BEFORE NOW AND THEN
Genre
Drama
Running time
103 minutes
Year
2022
Language
Indonesian
Subtitle
English and Arabic
Country
Indonesia
Director
Kamila Andini
Bio
Producer
Gita Fara, Ifa Isfansyah
Cast
Happy Salma, Laura Basuki, Arswendy Bening Swara, Ibnu Jamil, Rieke Diah Pitaloka, Chempa Puteri, Arawinda Kirana
Scriptwriter
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.
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