Speaker: Antariksa (researcher, member of Kunci Cultural Studies Center, Yogyakarta)
Moderator: Farah Wardani (curator, art critic)
Along with: Dimas Jayasrana (artist), Lulu Ratna (founder and member of Boemboe), Katinka van Heeren (researcher), Indra Ameng (artist, program officer of ruangrupa), Ade Darmawan (artist, director of ruangrupa)

ruangrupa, Jakarta, 13 Mei 2003

Antariksa: The direction of this research is actually to observe the development of the idea of progress along with my interest in showbiz industry, especially cinema, in which the development has been generally related to the audio-visual technology.

Initiated by the United States in 1930’s, cinema business has been linked with other business like clothing, cigarettes and soft drinks. After the World War II, everything from Lollypop, popcorn, to Coca Cola, were internationalized. Indonesian cinema had just started to link with those businesses in 1950’s. Previously, cinema is only for film screening, in which the newly advancing technology, like photo camera to radio, were introduced.

A later development in this field in Indonesia existed during the Dandles (a Dutch governor) era in 1870, when the law of agrarians was implemented. Subsequently, some foreigners began to buy their own lands, which afterward turned into plantation, factories and so on. Even Javanese royal courtiers could not have the rights to run the plantation; they only got small percentage from the product. The land authorization system itself related indeed to the idea of progress. Later on, highways and railways were built, until the urbanization, new value and new morality began to emerge. In that era, the ethical period was established during the shift of centuries, from 1890s until 1990s, in which some school started to be built, books were published in Malay language, then development of plantation and Batik industries in some new cities like Solo, Batavia and Yogyakarta were started.

Before the first cinema existed in Indonesia, around 2-3 years before in Jakarta there were Dutch man named Talbot and a Frenchman starting to create “motion picture”, something like a sequence of pictures usually shown in Monas courtyard, in front of station and market. The first movie theatre appeared in Tanah Abang on December 5, 1900. But that was only rich Dutchman’s house that was transformed with arranged chairs. They sold very expensive tickets, so that the audiences were only Dutch people.

After this movie theatre was established, the idea of urban culture then changed again. Gambling and mass fighting started. Although gambling had been practiced before cinema existed, it was not in relation to the development of the ethic period and agrarian laws. It was really a gambling that just existed because of modern cinemas. There were also bullies. In a newspaper around 1900, many readers wrote expressing their unhappiness about the gambling, prostitution and fighting in the movie theatre.

Upon the appearance of movie theatre, traditional street performance started to extinct gradually. The climax of its loss was in 1930. The idea on how the visual culture related to the technology then developed in the idea of classes. There ware Chinese and Slam (pointing to slide presentation). Slams were actually Moslem (audience laughing), and it was an ad in 1905. At that time there were several classes, namely, loge class, first, second and third class. Loge class was for European and white people in general. Second class was Chinese and Chinese descents, most part were also European and Indian. Then third class was for Javanese and Moslem, which was finally named ‘goat class’ because at that time all Moslem people had beard, and they watched in the lowest class or the cheapest (audience laughing).

Then we could see political aspect here. In the nationalism movement in Indonesia, Islamic organizations started to emerge. It was one of the Dutch people’s ways to describe class separation. The highest class always decided everything, from politics to morality, which we would discuss more later on. Before this ad (pointing on presentation slide), actually men and women were put together, but then Moslems in Jakarta protested it. Finally they made men and women separated for Moslems, except for husband and wife.

Lulu Ratna: Husband and wife were put in a specific place?

Antariksa: Unfortunately I do not know, but they allowed husband and wife to watch the movie together.

Dimas Jayasrana: How did the Moslems get the power to enforce such regulation?

Antariksa: I do not have any data about that particular matter. But my point of view is that film is one of ways to observe the configurations of morality. The first movie they showed was a documentary film, which was used to show how high was the morality of European, by demonstrating their luxury. So the Dutch people actually had some agendas through film. Their targets were people who might potentially resist them. Some of them were under control, but Islam was quite powerful at that time. There was a case around 1911-1912s, in which Javanese and Moslems boycotted a movie theater because it showed a film that was contradictory with their beliefs. For example, a white woman who looked nice, but after she meet a man, they kissed (audience laughing). That boycott was the first one, which happened in two cities, Jakarta and Semarang. Then it happened again in 1960s when PKI (Indonesian Communist Party), the Labor party and film workers banned American movies.

