TIFF 2021 YUNI: Reflections by Robert Aaron Mitchell

Yuni is the third feature film by director Kamila Andini and marks her return to the Toronto International Film Festival. Kamila has the distinction of the first filmmaker to be presented twice in tiff’s Platform competition programme.

The film follows the title character Yuni (Arawinda Kirana), a typical teenager. She goes to school. She fixates on a cute teacher. She hangs out with friends and scrolls Instagram. The world she navigates is rooted in religious customs and tradition. People try and blackmail kids that they are engaging in sexual activities. At school Yuni wears a hijab. On her own she dresses in contemporary, vibrant clothing. At home –nearing the age of seventeen – several suitors are courting Yuni’s grandmother to arrange a marriage with the teenager. Left to her own devices Yuni goes on adventures of self-discovery.

 

 

At school it is announced that far too many teenage girls are becoming pregnant and that mandatory virginity tests will be implemented. The Islamic Club is now in charge of school activities now. Everyone must conform to Islamic teachings. There will be no more music bands.

Yuni has an obsession for the color purple, so much so, that she constantly steals purple items from other students, a water bottle, a food container. It does not matter what the item is as along as it is purple. This lands her Mrs. Lilis’ guidance councilors office. Mrs Lilis recognizes that Yuni is someone trying to forge their own path and instead of punishing the teenager, the councilor encourages Yuni to work towards going to college. In order for this to happen Yuni will have to be accepted in a special admissions program. She has to graduate third or higher in her class, have achievements in the humanities, sports or other activities and she must not be married.

As the pressure mounts for Yuni to get the highest grade possible she meets a boy Yoga (Kevin Ardillova). He is smitten with her and begins to write poetry for her assignments in Mr. Damar’s class, the teacher Yuni has a crush on.

 

Some of the great scenarios in the movie is when Yuni is dealing with the predatory practice of arranged marriages. She confronts would be suitors herself. Interestingly, the suitors meet with Yuni’s grandmother as Yuni’s parents are currently out of town. Upon meeting Yuni’s mother we can see why. Her mother is extremely supportive of Yuni telling her, “Whatever makes you happy I will support it.” As paths and avenues close around her she continues undeterred to be her own person and follow her dreams. 

 

Arawinda Kirana brings a phenomenal performance as the title character. The entire film rests on her shoulders and she carries the weight exceptionally well. The emotions and the strength necessary for Yuni to seek her own life on her terms and survive the society around her is very relatable. The cinematography by Teoh Gay Hian reinforces the traditional Indonesian society as well as the vibrant colors that inhabit the world that Yuni is trying to create for herself.

Yuni is ultimately a beautiful poem of a young woman navigating the expectations of religion and a traditional society to forge her own path. 

 

TIFF 2021 VENGEANCE IS MINE, ALL OTHERS PAY CASH by Carol Borden

 

Hey everyone! I am so happy that Carol Borden, editor and one of the writers (The Cultural Gutter) is joining me on this the 2021 Toronto International Film Journey this year. We were able to work together in the days of the TIFF Midnight Madness blog. Without further ado her first piece of the festival! - Robert Mitchell

I’m pretty excited to be back on the TIFF beat and to be unleashed here at Soldier of Cinema after years of writing for and editing the official Midnight Madness and much missed Vanguard program blogs. I loved that job and loved those film programs. But at Soldier of Cinema I’m writing about films from a variety of TIFF programs so thanks, Rob, for this opportunity! - Carol Borden

The first film of the festival for me this year was, Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash (Indonesia, 2021) directed by Edwin and adapted from an eponymous novel that is available in English if you don’t read Indonesian. Director Edwin co-wrote the screenplay with author Eka Kurniawan. Part of the reason I mention this is not just to help promote Indonesian literature, but because the film has a unique feel. I think some people might walk into Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash expecting something different than they are getting with the film. You might be prepared for an exploitation film or b-movie fights and gore. And you do get fights, gore and sex. But behind all the fighting and humor is painful history and a look at toxic masculinity. As Edwin says in his introduction to the digital screening of the film, Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash is grounded in Hong Kong cinema and b-movies popular in Indonesia in the 1980s, but it’s not a nostalgic movie and it’s not a movie that is neutral about its violence or uses rape as an opportunity for the viewer to see breasts while a female character retains her virtue. No, the violence is effective but the characters’ motivations for engaging in violence range from understandable but likely a mistake to idiotic to wrathful to cold-blooded and calculating disappearance of other people. Even the most understandable killing in the film doesn’t really heal anything. It’s the telling of stories--the telling of the truth of what happened--that helps the most making Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash a potentially a better double feature with The Act of Killing (2012), a documentary in which Indonesian men who participated in mass killings in 1965-66, than with, say, The Raid (2011) or the more recent Geran / Silat Fighters: The Deed of Death (2019).

 

 

After Edwin’s introduction I couldn’t help but watch for the tell-tale signs of nostalgia. After all the film is set in the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The fashions and music are accurate. But there is always the background of what was happening in Indonesia at the time. And even if you don’t know about Suharto’s dictatorship, the “dark days” that Edwin hopes won’t come again as he says in his introduction, I don’t think you can help notice the general feel of anxiety about the military, about the police, about the men’s rage, about why this violence is happening and what has happened to everyone in the film. 

 

 

Anyway, I should provide a synopsis. In Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, Marthino Lio plays Ajo, a guy who can’t maintain an erection and, as an ad informs us, “Only a man who can’t get it up can face death without fear.” Ajo likes fighting. It’s all he wants to do. Until he gets into a fight with Itueng (Ladya Cheryl) when she’s paid to be a bodyguard to a sleaze construction company owner. After their tussle, Itueng quits and goes on to work in a carnival, which can only be described as rad. Ajo and Itueng fall in love, but there is a rival (Reza Rahadian) and there is Uncle Gembul (Piet Pagau), who prefers not to have his past as a general mentioned and who wants to hire Ajo to erase a man named Macan as if Macan burned up in Krakatoa. And for Ajo love seems impossible when he can’t get it up.

I have to say I enjoyed the phallic imagery--the spitting clams, the leeches. It was very entertaining.

Oh, yeah, and martial arts master Cecep Arif Rahman has a small role, but he does some nice fighting in it.

HEADSHOT: World Premiere Interviews with Directors Kimo Stamboel & Timo Tjahjanto

                          Timo Tjahjanto, Kimo Stamboel interviewed by Robert A. Mitchell

Headshot the new film from Kimo Stamboel and Timo Tjahjanto aka The "Mo" Brothers premiered Setember 9th, 2016 at the midnight madness programme at the Toronto International Film Festival. Robert was at the premiere and spoke with Kimo and Timo about their latest film.