Border and Mobility – Kerr Et Al

Children in Indonesian cinema during colonialism: The border of cross-identity

S. Wibawa Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia

ABSTRACT: This essay will examine how the image of children in Indonesian cinema embodies cross-cultural identity framed by dissonance ideas of Indonesia as a nation during colonialism. I employ the discourse of national cinema to explore how the idea of a nation in the cinema emerged while Indonesia, as a state, did not exist. National cinema has been transformed from a classical definition of the limited singular identity of a nation into a complex discourse within the nation. Furthermore, the nation in national cinema is not seen merely from the perspective of the banality of a national symbol, but as the discourse that appears in the cinema and within the nation. In this context, film can be placed as a historical site that reveals the dynamic discourse of the nation. Thus, since the first Indonesian cinema during colonialism has placed children in its main narrative, I argue that Indonesian film during colonialism utilises children’s images to develop a national consciousness to construct the identity of Indonesia within a colonial framework. From this perspective, children are constructed to convey the cross identity of the Dutch East Indies as the Dutch colony and Indonesia as an emerged-imagined nation. The image of children, thus, becomes a cultural agent that crosses the border of identity and culture within the change of Indonesia as a nation.

Keywords: Children, Indonesian cinema, colonialism, cultural, identity

1 INTRODUCTION

A bold question relating to Indonesian cinema is “How do they project Indonesia-ness?”. Relating to this is the question of how children’s depiction in Indonesian cinema represents the nation. As an independent state, Indonesia declared its proclamation in 1945 against Dutch colonialism. However, cinema cultures in Dutch East indies started in the early 1900s while film production started in the 1920s, marked by the first local film production in 1926. This film, loetoeng Kasaroeng, is acknowledged as the first local film made in Indonesia, by a Dutch filmmaker with local casting, setting and narrative. Indonesia’s film culture started as part of the colonial film industry with a historical screening in 1900 (Masak, 2016). Until 1942, before the Japanese occupation, more than one hundred films were produced, predom- inantly by Chinese film businesses (Setijadi-Dunn & Barker, 2010; Masak, 2016). A question arises then about how these colonial films can be integrated after the nation’s independence. This historical complexity, at some stage, affected the way cinema projected this social practice as suggested by Graeme Turner (2006). Turner argues that film is seen as a social practice representation that is related to production and consumption of the communities and determined by the dominant power, ideology, or the objectives of the film production. A film, or films, continuously develops a reality of a discursive site of ideological framing that discloses the dynamic discourse of the nation through its narratives which includes children’s figures in the film narrative. Applying Ben Anderson’s definition of a nation contributes an understanding that Indonesia as a nation is formed as “an imagined political community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign”. In this context, Anderson’s idea provides a basic idea of national cinema as a place

