After the enormous commercial success of Rainbow Troops - the biggest success in the last decade in Indonesia and the second runner-up at FEFF in 2009 – it was inevitable that director Riri Riza and producer Mira Lesmana would want to adapt the second chapter of Andrea Hirata’s autobiographical trilogy, The Dreamer (Sang Pemimpi), for the big screen. The winning team has remained the same: the pair have once again been in charge of the adaptation, with the input of Salman Aristo, while the technical team that worked on the first film (who had achieved a very high standard of production for Indonesian cinema) remains almost entirely intact.
The Dreamer, however, poses an additional challenge for them: on the one hand, as in almost all trilogies, it is the chapter that acts as the bridge between the acclaimed first instalment and the third which closes the story; on the other hand, it handles a story which takes its protagonists from childhood to the difficult stage of adolescence. In this sense, it is inevitable that this second film is a more “difficult” one for the Indonesian audience (and this is probably also the case abroad): gone is the tenderness of childhood and the easy empathy for the misfortunes of disadvantaged children in a godforsaken village, replaced by the tales of the dreams, fantasies and frustrations of a trio of teenagers and young adults struggling with studies, work, puppy love and sexual awakening.
Inevitably, this latter theme - the protagonist’s sexual urges are aroused by the alluring poster of a sleazy local film, Skandal Metropolis, which like the Fellini episode in Boccaccio'70, starts moving to entice him - is the one that posed the biggest problem in the eyes of the most conservative local audiences (whereas Rainbow Troops, with its ecumenical and inclusive message, had gained unanimous consent from all the political factions, from the moderate to the most extremist of Muslims.) Despite this, the film has surpassed two million entries at the box office, making it one of the most successful of last year.
The Dreamer opens on the key image of the father of the protagonist Ikal in his Sunday best - a safari shirt with four pockets - on his bicycle; this is a leitmotiv which is only explained further into the film, dedicated affectionately to the parents of the producers, the director and the scriptwriter. In one of the many brilliant jumps in time and space that Riri Riza weaves into the film, we fast-forward to the image of an adult Ikal in the late 90s, unhappy in his job at a post office in Bogor. His dream of travelling the world and studying at the Sorbonne seems to be a lost cause; his cousin Arai, having led him on by fuelling his dreams, has now betrayed him, disappearing without a trace.
Standing on the edge of a bridge, Ikal is about to throw his dreams to the wind for good, but when he sees three students skipping lessons, he is taken back in time by the memory of having done the same years ago. At that time, Ikal, Arai and their stammering friend Jimbron were partners in their pranks and hard work, and above all, shared the dreams of emancipation from poverty and of conquering fantastic and faraway lands - exotic Africa, cultured Europe - through study, literature and poetry, spurred on by Julian Balia, a Dead Poets Society-style teacher. Another step back in time shows how as a child, Arai was orphaned after the death of his father, and was welcomed into Ikal’s family; how Jimbron became their friend through a shared love of the television series The Lone Ranger, at a time when Ikal wanted to become an Indian, Arai a cowboy, and Jimbron a horse…
One of Riri Riza’s greatest successes in The Dreamer is the construction of a complex yet flowing Chinese box structure which is never convoluted. This film is perhaps his most beautiful and most mature, thanks to the lyrical passages which signal certain transitions (such as cut between the scene in which Arai and Ikal are about to jump into the fish storage container and their dive into the blue sea), the discrete but intense use of music and the ever-convincing direction of the actors. Here again, with the choice of young and intense protagonists, Vikri Septiawan, Rendy Ahmad and Azwir Fitrianto, Riri Riza confirms his uncanny instinct in discovering charismatic new faces with solid screen presence, capable of moving and winning the hearts of the spectators.
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