What They Don’t Talk About When They Talk About Love

‘It’s always about love. It’s boring’, someone remarks about the romantic radio play her friend is listening to. That infinite variations on the theme of love are possible is proven by the second film by young Indonesian director Mouly Surya. She sets her film, for which she also wrote the screenplay, in a school for the blind and partially-sighted in Jakarta.
Just like everyone else, the pupils here also have their desires. To attract the attention of the boy she is secretly in love with, Diana buys a bottle of her favourite perfume. In spite of her disability, Maya wants to be an actress, but has to put up with a lot of teasing about this from her boyfriend. Fitri is also taken for a ride – by a hard-of-hearing rocker, who poses as a mysterious doctor.
Surya’s film, full of steadicam shots flowing through the corridors of the institute, is not only about blindness, but tackles all the senses: there is plenty of tasting, listening, sniffing and touching.

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