Position Among the Stars
The concluding part of the late Leonard Retel Helmrich's trilogy on modern Indonesia is an award-winning documentary which follows the Christian-Islamic Sjamsuddin family over 12 years.
The occasionally funny and moving everyday ups and downs of the Sjamsuddin family form a microcosm of modern Indonesian society, with all its contrasts between urban and rural, wealth and poverty, and religion and globalisation. Grandmother Rumidjah and her son Bakti hope that granddaughter Tari will be the first in the family to go to college, while Tari herself displays all the familiar characteristics of a rebellious teenager: her primary interests are shopping and boys.
Retel Helmrich once again utilises the Single Shot Cinema technique he developed, whose characteristic style – with long, uninterrupted shots free from interviews or commentary – is closely related to cinema verité and direct cinema. The camera's broad, intuitive movements are distinctive: it is a fly in the air rather than a fly on the wall, roving around various family members.