87 for “imagining the nation” as an “imagined community” (Abe, Tortellini & King, 2008; 2). Therefore, there is a discursive space to identify how the films that were produced during Dutch colonialism embody ideas of Indonesian national identity. A study in early cinema by Nanna Verhoeff (2006) argues that, as a concept, the nation in national cinema is embodied within three semantic layers: “the national, the nationalist and the nation-ness” (2006, p. 19). Verhoef argues that the national signifies a film narrative’s place of origin which includes nation-ness as “a sense of belonging and of cultural ownership” that produces the nationalist and the value of nationalism (p. 160). Verhoef asserts that film narratives provide a “constant interaction between nationality of films to identity in films” (pp. 160–161). These embedded values in cinema narrative have been part of an ongoing discourse on national cinema. Critical discourses on national cinema (Higson, 1989) suggest that a cinema does not merely depict a “homogenous national culture and identity” (Higson, 1989, p. 44). In an Indonesian context, cinema during the Dutch period can be seen as a “dialectical engagement” with transnational cinema in a way to identify a construction of national identity through a range of discourses of actions, practices and rituals (Choi, 2011). However, while several scholars have discussed the discourse of Indonesian national cinema (Said, 1991; Heider, 1991; Sen, 1994; Robert, 2000; Barker, 2011; Paramaditha, 2014), there is a lack of specific discourse on Indonesian cinema during colonialism. Therefore, this paper intends to fill the gap on how Indonesian-ness was projected during the Dutch period in Indonesia. A study by Christopher A. Woodrich (2014) asserts that a subliminal identity of Indonesian nation-ness has also been established in early Indonesian films during Dutch colonialism. By examining four films written by Saroen, a famous Indonesian journalist-cum-film writer, Woodrich argues that these films depict a positive hope of Indonesian independence. Woodrich argues that Saroen contrasted a spirit of a dynamic city against uninteresting old village life to portray a Dutch East Indies as the Indonesian modern nation in the future. By reading Saroen’s films, Woodrich endorses that Indonesia as a nation has been developed while it was a Dutch colony. Then, how does the first fiction film that was also made during colonialism depict these issues? Loetoeng Kasaroeng reflects Verhoeff’s sense of a nation’s belonging. The film is attrib- uted with being the first film made in Indonesia with local casting and story. Kristanto (2005) indicates that this film features children, the first film that presents children in its main narrative. In this context, Veronique Benei (2008) suggests a relationship between children as citi- zens and a state in a way placing children to represent the nation’s values (p.72). Furthermore, since the first fiction film in Indonesia casts children in the main role, and borrowing Benei’s thesis, I argue that Indonesian film during colonialism utilises children’s images to develop a national consciousness to construct the identity of Indonesia within a colonial framework. From this perspective, children are constructed to convey the cross-identity of the Dutch East Indies as the Dutch colony and Indonesia as an emerged-imagined nation. The image of children, thus becomes a cultural agent that crosses the border of identity and culture within the change of Indonesia as a nation. Examining early Indonesian films and identifying which films use children in the cast is challenging. Firstly, there are no copies of those films. This widens the research gap on Indonesian cinema before and after independence (Sen, 1995; Heider, 1991; Woodrich, 2014). This study relies on synopses and second sources such as film posters, news and references. Secondly, in general, film reviews or synopses only focus on famous casts, or the director and the film company. At some level, it is hard to define the cast of children figures, though it’s possible and has been done. Thirdly, the semantic issue and language differences in the written reviews produce another challenge to identify which films actually present children in the cast. The keyword “anak” in Indonesian language cannot be easily translated as a term “child” into English. “Anak” possibly means the child figure; however, it could be referring differently to a son or daughter of someone. However, after carefully examining some synopses and film references, several films that were produced during the periods of Dutch colonialism that present a children’s cast in the main narratives were identified, such as: Loetoeng Kasaroeng (1926), Poei Sie Giok Pa loey Tay (1935), Anaknja Siloeman Oeler Poeti (1936), and Rentjong Atjeh (1940). 88 2 DISCUSSION

