Jakarta Globe, Lisa Siregar, November 18, 2013
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| A still from ‘Sokola Rimba,’ starring Prisia Nasution as Butet Manurung, a teacher who has lived with indigenous people in the Sumatran jungle for 14 years. (Photo courtesy of Miles Films) |
An 11-hour
drive from the city of Jambi in Sumatra brings you to the home of an indigenous
community called Orang Rimba , or the people of the forest.
Living in
an isolated area deep inside the jungle of Bukit Duabelas, the Orang Rimba have
been largely untouched by modern values, peacefully going about their
traditional way of living.
But the
world has been changing, making it more difficult for them to hold on to their
way of life. For the past 14 years, environmental activist Butet Manurung has
been slowly transferring much-needed knowledge in literacy and advocacy to help
the Orang Rimba deal with these changes, but without affecting their local
wisdom. Butet’s Sokola Rimba , or Rimba school, serves nine indigenous
communities around the 60,000 hectares of the forest.
Butet also
wrote a book about her experiences, whose English version “Jungle School” went
on sale last year.
Her unique
experience with the Rimba people was the inspiration behind an upcoming film by
Riri Riza, called “Sokola Rimba.” It took Riri and producer Mira Lesmana
several months to prepare to produce the film. When they met at the Ubud
Writer’s Festival last year, they agreed to go on with the project. Prisia
Nasution (“Sang Penari,” “Laura dan Marsha”) assumes the role of Butet in the
film.
Beyond the
theme of deforestation, “Sokola Rimba” is a film about the daily routines of
the Rimba people and about one woman’s choice about what to do with her life.
Just like in real life, in the movie Butet works as a volunteer with a local
conservation nonprofit organization as a teacher.
The movie,
which will be released on Thursday, portrays Butet’s first four years with the
NGO before she finally sets up “Sokola,” a group of people who aim to continue
assisting with educational activities for indigenous and marginalized
communities. The organizational conflicts portrayed in the movie are fictional,
Butet said, but she gave her blessing to Riri and Mira to develop their own
plot.
“The place
where I worked didn’t have the same problems, but I think Riri tried to make
the story easily digestible for everyone,” she said. “He interviewed me so many
times, and I felt that Riri captured the essence of what I am doing.”
Like his
previous works for the films “Atambua 39 Derajat” and “Laskar Pelangi,” Riri is
once again using indigenous cast members to play local characters. Another
protagonist in the movie is Nyungsang Bungo, who plays himself as a young Orang
Rimba man who thirsts for education. Though he was restricted by the law of his
local tribe from receiving a modern education, Bungo had a hunch that his
people were being cheated by palm oil planation owners who force them to keep
moving around.
When
casting for the film, Riri said he had his eyes on six Orang Rimba children
that he felt had a natural talent for acting, story telling and responding to
camera movements.
“Climbing
trees, walking and running around, nothing I asked them to do in the movie was
difficult for them, because they are used to it,” he said.
In
promoting his films, Riri said there is a common problem among urban film
enthusiasts who expect his indigenous cast to act. But, just like in his
previous movies, that was exactly what Riri was trying to avoid.
“I want
them to play their own story,” he said. “We don’t want to change them to fit
our perspective of actors.”
Bungo’s
character in “Sokola Rimba” is inspired by Butet’s real student named Gentar.
But since years have passed since she first worked as Genter’s teacher, he is
now too old to play himself in the movie. Butet has known Bungo since he began
learning to walk.
“She’s just
like my own mother,” Bungo said shyly at the press conference.
Riri
visited the Orang Rimba three times last year before he finally began filming
in the jungle with a crew of 25.
He took
time to sit down with the Rimba people, sometimes for hours, to understand
their lifestyle and later incorporating everything into the screenplay.
There was
no electricity where they lived, so sometimes, Riri said, he and a few Rimba
people would talk to each other in the dark. Even so, he wouldn’t call the
finished film a documentary. He prefers the term neorealism, which is inspired
by the Italian neorealism movement, a film genre that emerged after World War
II and usually portrays the stories of lower-class people using
non-professional actors.
“I relied
on their proximity with and honesty towards me, but working deep inside the
jungle, there was only so much that I could control,” he said. “There were a
lot of retakes and remakes because we had to adjust to their way of life.”
Every
dialogue that involves indigenous cast members is delivered in the local
language. It took Prisia one month to learn the language, while the shooting
took three weeks to finish. Around 80 Orang Rimba helped during the filming.
For Riri,
the movie shows the complexity of Indonesia as a nation state. The difference
between urban and jungle people is very wide, but it’s not in our place to see
them as “inferior,” he said.
If
anything, “Sokola Rimba” fights the notion that we should feel pity for the
Rimba people, who live inside the forest with no modern facilities. “We cannot
apply the same pattern of education and development for every group or
community in this country,” he said.
Riri’s
stance in this regard is similar to Butet’s. Having been with the Orang Rimba
for more than a decade, Butet said their biggest challenges are religions,
politics and commercial offers from the outer world, which is confusing for
them.
Orang Rimba
do not use modern measurements and events, rather than numbers, mark their
lives. According to Mira, Bungo and the other indigenous actors involved in the
film were not paid with money. Instead, they were given things they consider
valuable, such as cloths.
In the end,
Butet said, the Rimba people must decide on their own whether they want to
adopt a modern lifestyle.
“The
education that I gave is a tool for them to deal with changes, but whether or
not they want to follow our way of living, it should be their call,” she said.
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