Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash [dir. Edwin]

Vengeance is Mine... is in many ways an unexpected movie. Based on a novel by Eka Kurniawan, which I haven't read, the title makes it sound like one of countless spaghetti westerns pumped out in the 60's and 70's. But it's actually an Indonesian drama set in the 1980's, in the late phase of the autocratic Suharto regime. It starts off like a martial arts action movie with a cocky badass hero and features several brutal hand-to-hand combat sequences, but at its core is a deep romance. It subverts many of the usual tropes of revenge in movies and, after a point, even goes into magic realism mode. How's that for straddling genres?

The conventionality of the beginning is also relative. When was the last time you saw an action movie where the lead guy (Mathino Lio) is sexually impotent? Here it is upfront, presented as the driving engine behind his character's violent streak, because his masculinity has no other outlet. The leading lady (Ladya Cheryl, my favorite actor in this movie) is also a hyper-violent no-holds-barred brawler that on their first encounter kicks his face up his butt in combat, before they proceed to fall in love. She accepts his impotence as a fact, but it has consequences later that tear their life apart. Their condition is a reflection of disturbing incidents that occurred during their respective childhoods - She was molested by a teacher and he witnessed a woman's brutal rape-murder. This has been interpreted by multiple critics as a metaphor for the oppressive political regime and moral corruption that prevailed in Indonesia in that period, and its debilitating impact on the people's psyche (it's not something the film tries to punch you in the face with). The magic realism aspect, involving the unearthing of a certain character referred to in the past, is disorienting when it happens, and it's not explained out in the explicit manner a less confident maker would succumb to. Film-maker Edwin trusts the audience to fill in the gaps for themselves.

In consequence, Vengeance is Mine... may sometimes seem meandering, and it definitely does not stick to genre limitations; it's as serious about being a humanistic drama or an absurdist fable as it is about being an action flick. But in all of its phases it always remains interesting and off-kilter. For me it was mainly the very palpable chemistry between the leads that kept me constantly interested in their fate. I also love the manner in which the camera (DoP Akiko Ashizawa) captures their intimate physical and emotional moments; obviously a great deal of thought was given to this.

I would like to talk more about the film, go into some of the ways it deflects conventional arcs into something new, but I don't right now know how I can do that without spoiling the film for people that haven't previously seen it. I'm thinking I'll come back for a stab at that at a later stage. But this much is clear, for those looking for entertainment off the beaten track and with a little more emotional substance, it is certainly a film worth watching.

The film is currently screening on Netflix, but I caught it on the UK blu-ray release from Arrow Video, about which a few words:

This is a recent film, but it was shot in 16mm - It looks a little soft, but textures are good and the colors are vibrant. There primary audio track is 5.1 DTS-HDMA (with an option of lossless stereo), but I did not experience a lot of activity in the surrounds. There are a good number of meaty extras, including interviews with the cast and crew, and behind-the-scenes footage from its making. My copy came with a slipcover (the reverse art features the Indonesian title and different artwork) and booklet with a pretty good essay from cult movie enthusiast Josh Hurtado.