box Office Predictor?

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by Jolie O'Dell

Twitter can predict box-office takings better than other industry-leading data sites, according to research just released by HP. Between the sentiments expressed and the rate at which buzz builds, the microblogging service outperforms other forecasting mechanisms for the film industry.

When compared to industry favorite The Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX), Twitter trumps on predicting real-world outcomes.

The HSX is essentially a web-based game that utilizes virtual currency to predict the success (or failure) of a given film, actor, or director. But the virtual prices at which one sees filmic properties being traded on HSX strongly correlates to real-world box-office dollars – and players’ favorites can translate into professional accolades. For example, in 2007, HSX correctly predicted 82% of Academy Award nominees in major categories and around 88% of Oscar winners.

Image via CrunchBase

However, HP’s dissection of Twitter streams shows that the social site is more accurate than HSX at determining box-office revenue, even for pre-release movies, by 1-2 percent. This might not seem like a significant statistic, but when one considers the box-office take of a Hollywodd blockbuster, a percent or two can add up to millions.

Also, Twitter provides a free and open stream of data that’s fairly simple to grab and parse – something most competent social media analysts can appreciate. And in addition to simple charts showing URL mentions, retweets, and acceleration curves, Twitter also provides a rich bank of user-generated sentiment – emotionally weighted statements that further show whether users are recommending or slamming a particular movie to their friends.

These sentiments can forecast trends in sales, as well. One movie analyzed in this study, The Blind Side, had an “enormous increase in positive sentiment after release,” reads the paper. The film’s score jumped from 5.02 to 9.65 on HP’s scale. After a “lukewarm” first weekend, with sales around $34 million, the movie “boomed in the next week ($40.1 million), owing largely to positive sentiment.”

As the HP researchers note, “While in this study we focused on the problem of predicting box office revenues of movies for the sake of having a clear metric of comparison with other methods, this method can be extended to a large panoply of topics, ranging from the future rating of products to agenda setting and election outcomes. At a deeper level, this work shows how social media expresses a collective wisdom which, when properly tapped, can yield an extremely powerful and accurate indicator of future outcomes.”

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• Hollywood snubs bid to bet on ticket sales (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
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China Is Trying the Tibetan Filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen for Subversion - NYTimes.com

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By ANDREW JACOBS

CHONGQING, China — A self-taught filmmaker who spent five months interviewing Tibetans about their hopes and frustrations living under Chinese rule is facing charges of state subversion after the footage was smuggled abroad and distributed on the Internet and at film festivals around the world.

The filmmaker, Dhondup Wangchen, who has been detained since March 2008, just weeks after deadly rioting broke out in Tibet, managed to sneak a letter out of jail last month saying that his trial had begun.

“There is no good news I can share with you,” he wrote in the letter, which was provided by a cousin in Switzerland. “It is unclear what the sentence will be.”

As President Obama prepares for his first trip to China next month, rights advocates are clamoring for his attention in hopes that he will raise the plight of individuals like Mr. Wangchen or broach such thorny topics as free speech, democracy and greater religious freedom.

With hundreds of lawyers, dissidents and journalists serving time in Chinese prisons, human rights organizations are busy lobbying the White House, members of Congress and the news media. In some ways, the pressure has only intensified since Mr. Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, raising expectations for him to carry the torch of human rights.

Lhadon Tethong, executive director of Students for a Free Tibet, said Mr. Obama had an obligation to press Mr. Wangchen’s case and the cause of Tibetan autonomy in general, given his decision not to meet the Dalai Lama in Washington this month.

That move, which some viewed as a concession to China, angered critics already displeased with what they say was Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s failure to press human rights during a visit to China in February.

“Beijing is emboldened by such moves,” Ms. Tethong said. “They see a weakness in the U.S. government, and they’re going to exploit it. This idea that you’ll gain more through some backroom secret strategy does not work.”

Until now, the case of Mr. Wangchen, 35, has received little attention abroad. Uneducated and plainspoken, he was an itinerant businessman until October 2007, when he bought a small video camera and began traveling the Tibetan plateau interviewing monks, yak herders and students about their lives.

Tsetring Gyaljong, a cousin who helped him make the documentary, said that Mr. Wangchen’s political awareness was sharpened nearly a decade ago, when he witnessed a demonstration in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, that was quickly broken up by public security officers.

“He saw how it was dissolved in two or three minutes and how everyone was taken away,” said Mr. Gyaljong, speaking from Switzerland, where he has lived in exile since escaping from Tibet. “There were no pictures, no testimonies, and he felt like the world should know that Tibetans, despite the Chinese portrayals, are not a happy people.”

Out of 40 hours of footage and 108 interviews came “Leaving Fear Behind,” a 25-minute documentary that is an unadorned indictment of the Chinese government. Although given the choice to conceal their identities, most of his subjects spoke uncloaked and freely expressed their disdain for the Han Chinese migrants who are flooding the region and their love for the Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile since 1959.

In his own comments at the start of the film, Mr. Wangchen said the approach of the 2008 Olympics had compelled him to record the feelings of Tibetans, many of whom were less than enthusiastic about the decision to hold the Games in Beijing.

