Words: Anna Williamson (she/her)
The ephemerality of the short film often begs the question of how filmmakers and artists can create a lasting impact. Do their films linger, echo, or last; make us think, our hearts beat, our ears ring? How can their stories, within such a short runtime, be made to stay in our consciousness?
When reviewing Indonesia’s cultural scope of over 280 million people, 17,000 islands, and 700 languages, such questions could not become more pressing. And yet, Minikino Presents: Indonesian Spice Route seeks to tackle this task, exploring Indonesia’s cultural, political, and spiritual zeitgeist through the lens of 5 unique short films. Presented at the Glasgow Short Film Festival, the film collection distilled into an hour and a half not just the depth and variety of Indonesian filmmaking but also of filmmaking as a tool: a tool for political activism, storytelling, and creating a lasting global impact.
‘These films weave stories of resilience, longing, and self-discovery, offering a glimpse into Indonesia – a Muslim-majority nation with a rich and diverse cultural heritage that remains largely unheard of. Through these narratives, we invite you to explore its complexity beyond expectations’ – GSFF press release.
Bringing such a diverse and rich image of Indonesia to a predominantly Scottish audience of course comes with its challenges – a linguistic, cultural, and spatial divide that might seem insurmountable. However, in an era where the West faces the descent into oligarchy and climate disaster, the collection offers plenty of opportunities for connection and learning. Indonesian Spice Route weaves together themes of poverty, police violence, and class division, often twisting the fantastical and absurd to comment on these ideas.
Speaking at the festival, Haris Yuliyanto – director of Fish, Please! – reflected on the personal roots of his film, describing how in his home city of Semarang warming seas have forced fish to migrate, making them inaccessible to local fishermen. This widening class divide and its human cost are grotesquely rendered in his film, as locals are turned into fish to be consumed by the wealthy. The discussion probed into how the surreal, yet deeply political aspects of the project explore a climate crisis abused by the ruling classes – an idea cultivated throughout the collection.
What particularly captured my attention in Fish, Please! was Yuliyanto’s handling of colour and aesthetics, which allowed him to explore these ideas within such limited dialogue. Yuliyanto described the bright green light of the dock contrasting with the yellow of the protagonist Rozaq’s fabric shawl, its weave against the geometric scales of his mutating body appearing unsettling and ‘dystopian’. Yuliyanto centres this sense of unease throughout the film: in Rozaq’s physicality, his eyes twitching, bulging; the relenting chant of ‘Iwak, iwak…’ (Fish, fish); in the heaving and coughing of the bodies as they are violently transformed. Such attention to detail encapsulates the power of Yuliyanto’s storytelling; within its 20-minute runtime, Fish, Please! is able to condense vast political and environmental crises into moments of startling intimacy and disturbing human horror.
Each film, though entirely distinct in style, contributes to a broader conversation about the human cost of inequality. Some, like Fish, Please!, are highly surreal in their artistic translation of such lived experiences, while others, notably Blue Poetry, are much more explicit in their imagery. The film treats plastic waste as fish to be traded and consumed: flip flops are prepared and gutted, shopping bags boiled, packaging left to dry in the sun. The sight of families tearing and pulling the latex of discarded condoms with their teeth is horrifying and graphic, but incredibly direct and thought-provoking in its delivery.
This collection asks what, or who, can prevail in a modern and rapidly changing Indonesia. In Arabic Mantra, religious ritual is brutally juxtaposed by modern technology; She and Her Good Vibrations uses an almost childish animation to explore the comedic relationship between a woman and her vibrator, but looks toward greater issues of female sexual liberation within South-East Asia. Basri & Salma in a Never-Ending Comedy, which enjoyed success in the 2023 festival circuit, also handles themes of sexuality and familial relations through incredibly absurd, crude, and often graphic scenes, complete with a musical number.
These films are no stranger to the shocking, absurd, and bizarre. Their very curation stands testament to the diverse and vibrant world of Indonesian filmmaking, translating and transforming lived realities into poignant and often hilarious spectacles. Their shorter run and production times allow for a thorough attention to detail that makes these projects incredibly impactful. Though a Scottish audience may not initially feel able to relate, it quickly becomes clear that these films possess a resonant humanity. And that, fundamentally, is the true nature of the short film: eternalising a small moment, an intimacy, within the transient expanse of modern life.
