The idea for this unusual documentary by prominent director Garin Nugroho came from Winston Marsh, a New Zealander, and a "free jazz" fan.

"Free jazz is a bit way out for most people. It certainly has a specialist following. We hoped to use the film to give it more general appeal," said Winston when interviewed in New Zealand earlier this year.

It all began when he received an invitation from his friend Toni Hauswirth to come to Indonesia and attend a free jazz concert at the Prambanan temples on the border of Central Java's Klaten and Yogyakarta. The word "free" refers to the nature of the music, not to whether or not one must pay to hear it.

The European musicians were pianist, Guerino Mazzola, and percussionist, Heinz Geisser.

It was Winston's first visit to Indonesia. During conversations with the musicians and from his own experience of Indonesia's vibrant everyday life, he conceived the idea that filmic images could greatly enrich the music, and vice versa.

The musicians agreed, however the idea was kept on the back-burner for a while.

Later Toni Hauswirth, who works in Jakarta, met Garin Nugroho, who had just completed work on Opera Jawa. Garin was interested, and producers -- Toni Hauswirth and Winston Marsh -- had found the ideal man to help them bring the idea to the screen.

Winston thought that a bass player would enhance the group, and an American, Norris Jones (known as Sirone) was brought in.

Garin was responsible for the major part of the set design.

He is a man of seemingly limitless imagination and inspiration. He shuns any imitation of Western filmmaking imagery.

Instead he draws from the richness of Indonesia's physical and social landscape and cultural traditions. Teak Leaves and also Opera Jawa are amazing to Western audiences for their completely new-to-screen images.

Winston's profession was Law, but he is now an art-researcher and a free-jazz lover. Winston says he's "a failed musician". He studied piano and his sister was a music teacher.

He is interested in the interface between art-forms, and has spent a lot of time studying the use of letters and words in the paintings of famous New Zealand artist, Colin McMahon. So for him, Teak Leaves is another interface -- this time, music and the visual image.

So what exactly is free-jazz?

Winston said "Well, it is not bound by composition. It is an improvisation or an innovation. The interface between free jazz and the visual emphasizing the 'now' is the whole point of the film."

"We are living in the present time flow. We draw on the past via music symbols and values, but we perform in the present. That projects an idea in artistic terms of what may lie in the future. Thinking outside the square creates something novel.

"Free Jazz is 'here and now' -- how the musicians feel at the time. It takes very skilled musicians to play it. There are no rehearsals. It is all spontaneous."

Also appearing in the film is a stone sculptor, Ismanto, who seems to be a direct link back eleven hundred years, to the men who created the glorious friezes of Borobudur. He explains his personal philosophy, which is his one-ness with nature and with stone.

Artist Sutanto Mendut describes him as follows: "Ismanto knows how to improvise. He can sit at the same table and have an interesting discussion with people who graduated from theology school. Ismanto's God is full of jazz, improvisation and spontaneity. While others' God is memorized and comes from Italy or is Allah from the Middle East".

Winston said, "One of the under-lying things in the film is the Buddhist idea of time. We are in a flow of time, and we can never recapture what is past."

On the film, Guerino Mazzola explains that when Buddhist monks spend weeks creating a beautiful and complex colored sand Mandala, they then destroy it and cast the sands into a river. This is to set them free and clear the way for new creation.

The metaphor is there in free jazz, which is never written down, and will always be flowing like water, always different, and responding to its changing environment.

As the camera pans across the friezes of Candi Borobudur, the free jazz seemed to be condensing all the sounds that have been heard in that ancient location in Central Java ever since the Stupa started silently listening and waiting. Borobudur itself is a Mandala, when seen from the air.

Filming took place at Borobudur, Prambanan and Ratu Boku temples in village locations in Central Java, including in Yogyakarta.

Scenes of village life are accompanied by free jazz on the soundtrack. Many daily activities have a music and rhythm of their own, which merges with the musical expressions.

There are images of Mount Merapi erupting, earthquake destruction in Yogyakarta.

We see the three Western jazz players creating brave music with the people of Plaosan village, who are smiling and dancing among the ruins of their own homes. The music they created seemed to perfectly express the bizarre sudden tragedy of a major earthquake and its effect on human lives.

The collaboration with Sono Seni, a group from Surakarta, was particularly successful. They also teamed with performers from the amazing Five Mountains Community, founded by Sutanto Mendut.

"We are lucky," said Sutanto, who narrates passages in the film. Suddenly we realized that there is a wide space to transfer the essence of art."

"It was a 'jazz moment' -- an unexpected moment. We are ready to receive unexpected things. I believe Indonesia has a great potential in that sense. Unfortunately we are dominated by unscrupulous politics. Our weaknesses are the parliament ministers and governors, not the people."

People accustomed to predictable music might find free jazz an unfathomable cacophony, however, even if you hate the music, Winston was right.

At the interface where spontaneous jazz music meets Java's ancient past and today's realities, we are in the flow of human expression passing through time.

In the evocative final scenes, the browned, discarded teak leaves are left on the stones, while silhouetted people walk on into the future.

Popular

Kadin urges stability after Constitutional Court ruling

Jokowi says transition to new government to begi

BCA loan disbursement surges 17.1 percent yoy in first quarter