Gangster

John Kei and Nus Kei caught in a problem. They are nobody—in terms of civil rights. Reality speaks, they are not nobody. Their personal problems turned to be a public attention, due to the involvement of violence.

There was a video shown the moment where two people harmed in Tangerang, Banten. They were attacked by 5 perpetrators. Consequently, one of the casuality has died on his way to the hospital.

He was Yustus Corwing Rahakbau. This 46 years old man was one of Nus Kei’s subordinate. Yustus was killed because 5 men of John Kei couldn’t met with Nus. John and Nus had an issue. They disagree with the profit sharing of land trade in Ambon.

Previously, John Kei was well known for his notorious reputation as a convicted murder of Sanex Steel Indonesia’s boss, Tan Harry Tantono. In 2013, Kei was jailed for 16 years.

On the end of 2019, John Kei whom incarcerated in the high security jail of Nusa Kambangan, have gotten a parole. This freedom trial was valid until 31 of March in 2025.

Up until I wrote this piece, police hasn’t been labeled John for his involvement in the attack on last Sunday. Guns as an evidence, and 3 men whom shot on the place of crime scene still be missing.

I remember to The Godfather. This movie from 1972 tells the story of criminal gang: The Corleone family. Don Vito Corleone came from Sicily Italy to New York and built his illegal business empire.

This business competition leads to several murders. The Corleones have four enemies: Barzini, Tataglia, Cuneu and Stracci. And New York became their battle field.

Mario Puzo, the writer of novel which it became the source of this movie, never stated whether The Godfather was based on the real event or not. In fact, in Italy gangs has their own power.

In 2016, Al Jazeera released a documentary movie entitled A Very Sicilian Justice: Taking on the Mafia. It tells about how gang members are trying to terrorize the law enforcer.

Meet Di Mateo, a judge who wants to break a tie between government and mafia. He received black mail due to his involvement in taking illegal business mafia to judiciary. On this threat, Di Mateo was not alone.

There was also Massimo Chancemino, son of one of mafia member in government body. He became the whistleblower to the disclosure of hidden relation of politician and gang members. Their battle against mafia activity, gained a support from Italian youngsters.

In Indonesia, somehow the relation between “mafia” and politicians obviously seen. Through how corruptors were caught in their luxurious cells. From how goverment tried to ease their punishment. Or even more, based on how Novel Baswedan, the senior investigators of KPK, beg for justice as he was blinded by police.

Once again, police commitment to law enforcement was at stake. The way they handle John Kei’s case, was one of the parameter. []

Sokola Rimba

I am keen on Riri Riza’s movie. I guess, there were only about 2 out 20 of his films that I have missed to watch. Those are: Eliana Eliana and Atambua 39^o Celcius. Before this day, the list are longer as Sokola Rimba was included on it. And now, I have watched one.

Sokola Rimba told about the life of Suku Anak Dalam, through the struggling of an environmental activist, Butet Manurung. Butet worked at a local NGO to accompany the jungle people facing the modernity.

She taught kids reading and counting. Her motivation, simply to make them be able to read the contract of land expansion. Commonly, people of Suku Anak Dalam didn’t understand the dealings. So much so that their compensation was only a few number of daily needs. Hence, their land of living were squeezing and converted to palm plantation.

One day, Butet was comatosed due to the hard way to reach jungle. She helped by a boy from the downstream of Makekal river. His name was Nyungsang Bungo. Actually, Bungo wanted to learn reading and counting as another kid of different Suku Anak Dalam tribe has had. Unfortunately, there was a belief that pencils brought misery. This dillema was also faced by Butet.

This movie was inspired by the real life of Butet. Though has done a helpful act to save the people of Suku Anak Dalam in Jambi South Sumatera, Butet felt powerless. She cannot stop the moving process of deforestation. On the other hand, forest was the only place where Suku Anak Dalam could extend their future.

There was a tradition of Melangun. It means moving from one place to another in the jungle. Suku Anak Dalam held Melangun only if one or some of their community member has died. If their explorable land had been converted to a monocultured jungle, their life would be hard. The Anak Dalams wouldn’t had a chance to gather food. On the other hand, their existence could prevent deforestation as their way of life was very ecologically sustainable.