“We have no independence or freedom, so Tibetans have no reason to celebrate,” said one young woman standing by a road. “The Chinese have independence and freedom, so this is something they can celebrate.”

On March 10, 2008, Mr. Wangchen traveled to Xi’an in central China to hand over the tapes to Dechen Pemba, a British citizen who ferried them out of the country. That same day, a protest in Lhasa turned into a rampage that left at least 18 people dead, most of them Han Chinese.

On March 26, Mr. Wangchen and Golog Jigme, a Buddhist monk who helped him make the film, were arrested. Mr. Jigme was subsequently released.

“It really is a remarkable coincidence,” Ms. Pemba said.

Mr. Wangchen’s family hired a lawyer, but the authorities barred him from court last July, leaving Mr. Wangchen with a public defender.

Before he was forced to drop the case, the lawyer, Li Dunyong, said Mr. Wangchen had told him that he was tortured and that he had contracted hepatitis B while in custody. Since then, he has been held incommunicado. Officials at the Xining Intermediate Court in Qinghai Province, where Mr. Wangchen is being held, would not comment on his case.

Mr. Wangchen seemed acutely aware that his project could get him in trouble. Just before he began filming, he sent his wife and their four children to India, where they live along with his elderly parents.

In an interview from Dharamsala, where she works as a baker, Mr. Wangchen’s wife, Lhamo Tso, said she feared she might not see him again for many, many years.

“As a wife, I’m very sad to be without the person I love so much,” she said. “But if I can separate out that sadness, I feel proud because he made a courageous decision to give a voice to people who don’t have one.”

Sacrifice: Child Prostitutes from Burma | BrunoFilms.com

Each year thousands of young girls are recruited from rural Burmese villages to work in the sex industry in neighboring Thailand. Held for years in debt bondage in illegal Thai brothels, they suffer extreme abuse by pimps, clients, and the police.

The trafficking of Burmese girls has soared in recent years as a direct result of political repression in Burma. Human rights abuses, war and ethnic discrimination has displaced hundreds of thousands of families, leaving families with no means of livelihood. An offer of employment in Thailand is a rare chance for many families to escape extreme poverty.

Sacrifice examines the social, cultural, and economic forces at work in the trafficking of Burmese girls into prostitution in Thailand. It is the story of the valuation and sale of human beings, and the efforts of teenage girls to survive a personal crisis born of economic and political repression.

AWARDS

Gold Apple
National Educational Film Festival

Grand Prize
Religion Today Film Festival, Italy

Golden Spire Award
San Francisco International Film Festival

Documentary Film Competition
Sundance Film Festival

Jury Award
Charlotte Film Festival

REVIEWS

"Sacrifice counterpoints forthright tales of four young prostitutes with mesmerizing images: a woman standing in a door frame awaiting her fate juxtaposed with farmers cultivating the fields. The images make a poignant plea for survival, both of the exiled women and the tormented land."
— Andrea Alsberg, Sundance Film Festival

"Sacrifice offers a view of the terrible odds faced by women born into poverty where the only commodity for sale are their bodies. These are complicated stories that get beneath tabloid headlines to capture, with great visual invention, the dignity and damaged nobility of young Burmese victims. The lives of these women are revealed to be the stuff of fairy tale…
the magic goes bad and the witch, the ogre, and the monster win the day in this chilling view of sexual exploitation…one we have never seen before."
— B. Ruby Rich, San Francisco Bay Guardian

"Compelling interviews and beautiful photography create a complex portrait of economic conditions in Burma, and the impact this has on families, rural villages and the young women themselves."
— San Francisco International Film Festival

" Unflinching in its account of abuse and corruption, SACRIFICE derives much of its power from the testimonies of four girls, who speak directly to viewers with a painful directness beyond their young years. Bruno demonstrates an exceptional knack for conveying the complex facts and emotional upheaval of globally relevant true stories. In the sobering yet poetic Sacrifice, Bruno presents the terribly moving first-person accounts of four young girls from Burma who were virtually kidnapped from their homes and forced into a life of prostitution in Thailand. As with all her films. Bruno approaches difficult issues with the intent of uncovering hard truths and giving voice to people who are too often marginalized or misrepresented by mainstream media."
— Steven Jenkins, FILM/TAPE WORLD

"Sacrifice illuminates a difficult subject of major social consequence with integrity and objective attachment. Told with delicate simplicity, Sacrifice paints a picture of an unfamiliar reality that is, by turns, unbelievably ugly and startlingly beautiful. The heartbreakingly eloquent words of the girls leads viewer into a society whose more are almost completely alien to our own."
— Laurence Vittes, The Hollywood Reporter

Resources on Burma

Take Action on Burma

Samsara - Survival and recovery in Cambodia | BrunoFilms.com

SAMSARA: (Sanskrit) Perpetual repetition of birth and death from the past through the present to the future, through six illusory realms: Hell, Hungry Spirits, Animals, Fighting Spirits, Man and Heaven.

