Hanung Bramantyo takes a significant and surprising step backward in his series of films on Indonesian Islamic contemporary literary works after Ayat-Ayat Cinta (Verses of love) and Doa Yang Mengancam (The threatening prayer), perhaps the most underrated film this year though it ranks as his finest to date. 

His latest film, Perempuan Berkalung Sorban (Woman wrapped in a turban), starts off with a solid premise of questioning the rights and roles of women in Islam before dwindling down and finally falling into the dangerous hole of too much.  The film is overlong and overwrought.

I was left feeling I had watched several lengthy soap opera episodes rolled up into one film. It made for a tiring viewing experience as the 140-plus-minute plot dragged through several misguided “endings”.

Clearly addressed to the mass target market already fond of Hanung’s previous successes, Perempuan may not enjoy the big commercial success Ayat-Ayat Cinta regaled in. Upscale audiences may find the content too cliché, while conventional ones may find the initial questioning theme too uncomfortable to see on the big screen.

Across all three films, the acting department remains equally commendable, and so too with the technical aspects, excluding this film’s original score which persistently goes way over the top.

If the purpose of the musical backdrop is to enhance and elevate the emotional affect of each scene and character, we doubt if Tya Subiakto’s lush orchestral sound adds anything to the already dramatic plot particularly since Annisa, played by Revalina S. Temat, has been brought up under a strict Islamic upbringing.

Her family, who owns a respectable and traditional Islamic boarding school in a small East Java town, confines her to being a homemaker with hardly any access to knowledge and modern thinking. But she never gives up her thirst for  higher education so, goaded by her rebellious nature, she seeks a better life.

Her journey takes her all over the place, from marriage á la Khaled Hoseini’s popular novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, to facing fellow villagers’ condemnation – far less convincing than the heart-tugging Titian Serambut Dibelah Tujuh (The narrow bridge), still one of the high bars of Indonesian films to date – and to her own concept of freedom that remains challenged up until the end of the film.

In short, this woman’s life has been wrung out to draw sympathy, with little room for empathy, from audiences’ teary eyes, hopefully.

If only the storyline could have been focused, honed to portray her quest while embellishing with the enriching details of women’s position in Islam, the film’s firm story idea would have moved our hearts to even greater effect.

After all, we have been fed a steady diet of melodrama through television shows, both reality and irreality. If our films could take it all to another level, why not?

For sure, such forays could face challenges from the censorship board or risk lackluster box-office returns, but given the film’s early standpoint which piques our interest at the outset, what a pity, I can only repeat, we have to suffer the absence of the main character’s focused storyline, and wait for the penultimate scenes to find relief, and be disappointed again with a bad pay-off from the film’s shallow antagonists.

Still, Hanung is Hanung, who, like Ody C. Harahap and some other contemporary filmmakers, have managed to rise above a mediocre script and deliver far-above-average films.

His craftsmanship has visibly matured with each of his films, and comfortably partners with his usual director of photography Faozan Rizal to seamlessly lens the director’s sweeping vision.

While never admitting to being an actor’s director, Hanung has nevertheless extracted good performances from his actors.

Think of Meriam Bellina’s superb theft scene in Hanung’s Get Married. It is mirrored by Widyawati in this film as Annisa’s mother who delivers many of the film’s best and most thoughtful lines. Her subtle performance could have been explored further, but her sole defense in the condemnation scene is more than sufficient to make the scene the most memorable one once the end credits roll.

With a sigh of relief once the credits appear, we cannot help feeling overstuffed but still unsatisfied. In a rare reversal, most audiences might wish for something different from an alternative rendition of a film: a director’s cut of shorter duration.

Perempuan Berkalung Sorban (Woman wrapped in a turban), in Indonesian with English subtitles, is playing nationwide in cinemas.

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