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Tadi siang nongkrong di kineruku, baca sekilas buku-buku ini. Tapi yang paling disimak sih buku soal @garin_film. Baca soal film surat untuk bidadari, jadi inget film marlina si pembunuh dalam empat babak yang baru-baru ini juara di cannes film festival. Unsurnya ada yang sama: pembunuhan dan sumba. Di buku ini juga dijelaskan visi garin tentang pengembangan SDM perfilman. Disebut beberapa kali bahwa ia mempercayakan rivai riza yang masih 25 tahun jadi kepala produksi. Saya baru sadar siapa rivai riza setelah disebut di tulisan akhir-akhir bahwa dia sutradara kuldesak dan petualngan sherina. Ternyata dia @rizariri. Hehehe. Giliran berikutnya baca buku skenario GIE, yang ditulis "rivai riza" tadi selama bertahun-tahun. Surga pasti sesuatu yang berkaitan dengan perpustakaan. Kata seorang sastrawan amerika latin #filmbook #filmindonesia

A post shared by Rheza Ardiansyah (@rheza.ardiansyah) on Jun 11, 2017 at 3:25am PDT

Through this film, Riri Riza showed us one method that had been pioneered by Garin Nugroho. In the book entitled Membaca Film Garin, Philip Cheah stated that Garin Nugroho was made the first movie in Indonesia that was starred by a local actor and actress. The film was Surat Untuk Bidadari.

In that book, there was also information about Garin’s head of production, whom he was still at the age of 25 while making Surat Untuk Bidadari. His name was Rivai Riza, or we known him nowadays as Riri Riza.

According to his experiences of directing local people on “local tasted films”, Riri Riza was quite successful in delivering the message. The way Bungo told their tradition of honey hunting, was exhiliriating. I love the cartoon visualization on that part of the movie. And the decision to let Bungo dubb a certain substory, means that Jakartans movie maker, passed the microphone to the primary source of information. And that act of saying opinion was always be relevant up until this kind of circumstances. []

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Noah

About Peace

How did you celebrate the international environment day? Watch movie? Same here. I watched Noah, a prophetical-like movie crafted by Darren Aronofsky. Even the title was similar to the name of prophet Noah, this film was actually a personal interpretation of Darren.

In one particular interview, this Jewish descendant director told that Noah’s story has a distinctive place in his mind. The first time he remembered how Noah story was delivered, was when Darren was in the seventh grade.

Interestingly, Darren got a chance to read the poem in one of the UN convention. That was because he made a poetry based on the Noah’s story. The poem called: The Dove. Later in a film, we can see how Darren visualize flying dove with a leaf on its beak—the representation of peace.

The Storyline

Before peace came upon Noah and his family, there was a war. This war started since the first generation of human race after Adam and Eve. Their children—Cain and Abel—confronted each other, and Cain killed Abel.

As human generate their race, Cain’s descendant still became the furious one. They tend to rule the world as their mind thinks that they are the perfect creation of The Creator. One of their enemy was Noah and his offsprings.

Meanwhile, Noah received a sign from The Creator that humankind would be destroyed by the huge deluge. Subsequently, he met one of his elder. This old man translated the sign that Noah received through his dream and gave Noah a seed. Right after the seed was planted, his vicinity became jungle—where the wood for making the ark came from.

The flooding water then came from sky and below the earth. Noah was only save each a couple of animals, and his nuclear family. He has a plan to make them the last human on earth. As we all have known, the plan turned out to be failed. Because now here we are, still exist as a human being. Then how that failure has happened?

God’s Test

Noah as a movie, was produced in 2014. There was a controversy due to the act of drunken Noah. According to this, Darren commented:

There’s a complexity that’s not necessarily written in the words of the Bible but it’s hinted at. The second thing Noah does after the flood is he goes and gets drunk and then has this falling-out with his son.