Samsara documents the struggle of the Cambodian people to rebuild a shattered society in a climate of war and with limited resources. Ancient prophecy Buddhist teachings, and folklore provide a context for understanding the Cambodian tragedy, bringing a humanistic perspective to a country in deep political turmoil.

Samsara moves at a deliberate, reflective and sometimes dreamlike pace. Meditative voices intermingle descriptions of the mundane realities of daily life in war-torn Cambodia with the enduring spiritual and philosophical beliefs of the Khmer people. The music and stunning photography enhance the narrative and evoke an awesome respect for these people who persevere — though they have been tested to the limits of human endurance.

AWARDS

Gold Apple,
Best of Northern California
National Educational Film Festival

Blue Ribbon Award,
American Film Festival

John Grierson Award

Edward R. Murrow Award

Special Jury Award
Sundance Film Festival

Student Academy Award
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science

Gold Special Jury Award
Houston International
Film Festival

Asahi Shinbu Award
Hiroshima International Film Festival

Best Cinematography,
Best Documentary
Focus Awards

REVIEWS

"Samsara invites the viewers to stand with the Cambodian people as they strive to understand their past—in their religious and philosophical way—and rebuild—on their own terms. Samsara prepares the audience to analyze the political forces that shape Cambodia by forcing them to look at death and rebirth through Cambodian eyes."
—Third World Resources

"A brilliant work...a straightforward film about universal values and the human condition."
— Bob DeVecchi, International Rescue Committee

"A heartbreaking, poetic documentary which explores the ravages of the murderous Pol Pot regime and the shadows that haunt each and every Cambodian living today."
— Judy Stone, San Francisco Chronicle

"An excellent work, with great sensitivity and visual immediacy. Samsara gives an excellent sense of urban and rural life and the manifold problems of a country recovering from two decades of dislocation and radical transformation."
— May Ebihara, City University of New York

"An outstanding work. Personalizing the fate of the Cambodians from the destructive Pol Pot regime, this is an evocative presentation of a beleaguered people. Artful cinematography melds with effective personal statements in relating the suffering, survival and reconstruction of a decimated society.
—Nancy McCray, BOOKLIST

"SAMSARA is not a political document. It is a poignant record, a deeply affecting and effective human document about the people of Cambodia. There is no aim to shock, but a quiet dignity to the presentation. Samara is a natural for Asian studies, ethnologists, students in comparative religion, as well as social science classes from high school through college. This film should be seen.
—Sightlines Magazine

Resources on Cambodia

Take Action on Cambodia

Global Voices Online - Indonesia: Controversial new film law

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Posted By Carolina Rumuat On 2009-09-14 @ 11:33 am

The Indonesian movie-making industry is criticizing the newly revised Film Law ^[1] [id]. The law is deemed to leave a small room for creativity, and putting the survival of the industry under the government's tight supervision.

If the agonizing law is strictly implemented, the flourishing landscape of national cinema will surely turn to a different direction.

Film critic Totot Indrarto wrote an opinion ^[2] [id] on local journal Kompas:

Sejak RUU disosialisasikan, sejumlah komponen komunitas perfilman Indonesia, dengan berbagai cara yang konstitusional dan saluran yang ada, telah menyatakan ketidaksetujuan atas sejumlah pasal. Antara lain, larangan membuat film dengan isi tertentu; pembatasan produser untuk menggunakan SDM dan teknologi tertentu yang dibutuhkan; pembuatan film harus dimulai dengan pendaftaran judul, cerita, dan rencana produksi; kewenangan Lembaga Sensor Film (LSF) yang masih besar; pekerja film wajib memiliki sertifikat kompetensi dari organisasi profesi, lembaga sertifikasi profesi, atau perguruan tinggi; kegiatan peredaran, pemutaran, apresiasi, pengarsipan, dan ekspor-impor film diatur dengan peraturan menteri; serta sejumlah sanksi administratif dan ancaman pidana yang mengerikan.

[…]

Substansi UU Perfilman itu jelas amat birokratis, eksesif, cenderung represif. Sementara semangatnya menafikan arus besar dalam komunitas perfilman Indonesia yang menghendaki agar urusan film dikembalikan sepenuhnya ke tangan orang film.

Since the law's draft was first introduced, numerous components of Indonesia's film community, through various constitutional-abiding ways and channels, have declared disagreements on several points. Which are, prohibition to make films with certain content; limiting the producers to use the required manpower and technology; film production should start by registering the title, plot, and production plan; the Board of Censorship still has great authority; people who work on film industry need to be certified from professional organization, professional certification agency or college; film's distribution, screening, appreciation, archiving, and export-import are controlled based on minister's decree; numerous horrible administrative sanctions and criminal charges.

The substance of the film law is clearly extremely bureaucratic, excessive, and quite repressive. The grand idea (of this law) is to diminish the big splash from the Indonesian film communities which demand movie issues to be returned to the hands of the movie people.

Some professionals feared that the law could trigger a massive wave of unemployment, since one point of the law imposed job related certification for those who wish to remain in the industry.

