Rheview #5 Tilik (2018): What is TILIK anyway?

Hello,, again

Ahh it's been a while (actually, it's been a long time) since I wrote my last review (sorry about that). I'd been very busy lately (doing hobby: playing game) is considered as busy right? :)) But this viral short movie make me want to take a look at it and do the review.  Haven't watch it yet? Click here~ 

Tilik (2018): Introduction of typical Indonesian "culture"

As a non-Javanese, I barely understand the title until ~70% of the movie when one of the character mention "tilik" and translated as "pay a visit". This confuses me a lot because "tilik" in Bahasa Indonesia means "checklist", so I was searching for "what checklist was going to be discussed?"

Bu Tejo--a loquacious mayoress wanna be--and her villager friends were going to visit their mayoress who was sick and was admitted to the hospital in the bigger city. To burn time, they make a chitchat and even spread rumors about others, typical Indonesian housewife.

Spoiler alert!

Okay, enough with the synopsis, let's get going to the analysis, shall we?

First of all, the title was not important at all, and even "the visiting" itself lost its meaning in this story. The producer can change the title to "Gossip" or "Rumor" or literally change the whole script to make another-more-important title. They don't mention nor depicted the year of this story, but knowing Bu Tejo have a better handphone, she should call Dian in the first place to ask about probability of pay a visit to mayoress. It was really wasting the whole villager's time to pay a visit someone who actually cannot be visited. Maybe someone will say, "But it's just another culture from villager that if you're sick, then the whole village will pay to visit you." Yes, you may right, but in this era? They can call you first and confirm your accessibility to be visisted. 

The characters were really typical of Indonesian "emak-emak". Starting from chatting and spreading rumors, until "fighting" policeman in order to accomplish their goals. This is what I think that should be the main problem and illustrated in the title. I know the producers wanted to satirize this "habit," but the way they prioritize the choice of title is disappointing.

In the end of the story, we can see the "truth" about Dian which is villagers rumor's main "target". So what? If Dian choose to marry with Fikri's husband, so what? I really pissed off, why they even care to reveal the truth? I even confused why Mayoress control the village alone, was she divorced? If so, why Dian have to visit "Mayoress"? They don't have any relationship then. 

I also distracted by unimportant filler which is when the truck was broken down, and all of the passengers (except two of them) pushed it. I don't find this scene was necessary. They just prolong this short movie with this nonsense scene. A truck pushed by bunch of housewife? Hmm I don't know, but they must be really strong, then. 

I think I'm all negative about this short movie, haha, but hey, they actually rose up another important culture: Mayor (maybe Mayor is too high for the scope of "village", but I'll still use this term) is a very powerful people in the village and people will do anything to achieve that "power", from bribing villager to spreading hate speech about former Mayor. 

As I stated before, solidarity of villagers was tested here, and all of the villagers come to pay a visit their Mayoress. But again, knowing they cannot even look at their Mayoress really an anticlimax for me. Indeed they were disappointed, but they weren't blaming Yu Ning for her invitation to visit Mayoress without confirmation regardless they can visit Mayoress or not. Furthermore, they can happily choose the next destination without take issue of previous disappointment.

The cinematography was epic! The acting was very natural (maybe they don't even need to acting, as they just be themselves [just kidding, hehe]). The subtitles really help us to understand the whole story. Because sometimes the sound was too small to be understand even for people with Javanese language as their mother language. 

Closing

Rate: 6/10. It is rhesonable, but still many things they can improve. I'm really happy to see more and more good Indonesian short movies released. But to introduce Indonesian lifestyle and "culture", producers need to focus about what issues they want to talk about, and focus on it. In this short movie, at least I can find 3 issues, but for non-Indonesian, or even non-Javanese, we hardly can relate all of it, and maybe can only identify the "gossip" issue. 

Good luck Indonesian movie- and film makers! You rock!