recently i saw a marathon of arizal’s action films at spectacle, a microcinema in williamsburg. i’m never too familiar with arizal’s work, only knowing him as the director for warkop dki films and tv shows - a timeless, household-name indonesian comedy trio. the marathon itself shows six of the only action films he directed, with three starring barry prima - who i often hear my mom, dad, or aunts talk about watching in the 80s - and three starring christopher mitchum, robert mitchum’s son who have found success traversing the world of southeast and east asian B-action movies.
this programming came as a surprise for me - i didn’t know that they’re screening these films until a friend texted me about it two days before the marathon. i immediately told my indonesian cinema friends to go and see it. these films are vaguely familiar to me; these are the kind of stuff my parents watched in the 80s. they’re very acquainted with warkop and barry prima and suzzanna and haven’t watched them again since then. a lot of these films are very hard to find and not a lot of people in their generation seek for it - these are just whatever played on the TV at that time, and a lot of these films are distant memory, or pop culture references saved among the conversations between people in that generation. as streaming reached its peak, so does efforts of redistributing these films to younger millennials and gen z. i’ve finally watched a suzzanna movie - sundel bolong - when it arrived to indonesian netflix five years back. it was a delight. and i finally get all these gen x/boomer pop culture references about her.
so i got to spectacle and got to catch two films - serbuan halilintar and final score. a friend/ex-coworker of mine joined me for serbuan halilintar, and he brought along his white american friend. i was talking to the programmer when the white american friend joined in, mentioned how he has watched serbuan halilintar multiple times, that he owns the greek version of the VHS and the serbian version of the betamax, etc etc, and continued talking about arizal’s oeuvre and the pain of finding copies of this film. i immediately felt weird. how can a person who has no connection to indonesia be so obsessed with a small yet emotional aspect of my family’s life?
i got seated and watched serbuan halilintar. the first thought in my head is now i understand how films like these influences modern indonesian cinema. a recent film that popped into my head is edwin’s seperti dendam, rindu harus dibayar tuntas - an adaptation of a pulp-style novel by eka kurniawan that borrows elements from 80s indonesian action films like serbuan halilintar. i wrote about the new order-era influences of that film but this is when i /truly/ understood where the aesthetic came from - the stiffy indonesian, the main action hero on a motorcycle in a ditch, the locally-feared villain stereotype. but together with an aesthetic is an influence from the new order-era policies - an era of indonesian dictatorship fueled by a genocide and a capitalist, totalitarian puppet leader installed by the west.
this is when i pull out my fellini quote! fellini wrote in the essay-interview “the fascism within us” that “fascism and adolescence continue to be . . . permanent historical seasons of our lives . . . remaining children for eternity, leaving responsibilities for others, living with the comforting sensation that there is someone who thinks for you . . . and in the meanwhile, you have this limited, time-wasting freedom which permits you only to cultivate absurd dreams . . .” relating to his film amarcord when we literally see the dumbing down of his characters under fascist italy. this makes sooo much sense in the world of serbuan halilintar. in an era where critical art is barred (or, if you do attempt to create one, you’ll be “disappeared” or dead in a ditch the next day), entertainment during the new order are cool kung fu kicks, copious amounts of blood and gore, and the long, excruciating rape/sexual assault scenes. we see these scenes in both serbuan halilintar and final score, where actresses like eva arnaz are subject to 5-minute long rape scenes from the villains, or when we see her getting stripped by an army of mice for such a long time. this is entertainment under fascism.
so i asked that white american and started the conversation of the political context of these films. he just nodded along. so i asked him again what got him into this world? he said he loves horror movies and got roped in to indonesian exploitation film when he watched mystics in bali. i mean… there’s nothing wrong with liking exploitation films or horror, but to be /this/ obsessed over a random third world country without understanding the context in which it all happens?