Iman Fatah wondered ^[3] if the law would force him turn away jobs:

Pada poin #9 (pasal 68), Itu dampaknya sangat besar mengingat di Indonesia para insan perfilman mayoritas berangkat dari otodidak dan pengalaman karena minimnya pendidikan formal di bidang film. Lalu bagaimana nasib para pekerja music scorer dan music producer otodidak seperti saya ini? apakah ini artinya saya DILARANG MEMBUAT SCORING FILM LAGI?

Poin #9 (chapter 68) could have great impact, since, in Indonesia, the majority of those who work in the industry learned things autodidactly and through experience, (mainly) because there are so few formal education to be found. So what will happen to me as music scorer and producer who learned autodidactly? Does this mean that I can't make film score anymore?

Herman Saksono ^[4] said that the House of Representatives, though on paper has a noble intention to protect the survival of film industry, isn't choosing the right path. Saksono pointed out ^[5] that imposing 60% of local film quota is an excessive protectionism move.

Pertama-tama kita harus sepakat bahwa melindungi potensi nasional kita adalah sesuatu yang mulia dan penting.

[…]

proteksi yang berlebihan justru akan melahirkan jago-jago kandang kelas teri. Adanya kuota 60% justru mendorong produser-produser film sembarangan membuat film, hanya demi memenuhi kuota hadiah dari DPR.

Akibatnya, kualitas film kita jadi buruk. Kuantitas di atas kualitas. Padahal sekitar 90% film Indonesia itu buruk. Jadi, dipastikan yang buruk akan bertambah banyak. Ini bukan sebuah hipotesis, ini sudah terbukti ketika pemerintah mewajibkan stasiun televisi menayangkan minimal 70% tayangan produksi dalam negeri di awal 90-an.

First of all we do agree that the initiative to protect our national potential is something that's both noble and important.

[…]

Excessive protectionism will give birth to the schoolyard champions. With 60% quota, film producers will make low quality movies for the sake to fulfill the quota given by the House of Representatives.

As the result, the quality of our movies deteriorate. Quantity over quality. In fact 90% of Indonesian films are bad. So, the bad ones will surely keep on appearing. This is not hypothesis, it's a fact just like when the government imposed local TV channels to air at least 70% of local productions in the beginning of the 90s.

He added that the industry requires a bigger space in order to improve a more creative atmosphere:

Mungkin DPR lupa kalau untuk bersaing di kancah industri kreatif global, yang dibutuhkan adalah ruang untuk berekspresi dan kemudahan birokrasi, bukan shortcut dan cheatsheet.

Perhaps the House of Representatives forgot that in order to compete in the global creative industry what the people need is a room for expression and bureaucracy ease, not shortcut and cheatsheet.

Wina Armada Sukardi, a journalist and also a film critic, said ^[6] there are few of weak points on the new law which systematically restrain the improvement of the currently growing movie industry:

Keempat, sistem sensor yang dipakai masih memakai sistem pemotongan dan bukan klasifikasi murni. Memang sudah ada penggolongan atau pembagian umur, tetapi produser tetap harus mengikuti ”selera” lembaga sensor film. Hal ini melahirkan sistem sensor klarifikasi setengah hati.

[…]

Keenam, peranan pemerintah terlalu dominan memasuki hampir seluruh aspek perfilman. Campur tangan pemerintah tidak hanya sebatas pada pemberian bantuan keuangan dan hal-hal yang strategis saja, tetapi juga sudah masuk ke dalam masalah-masalah tetek bengek. Makanya tak banyak lagi ruang yang tersisa bagi insan perfilman untuk mengatur dan mengekspresikan dirinya sendiri.

Fourth, the current censorship system still use the “cut” system instead of pure classification. Sure there's a classification or age classification, but the producer still needs to follow the “taste” of the censorship agency. And this caused half-hearted censorship by classification system.

[…]

Sixth, government's role is too dominant and is included in nearly all aspects of the movie making business. Goverment's involvement isn't limited on financial aid and strategic matters, but also to thingamajig affairs. Therefore not much left for the movie people to control and express themselves.

However, he added, the industry shouldn't cry over spilled milk and should consider this as a lesson, so that in the future everybody who's involved in the business would fight together defending their common freedom of expression…

Kelahiran UU Perfilman baru ini memberikan pelajaran lain kepada kalangan film nasional: jangan tidak peduli terhadap urusan pihak lain dalam dunia perfilman yang sama. Selama ini terdapat kecenderungan kalangan film hanya sibuk mengurus diri sendiri dan tidak begitu peduli terhadap urusan pihak lainnya. Hanya apabila terdapat kepentingan langsung mereka yang terganggu barulah mereka beraksi.

Dalam memperjuangkan substansi UU Perfilman yang baru pun agar lebih banyak unsur kemerdekaan berekspresi dan kondisi yang kondusif bagi perfilman nasional, lebih banyak dilakukan oleh kalangan nonfilm. Dari mulai kalangan aktivis prodemokrasi sampai wartawan budaya ikut memerhatikan perkembangan soal ini. Tapi kalangan perfilman baru datang belakangan, itu pun jumlahnya cuma secuil.

