MIFF SESSION 3: AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Young Rakib is watching a chess tournament on tv in the house he is keeping when the resident arrives earlier than expected. General Purnawinata retired marvels that the young man has grown from the baby he was when last seen. The General is an imposing presence and almost immediately displays a pleasure in being personally intrusive. He's in the small Indonesian town to hammer the locals into supporting a power station. While we can guess that  most of people at the meeting he addresses will lose their homes for the development. This quickly fades into the shadows of the narrative as we watch the General slowly and gently colonise Rakib. 

There are family connections and complications in this relationship which a skilled manipulator like the General enjoys exploiting. Rakib is not yet twenty but his rapidly developing conscience is ringing like a firebell. Still, he feels increasingly powerless in the situation and when the opportunity arises to turn against his own locals he not only takes it but makes the offer. What will it take to break him free of the bonds? Will he want to, by then?

Makbul Mubarak's feature debut plays like a slowburn theatre of cruelty. The General's personal power and his continuing influence with official force and the sway that both allow of the physical territory keep the young man guessing about himself. There are no clever timeline pingpongs or lateral excursions, we are watching a painstakingly linear progression, as though Rakib sees his present tense as an ever stronger prison. The future might be unwritten but it's looking pretty well estimated at this stage. A mostly electronic score is kept so subtle for the most part that it sounds like the rest of the ambient audio from the jungle and traffic. When it does rise it is poignant, consolidating the sorrow of a scene of developing grief.

Arswendy Bening Swara as the General bears himself with an intimidating confidence, making the levity or gravity of his questions or statements a matter of confusion until he reveals which it is. He is a terrifying figure whose soft voiced command exists in the same being that causes such profound damage to a character toward the middle. This is done offscreen but the sense that it is routine mixed with pleasure will get your tummy doing the seasick dance.  Kevin Ardilova as Rakib is equally impressive for the depths of his passivity which begins as deference to authority to fear of showing a raised eyebrow or curl of the mouth. We see him range into moral ire but in the presence of the older man his passive unbroken skin appear more and more doll like. It's a lesson in restraint that is writ large on a screen that often fills with his face.

Autobiography holds deep terror. It is a tribute to Mubarak that he kept the histrionics low. The General just does not need big villainous laughter or explicit demonstrations for his control to continue, he only requires other people to respect him. Once that's done, they are his. Is the scene in which he is showing Rakib how to accurately fire a military rifle a big clunking metaphor for sexual dominance? Big, yes, but not clunking. This film does not play so cheatingly.