Directed by: Anggy Umbara
Starring: Ananda Omesh, Boy William, Dinda Kanyadewi, Arie Dagienkz,
Running time: 143 minutes
Starring: Ananda Omesh, Boy William, Dinda Kanyadewi, Arie Dagienkz,
Running time: 143 minutes
Just when you thought that the so called comedy drama with heavy touch of religious theme, in this case Islam, is almost extinct from Indonesian cinemas, Mama Cake revives it for the Bieber generation.
From the outside it doesn't even look like your regular Indonesian film, it looks like some teen comedy. But in the inside it has bigger chance to be released in Ramadhan instead of any other month.
The story is about three friends; Raka (Ananda Omesh), Willy (Boy William) and Rio (Ari Dagienkz) who has to travel to Bandung upon request of Raka's father (Rudy Salam) to buy a certain brand of Brownies; Mama Cake, in Bandung.
Bandung is famous for culinary delicacies like steamed brownies and it's variant, not only that, the so called Mama Cake is for Raka's grandma who had been in the hospital becuase she is sick. But in the spirit of Harold & Kumar go to the White Castle (2004), what's being planned as just a simple journey ended in fiasco. But the fiasco itself is a spiritual journey for every main characters.
What bothers me is the visual style. Applying too much color saturation that can hurt your eyes for 143 minutes, it even try to look cool by trying to look like comic panels and applying too many unnecessary subtitles. I have no idea why the director is applying such approach. Is he trying to look cool or wanted to have large appeal to short attention span teenagers to sit through the whole movie?
From the outside it doesn't even look like your regular Indonesian film, it looks like some teen comedy. But in the inside it has bigger chance to be released in Ramadhan instead of any other month.
The story is about three friends; Raka (Ananda Omesh), Willy (Boy William) and Rio (Ari Dagienkz) who has to travel to Bandung upon request of Raka's father (Rudy Salam) to buy a certain brand of Brownies; Mama Cake, in Bandung.
Bandung is famous for culinary delicacies like steamed brownies and it's variant, not only that, the so called Mama Cake is for Raka's grandma who had been in the hospital becuase she is sick. But in the spirit of Harold & Kumar go to the White Castle (2004), what's being planned as just a simple journey ended in fiasco. But the fiasco itself is a spiritual journey for every main characters.
What bothers me is the visual style. Applying too much color saturation that can hurt your eyes for 143 minutes, it even try to look cool by trying to look like comic panels and applying too many unnecessary subtitles. I have no idea why the director is applying such approach. Is he trying to look cool or wanted to have large appeal to short attention span teenagers to sit through the whole movie?
Only Sin City (2005) can make a film look like a comic panel and still look cool. I still think this one can be better if the visual just being normal.
Not only that, one weakness of this film is trying too much to convey the message it even include the evolution theory debate in it which in my opinion is not necessary. One of the character; Willy spoke English 70% all the time and it is quite annoying. Why did he has to speak English? (Why does this review in English too?).
However, even though the visual is a pain to the eyes, the story is new and fresh, some of the jokes are genuinely funny and the message is easy to understood. As native Bandung, I like the use of extensive Sundanese language, too bad it doesn't have Indonesian subtitle for those who did not understood Sundanese at all.