Tidaklah mengherankan apabila di tengah ketidakpedulian itu ada pihak lain yang mengambil inisiatif untuk menata dunia perfilman nasional berdasarkan versinya. Jadi, sebenarnya, UU Perfilman memang harga yang harus diterima oleh kalangan perfilman sendiri atas sikap mereka yang kurang proaktif. Inilah kado buat kalangan perfilman sesuai dengan sikap tindak mereka sendiri.

The birth of the new Film Law has taught yet another lesson to everyone in the national film industry: not to be ignorant of the right of their fellow film making professionals. All these times, the film people tends to mind about their own business and ignore the others (who are involved in the same industry). They react only when their interest is being disturbed.

It is the non-film industry people who are (more seriously) fighting the substance of the new Film Law, so it will have more freedom of expression and a more conducive condition for the national movie industry. From pro-democracy activists to cultural journalists followed closely the updates of the issue. The movie makers came later on, and in small numbers.

It's not surprising if on the midst of that passiveness, another party took initiative to rearrange the national film industry according to their version. So, in fact, the Film Law is indeed the price to pay by those in film industry for their less than proactive demeanors.

Hundreds who are against the new law signed an online petition ^[7], and a Facebook Group ^[8] was set-up for this cause.

http://cetak.kompas.com/read/xml/2009/09/13/02594990/uu.perfilman.baru.siapa.peduli

---

Article printed from Global Voices Online: http://globalvoicesonline.org

URL to article: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/09/14/indonesia-controversial-new-film-law/

URLs in this post:

[1] Film Law: http://masyarakatfilmindonesia.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/ruu-perfilman-final-paripurna-08-09-092.pdf

[2] wrote an opinion: http://cetak.kompas.com/read/xml/2009/09/12/04335636/kami.tidak.percaya.negara

[3] wondered: http://imanfattah.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/ruu-perfilman-memasung-kreativitas-dan-menambah-pengangguran-di-indonesia/

[4] Herman Saksono: http://curipandang.com/profil/hermansaksono.html

[5] pointed out: http://curipandang.com/baca/2009/09/09/kuota-film-nasional-60.html

[6] said: http://cetak.kompas.com/read/xml/2009/09/13/02594990/uu.perfilman.baru.siapa.peduli

[7] online petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/ruufilm/petition.html

[8] Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=perfilman&init=quick#/group.php?gid=126890478595&ref=search&sid=573466481.1489651628..1

‘When Love Glorifies God’

Islamic film is emerging as a new genre in the Indonesian film world

Ekky Imanjaya

A mega film with mega promotion

The current star of the Indonesian film is Ketika Cinta Bertasbih (When Love Glorifies God, directed by senior filmmaker Chairul Umam), the latest in a series of Islamic-themed films that are changing the face of Indonesian cinema. The film is based on the bestselling novel by Habiburrahman Syirazi, the author who also wrote Ayat-Ayat Cinta (Holy Verses of Love), another novel which was a huge commercial success when adapted for the big screen. Ketika Cinta Bertasbih (or KCB) began screening Indonesia-wide on 11 June 2009, but even in its pre-production phase in 2008, it was already an Indonesian cinema phenomenon.

Auditions for the film lasted for three and a half months, and took place in nine different Indonesian cities. A TV show was created to enable viewers to follow the audition process, and the grand final was screened nationally on 14 September 2008. The wannabe actors all had to show they could recite the Holy Quran fluently and show that they applied Islamic values in their daily lives. The judging panel consisted of prominent Islamic figures in the arts and entertainment industry, such as the actress Neno Warisman and Habiburrahman Syirazi himself.

The pre-release promotional hype declared KCB would be a ‘Mega Film’, and ‘the first Indonesian film produced in the land of Egypt’. Giant billboards on main streets were part of the promotion. ‘Ready to shake eight countries’ screamed one. Following the movie’s release, the promotion continued: ‘One million viewers after a month’s screening!’ became ‘Two million viewers after two months’ screening!’ Another billboard announced a promotional competition: ‘Win a tour to the places where KCB was shot’.

‘One million viewers after a month’s screening!’ became ‘Two million viewers after two months’ screening!’

With a budget of 40 billion rupiah (around US$ 4 million), KCB is the most expensive film ever to be produced in Indonesia. In the first week of its release, it screened in 148 cinemas across the country, breaking the previous record set by Riri Riza’s Laskar Pelangi (Rainbow Militia, 2008) which appeared at 115 cinemas in its opening week. The sequel, KCB 2 is due for release nationally on September 17, a few days before Idul Fitri.

An Islamic love story

The basic storyline of KCB deals with the problem of how to find a soul-mate in an Islamic way. In the movie, dating or even handshaking between men and women is not allowed if the characters are not married. The story focuses on Khairul Azzam, an Indonesian student at al-Azhar University in Cairo. Azzam comes from a modest family and he has to work, making and selling tempeh and tofu, to support his mother and sisters back in Yogyakarta. He is also a moderate Islamic activist who has a deep knowledge of Islam and applies Islamic values in his daily life. Eliana, the daughter of the Indonesian ambassador, and an actress in the making, falls for him because of his hard work and piety, but Azzam gently rejects her.