perhaps i am overreacting. but it still feels weird for me. i’ve been going on dates this white american man (who kinda looks like glen powell, but that’s a story for another time) who is part of a gamelan ensemble in the west coast, who only told me three dates in (perhaps to not be seen as /that/ white guy), but i never felt any issue with that, maybe because my family doesn’t listen to gamelan every day as regular listeners of gamelan are those from the courts and the monarchs, and he looks at gamelan from an ethnomusicologist perspective and not solely a cultural-fetishistic one. but this white american man with the indonesian exploitation film obsession made me feel weird. maybe because my parents grew up with these kinds of films and i know nothing about them, and this guy holds an encyclopedic knowledge of them.
as we continued he asked me about a type of indonesian lunchbox they used in the film. it’s a five-tiered rantang, and it’s very familiar to me. as a kid i would bring a three-tiered rantang for lunch - the first tier is for rice, the second tier is for meat and veggies, and the third tier for fruits and snacks. he had no idea how it was used, and how we prefer it over a normal lunchbox (we indonesians love curried, stewy meats and brothy vegetables, and most of the time, soup!). as i told my roommate this conversation, he remarked how white americans mostly do not have a culture of their own, and they have all the time and resource to explore the most niche things. but that they won’t have a deeper understanding of the culture like we do.
i thought about what my friend said. i really don’t mind any white american interested in our culture. older generations of indonesians would probably freak out in happiness over someone who is this interested with suzanna, barry prima, and warkop dki, on the basis that we are so rarely-known in the western world; and my indonesian-american friends are more negatively affected by white americans picking up our culture because of the lack of connecting with their deeper roots in the US. earlier in my life i’d be closer to that older generation of indonesians, but the longer i stayed in the US the more i agreed with my indonesian-american friends. i want to be okay with it but it is really weird, and i’m valid for thinking that, mostly because none of my family could reconnect with these films as much as this collector does.
i’ve had elements of my culture reflected back to me in an intellectualized western context multiple times. i wrote about taking a linguistics class taught by john mcwhorter (booo) at columbia (boooooo) and being the only indonesian in class, he asked me to confirm his theories on colloquial indonesian vs official indonesian. it all seemed so natural to me; i haven’t really thought about the differences until he asked me that question. same thing with gamelan guy - i never understood the technicalities until he talked about it to me. it all felt so intellectualized, but these are things i consider as daily life to me. and then, it hit me.
indonesians hold such a small population abroad, and there is always that pressure to represent this lesser-known country, to know everything about the country and all aspects of it. and it took me a few years in the US to realize that it’s… kinda weird to think that way. i’m happy to tell non-indonesians about my culture, but that doesn’t mean i’m not tired being an ambassador of indonesian culture whenever i’m around. it’s dehumanizing to think about us as walking encyclopedias of our culture, or expect us to know everything about thousands of years of history, politics, pop culture etc of this country. sure, ask us about how our cultures are, how are traditions are, but don’t ask me, a javanese person, about very specific batak traditions, or expect me to know about this very niche 1975 cult movie i haven’t heard of. especially since the production of culture is different in the western world than it is domestically - things that are popular in the west might not be popular in the mone country. i’ve always perked up on the idea of being a “cultural ambassador” for this far out country, but i’m tired, man. and i don’t have to be /all that/.
what this white american film collector is missing is the emotional attachment to these pieces of heritage. glissant remarked this in his theory of opacity. it’s time to hit the brakes and hold on to the things that will be always be UNKNOWN. this white american collector will not know the subtlety of indonesian humor in these films, nor live the experiences that these character live (i’m talking about the little things such as the rantang), nor experience what it’s like to watch this on cable tv after a long day of school. i may never experience the latter as well, but i have it passed down to me when my aunt makes bolu pandan, telling stories about her childhood in bogor, west java, saying “ih barry prima film kuno banget, dulu tante suka loh nonton habis pulang sekolah, kayak keren banget dia, sekarang udah botak (“barry prima is from such an old era, i loved watching his movies after school, he seems so cool and now he’s bald”). and i have that, and i carry that with me wherever i go.