Indonesian films often show ethnic Chinese in a bad light – but filmmakers are turning their backs on old stereotypes
Chinese characters in Indonesian cinema either had exaggerated accents, or were corrupt businessmen exploiting workers in a whirl of lion dances and firecrackers. Film directors like Sidi Saleh now want to give a true portrayal
Indonesian film director and cinematographer Sidi Saleh is no stranger to Glodok, the Jakarta neighbourhood colloquially known as Chinatown. When he was younger, he would spend weekends with relatives who lived in the adjacent Jembatan Lima district.
Although Saleh, 38, is not of Chinese descent, the filmmaker became familiar with the everyday lives of Chinatown residents on his strolls through the area.
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He may have been drawing on those experiences as he wrote and directed his first full-length feature film, Pai Kau. Its box office release, on February 8, was eight days before the Lunar New Year festival.
Inspired by the works of Hong Kong director Johnnie To Kei-fung and mainland Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke, Pai Kau – a reference to the Chinese domino gambling game pai gow – has all the makings of a typical action flick. “It’s just like one of those Hong Kong movies,” Saleh says, referring to its gangsters, love triangle and lots of violence.
The film also features a cast that “is comprised almost 100 per cent of Chinese-Indonesian actors”, Saleh says. However, there are none of the usual stereotypes used in depictions of ethnic Chinese communities in Indonesian cinema – no lion dances, firecrackers or exaggerated accents – and the wedding scene involves a Catholic ceremony, not Buddhist.
Pai Kau is a rare break from the usual representation of ethnic Chinese citizens in Indonesian cinema. Representation of the ethnic Chinese minority has more often than not been tied to identity politics. That is according to Charlotte Setijadi, author of the upcoming book Memories of Unbelonging: Collective Trauma and Chinese Identity Politics in Indonesia, and Krishna Sen, a consultant for a number of international human rights agencies in Indonesia and a professor at University of Western Australia’s School of Social Sciences. Sen penned the 1994 book Indonesian Cinema: Framing the New Order.