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The filmmaker who uses comedy to tell tragedies
Filmmaker Winner Wijaya explores tragedies through a comedic lens.
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Maria (Diana Valencia), the lead character in Turut Berduka Cita, has to constantly recount the chronology of her father’s death to visitors at the funeral home. (JP/Courtesy of Winner Wijaya)
D
eaths and funerals are strange. No one seems to know what to do or say. When my mother passed away a couple of years ago, I found that the emotions didn’t really hit right away. Instead, they crept up in the midst of taking care of funeral arrangements, picking out the casket or talking to the visitors at the funeral home. Every conversation felt a bit awkward, if not downright exhausting.
The short film Turut Berduka Cita (Deep Condolences) explores the absurdities that often take place in such situations. Maria (Diana Valencia), the lead character, finds herself having to constantly recount the chronology of her father’s death to visitors at the funeral home, only to be met with odd, casual remarks and inappropriate anecdotes about the deceased.
In one scene, after Maria’s explains how her father passed away – of heart disease – a woman casually asks, “Did your father smoke? He probably didn’t watch what he ate, did he?”
When Maria says her father enjoyed Padang cuisine – famous for its flavor but also its fattiness – the same woman blurts out that Padang food is evil before turning to the man next to her – presumably her husband – and telling him to stop eating it.
In another scene, an uncle remarks that Maria’s father should have had bypass surgery done in Singapore instead of Penang because of its “superior technology”. His wife adds that herbal medicines did wonders for her family and that Maria’s father should have looked into them. To top it off, she warns Maria about the dangers of modern medicine due to its “chemical nature”.
“During the shoot, I purposely tired myself out by drinking tons of coffee and staying up late so I’d look tired. I also tried to remember the moments when my grandmother passed away,” said Diana, who is 23.
Almost all the lines in the movie are based on real experiences. Director Winner Wijaya, 25, said the idea for the movie came to him after he attended a funeral of a friend’s loved one. He noticed how strange it was to see people casually offering their condolences – with smiles on their faces. Some time later, that very same friend ended up telling the Malang-born director about all the ridiculous things said to her during the funeral, many of which made it into the movie’s script.