Ade Darmawan: At that time, the importing agent of the movie was individual?

Antariksa: Yes. In the year of 1900 they only used the name of the owner, not special name yet. Then it became the Royal Base. In 1900, he was the only one who imported film to the Dutch Indies, and it happened until the year of 1905. After that, there were 2 movie agents who imported the movies. So in the beginning of 20th century they were usually both importing agent and owner of the movie theater at the same time.

Dimas Jayasrana: When did the tickets brokers start to appear?

Antariksa: I didn’t get any chances to interview people in Indonesian cinema field in the 1920s-1930s, whose majorities have already died. But in a small special film magazine in 1951, there was a letter from reader that stated about their unhappiness about the highly increasing numbers of ticket brokers. Before the year of 1950s, I do not know.

Then in the year of 1916 there was law on film that relates to morality because in 1916 American movies came in, and they were very different to European movies, whose majority was documentary. In the movies they could find the actors and actresses’ legs, butts, and breasts, even though they were not as far as porn movies. Dutch people found that quite dangerous because it could ruin the image of white people. Then a censor commission was established, even though it was still not good enough. Just as it is now in Indonesia, what the commission often did was just cutting the films off.

In 1916-1925 the censorship system started. There was an interesting policy section, in which the state’s censorship agent could inspect the cinema at anytime, and it was managed in accordance to a clear policy article saying the owner could not reject to provide facilities and so on. In this case we can see clearly government’s intervention in the morality related to development of film.

Regarding Dimas’ questions, whether there were any local people who could watch, the answer is certainly yes. But since they could not get the access to see the cinema due to the system, they bribed the censorship agent first before the film coming to the Dutch Indies got censored. After that they screened the movies in a hotel or in a rich local people’s house along with part of European people who came along to watch. So they could watch any movies before they got censored.

But then in the movie theater, there were a lot of complains because the movies became too short and had no clear story because it got cut very sloppily. So then only rich people could see the movies in full version, while middle up to lower classes people could only watch it partially. Finally the cinema theater made a kind of strategy by making ‘assorted film’: a film constructed by several cut-off films that is compiled into one piece. It was the film that most of lowest class people watched. So it was more precisely for the ‘goat class’ people like I said before. After the ordonantie in 1916 and 1965, the local Indonesians can only watched such assorted films.

I interviewed my friend’s grandmother who underwent through that period. At that time the situation in the most of movie theaters was chaotic: people shouting, making out at the back and so on. There is a data on the rise of new sexual habit in movie theater.

For a more expensive class of cinema, they played new movies, while cheaper class only played older and philosophical films. In 1926 there started the films equipped with sound in the United States, but they just came to Indonesia in 1929.

And then there emerged a division between sound-equipped and silent cinemas, so there was another class group. The rich went to the sound-equipped cinemas, and the poor to silent ones. I haven’t found any data about what happened abroad. But around 1915 to 1920s, there was such a technological improvement happened in Indonesia, for instance they played the silent movie then there was voice dubbing by people behind the screen (audience laughing). So before 1929 there had already been ‘sound movies’ in Indonesia.

During the Japanese era, since the movies that were mostly screened were in Japanese and German language, local people did not understand. So before the movie was screened, usually there was a narrator telling the film synopsis. The narrator is often times the cinema owner, or representative of the Japanese government, who can understand Japanese language. And of course, the synopsis was already interpreted, so it is like a film review before the movie started.

Then in 1940 there were policies that rule out the censorship everywhere. I will continue with the changes in culture the came along with this new visual culture. In 1940s, a Javanese writer with pseudo name ‘Anak Kota Mini’ (literally: “a boy from a mini town”, audience laughing), talked about traditional game that started to vanish. The variety of games was added up with children’s playing cowboys, gun toys, peel from banana tree turning to horse toys, laundry strings turning to lasso (audience laughing). That transformation was also recorded in the novel of Marko Katrodipromo entitled Student Hijau, which describes it using Dutch language of some new terms such as ‘electrical lamps’, ‘watching films in cinema’, ‘going out to restaurant’, and ‘drink lemonade’ (audience laughing).

