
by: Asmayani Kusrini
Vaguely, I remember that
name: Wiji Thukul. It was in
my first or second year in the university in Makassar when some of student’s
organisations were actively gathered and staging spontaneous discourse
alternated with poetry readings. There, Wiji Thukul was often mentioned along
with his poems. Unfortunately, I couldn’t listened properly to their discourse nor being there for
poetry readings.
By that time, there were
rumours about police and military operation targeted the students. The street
was restless with non-stop demonstrations by students – or anonymous?--, I was
not sure. Nobody could tell. “a
latent danger of communism” or “Chinese” was the word of that day. And the
smell of burning tires was in the air for days. I remember clearly that
so-called student demonstrators were randomly hijacking a car with red plate
–official car for civil servant officer— to be burned in the middle of a busy
street as a part of their protest.
My parents were afraid and
always told me to stay away from students gathering. “Avoid the crowds,” my mother said every time I went
out. Their fear was not only
because they were very obedient civil servants and have a ‘red-plate car’, but
also because we are half Chinese. Though my father is a Buginese and devoted
Muslim, my mother side has more complex origin, and being half Chinese and
Protestant was our most worrying fact by that time.
I am lucky because my
Chinese-ness is not that obvious. But my sister and my brother are. We were afraid but we don’t know exactly
what we were afraid of. Being a civil-servant family with a red-plate car?
Being half Chinese? Being a university student? Or being
a random target of random demonstrator?
A film Solo Solitude by Yosep Anggi Noen reminds me of that fear.
Invisible fear. A fear of being in the wrong place and in the wrong crowd. It
is a film that intensely shows its audience the anxiety of being watched
without able to watch back. Most of the scenes are composed to intimidate its
characters even in their most private life. From the electricity power that on
and off as it pleases, a rude neighbour who asked for toothbrush and tooth
paste, to the fact that they can’t drink water –the most basic human needs–
quietly without having to deal with hordes of ants.
Even the most banal
conversation on everyday activity such as cutting hair in barbershop could
become a terrifying experience. Simple question such as “where are you coming
from?” or “what are you doing here” sounds like a threat. Such intimidation
by an oppressor regime has done to
its citizen.
I believe, Solo Solitude is so engaging (for
Indonesian as well as for International audience, or at least for me) because
it is depicting a collective disquiet of (Indonesian) society who has to face an invisible power that
engaged them in constant anxiety. Wiji Thukul in this film is a representation
of Indonesians who were afraid. Although consisted of largely quiet, calm and
slow imagery, it is channelled the general insecurity of a nation in that
specific period.
The psychological
oppression of invisible power is shown in this movie with excellent efficacity
by showing stream of observation of its character’s body language, movement and expression. The filmmaker and its DOP is repeatedly
showing the back of the head of its character, the kind of scene that makes you
uncomfortable as if someone –or ghost– was following him. And when they show
his face, his eyes are never rest,
observing his surroundings as if something will happen and his ears are always aware
of the noise and conversations from a distance.
There is a sense of
curiosity and empathy from the filmmaker to stare at its character’s solitude
without concessions to the spectacularization of images. Instead, it is filled
with internal monologue through poems. There lies the difference between Wiji
Thukul and Indonesians in general.
I will not explain long and large about Wiji Thukul. I will let you
google.
The poems and the poet are
the added values –if not the key
element– of this movie. As I said, Solo
Solitude is a film about the fear of Indonesian people in a certain period
but it is also a film about Wiji Thukul. The film itself doesn’t want to show
what heroism did to a hero. Yosep Anggi restrained himself by choosing Wiji
Thukul’s journey to uncertainty. No heroic act. He wrote poems.
The filmmaker wants to show
that the man acted and reacted to the oppression but also afraid of the
consequence to him and to his family. He is not the kind of hero that you
expect him to be. And why should he? He is just a poet who writes. What he
writes about is mostly about his feelings of injustice and of living under
dictatorial regime.
Solo Solitude is the continuation of
Wiji Thukul’s legacy of that feelings as well as a reminder what it feels like
if we have to live under dictatorship again. That fear, is still relevant and
will always be relevant issue to the contemporary society nowadays.***
983 Kali