One day, Azzam hears about Anna Althafunnisa, a highly educated girl from a respected religious family; he wishes that one day she will become his wife, just on the basis of what he hears about her. But one of his close friends from a rich family, Furqon, has already proposed to her. One day, Azzam helps Anna during a robbery, but still they don’t know each other’s names. Anna also becomes close to Azzam’s family in Yogyakarta. Meanwhile, Furqon is the target of blackmail and becomes HIV positive; but his marriage proposal has already been accepted.

The film is full of Islamic advice and preaching about how to deal with problems of daily life

The film is full of Islamic advice and preaching about how to deal with problems of daily life. It deals, for example, with the debate on polygamy. When Furqon proposes to Anna, she sets two conditions: she will remain in her family’s pesantren (Islamic boarding school), and Furqon is not allowed to take a second wife. ‘I just want to be just like Khadijah (the Prophet Muhammad’s first wife) and Fatimah (the Prophet’s daughter) who were the one and only wives of their husbands for the rest of their lives,’ Anna says. When other character respond and accuse Anna of rejecting the concept of polygamy that is allowed by the Holy Quran, she argues back and shows them a page from a classical book of hadith (sayings and deeds of the Prophet) that strengthens her argument.

Islam on the big screen

As a cinema phenomenon, the film has raised questions about the relationship between Islamic values and the film industry. Like other popular Islamic films that have preceded it, such as Ayat-Ayat Cinta, Kun Fayakun (Be, and It Is), Mengaku Rasul(Claiming to be a Prophet) and Syahadat Cinta (Testimonial of Love), Ketika Cinta Bertasbih is the result of a process of negotiation between idealism and commercialism. In the eyes of some film critics, the battle between these two objectives tends to result in a film genre that is mediocre at best. Other critics, like the film historian Salim Said, regard it as simply the latest illustration of an age-old and probably eternal struggle to reconcile the need for profits with the desire to produce quality films that benefit society.

There are Islamic groups and individuals who reject the whole undertaking. Lukman Hakim, a well-known Islamic blogger who belongs to the very conservative Salafi school, has written that buying a ticket to watch a movie like Ayat-Ayat Cinta is just like buying a ticket to hell. For him, watching movies is a useless and pointless activity that takes place in an environment of ikhtilat, meaning the mingling of boys and girls who are not blood relations in a non-segregated space. He sees cinema as a form of figurative painting, which should be forbidden according to Islamic law.

There are, however, various groups that try to combine cinema and Islamic law, such as MAV-NET (Morality Audio Visual Network) which has branches stretching from Padang to Bogor. MAV-NET has produced a manifesto which states that Muslim filmmakers should make movies that represent Muslim morality and do not violate Islamic law. Such groups try to find ways around problems that arise when attempting to reconcile every last detail of Islamic law and film culture. For example, a scene showing a husband and wife hugging can be a problem if the actors portraying the characters are not in fact married, because in reality these two individuals should not be in such close physical contact. Ustadz Abu Ridho from the PKS (Prosperous Justice Party) argues that in such cases if the focus is simply on Islamic virtues, then everything will be clear.

Other, more liberal, Muslim directors see things differently. Deddy Mizwar, for example, says that it is a filmmaker’s duty to expand the language of film in new and creative ways. Like a number of prominent Iranian directors, he believes that syariah (Islamic law) and fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) open up creative spaces in the search for alternative idioms and new forms of storytelling. For him, showing an unmarried couple hugging to express their feelings for each other is just an old-fashioned cinematic cliché. He goes for a more poetic alternative by having the male character in his popular TV series Para Pencari Tuhan (The God Seekers) address his female counterpart with the words, ‘If syariah allows it, I will purify myself in the water of your tears’.

Film critics and internet bloggers alike seem to agree that KCB is too wordy and too ideologically driven to be a successful work of art

What these conceptions of ‘Islamic film’ leave out of consideration is the question of how to place films with Islamic themes by prominent directors who are not proponents of the genre like Garin Nugroho or Riri Riza. Films like Rindu Kami padaMu (Our Longing for You) and Laskar Pelangi (Rainbow Militia) are not considered to be examples of ‘Islamic film’ but they are still full of Islamic values and representations of Muslim society. Film critics would argue that these films are more successful as art, and more representative of Islam in Indonesian society than the works of self-declared makers of ‘Islamic film’.

An artistic achievement?

In contrast, film critics and internet bloggers alike seem to agree that KCB is too wordy and too ideologically driven to be a successful work of art. Unlike films from other parts of the Islamic world, especially Iran, KCB largely ignores the language of film, preferring to present all its religious content through verbal explanations alone. For some viewers, it is just another sinetron, an open-ended soap opera like so many others on Indonesian television.

