dir. Mike Wiluan
year. 2018
country. Indonesia
run-time. 102 minutes
Doors 18:30 - Film 19:00
£6.00 (£4.50 conc.)
Having returned to Indonesia after working on America’s Transcontinental Railroad, two brothers, Jamar and Suwo, become caught up in the conflict between a Javanese village and Captain Van Trach, an evil Dutch administrator and his henchmen.
An original take on the Western where genre tropes are transplanted from the Old West to Java, the film sports a wide range of tone, from humor to tragedy and dark violence. It also sets up a culture clash between the Old West and Colonial Java embodied in the two brothers returning to help liberate their country from the brutal oppression of the Dutch, embodied by Captain Van Trach. It also allows for an intriguing mix of traditional Indonesian martial arts and Western set pieces.
The end result is a traditional Western with the associated themes of revenge and gunplay mixed with Javanese martial arts, tradition and colonial history, to relate a story that’s uniquely non-American.
Curated by Hannah Al Rashid.