Nevertheless the controversy, Noah deliver the contemplation of human existence. In this film, Noah depicted to execute human existence as God’s willing to start a new life on earth all over again. After all, Noah kept our race exist, and pass the test from God. []

Black swan

Lets talk about this animal: black swan. Have you seen one? I have, once. In Perth. Swan river became the habitat of black swan—one of Western Australia’s tourism object. It became attractive because commonly, we know swan for its white feather. Most people don’t anticipate the existance of swan with nonwhite feather.

On his book entitled The Black Swan, Nassim Taleb use the phrase to explain one phenomena in terms of management. In this video, The Swedish Investor made a good summary. They associate it with how turkey bird facing thanksgiving.

Firstly, they thought that humans are so kind that they fed turkey bird everyday. Even more, humans built fence to keep them save. Unbeknownst, thanksgiving day has coming. The turkey became dinner menu.

That’s the point of what Nassim Taleb called The Black Swan problem. Need another example? Earlier this year, Indonesian government gave a financial stimulus towards tourism industry. By being so, Jokowi’s cabinet hoped that foreign tourist would became easily came to Indonesia.

Unfortunately, they didn’t realize that the calling to foreign tourist could also spread the new kind of coronavirus, the SARS CoV-2 as we know it today. Subsequently, we realize that The Black Swan problem could be defined as a risk that we only know when it has been happened.

The same situation appeared as it described on the film of Black Swan. This 2010 produced movie, tells about how obsession of perfection triggered a halucination in one ballet dancer. This dancer named Nina Sayers, wanted to be appointed as a main dancer on the story of Swan Lake.

Swan Lake itself, was actually a ballet composition created by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1876. Black Swan was an interpretation of Swan Lake. Almost all music scoring in this film, came from Tchaikovsky’s composition.

Meanwhile, the ballet performance tells about a girl who gets turned into a swan, and she needs love to break the spell. Sadly, her prince falls for the wrong girl. At the end of the story, she kills herself.

The plot in Black Swan, focused on Nina’s obsession to get perfection on the stage. Both as a white swan and as the black one. Through the film, we can see how she got depressed and hallucinated. Even so, at the end of her performance, she got a great appreciation.

“Perfect. I was perfect.” Nina whispered as she closed her performance. []

Death Note

Some people love to play with death. In a particular case, through moving pictures. Specifically, the disturbing one. I remember the time when I was active in an internet forum called KasKus. I mean, active as a passive reader.

There was a specific forum named Disturbing Picture. It contains so many images that arouse our disgusting feeling. Even so, many people are active on this particular forum. Maybe, for them this “disturbing” word means: beautiful.

For me, showing disturbing picture is one type of art. As long as it performed in a fictional sphere. And one fiction film that I like to watch about it: ABC of Death.

ABC of Death was an omnibus. It contains many short films that the title of each shorts, started with the alphabet from A to Z. The movie entitled “Q”, was directed by Adam Wingard. He also made one slasher movie in the omnibus of VHS. And recently, I watched his film on Netflix: Death Note.

Originally, Death Note was a manga created by Japanese writer: Tsugumi Ohba. The comic then illustrated by Takeshi Obata, and became popular for its thrilling storyline. On 2017, Adam Wingard directed one of the movie adaptation.

Adam Wingard’s Death Note tells about Light Turner—whom originally named Light Yagami. One day, he found a book that was fell from the sky on a stormy day. Later he realized that it was belongs to Ryuk, the god of death. Ryuk wants to play a life and death game with this book.

There was a number of things that made this 2017 movie adaptation received many negative reviews. Some say, Light character became different from the original one. On the manga or Japanese live action version, Light depicted as a genius, dominant and manipulative person. Hence, on this Netflix produced adaptation, he became a clumsy one, and dependant to his lover. Not to mention the white washing issue in this version of the movie.

Even so, we can still enjoy the cinematography. Adam Wingard knows how to frame a picture beautifully. I like the way he put the camera not in a straight position on some acts. Beside it, they way Adam killed his character through hand stroke in the note of death, was mesmerizing.

The brutal way of decapitation in the beginning of the movie, has the same amount of beauty with the coherence of musical background in the suicide of FBI agents. Although, the use of old music felt sugarcoated. I didn’t enjoy the way Adam close this movie with The Power of Love. Those Air Supply song was just unfit to the tense of the ending.

