Sita (Shanty Harmayn) in The Photograph is a beautiful young woman, working as a singer in a karaoke bar in an unnamed Indonesian city, supplementing her earnings through prostitution to provide for her ailing mother and daughter Yanni back in her village. One day Johan (Lim Kay Tong), an old troubled photographer, saves Sita from her bullying pimp Suroso (Lukman Sardi) after she is gang-raped and beaten by a group of drunken men. Sita temporarily gives up prostitution and instead earns her living by cleaning and washing for Johan. Sita and Johan grow closer in their inescapable solitude; one reaching out to the other. As Sita discovers Johan's troubled past they bond over emotional turmoil and photography.

Director of photography Yadi Sugandi crafts exquisite frames with saturated tones and diffused light. The beautiful cinematography sidetracks the sleaze and filth of Sita's existence, gently glossing over them, supplanting them with a primarily visual rhetoric.

Drawing inspiration from Johan's profession as a photographer, the camera assumes a primary significance as does a number of still shots from the ageing Johan's collection. Sita's daughter and mother exist within the glass cubicle of the pay-phone; neon-lights, lipstick and a glittery dress in chromatic synchronization. Sita street-walks through dark wet alleys as Johan stares at old photos depicting contrasting emotions – the isolation of twin souls underscored by the composition of the frames.

The gradual intimacy between Johan and Sita is portrayed through a shot of two street lamps against a dawn sky. Johan and Sita reach out to each other through poignant understatements – Johan climbs the attic stair to Sita's room and then quietly recedes into his studio.

The film is replete with visual allegories as in the decimation of a funeral shrine by fire; the veils and curtains in Johan’s empty house, the inverted image of Johan as seen through his large-format camera, Johan and his altar on his bicycle through clouds of steam rising from the street. As much as them adding to the effect of the film as a visual treat; The Photograph suffers from an unnecessary and, at times, problematic aestheticizing of events and characters. A particularly jarring sequence involves the strewn body parts of Johan’s wife and son; the prosthetics used looking unlike real human anatomy.

The Photograph is a stunning watch – the background score shifting from the lilting and the moving balancing the aural and the visual harmonies. Shanty and Tong are an unlikely twosome; their emoting is fundamental and effective. Director Nan Achnas’s film finally doesn’t transcend the basic narrative; the gorgeous camerawork is as much to blame for the film’s failings as for its deserved admiration.

Manish Golder
©FIPRESCI 2008