I admit it, I don’t buy original movies that much. I’ve stopped doing those DVD hunt trips in Mangga Dua, but most of the time, when the opportunities arise, I still grab pirated DVDs off the shelves.

One of my rare purchases is the infamous Laskar Pelangi. I figured, “Hey, these guys sweat their creativity off, put all their best into this piece of plastic. Why don’t you actually pay for it?” So I did. It’s been a month since it sat on my TV cabinet, and I just finished watching them.

Amazing.

I know, “Huh? Laskar Pelangi? That was so long ago mate…”

The plot is more like a slow story telling (since the story is taken from a novel), so theres no like, conflict, solution, etc like the usual Hollywood movies, but they catch the viewers eye. The cinematography is so beautiful, a 180 degrees look from the usual sh*tnetron junk-stinks-so-bad-to-high-heavens that we often watch on our TV screens. The casting, oh my, do you know that they scour whole Belitung to find those ten special faces? And they work like magic, they work so well together on the screen. Good job, casting director. The smart one with leadership qualities. The shy romantic. The artsy bohemian kid. The quiet Chinese kid (do you know back then when Hollywood movies put one black people on the cast? Same thing is happening now in Indonesia, hehehe…) I don’t know where they got that kid, A Kiong, but I think I saw him yesterday in Kelapa Gading Mall 😛

Anyways, I’m proud.

Seeing the behind the scenes on the special section of the DVD, I can really relate to this people as fellow creatives. They sweated their backs in the sun, struggling to protect the gears from the rain, taking repeated shots until they got it right, hey… wait a minute… that’s what I also do! If it was me, its gonna hurt real bad to see all that work being downloaded for free on bittorent, or being thrown here and there on a cardboard box in Mangga Dua.

I made a promise tonite, that is *sigh* … going to be hard… but I’ll try my best to appriciate more (read: no more pirated movies) 🙂 Taubat-taubat!

To Mira Lesmana, Riri Riza (hey dude your hair looks like that villain from The Incredibles) and Andrea Hirata, you guys did an awesome job. I would love to haul cables around in your beautiful set for free for a month. You guys looked like you’re having so much fun!

Again, I’m proud! Go full throttle, Indonesia Cinema. Kill all those kuntilanaks and pocongs!! (‘Pocong Kamar Sebelah? Are you frikkin kiddin me??!)

Edward
(Thousand thoughts in my head about this movie. But the eyes are shutting down, so thats it for now. All images taken from http://www.laskarpelangithemovie.com/)

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