Moments in Indonesian Film History

This book explores Indonesian cinema, focusing on moments of unique creativity by Indonesian film artists who illuminate important but less-widely-known aspects of their multi-dimensional society. It begins by exploring early 1950s ‘Indonesian neorealist films’ of the Perfini group, which depict the ethos and emerging moral issues of the period of struggle for independence (1945–49). It continues by discussing four audacious political allegories produced in four discrete political eras—including the Sukarno, Suharto and Reformasi periods. It also surveys the main approaches to Islam in both popular cinema and auteur films during the Suharto New Order. One chapter celebrates the popular songs and B-movies of the Betawi comedian, Benyamin S, which dramatize the experience of the poor in ‘modernizing’ Jakarta. Another examines persisting Third World dimensions of Indonesian society as critiqued in two experimental features. The concluding chapter highlights innovation in a renewed Indonesian cinema of the post-Suharto Reformasi period (1999–2020), including films by an unprecedented generation of women writer-directors