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Young Indonesian filmmaker Makbul Mubarak presented his feature film in the Horizons section of the Venice festival, and “Autobiography” earned him a nomination for the best new Asian director. And it is a solid art film, as if created for European festival programs, but like a good number of films that come from that part of the world, the problem of “Autobiography” is that the viewer is expected to have some prior knowledge of the history of the country from which the film comes. It is a film that deals with the dark side of Indonesian history, bloody episodes, mass murders, tyranny and bloodshed, and the story is told from the perspective of a young man named Rakib.
He is the housekeeper of the villa of the retired general Purnawinata aka Pauk. He was once a key figure in the military junta government, but recently retired, returned home and plans to run for mayor of his hometown. Rakib’s family has served the general’s family for generations, and today he looks after the general’s house and acts as his faithful servant. And while Rakib’s real father is in prison, he will slowly find a father figure in the general, he will study with him, he will even start wearing military uniforms himself and give himself the nickname sergeant.
And it is completely clear to us that towards the general, everyone in the town feels something more like fear than respect. Everyone is afraid of him and he is convinced that he will easily win the elections, even though he views the electoral process and democracy with contempt. When, during a tour of the place, the general sees his poster torn and thrown on the ground, he will begin to show his true, dictatorial face, and young Rakib will slowly begin to understand who he really is. A cruel murderer and sadist who still acts as if he is still the current reign of terror of the military junta who probably plans to rule in the same way when he becomes mayor.
It was assumed that Mubarak was a capable director and he shot an atmospheric and dark combination of thriller and drama, in which he partly found a model in Coppola’s “Apocalypse Today”. So the general is a bit reminiscent of Colonel Kurtz, an almost mythical creature who has completely lost his mind from the violence and bloodshed he witnessed and committed, and Rakib, almost like Captain Willard, getting closer to the general and realizing who he is, will sink deeper and deeper into heart of darkness. It is a film that deals with the ghosts of Indonesia’s past, and Mubarak decided for a rather slow pace and rhythm of the film in which everything leads to a climax in the finale, which both visually and thematically really resembles the finale of “Apocalypse”.