Loetoeng Kasaroeng1 (1926) is adapted from a famous folktale from West Java, Indonesia. The story is about a love journey of Purbasari, and Purbararang. Loetoeng Kasaroeng was made by L Heuveldorp of the Java Film Company. This company was invited by the Dutch government to produce a documentary. However, after getting support from the mayor of Bandung city, the company produced Loetoeng Kasaroeng. The mayor insisted the film should present Sundanese culture, thus a folktale was chosen to be the story, starring children of the Mayor. Poei Sie Giok Pa loey Tay (1935) is a film about a boy named Poei Sie Giok. His mother, Tjoei Hoa is a famous figure in their martial arts community and trained him in martial arts. One day, Sie Giok beats another student from a martial art school owned by Loei Lo Ho. Lo ho is then also killed in another fight thus his wife takes revenge for him against Tjoei Hoa. This film presents cultural hybridity by mixing local context with the Chinese origin of the story. Another example is Anaknja Siloeman Oeler Poeti (1936)2. This film is about a boy who looks for his father while his mother is the white snake ghost. People around this boy keep abusing him which makes him run away to the forest where his mother lives. Rentjong Atjeh (1940)3 features a story of children whose parents were killed by a pirate called Bintara. These children, Mar- yam, Rusna, and Daud, survived the attack. Maryam is held in a pirate’s ship while Rusna and Daud escape to the jungle. Years later, they come back and take revenge against Bintara with help from Panglima Ali. These films, through depicting children in various roles, also project Verhoeff’s idea of a nation’s senses of belonging by featuring local story adaptation, language and resistance to dominant colonialism construction in terms of values of family. These films develop their narrative through adaptation of Indonesian or local oral tradi- tion such as legends, folktale or myths (Heider, 1994). Loetoeng Kasaroeng is taken from Sundanese folktales, while Rentjong Atjeh adopts a local story of an Acehnese pirate. Poei Sie Giok Pa loey Tay and Anaknja Siloeman Oeler Poeti mix mainland Chinese stories with a local context. This culturally hybrid story become a standard film narrative for Chinese film companies in Indonesia. A study by Setijadi-Dunn and Barker (2010) finds that, during Dutch colonialism, films made by Chinese producers managed to draw attention from Indonesian indigenous audiences and the Chinese diaspora. As a result, early local films were diverse, cosmopolitan, and projected an image of an Indonesia that is complex, idiosyncratic, and unique, yet connected to global flows and modern practices. We argue that such an image of Indonesia is different from later insular indigenist imaginings of Indonesian belonging. (Setijadi-Dunn & Barker, 2010:27). They note that most diasporic Chinese filmmakers tended to create a film that mixes local Indonesian or Chinese origin stories with Indonesian stamboel theater narrative then visual- ised with the Mandarin cinematic style. This formula, an idiosyncratic mixed with fantastical taste, was a popular genre especially among lower class audiences (Setijadi-Dunn & Barker, 2010). Indonesian stamboel theatre was adopted from European theatre performance but was then modified to a local style. At first, this performance was exclusively for the Euro- pean and Chinese business community. However, due to a growing demand, it also became a popular performance among local Indonesians. It used to adopt Arabian nights stories, but then adopted an Indonesian context and began to be delivered in Malay language to accommodate local audiences. Furthermore, this performance had its popular place among Indonesians; the local audiences had more chance to express their feelings because the performance involved audiences in informal interaction. This shifting of origin from European- Asian dominance to the local Indonesian context articulates a shifting int political identity that differentiates colonial European culture from local Indonesian.

1. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0347429/ 2. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1847537/ 3. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1852087/ 89 As this shifting to stamboel style became closely related with local Indonesians, then it was seen as a way to approach local audiences in cinema by Chinese filmmakers. This formula, used by most Chinese filmmakers, created a culture replica made from a mixture of stories and images from local culture, the Dutch, Chinese and other cultures at that time as the early cinematic vision of Indonesia. Karl G Heider argues that this formula developed the idea that these films “were responsible for creating the image of the common Indonesian culture” (1994:170). These Chinese and Dutch made films developed the early image of Indonesia as a nation as a globally mixed culture with local taste and context. Loetoeng Kasaroeng was produced by Europeans. The story does not feature Indonesia as a nation-state. However, Loetoeng Kasaroeng is a well-known Sundanese folktale. The casts are all Indonesian. As the film was sponsored by the Mayor of Bandung city, most of the actors are the priyayis. They have been trained by a local school teacher, Kartabrata. The main roles were taken by children of Wiranatakusumah, the regent of Bandung city. Despite the casts and stories, local elements in Loetoeng Kasaroeng can be identified through its pro- motion poster. The poster shows a girl in a traditional salute style. She wears traditional clothes and sits on a box crafted with traditional ornamentation. This local-classic visual also appears in a poster of Rentjong Atjeh. The cast wears an Acehnese costume set up as a focal point. “Rentjong” is the name of Aceh’s traditional sword. Interestingly, while local cultural elements appear dominantly, a picture of a man holding a rencong in his mouth looks but does not feel so local. The pose looks similar to a global well- known character, Tarzan. This strengthens the ideas of globally mixed culture: a story of a pirate in Aceh, with a local cast featuring a narrative of revenge using animals in the forest and a pose like Tarzan. While Loetoeng Kasaroeng adopted a local folktale, Rentjong Atjeh modified the local context with a global taste. Sie Giok Pa Loey Tay and Anaknja Siloeman Oelar Poeti adapted Chinese mainland origin stories into a localised context. Shaolin school branch and kung fu martial arts in Sie Giok Pa Loey Tay represent Chinese cultural elements but the setting and context are in Indonesia. Similarly, the white snake ghost is well-known in Chinese myths rather than Indonesia. This localised context, and also cast, as discussed previously, works well as a market- ing strategy attracting local audiences. The text and context of these films are Indonesian; however, by nation-origin, they were made by non-Indonesian filmmakers. Thus, Indonesia presents in these films a cultural artefact. The film text develops Indonesia as an imagined nation through the form of a local narrative. In the context of that time, while Indonesia was a Dutch colony, this cultural artefact, in a way, challenges colonialism’s dominant narrative. Locality elements develop the sense of cultural belonging and ownership into the imagined nation of Indonesia. By representing local cultures and values, the sense of this imagined community of nationalism can be easily shared. Thus, in this context, the use of Indonesian language as the standard language plays a significant role in developing nationhood and Indonesian-ness. As suggested by Wimal Dissanayake (1994), nationhood’s discourse encourages local narrative’s involvement. However, nationhood also aims to unify and, at some level, homog- enise the diversity in a nation. Generally, in unifying diversities, a national language plays an important role. Language is utilised to identify an imagined community as a nation and, at the same time, to bind the people in the community (Hobsbawn, 1996). Michael Billig (1995) argues that language plays a significant role in an ideological deployment and nationalist consciousness that shares the imagined idea of nation. Thus, the language turns out to be the principal identification of national identity (Smith, 1994). In 1908, the Indonesian language was recognised as the language of a nation and in 1928, the Indonesian language was declared the national language. (Elson, 2005). Furthermore, the Indonesian language has been formed as political language to unify the East Indies as an independent nation (Foulcher, 2000). Since then, the Indonesian language has been placed as an element of national identity which emerges from the first Indonesian film (Heider, 1994). All of the films in this paper highlight the Indonesian language, usually called Malay, as its official language for the film. A promotional poster of Poei Sie Giok Pa loey Tay uses Chinese characters and words. However, it underlines “Bitjara Melayu” (speaking Malay) to

90 inform potential audiences that this film uses the Indonesian (Malay) language. The words “Rame dan Heibat” also becomes the focal point in this poster to promote the film. These words in English literally translate to “crowded and great”; however, contextually they can be interpreted as “exciting and great”. This emphasis refers to the idea that, in the beginning, films in the Dutch East Indies were intended to be part of colonial lifestyle. Watching films in cinema became exclusively for Westerners and rich Chinese especially those who spoke and understood English or Dutch. Thus, by using Malay language as a root language for Indone- sian, these films constructed a communal sense of national identity: an Indonesian. This communal identification then develops an early notion of resistance against the dominant colonial culture at that time. In these films, one of the notions emerges from how these films depict the image of children within a family system. The Dutch colonial construction of an idealised family was developed within the ethical policy period. This colonial metaphorical view places a family with a white Caucasian as a father figure who guides his brown-skinned Asian children (Gouda, 1993). This family figure represents the power of the Dutch colonial empire where European controlled non-Europeans in their colonies. Family metaphors have been politicised to justify their colonial system. As in this context, the Dutch government placed Indonesians as children in the family; therefore, the children need to be supervised. Akiko Sugiyama (2008) argues that the Dutch government conducted policies to develop families’ social prosperity by standardising a com- prehensive social nuclear family model. This model consists of a monogamous type family— in which neither polygamy nor child-marriage that were common practice at that time were acknowledged—and women’s roles remain in the domestic sector. Meanwhile, children are less important figures under the aristocratic shadow of the colonial father figure. By contrasting this colonial concept of the family model, Loetoeng kasaroeng, rentjong Atjeh Poei Sie Giok Pa loey Tay and Siloeman Oeler Poeti depict a notion that challenges the mainstream colonial model by placing children as independent individuals in the family. In Loetoeng Kasaroeng, the main narrative focuses on the life of two sisters, Purbasari and Purbararang, who independently decide their own life while the parent figure is missing in the story. Similarly, children are depicted surviving in their world without their parents in Rentjong Atjeh. This film features orphaned children who have lost their parents. They survive and come back to take revenge on the pirate who makes them suffer and has killed their parents. These films depict the image of fragmented families where children are surviving without their parents. This image contrasts against the dominant colonial construction of family; a family that placed children as the weakest members needing a father figure as a family leader to guide the children (Gouda, 1993). The absence of a father figure also appears in Poei Sie Giok Pa loey Tay and Anaknja Siloe- man Oeler Poeti. Poei Sie Giok Pa loey Tay projects the mother figure as the idealised model member of the family. She trains her son, Poei Sie Giok, in skilled martial arts to fight against his competitor. The mother figure in this film takes the role of mother as “child’s educator” as socially constructed but also taking over the position of family leader that is traditionally held by the father figure. The colonial construction of the family model positions the mother figure in a subordinate role as serving her husband and as “a child bearer and child educator” (Locher-Scholten, 2003: 39). Anaknja Siloeman Oeler Poeti depicts the absence of a father figure while his son demands a mother figure in his life. The boy in this film prefers to see his mother even though he realises his mother is not a human. Despite her physical appearance, the mother figure in this film is depicted as a lovable individual for her son. This depiction suggests that the idea of the mother-child relationship is a metaphor for nation-building (Pollard, 2005). The mother’s dominant role in these films can be seen through a poster of Anaknja Siloe- man Oeler Poeti. The poster emphasises the mother who is holding a baby. A man, assumedly the father, sits beside them. While the colonial perspective of the father figure shows similari- ties with traditional Javanese culture, that places the father figure as a dominant aristocrat, these films suggest an alternative depiction of the family model against the colonial framework: a dominant mother and missing father figure.

