JAFF is now in its 19th edition and began as a co-brand with Netpac, the Network for Asia Pacific film that was formed by the late Aruna Vasudev, editor of Cinemaya magazine and founder of its off shoot film festival Cinemaya that was held annually in New Delhi where Vasudev lived. Soon after its founding, Vasudev sold the brand to a flamboyant auctioneer subsequently leading to a roller coaster ride of festival organisation and its eventual demise.
The spirit of Cinemaya continues to underline JAFF’s relevance in a world where film festivals continue to proliferate, reaching now a scale that is almost industrial. JAFF maintains a discerning curatorial approach (most of the time), and the approach of a legitimate film festival which is not only to celebrate achievements but also to discover new talents and new articulations often within a tradition of cinema as art form and cultural phenomenon.
This was emphatically confirmed by JAFF’s opening film, SAMSARA by the festival’s founder and Indonesia’s most credible and internationally reputable filmmaker, Garin Nugroho whose modesty belies a fierce talent and determination to go his own way.
SAMSARA is a compounded mix of historical reality and mythology specifically centered around the culture and traditions of Bali. Shot is stunning black and white, infused with the rhythm of dance movement, and boasting one of the best musical soundtracks for film in years, SAMSARA continues a sub-genre of silent black and white films that Nugroho has fashioned in the past 10 years including OPERA JAWA and NEW CROWNED HOPE. Working with orchestras, cultural venues, performing arts institutions, Nugroho has helped promote the myths and cultures of Indonesia around the world.
Set in the late 19th century, SAMSARA pairs history and myth through its two main characters - a white woman from a wealthy family who marries a poor Balinese man whose family makes bamboo artifacts. To give their young son a chance in life (against prejudice, financial distress, cultural attitudes of the era), the father agrees to let him join the Monkey King (the mythological part of the piece). But the struggle does not end there and the film follows the efforts that the mother takes to regain her son and his re-entry into the human world.
The film is wordless and without any spoken dialogue. It tells its story - sometimes it has to be admitted, quite opaque if not obscure - through a dynamic of movement worthy of Eisenstein, an articulation of gesture, a “physical dialogue” that expresses mood and emotion in ways unthinkable in words. But the off-screen elements are as important as the images. The music soundtrack has a narrative and movement that is an equal not a subordinate to the image. The soundtrack infuses traditional gamelan form with updated contemporary elements like voice and percussion. Instead of the gently lilting, contemplative gamelan music of convention, the soundtrack takes a more “muscular” approach to move the action forward. The soundtrack is exceptional - a live version also exists but obviously with more limited performance than the film itself.
In line with the Samsara story we are presented with a dialectic of form and content - the son has a monkey spirit but re-forms into a human. In effect it takes on the nature of a mask that one struggles to put on as well as take off. This is the importance of SAMSARA. Its use of image-sound language is perfectly matched to the idea of cinema as a combination of the arts - dance, music, facial expression - and as a work that cannot, and should not, exist in any other form.