BEFORE NOW AND THEN

Nana (Happy Salma) is the much younger wife of the bullying Mr Darga (Arswendy Bening Swara), a local man of influence in West Java in the 1960s when Indonesia was in a calamitous state of civil war. The daughter of an intellectual and widow of a rebel, both murdered by the draconian regime, Nana escaped by taking a perilous trek through the jungle with a baby strapped to her body; Darga is her protector. She repays him by running his farm and house impeccably, enduring his compulsive philandering – and the consequent contempt of other men's wives – with dignity. Life brightens, however, when she befriends one of her husband's consorts, Ino (Laura Basuki), a market trader who is lively, reckless and refuses to be judged by anyone. Kamila Andini's film is elegantly composed, richly coloured and attentive to its characters' inner lives. The classic storytelling makes for wonderful cinema.