During a press conference for the poster's release on Wednesday, director Hanung Bramantyo said the audience should expect the film to be quite long.
he official poster for the highly anticipated film Bumi Manusia (This Earth of Mankind) was unveiled on Wednesday.
Official poster #BumiManusia tayang 15 agustus 2019
A post shared by FILM BUMI MANUSIA OFFICIAL (@film.bumimanusia) on
Based on Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s novel of the same title, the film is set during the Dutch occupation of Indonesia and follows the story of Minke, the first Indonesian national to receive Dutch secondary education in Hoogere Burgerschool.
The titular main character is portrayed by Iqbaal Ramadhan, while other cast members include Syah Ine Febriyanti, Mawar De Jongh, Donny Damara and Ayu Laksmi.
During a press conference for the poster's release on Wednesday, director Hanung Bramantyo said the audience should expect the film to be quite long.
Read also: 'Bumi Manusia' simplified to lure millennial generation
“The [movie’s] duration is three hours,” said Hanung as quoted by kompas.com. “I’ve already cut out five scenes from the novel, which itself is 500 pages long."
Hanung shared his desire to preserve the complex ideological musings of Pramoedya while balancing it with a reasonable movie duration. The director also commented on the complexity of translating weighted text into action for a movie.
“Those 500 pages contain a storyline that embodies Pramoedya’s ideology. How can we convey that without the use of verbal speech?”
Regarding the movie’s ideological core, he said, "The important thing is that [Minke] fights for his freedom to be a human free of oppression.”
Bumi Manusia is set to hit theaters on Aug. 15. (ayr/kes)
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