91 3 CONCLUSION

At the beginning, I argued that the image of children in Indonesian cinema embodies a cross- cultural identity framed by dissonance ideas of Indonesia as a nation during colonialism. I employ the discourse of national cinema to explore how the idea of a nation in the cinema emerged while Indonesia as a state did not exist. National cinema has been transformed from a classical definition of the limited singular identity of a nation to a complex discourse within the nation. Furthermore, the nation in national cinema could be seen not merely from the perspective of the banality of a national symbol, but as the discourse that appears in the cinema and within the nation. In this context, the film can be placed as a historical site that reveals the dynamic discourse of the nation. This discourse develops a national consciousness to construct the identity of Indonesia within a colonial framework. From this perspective, children are constructed to convey the cross identity of the Dutch East Indies as the Dutch colony and Indonesia as an emerged-imagined nation. The image of children, thus becomes a cultural agent that crosses the border of identity and culture within the change of Indonesia as a nation. I have identified that the national consciousness is developed through several ideas. Firstly, the sense of Indonesian belonging is developed by presenting localised stories, context and culture. Loetoeng Kasaroeng and Rentjong Atjeh introduce Indonesian origin stories, while Sie Giok Pa Loey Tay and Anaknja Siloeman Oelar Poeti adapted Chi- nese origin folk tales into an Indonesian context. This localised context features local land- scapes, creating a symptom of national consciousness through Nana Verhoeff’s layers of nation. Despite the fact that some films adopted Chinese origin folktales, the context of these films localises Indonesia as an origin geographically and culturally. This can be identified as developing a sense of cultural belonging and ownership of a nation. National consciousness is also constructed through the use of Indonesian language, or Malay as an early form of Indonesian language, as a recognisable element of nationhood. All of the films’ narratives are delivered in Indonesian language. Indonesian language is deployed as a unified language among a diverse audience at that time. The use of Indonesian language can be identified as cultural ownership to recognise representation of “nation” against the dominant colonial culture. This dominant culture was also challenged by juxtaposing an alternative image that opposes a colonial construction of the family model which placed the family under the father figure’s domination, subordinating the mother figure and children as the weakest family members. In contrast, these films depict the image of children as independent individuals aligned with a strong but lovable mother figure who acts the role of family leader.

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