Indonesia celebrated its 65th national film day in March 2015. The year of 1950 marked as the beginning of the making of great history in Indonesian film encyclopedia. On that day, Indonesians celebrated the initial rise of many talented native Indonesian filmmakers who dared to stepped into filmmaking and creating a big hit in the industry. Among the few names, Usmar Ismail, appeared as the pioneer and all time great filmmaker in the history of Indonesia.
He became the first Indonesian to produce and direct a motion picture called Darah dan Doa or Long March to Siliwangi five years after Indonesian founding father, Soekarno and Hatta, declared Independency from Japan invasion in 1945. Usmar Ismail’s masterpiece became the forerunner of the birth of motion picture in Indonesia. Evidently, from that period to the late 80s, Indonesia experienced a golden period in film industry. Thousand of movies with beautiful aesthetical scenes were born from the hands of visionary filmmakers and cinematographers.
Take a look at Teguh Karya, an award winning Indonesian director, through his box office film Tjoet Nja’ Dhien, an epos biography film inspired by the heroic acts of Indonesian heroin from Aceh, produced in 1988 that had garnered many acknowledgement from international forum. it is the film that is not only successful in the selling but also considered as the most beautiful aesthetical film that Indonesia ever produced. Since the era of Tjoet Nja' Dhien, Indonesia seems difficult to enhance its golden and glorious day. Even worse, Indonesian film industry was in the darkest side for more than a decade. The industry woke up from its long sleep and rebirth after the release of Petualangan Sherina and Ada Apa Dengan Cinta in the early 2000. Marking as a new chapter of modern film in Indonesia.
Although, numbers of films are increasingly produced since then, Indonesian filmmakers are still missing the essential part of filmmaking itself, or what I rather call “the lacking of aesthetical aspects” in their films. In the other hands, most of their films are only made of advance technology in visual effects and sound but tasteless in story and less artistic. In the 1950s, film was created by passing curfew in production with some arguably idealistic process like brainstorming ideas on script, acting, set, music and editing. Filmmakers in olden days put efforts on making film aesthetically to avoid bad result considering the limit of technology in film at that time can not do anything to make the film up once it was bad except throwing it to the garbage bin. This is the reason why aesthetic in filmmaking was taken carefully on those days. In contrast, although filmmakers today have better equipment in making a film as they are supported by advanced technology they ignore aesthetical aspect in Film; the mise-en-scene. Many, in my perspective, have perceived film aesthetic only as a manual or textbook that they only learn in class for study purpose.
Some Indonesian filmmakers in my perspective got them selves in the industry by “accident”, a few got the opportunity because they have the networks with little experience, and the rest perhaps just got in filmmaking only to join euforia of "today’s trend" where technology makes film seems to be just peace of cake to produce. it is simply said that most of them have not enough knowledge in the process of film making. Among all Indonesian filmmakers only a few can understand the principal of film making, Joko Anwar, to name of few, who does the aesthetic aspect in most of his films. In order to make beautiful film, filmmakers need to comprehensively see an essential introduction to all major areas of film (not only cameras and technology), including semiotics, narratology, psychoanalysis as a part of film theory, and the theory of spectatorship. This situation is worsened by today's demand of film audience where they expect more films with great visual and effect than the one with strong and well-developed stories. In the other words, Indonesian filmmakers today only create market to fulfill audience's demand without even touch a side of introducing and educating them to what-so-called good films. Today, film in Indonesia is no longer considered as a place exclusively for artistic creativity, but it is more focused on producing and generating commercial and lucrative profits.
Indonesian Filmmakers today make film to achieve financial objective and gain more benefits and ignore the idealism of an artistic part in filmmaking and art ethic where profit usually comes as the least list of filmmaking’s goals.
I do believe that making film isn’t an easy thing to do. It is true that behind all those great stories investment becomes the urgent area that every filmmaker should consider first before starting to make one, in regard to how expensive filmmaking is. But also, the fact that sometimes film production is often stirred by the personal interest of investor or producer, makes me at some point, believe that educating our audience today and shift their perspective to select good films is the only way to get film back to where it should be, and it is every filmmaker's responsibility. This is how we learn to be relatable to the most important receiving end in filmmaking-the audience.
Good film is created to inspire people, bring better civilization for better world and film aesthetic is considered as the integrated part of it. Having aesthetic process in every stage of film making will give film more artistic taste. This will make whoever watch will remember every part of the film; story, lines, plot, acting, set, sound, effects, editing, and many more. Aesthetics element should be seen as combination of artistic idealistic process of filmmaking and advance technology that nowadays film industry might or should offer to filmmaker.
In the hands of film, film criticism is part of a historical debate about the role of cinema in society, that many or most filmmakers probe the contributions of significant film theorists of the past, there must be story, spirit and art that people can enjoy. We should still consider the earliest writings of Munsterberg, Balazs, and Eisenstein, move on to Bazin, the Filmologists, and Mitry, and address the linguistic, semiotic, and psychoanalytic contributions offered by Barthes, Metz, Usmar Ismail and many of their contemporaries can still be learned and influenced the standard of film making in Indonesia, Because that is the initial soul of art in film. And in the name of art, aesthetic element should be the one that makes it become more artistic. And film is a part, an important part, of an art.
