Indonesia Film Essay

Indonesia’s cinema has been growing since 1980s, shown by the success of a movie Catatan si Boy (Boy’s note) released in 1987. It tells a story about Boy, a handsome college student and an ideal figure in his college who likes to write a diary about his life, such as drama, personal love life, and etc. The film has four sequels for the following years until 1991, which marked the end of the sequels. Furthermore, it also shows the glory of local films, along with another famous film Blok M (1990) and others, as they were able to dominate most of the cinemas at the time compared to imported ones. The issues that were brought to the audience were mostly engaging sexual issues, as in transvestites and gender transgression, which was used even before

Since waria(1) characters are common to play the clown character with the way they speak and the voice of the characters in Indonesian films (2013, p.26), perhaps as it is too common for the public to see that it triggers boredom and the downfall of local cinemas during 1990s. Following the downfall there are other reasons as of why the situation at the time was called ‘apparent death.’ Explained by Eka N.S. Alkhazar in his journal Masa – Masa Suram Dunia Perfilman Indonesia (The Bleak Periods of Indonesia Filmography), the fall was shown by the production rate that dropped below standard and cinema buildings were collapsed through out Indonesia. Additionally, a clash between UU No.8 1992 (Constitution No.8 1992) about filmography with region autonomy to pursue the average target and different policies in each region applied by the stakeholder creates a serious obstacle for local industry (2010, p.12). Away from internal obstacle stated above, there is also external obstacle that takes part during the