Of Love and Eggs

According to common descriptions, Garin Nugroho is not an author. An author can after all be recognised by several regular style characteristics that cannot be interchanged. In his work, Nugroho does just about the opposite. For each new film, he seems to invent a new style, or even several new styles. Nugroho keeps rediscovering film. The story, the theme or the issue at hand comes first and the most effective film style has to follow instinctively. For his latest film, Nugroho consciously chose for a simple, fresh and comic style that is reminiscent of the heyday of Egyptian comedy. Nugroho chose this innocent form because he wanted to tackle several subjects that are sensitive in his country. One of the motivations was the case surrounding the Indonesian teenage comedy Buruan Cium Gue/Hurry Up & Kiss Me, that got through censorship without problems, but was banned later because of the title, after actions by the Muslim cleric Abdullah Gymnastian. Nugroho had a mosque and a market street built into a studio and had touching events from an almost naive daily life performed there. In order to tackle topical religious issues, Nugroho returned, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, to a kind of pre-modern cinema. In a retro style and with retro acting, difficult issues are tackled with gentle, colourful velvet gloves. But they do get tackled. (GjZ)