*Identity is a part of CUEAFS's Udine Far East Film Festival 12 coverage. The review has been produced for CUEAFS and our partners Cine-Vue
 Alternative title: Identitas
Written and directed by: Aria Kusumadewa
Starring Tio Pakusodewo and Leony Vitria Hartanti
A whole new level of darkness and depression is what the audience can find in the drama Identity, by writer/director Aria Kusumadewa. The film depicts the everyday reality in contemporary Indonesia, where those with power are the puppet-masters, who decide the faith of the poor.
The protagonist, Adam (Tio Pakusadewo) is a single man after the prime of his life, who works in the mortuary section of a hospital, taking care of the dead. He befriends a young woman who works as a prostitute to pay the medicine for her incurably diseased father. Adam becomes attached to her and tries to help resolve her issues, whilst he himself faces an eviction. When the young woman is found dead, Adam tries frantically to save her body from being sold for academic research.
Identity isn’t one of those films that grab the audience with an intriguing storyline, great cast or special effects, aimed at pleasing the viewer and making their experience more satisfactory. Instead, it is a production built to cause uneasiness and leave a disturbing feeling of unresolved issues and a life that leads nowhere. It is a film after which the words feel awkward, as the audience has submerged into a whole new dark world, where the only available exit and possible resolution is nowhere near a happy ending.
The film’s title refers to the general concept, represented also by the nameless girl and her father – those are people without identities, without rights, at the mercy of the government. Whilst presenting the terrible everyday lives of the ‘identity-less’ and the conditions of millions of people in Indonesia who live in absolute poverty, writer/director Aria Kusumadewa constructs a story full of satirical elements aimed at politics and the media. With the progression towards the ending and the final scene, Aria presents a difficult issue to the audience, an extreme manner of solving someone’s problems, which unfortunately is a daily reality in the country.
Memorable performances by both Tio Pakusodewo and Leony Vitria Hartanti, who both act convincingly and, in a strangely beautiful manner, portray dark and depressing believable characters. Aria Kusumadewa uses dark images and sad slow piano accompaniment to achieve the atmosphere of desperation and create a world with no way out, a world without opportunities, hopes and dreams. A world where even the slightest chance of happiness is quickly destroyed and everything to be expected in the future is only more misery.
The issue of identity or rather the search for identity is thoroughly discussed throughout the film. As Adam decides to name the young woman Hawa (Eve) and starts thinking of her as his wife, in his desperate attempt to give her an identity, the questions of how important having one is and who gives identities to people becomes even more obvious. Perhaps a little too much repetition of the idea, especially by revealing the problem in the title itself, but certainly a deep enough concept to be spared an hour and a half of screen time.
*Image source:
http://www.thebestmoviereview.com/albums/movie/movie_identitas.jpgLabels: cueafs, east asian film, far east film, feff, festival, movie reviews, udine |