During the era of PKI (Indonesian Communist Party), the party asked the government to reduce import tax for Indian film, Malays, Pilipino, and in contrast they demanded to the boycott of American films. It was a tough 1960s era, in which some cinemas that screened American film were burnt down.

Audience: So what has subsequently made the visual culture so influential to the society?

Antariksa: I wouldn’t say that the influence was strongly accepted in a direct way, but it has always been supported by certain economic and political structures. If we return to the early 20th century, the reason why people watched movie dealt with politics of ethic that allowed local Indonesians to follow western lifestyle from books and cinemas, in which army and royal class could get discount, while Moslem got cheaper price. Dutch’s politics of ethic was the background.

After the year 1930s, when the official relation with the United States started, there were economic and political agendas. It was like when there was a big debate that started from 1940s’ about the difference between West and East, in which we had to turn to Western to become modern, or like many other arguments. Also in that era, the reason people went to the cinema was supported by the new ideas of a new nation. At that time many foreign embassies closed down because they were destroyed, burnt down, or became an army base. It could be said the the cinema industry was dying and they built it again as a place for fundraising. They sold the idea of nationalism.

Unfortunately, I can’t state directly about the influence, but the conclusion is maybe like this: if the visual culture attempts to make changes in other fields, it must be supported by other movements, like the state’s policy for instance, because film plays a significant role. I have a media clipping about how dirty the trade contracts between Indonesia and US in the field of visual culture. All kinds of U.S merchandise have impelled Indonesia because if it is not approved, other Indonesian exports to the U.S. can be banned.

If Indonesian film wants to reawake, there have to be a broader range of regulations, in terms of business and others, although I don’t know exactly how to achieve that. There have to be some strategies. I don’t really understand about the foreign film quota too, since it was done once in the communist era and failed. American movies were boycotted once and people did not want to go to the cinema theaters since Indonesian, Malaysian, Filipino movies at that time were bad at that time. So what else to do?

Dimas Jayasrana: I’d like to add a bit about the political influence in determining the development of cinema. Either Usmar Ismail or Sumandjaja, I do not remember exactly, once said that we shouldn’t be afraid of the attack of Western Movies, because Indonesian people should have had their own intelligence to choose. But his statement was wrong, not about the Indonesian people’s intelligence, but it more about the attack, which has been too strong. It’s actually not that simple because there are too many components taking part in there.

Antariksa: While the foreign cinema has survived due to its existence that has become a habit or culture, In Indonesia the failure of cinema has been caused by the influence of TV, VCD, and DVD player. Moreover, it is because there is no censor for the original video. Previously when the first TV industry started in Indonesia in the beginning of 1960s in Cipayung, which was made for the preparation of SEA GAMES, at the same time the cinemas offered technology that the TV didn’t have, starting from the wide screen, the standard of seats, up to the sounds, but still, the cinema couldn’t compete.

Katinka van Heeren: Didn’t that really happened due to the emergence of the private TV stations in 1993?
Antariksa: Yes, that happened in Java. Private TV station had likely become an elegant studio at that time. But in some other areas outside Java, the collapse of cinema started since there was the Palapa satellite. Then it totally died after the emergence of RCTI.

Indra Ameng: How about layar tancap (literally: embedded screen, namely the tradition of holding outdoor movie screening, often in a town square or public space, carried out for low class Indonesian people living in rural area)?
Antariksa: Actually layar tancap is very different. Based on an interview, in the Dutch era, such outdoor cinema was called Pes cinema, because they played film about Pes (bubonic plague/disease) in small towns. Afterward, layar tancep became a media of propaganda in Japanese era. Even my data said that they had their own cinema expert from Japan for the layar tancap at that time.

