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Related Work: Tellurian Drama
Director’s Note:
I grew up in the outskirts of Bandung, Indonesia, where almost every weekend I watched Indonesian horror/exploitation films from the ‘80s, screened by a group of itinerant cinemas. In the mid-’90s, when cinema struggled to find its audience, itinerant/travelling cinema thrived in rural and outskirts areas. At the same time, Betamax tapes and LaserDiscs of mostly genre films were widely distributed in video stores across outer Bandung. Since then, I have been really obsessed with horror films, especially the Indonesian horror that I watched when I was a kid at outdoor screenings and on tape. When I was in high school, I found a VCD of this film called Misteri Bondowoso. That year, 2005, was the year when the VCD market was flooded by strange, no-budget local films. Amongst other films, which are mostly “shockumentary” and Mondo-style productions, Misteri Bondowoso took a different route by presenting documentation of ghost hunting. Although a similar approach to ghost hunting entertainment was practiced by television stations, I thought Misteri Bondowoso was different. It was made by people outside the industry. Moreover, it was able to be distributed due to technological shifts in Indonesia. It is clear that the horror films I grew up with are always presented outside the established cinematic means (theatrical exhibition). I guess it is time for me to revisit these films and explore how media technology liberates the ontology of cinema through the observation of horror films in Indonesia and their trajectory. This video essay is my attempt to investigate that notion. (Dir.: Riar Rizaldi, Indonesia/Singapore, 2020, 20 min., English and Bahasa Indonesia with English subtitles) Images courtesy of the Asian Film Archive |
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