Genre films produced in Indonesia usually not far from romance, drama, comedy or horror. We are one of the country with many moslems, so lots filmmakers feel ‘safe’ to produce movies about drama and Islam. But the genre is still on romance or drama. They also formed themselves with their own formula; someone’s dilemma, facing hardship in the society, and ended with learning life lesson.
Then comes 3 (2015), or Alif Lam Nun, also the three main characters in the movie. 3 tells us about Indonesian in the year 2036, where the nation follows liberal views and religion is considered a dangerous or threatening to the country. It’s also the time where weapons are banned except for the national guard. To defend themselves, people used to fight or martial arts.
Three best friends were students from an Islamic boarding school; Alif, Lam and Nun. Due to the condition of the country, the three of them already sure with their future goals; Alif wants to protect the country, Lam wants to uncover the truth by being a journalist and Mim wants to be the successor of the Islamic school. They grow up to be the best in their job, but they are all confronted by the contradiction of their own professions.
Alif (Cornelio Sunny) somehow find himself against Mim (Agus Kuncoro) as the nation consider the Islamic school to be a dangerous threat to the society. Alif’s nature to protect also comes when he met his divorced ex-girlfriend, Laras (Prisia Nasution) who has her own problems. Lam’s (Abimana Aryasatya) idealism wants to uncover the truth of the conspiracy, but his boss forbid him because it would make their office get bad image, since his writing considered to reveal the government’s conspiracy. Getting fired gets Lam a dilemma to his wife, Gendis (Tika Bravani) and bright little son, Gilang.
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Looking at the concept and big picture of this movie, it is rare to find a movie that brought action, dystopia and religion together. One of it’s greatness is that the movie represents Indonesian’s best quality-reminded today; martial arts. All the martial arts-action scenes were gorgeous and they combined it with rain effect, sometimes with slow motion that made all the motion looks beautiful. But none of that awesome martial arts will be worth it without great story.
It seems that the story is a hint or tease on how people might find religion (or Islam) today. It brought the contradiction of Liberal views; since people have the right to do what they want, why wearing sorban and certain clothing is considered terrorist? Why believing a religion also considered bad if everyone can do what they want? The values you believe might be there because someone wants you to believe it. There’s a story behind a story, and there’s a twist behind a twist. The smart story and clever twist is worth to see. The tension gets higher and higher to the end scene.
Some of the actors are known for their quality of martial arts; Cecep Arif Rahman as their coach and a senior in Indonesian martial arts, Donny Alamsyah (The Raid) and Agus Kuncoro (Tendangan Dari Langit). The cast performances was pretty solid, except for some reason I feel Cornelio Sunny was the weakest of the three main actors. Prisia Nasution was okay, though her chemistry with Sunny felt soft. I also don’t know why she had to wear red wig.
As for the visuals, aside for the gorgeous martial arts scene, I find the movie lacks on graphics especially on city shots. In today’s standard for movie, 3D graphics can easily pointed on for its lack of realness and it might make your excellent movie look bad. I do love the computerization era seen in the movie. If you see the movie Her (2013), they didn’t need a 3D city view to feel the world’s futuristic atmosphere but only from their gadgets and computers.
Hearing that this movie was produced in less than a month made some elements questioned felt understandable. Some parts and scenes felt rushed and without an interlude. There aren’t much full shots. Thankfully, the martial arts and the story make it all up. It is one Indonesian movie that I felt pleasant to see. Hope to see it goes with sequel with better execution.
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