For newcomers, living in Jakarta can be tough. Locals say the capital city is “meaner than a stepmother”. But its other nickname, the Big Durian, better explains the love-hate relationship between the city and its dwellers. It stinks, but is full of excitement.

A slice of the city’s flavor is presented in Balik Jakarta, roughly translated as Returning to Jakarta, a short film directed and scribed by Jason Iskandar in a collaborative project between the German Embassy and production house Studio Antelope with filmmaker Dimas Jayasrana as project manager.

It’s a comedy road movie that takes the viewers roaming around the busiest parts of the city to find a certain house, while at it, the characters discover more about themselves. The journey starts when German tourist Günther (Frederik Neust) is looking for a taxi and ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver Togar (Yoga Mohamad) offers him his services.

Günther has come to Jakarta on a mission to visit his childhood home in Kebayoran, South Jakarta, carrying only an old picture of the house façade without a complete address. It takes a while for Togar, with his broken English, to grasp in the situation and a while more to get to the destination due to its long distance from their starting point, not to mention the heavy traffic.

Togar tries to find a short cut through the narrow alleys of a slum neighborhood only to return to square one. Anxiously trying to get back to the main road as it is getting dark, the motorcycle breaks down. With help from a resident, they are able to continue their trip.

But even after they reach Kebayoran, which is more than 32 square kilometers in size when Kebayoran Lama and Kebayoran Baru districts are combined, they are unable to recognize the house in the sepia-colored photo. While Günther is thinking about giving up, Togar, an accounting graduate from Medan, North Sumatra, is adopting Jakarta as his new home.

The premiere at the Goethe Cultural Institute in Menteng, Central Jakarta, on Oct. 27 was a full house with 300 people in the audience, including German Ambassador Michael Freiherr von Ungern-Sternberg and the film’s crew and cast.

And just like Togar and Günther calling it a day by eating freshly cooked nasi goreng (fried rice) from a street stall as it starts to rain, the event ended with the audience being treated to the savory dish and cold beer in the drizzle.

Balik Jakarta consists of the right ingredients to make a well-produced short film. It has an effective script with punchlines on German soccer players that tie the beginning and the end of the story, as well as decent actors who built their chemistry as the story developed.

The sound editing deserved applause for keeping it real, not burying the noise of bustling traffic when the actors talked to each other on a running motorcycle.

Sitting through the 25-minute film, there were laughs, mostly due to cultural differences that led to mild misunderstandings, with enough time for the audience to empathize with the characters.

Although there is yet to be a plan for public screening, Balik Jakarta is a film to watch out for. It has something to mull over while being caught in traffic, the reason we call this city of steel home.

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Balik Jakarta

(Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Jakarta and Studio Antelope, 25 minutes)

Director and scriptwriter: Jason Iskandar

Cast: Frederik Neust, Yoga Mohamad, Arief Akhmad Yani, Anugrah, Jean Marais and Made Perwira

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