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This book explores Indonesian cinema, focusing on moments of unique creativity by Indonesian film artists who illuminate important but less-widely-known aspects of their multi-dimensional society. It begins by exploring early 1950s 'Indonesian neorealist films' of the Perfini group, which depict the ethos and emerging moral issues of the period of struggle for independence (1945-49). It continues by discussing four audacious political allegories produced in four discrete political eras-including the Sukarno, Suharto and Reformasi periods. It also surveys the main approaches to Islam in both popular cinema and auteur films during the Suharto New Order. One chapter celebrates the popular songs and B-movies of the Betawi comedian, Benyamin S, which dramatize the experience of the poor in 'modernizing' Jakarta. Another examines persisting Third World dimensions of Indonesian society as critiqued in two experimental features. The concluding chapter highlights innovation in a renewed Indonesian cinema of the post-Suharto Reformasi period (1999-2020), including films by an unprecedented generation of women writer-directors
List of contents
Introduction.- Chapter 1. Filming the 'Struggle for the Nation', and its Aftermath: The Early Films of Usmar Ismail and the Perfini Company (1950-1954).- Chapter 2. A Tradition of Political Allegory and Political Satire in Indonesian Cinema (1955-2003).- Chapter 3. Islam in The Indonesian Cinema: Legends and Spirituality. Psychology and Politics (1960s-1990s).- Chapter 4. Betawi Moderen: Songs and Films of Benyamin S from Jakarta in the 1970s: A Popular Culture of the Poor.- Chapter 5. Third World Experimental Narrative in Indonesian Film: Travelling the Centre-Periphery Axis (1979-1985).- Chapter 6. Developments in Indonesian.- Cinema since 1998: A Survey.- Conclusion.
About the author
David Hanan is the author of
Cultural Specificity in Indonesian Film: Diversity in Unity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). He has researched film in Indonesia and South East Asia for more than thirty years. He is currently an Honorary Fellow in the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
