Directed by: Nurman Hakin
Starring: Nicholas Saputra, Dian Sastrowardoyo, Yoga Bagus Satatagama, Yoga Pratama
Having heard that this film screened in Pusan International Film Festival makes me interested. Apparantly my expectations is a bit too high. This is a coming-of-age tale about three Indonesian schoolboys living in "Pesantren" (Islamic Religious School) with religious and social issues as the side dish.
Actually I am perplexed about the choice of Nicholas Saputra and Dian Sastrowardoyo, two leading Indonesian movie stars, as if both of them was chosen for the sake of marketing, as for Dian, her screentime wasn't that much and only appears in the middle. Had this film didn't chose prominent actors, it can still tell a believable story. I guess the filmmaker try to capitalize the fact that most teen will watch this film solely on the name of Nico without even questioning the content. I can see that from the numbers of teens watching this film, most of them commenting on how cute Nico is or how funny some scenes are. Which left me wondering whether those teens could really understand what the film was all about.
Living in a pesantren in central Java, longtime friends Huda (Nicholas Saputra), Syahid (Yoga Bagus Satatagama) and Rian (Yoga Pratama) are living a modest and nice life. There they are in the crossroad of two religious teacher, the one teaches peace, the one chose the other way (you know what I mean).
Syahid buys "the other way" and transform himself throughout the film, Huda tries to seek his lost mother helped by Donna (Dian Sastrowardoyo), a dangdut singer with vague background and Rian wanted to be a filmmaker. As for characters, Syahid is the most three dimensional of all, while Rian only appears as a comic relief, even his conflict with his mother bear no result at all.
With humor and tackling some sensitive issues, this film manage to "explain" audience who knows nothing about Pesantren about the life and obstacles inside it. The editing is a bit choppy and you can notice that some of Huda's dialogue was poorly dubbed, especially when he speaks one or two sentence of Arabic language. Apart from that, the film could be trimmed few minutes and try tying some loose knots.
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