Genre: Drama
Director: Joko Anwar
Writer: Meirad Tako
Cast: Dion Wiyoko, Laura Basuki, Vino G. Bastian, Morgan Oey
Plot: Jakarta, Indonesia, 30 September 1965
Yoga (Dion Wiyoko), wakes up at 6 in the morning. He glance to the left and it is empty, he went out and see his wife Fenny (Laura Basuki) is sitting on the dining table. He sits in front of her, they have a little conversation about it is so hard to live between the native Indonesia especially in this heated politic situation. They keep throwing and stealing from their shop.
Yoga try to reassure her that everything is going to be fine, he is about to sign a contract in his company and he will be transfer to Sumatra, he will bring her with him so that she and their baby inside her will be safe. Fenny smiles because of his comfort.
A couple minutes pass, Yoga continue with his morning routine and get into his uniform. Before leaving, he opens their store which is in front of their house, after that he leaves for work.
He goes to work with his bicycle, he take a short cut through a small alley. He stops his bicycle suddenly because in front of him stands 3 people, one of them is Jhon Sinambela (Vino G. Bastian), he proclaim himself as a nationalist so that means he hates the Chinese. Yoga is one of his prey, he stops him with 2 of his men and demand Yoga to give them money or they will make him beg for mercy.
Yoga refuses because he doesn't have much money left but Jhon's men kick him off his bicycle and punch his face a couple of time until Jhon tells them to stop, he check Yoga's wallet that flown out of his pocket and take a couple piece of money, Yoga quickly begged Jhon not to take his money and hug John's leg. Jhon get irritated and kick his face until Yoga release his leg. After that he and his men leave him.
Yoga stand silently, blood comes out from the side of his mouth. He cursed them, and without being able to do anything, he get on his bicycle and continue his journey.
He is late to work, and his boss doesn't take his reason of why he is late since he lied about it but after a couple of hour working, he asks Yoga to come to his office. They talked about his transfer to Sumatra, he gladly accept it. His boss also said that it is also as a promotion for him. He smiles wildly and sign the contract.
At home, Fenny serve her costumer as usual. Most of their costumer are Chinese-indonesian that lived near them.
Aldo Kang (Morgan Oey) is both of her and his husband's best friend from their childhood, he is one of the most respected brach leader of the Partai Komunis Indonesia (Indonesian Communist Party), today, he visits his bestfriends, Fenny welcomes him warmly, he talks for a while with her, Fenny asks him why is he here. He told her that the Communist Party have a big project but he still doesn't know about it yet. Not long after that, Yoga come home.
By dawn of the 1st October, the most memorable and the most misleading event happend, 7 Army General in Indonesia were assassinated and the culprit trys to start a coup , there is no prove but PKI is the one that were blame. Suharto who is one of the high-profile General at the time, Mysteriously wasn't a target of the assassination starts the propaganda about the G30S-PKI (Gerakan 30 september - Partai Komunis Indonesia /Indonesian Communist Party's 30 September Movement).
A couple of days after the propaganda spread. Yoga's household and all near them were attacked with stone by the 'Nationalist', because Indonesian Communism were greatly influence by Chinese Communism, so logically, all Chinese are Communist.
That night, after they thought that attack had been stop, Jhon and his men, broke into their house, without much hope left they leave their house, from afar they can see so many houses were burned down, including their own.
On the way, a car stopped, and it was aldo, he said he meant to come to their house, after that they got on his car.
They were safe for a while, Aldo brought them to his house in the North Sumatra Province, in Aldo's house, Fenny gave birth to their first child named Monica, in Aldo's house, Yoga starts to involve in PKI for his income as he become a daily labour for his wife and their new born child.
When their life starts to get better and better another incident struck their life once again.
January 1966
Lead by Suharto, the original massacre from Java now spread to other region all over indonesia, but noone knows about it since the media keep showing the situation that recover from day to day.
In reality, situation became worst, Every PKI member get massacre, even many people take advantage of it and accuse and people that they dislike to be a Communist sympathizer or any thing that have Communism involve in it. It doesn't have to be true, if you were accuse like that then you're gone.
In the headquarter, Aldo was going to go home when many soldier ambush the building, many of his colleague were capture and immediately killed, or were turn to kill each other, including Aldo. after most of them died, they were forced to tell the soldier if they know any other Communist. the one that say nothing were beat to dead, the soldier di various thing to them as if they are nothing.
Aldo, in despair, confess but beg to let him and his wife alive and the soldier agree.
That night, Aldo came back unusually late. He walks slowly in. He was welcomed by Yoga, Fenny and his wife. He walks slowly towards them, he looks at the ground and slowly look at them, his weeping.
They are surprised looking at him, he takes out a pistol and point it at them, they were frozen by his action, they try to persuade him not to do anything stupid but he shouted at them to shut up, he told his wife to get their room and don"t dare to look or anything.
His wife can't do anything, with last glance to her friends, she left them.
After his wife left, it is only Yoga, Fenny and their baby on Fenny's hug.
He told them to go out, outside some people with army costumes wait, they are laughing and mocking him as he betray his own friend.
They told them to get in the truck and to leave their baby to Aldo, but Yoga refuse and made one of the soldier angry and beat him, and his friend follow him. Fenny tries to stop them but she was slapped by one of the soldier and she fell on her baby, hard enough to kill the small baby.
After Yoga in a really bad and bloody condition, they tied a rope on his leg and onto the truck, they forced Fenny who is still crying with her baby in her hand into the truck and drive away dragging Yoga.
Fenny were brought to Buru Island a hell where the prisoners kept, most of the prisoner died in the camp after getting inhumane treatment and other half are kept for years until Suharto step down in 1998. While other survivor are also hardly discriminated, if you have long relative that you don't even know turn out to be a communist sympathizer you will be marked on your ID and you can't have access to various thing, let alone people still trying to kill you.
Although nowadays there is no such thing as marked ID, but the propaganda film that were made had been indoctrinated so deep in the people's mind and body, after the film were stopped for the historical inaccuracy, the people rioting, suspecting it was the PKI that did it.
Nowadays, there is still strong hate to the communism, but sadly, what is communism never thought throughly, what we know they are atheistic and want everybody share everything.
People in the internet now still screaming at the president for things that they wanted, their proposed issues are fit to be categorize as communist but as long as it's not atheistic, it is not Communist.
- The film fade away, while the song "Genjer Genjer (https://youtu.be/9ECW_Xlsu2A)" slowly playing-
No comments:
Post a Comment