Yet the film’s promoters continue to insist on its ‘quality’ aspects. Advertisements have included statements by prominent Islamic figures such as Hidayat Nur Wahid, a founder of the PKS and chairperson of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), who stated that the commercial success of KCB proves that Indonesian cinema audiences have the ability to identify quality and value in film. The same advertisement that includes Hidayat’s endorsement urges potential viewers to show their support for quality Indonesian film by seeing the film: ‘By watching KCB you are contributing to the birth of a national cinema of quality, dignity and respect for women’ viewers are told. Some observers see this kind of promotion as a sign that the filmmakers are afraid their film will be seen as nothing more than a box office hit, and not the ‘authentically Islamic’ film they want it to be remembered as. ii

Ekky Imanjaya (eimanjaya@yahoo.com) is co-founder and editor of Rumahfilm.org , an Indonesian online film journal.

If you live in Melbourne Australia you may wish to book in to the Indonesian Film Festival 2009 (11-20 August) at www.indonesianfilmfestival.com.au/ . It includes Riri Riza's Laskar Pelangi.

Inside Indonesia 97: Jul-Sep 2009

The Story of a Fixer

Editorial

This article appeared in the August 17, 2009 edition of The Nation.

July 29, 2009

In these days of the disappearing newspaper, we hear a lot about the invisible costs of newsgathering. Sometimes the invisible cost is a life. Ian Olds's haunting documentary Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi, which airs on HBO August 17, reveals how the story of a war gets told: the brokering of deals so that an interview can take place; the bridging of vast distances in language, culture and geography between Western reporter and native source. In this process, a fixer is more than a facilitator. He is the conduit, a vital link in the chain that ultimately connects an audience--in this case, the largely American readers of this magazine--to fighters on the front lines of a war being waged in their name.

The Nation's Christian Parenti is the Western reporter in the film. Parenti hired Ajmal Naqshbandi in October 2004 when he first went to Kabul to write about the US occupation of Afghanistan. He stayed at Naqshbandi's guesthouse, along with "an anarchic mix of foreign reporters, contractors and other unidentified free agents," as he wrote in an award-winning piece about Naqshbandi published in Playboy. Naqshbandi helped him on all of the Afghanistan stories he wrote for The Nation in the wake of the US invasion: "Who Rules Afghanistan" (November 15, 2004); "Afghan Poppies Bloom" (January 24, 2005); "Afghanistan: The Other War" (March 27, 2006); and "Taliban Rising" (October 30, 2006).

It was Naqshbandi who enabled Parenti to interview Taliban fighters face to face on the desolate Zabul-Kandahar province border for "Afghanistan: The Other War." In a film rife with tension, that encounter makes for one of the most rattling scenes: several nervous Talibs cradle their guns, hanging back warily while Parenti shouts out his questions: "How does the Taliban sustain itself? Does it receive support from Pakistan?" The Taliban leader answers bluntly: "Yes, Pakistan stands with us. And on that side of the border we have our offices. Pakistan is supporting us. They supply us. Our leaders are there collecting help." The ominous approach of a reconnaissance plane ends the interview. As their car speeds away, Parenti pronounces Ajmal "the best fixer in Afghanistan" and himself "the most relieved American reporter in Afghanistan."

Movie Review: 'Burma VJ': Documentary on Brutal Repression of Protesters in 2007

By Desson Thomson
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, July 31, 2009

It was pitchforks at the Bastille, muskets at Concord, Mass., and rocks at the Intifada. But in this age of instant dissemination, the cellphone video has become the revolutionary weapon of choice.

We see this most palpably in "Burma VJ: Reporting From a Closed Country," a documentary that uses a mixture of real and fictional footage to revisit Burma's brutal reprisals against its own people in 2007. In August and September of that year, many Burmese rose in protest against the government's sudden hiking of gasoline prices. Those public demonstrations were spontaneous and scattered. And the government dealt harshly with them. But when Burmese monks -- considered sacrosanct in this culture -- joined the growing ranks, the conflict was drawn more sharply. The stakes got higher for both sides. And the cellphones started recording.

"I decided that whatever happened to me, I would do it," says "Joshua," the narrator of Anders Ostergaard's movie, justifying the dangerous decision to film as much as he could, and show it to the world. Joshua is the movie's only fictional element, a composite character meant to represent all the unnamed people who risked their lives to hold their government morally accountable.

Filmed by members of the Democratic Voice of Burma, a collective of underground video journalists (the VJ in the title), these scenes were smuggled to the outside world, processed in a studio in Oslo, transmitted around the world and -- significantly -- shown to the people of Burma (renamed Myanmar by the ruling junta).

"Joshua" may be made up, but the footage we see is indisputably real. Some of it is poignantly subtle, like the taxi driver who states he'll support this growing revolution if it takes off. In the context of these dangerous times, when government informers are everywhere, such a public declaration amounts to bravado. More obviously courageous is the spectacle of emboldened, head-shaven monks in red robes as they defy curfew orders and march in numbers through the streets as armed troops mass.

There is, of course, bravery from the unseen people behind the lens who could be killed merely for owning recording devices. Thanks to them, we can patch together the heartbreaking chronicle of popular demonstration and government brutality during those significant months. Fragmentary images -- filmed surreptitiously from hidden vantage points or concealed within clothes -- show palpable fear in the streets. They show beatings. And we realize we are sitting in the jittery eye of an evil, gathering storm.

