Watchlist: National Film Day Selection

In this moment of National Film Day, I want to share three films that gave me starling watching experiences. This list is based on personal opinion, without sponsors, and is only intended for sharing and appreciation. I chose these films based on opinions which I feel grateful to have watched these films in my youth. These films may be difficult to find on screens around you, and because of that, I made this list to be the basis of your consideration if one day you find a screen that presents these films and can send you there.

Title: Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly (2008)

Director: Edwin

The experiences of a woman and the people around her, all with obsessive agendas of their own. A fragile but panoramic vision of a community that is not at ease with itself - and hopes that can never be truly fulfilled.

Title: Siti (2014)

Director: Eddie Cahyono

Siti has to find ways and means to care for her son and her husband. By day, she sells snacks; by night, she works as a karaoke guide. Tainted by her nighttime employment, Siti finds her husband no longer wishes to speak to her.

Title: Something in the Way (2013)

Director: Teddy Soeriaatmadja

A porn obsessed taxi driver from Jakarta falls for the beautiful young prostitute and struggles with sexual frustration and misguided piety.

In my opinion, these films can depict closely the realities that are difficult to portray in popular media in Indonesia. These films raise us closer and slap us as consumers of culture, which are more visually skewed, with a repugnant representation of the reality of the world. Everything feels sad and absurd. With that, it challenges all of us to deal with validity and more rationally. The films are not fun but can bring us into a more tangible social discourse than the sweet representation of the world, or the romanticism of sadness, which forces us to shape our conscious thoughts. At the very least, these films will lead to the misery of people who are not covered up smoothly by filmmakers; something that I think you need to consider.