Perang Kota: This City Is A Battlefield marks the latest from writer/director Mouly Surya (Trigger Warning). The first half hour of this film really pulls you into what’s happening with our characters; the movie starts off with a black-and-white news bulletin that paints just the false sense of security it needs before the shot of a burning building and Sepoys and Dutch, and British soldiers raiding the streets to stave off rebellion.
It’s 1946 in Jakarta, and even though Indonesia declared its independence, the colonial forces at hand still intend on imposing their will. We meet Isa (Chicco Jerikho), an ex-soldier who is also a violinist and school teacher with only a few students. He and wife Fatimah (Ariel Tatum) are the adopted parents to a young boy they’ve taken in, amid the day-to-day violence they’re forced to stare down everyday.
Surya’s film is quick to invoke the absolute horrors of this violence midway in the film’s opening act; Isa and violin pupil, Hazil (Jerome Kurnia) are playing before two soldiers guested at Hazil’s home by his businessman father, a scene woven between shots of Fatimah fighting fiercely for her life and Salim’s after being cornered by one of the Sepoys raiding the streets.
As the film tells it, Isa and Hazil are freedom fighters working covertly with an underground organization to bring an end to Dutch rule. Their latest assignment finds them tasked with assassinating a Dutch official, a move that could prove pivotal to the cause if everything goes according to plan.
Beneath the veneer of steadfast discipline and resolve lie the more interpersonal dealings between our characters. A marriage troubled by impotency atop the past travails and trauma of war, and lingering infidelity that each test the boundaries of love and friendship as Isa, Fatimah, and Hazil struggle to hold together what remains of their fleeting sense of union and family.
Surya dives into one of the darker corners of history, based on Mochtar Lubis’s 1952 novel, “A Road With No End,” with a script that explores what love truly means in a time of war, and mitigating circumstances that preamble as a testament to it. Surya’s vision is an examination full of greys and nuances that serve as brewing catalysts for the discerning boundaries of right and wrong, letting melodrama simmer with grace and allowing our characters to come to terms with their actions as things come to a head.
Par for the course here is the role identity plays in the scheme of things. Fatimah, more often than not, wants to join in on the resistance, but is ultimately forced into the role of motherhood with Salim’s life at stake. Meanwhile, Isa’s inability to be intimate with Fatimah ends up being a key factor in what imminently threatens to upend their marriage. This specifically attributes to Hazil, in all his boyish charm and need for affection, as his latest affair with the owner of a nightclub is just one facet of his penchant which impacts our story.
More consistently though is the role love, collectively, plays in Perang Kota: The City Is A Battlefield. It’s really what keeps our characters hanging by a thread right down to the film’s final minutes.
I loved the costume design, and cinematographer Roy Lolang’s lensing works wonders for some of the film’s captivating shots. There’s a noir aesthetic Surya preserves here that I think a lot of folks fond of classic black and white films might take a liking to, even for a film here in color.
The film only has a few crucial action sequences with our cast doing a lot of their own screenfighting in the process. The climatic scene had me a little bit aghast as to what was really going to happen, and wondering whether or not the thing that I saw happen actually happened or if Surya was going to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Thankfully, she doesn’t, but even if that were the case, it would be a feasible stretch for Surya to make, even up until then with the fine work she does here.
More importantly though, Perang Kota: This City Is A Battlefield is more suitably pragmatic as a storied look into one of history’s darkest times. Surya’s scarce use of grim imagery and death add to the necessary impact intended, while cohesing the film’s core character development as a story of love and resilience more than anything. If I were in a festival audience watching this film, I’d be disappointed if there wasn’t a standing ovation.
Perang Kota: This City Is A Battlefield enjoyed its North American Premiere for the 24th edition of the New York Asian Film Festival.