Until now the layar tancap still exists. The most developed ones are in Jakarta and Bandung. But when I was a kid, I saw some films were also used as propaganda of political parties on many issues, from family planning, five years long-term development of New Order government, advertisement of Nyonya Meneer and Djarum, in which those ads still perform as propaganda. Right now I don’t know what kind of film they play for layar tancap.

Dimas Jayasrana: In Pasar Minggu (a working class area in Jakarta), people are still interested in Indonesian films especially bloody action ones, such as some series of films featuring Barry Prima (Indonesian action film actor in the 1980s’) as Jaka Sembung. My neighbor, who is a layar tancap businessman, said that if people can choose, American movies are just the second best. Previously, the tops in rating were films by Rhoma Irama (Indonesian dangdut singer and film actor); Dono Kasino Indro (Indonesia comedian Trio); Barry Prima; whatever the film titles, and Advent Bangun (Indonesian action film actor in the 1980s’). In Pasar Minggu, when the film is not satisfying, the moviegoers will knock on the screen poles and the movie finished. It often happens like that. American movies started to encounter the layar tancap audiences after the Rambo’s “First Blood” movie, which I don’t know why.

Layar Tancap then became a particular prestige for the cinema owner; 35 mm is the term for wide screen, and 16 mm for smaller screen, which is for middle up to lower class. Layar Tancap had actually created different side events like gambling and chaos to get profit, which sometimes were planned by street bullies and the owners themselves.

Audience: How about copyright this layar tancap?

Antariksa: There was an organization taking care of that matter. Because layar tancap is a party where they have dangdut, keroncong concert, gambling and circus at the same time, until it was forbidden to screen any movies outdoor because of the crimes and public security factors.

Such mixed entertainments style then started again after 1940s’. At that time, American film was having difficulties due to World War II. Then American films were banned, so we could only see a few films, only Malaysian, Indian, Filipino films. The owner finally arranged some entertainment before they screened the movies, from theater plays and keroncong concerts inside the theater building (audience laughing). That was why in old Indonesian cinema theater we usually find a stage in front of the screen. The most famous one in Yogyakarta is “Indra” Building; a short from “Indonesia Raya”. There, before the film is screened, they will have boxing fight (audience laughing), a magician show, a snake dancer show, or even meet the celebrities and “look alike actresses or actors” competition. That’s the way the cinema producer manages the business.

If we observe what happened overseas, the culture of watching movie has not died yet. The main factor is the management aspects, which we haven’t talked about. For example, when American film got boycotted in Indonesia, they did those kinds of entertainment. The Twenty-One (a cinema corporate tycoon in Indonesia) has indeed monopolized the cinema business in Indonesia, but there are still many strategies. The Mataram cinema, one of three cinema theaters which still run until now in Yogyakarta, often hold a fashion show or party to keep their business, even though it is still part of the Twenty-One network. That’s only from the management side. I haven’t interviewed any cinema owners in Jakarta, but I have it done for those outside Jakarta. The Twenty-One standards are very expensive from the equipment aspect, so they indeed need investment. We still have to pay the cinema tax to the government, which could reach 15% (audience complaining). In 1950, cinema capacity could reach 1600 audience, but now only around 600. What if the film is not sold well, while they still has to pay 15% for the tax? The tax policy should be deregulated, including the regulation of distribution, in which the Twenty-One that has played dirty should be made ‘clean’ (audience laughing).

Audience: The other problems are also regarding the copyrights and piracy. The idea about the cinema as a wide screen show with a very good sound system is not really understood by most Indonesian people. The important thing just watching the film, which we can buy in pirated version, even on some films that haven’t been released yet in Indonesia.

Katinka van Heeren: And regarding the price too, pirated VCD is for Rp.3000, pirated DVD is for 6000, but to the cinema we have to pay around Rp. 20.000 and we got cold (audience laughing).

Audience: When pirated VCD and DVD penetrated remote areas, maybe what’s left about cinema is just the exoticism. Because personally I think I still need to watch some films on cinema, not on DVD…

Lulu Ratna: I think it is because our history is not the eyewitness of the invented theory. Until now, maybe people do not know about the cinema history like Antariksa has just presented. So the understanding is very limited and that keeps the people ignorant…