As a conclussion, I didn’t feel regret to watch this movie. Yes, there were some critics on the production, but I would rather accept it as one way people respond to how Death Note translated in their own style. Me myself, am waiting to the sequel of the 2016 produced Death Note adaptation: Light Up The New World. []

Diffable

I stucked on the traffic jam. In front on me, there were a man riding his tricycle—a modified motorcycle that has 3 tires. From right behind him, I can see his leg laid down. I suggest, one of his another leg has lost or disabled.

Diffable

Those situation reminded me of an essay written by Roy Thaniago. He was a media activist/ media scientist. Once on his facebook post, he shared the thought about how diffable in Indonesia and Sweden live their life.

Roy stated that there was one condition that make diffable became what there were. Those are: infrastructure. In the place where he was studied his master degree, public facility was well-built. So much so that one with different abilities can be present. They were appear—as mentioned on the essay—on the street, or in the library.

Different condition occurred in Indonesia. We seldomly see disabled people because for them, there were only two options: being active with their own resource, or being held in confinement deliberately. This kind of situation was certainly not a best way of how we treat them. Through this encounter, I would love to risen up our consciousness, that they are need the same support from society—not only from government.

One Humankind

The moment of #blacklivesmatter campaign on social media—that incinerated by the racial killing in US—also became the right time to gather the same solidarity. Last night I watched an interview of Syamsi Ali, the director of Jamaican Moslem Center in New York, US.

He said that moslem community supported the campaign of Black Lives Matter, but not because of the color of their skin. It was considering about one main value of religion: perpetrate all people as one humankind.

The Way

There was one simple way we can do to prevent ourselves from being a racist. Ernest Prakasa dechiper it in one of his instagram post. He shared his experience of being marginalized due to his racial backgound. In Indonesia—especially on the president Soeharto’s regime—chinese people had to face some restriction. From forbidden to complicit in political activity, to cultural repression. They obliged to change their chinese name.

Ernest conclude, that those vicious condition was ever held because there were no empathy. Chinese people became stigmatized because of their lack of exploration. Nonchinese people also tend to judge them by this missunderstanding. In conclussion, the simple thing that Ernest has mentioned on the net is: socialize. []

Nyai

Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Bumi Manusia well known as an underground distributed work of art. Amidst the new order era, one who caught read the novel would be incarcerated for a political reason. The first tittle of this Buru Trilogy depicts how native people became the objection of collonial repression through the couple of a lover.

It tells the romantic story of Minke and Annelies Mellema. Minke was a “pure blooded” man who has a privilege to study in medical school of HBS. Not all pribumi has a chance to get an education. Only Dutch collonial descendants and local government’s family can savour such speciality.

On the other side of this story, Annelies Mellema gave us a description of ambiguity. She was a “half blooded” woman whom her dad was a dutch. Meanwhile, her mother was a nyai named Sanikem or Nyai Ontosoroh.

Nyai was a local lady whom known for their position as a netherlander’s “illegal wife”. Collonial law said so. So much so that when Ontosoroh’s husband died, Annelies cannot be considered as her “legal” daughter. The court stated that Annelies belongs to Mr. Mellema’s wife in Netherland. And she has to be taken to Europe, disregarding her status as Minke’s wife.

This saga was also shown how racism works in the age of pre-Indonesia’s independence. The pribumis were mentioned to be as equal as dogs. They were forbidden to enter a “white restaurants” and ought to speak Malay rather than dutch language. Bumi Manusia was a story of how native “Indonesian” became slaves in theirown homeland.

Recently I watched this novel-adapted movie, entitled Earth of a Mankind. When this film being displayed in cinema, some critics appointed to their disagreement of how this novel transformed into moving pictures. Some said, the appearance of name “Tirto Adhi Suryo” betrayed its original story. Even Minke was actually a fictional character inspired by Tirto, Pram has never stated that name on the novel.

For me, it was trivial—not so important. The point of what Pram want to say, is that injustice was ironically came from the law enforcement. And a discrimnatory kind of law, came since it arise from the injustice mindset. []