POSTCARDS FROM THE ZOO

Indonesia, 2012, 90 minutes, Colour.
Ladya Cheryl, Nicholas Saputra.
Directed by Edwin.

Edwin is emerging as a young Indonesian talent fostered by several European and American talent seminars and festivals.

When you use ‘Postcards’ in your title, it enables you to be as free as you like – or as lazy as you like. If there is a criticism about a sequence or about continuity or about obscurity in the plot, you can always say that it is a postcard and, so, necessarily incomplete, or that it is symbolic.

This is a fair criticism of Edwin and his film. He uses words like ‘dream’, ‘fantasy’, ‘poetry’ and he has more than a point. But, his selection of episodes, their connectedness or lack of connectedness means that the audience has to do a lot of the supplying of meaning. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, but this series of Postcards makes huge leaps, dallies on some images, hurries over others.

It is the story of Lana who was abandoned in a zoo when a little girl. Edwin also inserts encyclopedia like brief entries at times about zoos, relocations and treatment of animals, to make us ponder or to scratch our heads!

Lana loves giraffes, especially the one at the zoo, tall and stately as it is – and the screenplay offers more information about giraffes that most of us never knew. She loves working in the zoo. When she meets a tall, dark and handsome magician dressed as a cowboy, she is drawn to him and, dressed as an Indian girl (of cowboys and Indians origins), participates in his acts. When he literally goes up in flames and disappears (the actor and the audience deserved more clues here), she suddenly becomes Number 33 at a massage parlour where we are treated to some training scenes and some scenes with clients. No wonder she goes back to the zoo and, unable to do it before but now liberated, she is able to touch her beloved giraffe. So, there you are.

1. An experimental film? A film of reality and fantasy?

2. The Indonesian background, the Indonesian imagination? The zoo settings? The layout of the zoo, the compounds for the animals, the places of recreation for the families? The contrast with the massage parlour and its rooms? The musical score?

3. The title with postcards – and glimpses rather than continued and detailed narrative? The audience supplying the connections?

4. The focus on the zoo, the information from the encyclopaedias about zoos, keeping animals, in captivity, in the wild...?

5. The focus on the giraffe, the visuals, the reality, the symbols? Lana and her information about giraffes? The elephants, the tiger and the keeper? The other animals?

6. The people coming to the zoo, watching the animals, picnicking?

7. Lana, the young child in the zoo, calling for her father? Left at the zoo? Her growing up, working, not wanting to be touched? Her fascination with the giraffe? Her work? Her uniform? The encounter with the Cowboy, the fascination, his magic, her sharing his tricks? Dressing as an Indian? Participating in his acts? His disappearance? The transition to the massage parlour, her training? The clients, the encounters, the effect? Her final decision to run away, going back to the bus she drove? Driving to the zoo – and finally touching the giraffe? Her future?

8. The Cowboy, his appearance, no name? The relationship with Lana, his magic, his training her, the box, the knives? His going into the box – the fire, his disappearance?

9. The massage parlour, the women, the trainers? The clients and their expectations? The atmosphere of sexuality?

10. Reality and dream? Lana’s life, real and symbolic?