The movie also provides a momentary, grainy glimpse of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning, pro-democracy activist. There she is, standing in the doorway of the house that has famously become her prison on and off since 1989. She is expressing solidarity for the demonstrators who have just marched to her home. It's a moving scene because we know that even today she faces indefinite home detention. The following day, the violence begins in earnest, and the video journalists -- nameless but unified in their determination -- are there to film it.

Of course, we have seen this kind of electronic activism more recently in Iran. But for the cellphone journalists of Tehran, we'd know little about the popular uprising that followed the country's disputed election. And we'd know nothing of Neda, the young woman whose videotaped -- and eternally replayed -- death has become the movement's most iconic moment.

As we watch "Burma VJ," and other documentaries like it, we can sense the beginnings of a paradigm shift in the way history is written, and the way the meekest can become empowered. Citizens no longer need to tell their sad stories to their children and grandchildren over a generation. They can inform the world immediately. Thanks to the new guerrilla narrative, the world has a constant flow of images to file in its collective consciousness. And that camera-testable accountability slowly becomes a global civic right that fulfills the noblest purpose of journalism -- to bring truth to power.

Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country (84 minutes, at Landmark's E Street) is not rated and contains real images of brutal repression. In Burmese and accented English with subtitles.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073003914.html

Chinese Hack Film Festival Site

Chinese hackers have attacked the website of Australia's biggest film festival over a documentary about Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer.

Content on the Melbourne International Film Festival site was briefly replaced with the Chinese flag and anti-Kadeer slogans on Saturday, reports said.

In an earlier protest on Friday, Beijing withdrew four Chinese films.

Melbourne's The Age newspaper says private security guards have been hired to protect Kadeer and other film-goers.

She is due to attend the screening of Ten Conditions of Love, by Australian documentary-maker Jeff Daniels, on 8 August.

'Vile language'

Chinese authorities blame Kadeer, leader of the World Uighur Congress, for inciting ethnic unrest in Xinjiang - charges she denies.

“ Hey, we're an independent arts organisation and it's our programme! ”
Richard Moore Head of the Melbourne International Film Festival

Earlier this month, around 200 people died and 1,600 were injured during fighting in the region between the mostly Muslim Uighurs and settlers from China's Han majority.

Kadeer, 62, spent six years in a Chinese prison before she was released into exile in the US in 2005. In 2004, she won the Rafto Prize for human rights.

Richard Moore, head of the Melbourne International Film Festival, told the BBC that he had come under pressure from Chinese officials to withdraw the film about Kadeer and cancel her invitation to the festival.

He said the attacks on the festival's website began about 10 days ago.

"We've been subjected to a number of these attacks and we can see behind the scenes on our website that there are hundreds, well, if not thousands, of people from outside of Australia trying to get into our website and trying to damage us," Mr Moore told the BBC's World Today programme.

"This has been going on... since obviously the call from a Chinese consular official who told me in no uncertain terms that I was urged to withdraw this particular documentary from the film festival and that I had to justify my actions in including the film in our programme," he went on.

"Hey, we're an independent arts organisation and it's our programme!"

He said police were investigating the website attacks, which appear to come from a Chinese internet address.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/entertainment/8169123.stm

Published: 2009/07/26

Will Timor-Leste Choose Its Past or Future? Two Films

Two enjoyable but very different full-length films on Timor-Leste (East Timor) have been revived on the net over the past year or so. Answered by Fire was originally a two-part mini-series which aired on Australian television. In the fiction-based-on-fact genre, it focuses on personal stories related to events surrounding Timor's vote for independence observed by UN personnel. It was shot entirely in Queensland. Its main stars play AFP (male, white) and a Canadian RCMP (female, white) officers and their Timorese translator (male, Timorese, nowadays best known as a Fretilin net activist). Viewers will come away with single-minded revengeful orientations toward the Indonesian military and state (even today) and, incidentally, not so flattering views of theUN in this period of history. The Timorese are victims, some saved, some not. The film is a thriller.



A Hero's Journey, a factual documentary now available on DVD, was produced almost entirely in Timor by a Singaporean. It is narrated throughout by Xanana Gusmao. The characters are almost all Timorese, some of whom Xanana encountered during the long years of Timorese resistance to Indonesian military occupation. While the film is not really Xanana's biography or autobiography, its time span covers most of his military and political life. Viewers will emerge with the view that while what happened can't be forgotten, Indonesians, civilian and military, must be forgiven in order for Timor to move on. Policies reflecting those views are in fact ones Xanana implemented first as President and now as Prime Minister. The film is a moving personal plea.

Revenge and forgiveness find totally convinced advocates in Timor today. Revenge centers in a certain segment of local civil society groups and some foreign activists (not including me). Forgiveness at least formally dominates the political class, including government and opposition. I could parse sentiment in a more complex way, but that seems to be the current big picture.

Watch the complete films on the YouTube links provided in this brief. See which side seems more convincing on what should be Timor's future path with regard to Indonesia, Indonesians, and, not least, the large Indonesian-educated slice of Timor's general population and educated elite.