Teak Leaves at the Temples |
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In Teak Leaves at the Temple, free jazz combines with ancient Javanese music and dance to form something entirely new. Particularly pleasurable are the settings: the sites of central Java's awe-inspiring temple complexes, home to musicians for centuries--Borobudur (8th century Buddhist, and among the greatest art-complexes in the world for its size, quality, sophistication and excellent state of preservation) and Prambanan (the largest Hindu temple in Indonesia)--as well as at Boko and in the nearby mountain villages of Yogyakarta. With this film, VIFF regular Garin Nugroho takes a decidedly different tack from his previous work. Opera Jawa also combined music and site-specific theatre to spectacular effect, but Teak Leaves employs a looser, more ambitiously improvised approach. A Swiss/New Zealand/Indonesian co-production, the intent was to explore not only the fertility of intercultural cross-pollination, but to express Indonesia's remarkable cultural history and its expression of the flow between the different layers of existence: the quotidian, the tragic and the transcendent. The nonlinear interplay between life and art mixes scenes from village life with narration from a local artist (who assumes the mantle of Superman!). Our three jazz musician guests are Guerino Mozzola (Swiss, piano), Heinz Geisser (Swiss, percussion), and Sirone (Norris Jones, American, bass guitar). Their Indonesian collaborators include distinguished dancers and artists as well as the jazz-fusion group the Sono Seni Ensemble. The resulting conflagration creates moments of near bliss, reminding us that in the end, even these ancient stones will meet their broken shadows. The title refers to a lovely sequence in which teak leaves are scattered to the wind. Directed By: Garin Nugroho Selected Filmography:
PRODS: Toni Hauswirth, Winston Marsh |
