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RICHARD OH: Writer is back with two inspiring new projects

Richard Oh returned to Kemang, South Jakarta, a few months ago with big plans, after a rejuvenating sojourn in Bali for almost a year

Cynthia Webb (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Fri, March 30, 2012

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RICHARD OH: Writer is back with two inspiring new projects

R

ichard Oh returned to Kemang, South Jakarta, a few months ago with big plans, after a rejuvenating sojourn in Bali for almost a year.

He enjoyed living in the local atmosphere of coastal Canggu village just west of Seminyak, but as Dorothy said in The Wizard of Oz, there’s no place like home.  

While observing the unique lifestyle of Bali, both the locals and the large population of expatriates, he came up with an idea for a new film. He set aside two other scripts he had penned in the last few years, and began work on Description without Place, shot in Bali in 2011.

He described the concept to Happy Salma, and found she was interested in co-producing and starring in the film.

Description without Place was recently completed and is now beginning its career in the wider world. It will be submitted to international film festivals in both Southeast Asia and Europe.

Richard estimates that the film will open locally in May.

When asked how it felt to make a film again, Richard said “Exhilarating!”

“I have always been intrigued and curious about how people always see Bali as a kind of paradise — a place of freedom. So, many expatriates decide to live and work there. As an Indonesian transplanted over there, I look at this from a different perspective,” said Richard.

Pondering this issue inspired his script about freedom, potentiality and how people of different ethnicities live together in one place.

It seems that many people see Bali as a place for finding the self, or a place of retreat from the past, and that may bring them the life solutions that they seek.

Richard’s film follows three young women in Bali. Yasmin, (played by Sausan Machari) an Arabic-speaking girl from an unnamed  Middle Eastern country; Valentina, (Valentina Audrito) an Italian hairdresser with a young daughter named Clarity; and an Indonesian businesswoman from Jakarta named Kinanti (Happy Salma), who is visiting the island for a conference on water management — a subject of great concern in Bali.

Valentina is a recovering drug addict who says she has no one close to her except her adopted daughter. There is some mystery surrounding the child’s background, however the child that came into her life has been her inspiration to save herself.  

They are three strangers in a strange land, although sometimes their paths cross, hinting at the unseen patterns in life that always surround us.

A male character, Rwa, who is a professional photographer, is played by Hamish Daud. He is half Indonesian, half Western — representing the two worlds that have come together on the island of Bali. Rwa is a steadying influence on the feisty Arab girl, who picks him up in a small shop, determined to challenge everything of her traditional world and to feel free. He tolerantly escorts her about the island and observes her with some amusement. When she asks him, “What’s the difference between my world and yours?” he answers, “Time zone, distance of flight.”

The true meaning of the film’s story may indeed be like The Wizard of Oz — happiness is in your own backyard, and it’s not often found in exotic faraway places, although such a place can sometimes provide time out to heal oneself.

The film benefits from the stunning Balinese scenery, as the female characters explore their personal identities and destinies in the island landscape.  

Happy Salma’s character Kinanti meets K’tut, a taxi driver and musician, played by Jrinx from the band Superman is Dead.  Between her attendances at the conference, he drives her around the island and she comments, “The Balinese have this unique combination. They’re so free and yet at the same time so dedicated to their devotions and rituals.”

“Maybe we can be so free because we have done what is required to be done,” is his reply.

Richard Oh is a deeply philosophical thinker and both of his films reveal this characteristic. He explores the human condition in both Koper (2007) and Description without Place. The title is a line from a poem by Wallace Stephens.

Richard’s background is in literature, having written three novels and four film scripts. As a film director, he aims to make films that combine words and the visual, enabling the unsaid to emerge.

“There are things buried in my films that need to be dug out,” he says.

Now as his film makes its own way in the world, he is getting on with a new venture, The Reading Room, and he is again combining his most beloved art forms, literature and cinema.

Kemang is a hub for creative types and has become a center for the local film industry, with a lot of production houses and facilities for post-production and sound mixing in the area.

The Reading Room, on Jl. Kemang-Timur, will open this weekend, and aims to provide a friendly drop-in center for artists of all kinds. Richard sees it as a place for like-minded people to hang out and inspire each other. He hopes that writers, poets, filmmakers, musicians and artists will make it their own social venue.

The concept is reminiscent of the Paris cafe scene during the Modernist era. Downstairs is a bar and lounge, and upstairs you will find Richard’s private collection of thousands of books, available for browsing. They are shelved floor to ceiling, some of this literature connoisseur’s most precious items.

There is also a separate screening room that may be used as a place for seminars, film launches and press conferences, as well as for viewing fine films.

“I expect that 60 percent to 70 percent of the patrons will come from around the South Jakarta area.”

Richard’s new project might well be set to become the new artistic hub of South Jakarta.

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