BEFORE, NOW AND THEN (2022)
Last year kamila andini through "yuni" showed us how beautiful she can craft a visual story with good use of colours, symmetry and her layered screenplay .Kamila andini does the same here in
"Before, Now & Then" released in 2022 . As in "yuni '' here the basic theme is also about a girl exploring her freedom which she hadn't before in her society, family. But unlike " yuni " here the
film doesn't lead through just one character, rather it equally gave importance to other characters in the 103 minute long screenplay.
As the name itself says "Before, Now & Then " tells the story of Nana's past, present and future. Nana who was married to a soldier named icang doesn't know whether her husband is dead or not as she hasn't seen him for the last 5 years. She then gets married to one of the wealthiest men in the village "Mr. Darga". He shows extreme love for nana and her kids. Even though the only kid under Nana -Darga is dias legally, Mr Darga keeps all other kids stay with him and takes care of them well. Darga also surprise's Nana everyday with gifts. Nana also feels an emotional connection for darga but doesn't have anything more than that. One day Nana met a butcher in a village named ino. At a house party in Darga's house Nana and Ino talks to each other. They connected seamlessly and without knowing herself Nana falls for ino. While all these going Nana discovers her old husband icang. Nana confused what to do finally decides to divorce Darga with a mutual understanding however the movie ends with an open climax where Nana is single and takes a decision according to Ino which is unrevealed leaving the audience to guess. Throughout the film many political agendas exist in indo culture and are subtly shown by visual clues, minute dialogues. There's such a scene I particularly liked when Ino meets Nana for the first time in the kitchen at their house party. Ino asks Nana "why are you here? This is your party". Here nana replies "This is where i belong" on the next scene where nana goes to the entrance of house party just behind her ningsih's character covers her head. Ningsih's character throughout the film is been characterized for showing audience that how worse is a Indonesian superstitious women is .The scene where she introduces ino as bad girl cause of ino is butcher, communist is another example. Making Icang's character a positive one, Kamila won by never generalizing any category. While coming to technical and directional departments the first to be appreciated is Vida Slylvia's production design. Kamila andini and Vida sylvia has already proved their combo's quality in their former collaboration "The seen and unseen ". Vida Slyvia chose the famous cyan and cream color palette for this movie for the most of scenes and this made the drama happening more intriguing one. The color grading chose for night scenes such as green-red combo, yellowish lighting, violet -pink combo where used neatly and gave neon outlook. Batara goemper played a lot with composition especially by symmetry. Three part mirror reflection shots has been used exquisitely for detailing Nana's character. Akhmad fesdi even though using slow cuts elevated the context. Liked how he cut for ricky leonardi's music. Retno ratih's costumes outlooked well with the background. Moreover she gave much depth to nana's costume by giving her a maid like costume while giving white, liberal looking costumes for ino. Adha imans and kamila andini's screenwriting output is brilliant. The use of motif in screenplay where icang gets killed by people which haunts nana made the audience to believe icang was dead so his entry was a shocking twist. The stellar cast with " salma, basuki, ibnu jamil,pitaloka arswendi " performed well and even the kids too.
Even though the movie did well by showing Nana's Before, Now stages beautifully. Nana's then stage has been spoon feeded to the audience. Especially the scene where Nana seeing a dream in which herself killing icang with ino directly told what's going to happen .Thus the movie ending with a open climax failed the audience to draw many clues. However with no much other flaws in the movie "Before then and now " is another equally top notch output from Kamila andini and her comfort crew.
As the name itself says "Before, Now & Then " tells the story of Nana's past, present and future. Nana who was married to a soldier named icang doesn't know whether her husband is dead or not as she hasn't seen him for the last 5 years. She then gets married to one of the wealthiest men in the village "Mr. Darga". He shows extreme love for nana and her kids. Even though the only kid under Nana -Darga is dias legally, Mr Darga keeps all other kids stay with him and takes care of them well. Darga also surprise's Nana everyday with gifts. Nana also feels an emotional connection for darga but doesn't have anything more than that. One day Nana met a butcher in a village named ino. At a house party in Darga's house Nana and Ino talks to each other. They connected seamlessly and without knowing herself Nana falls for ino. While all these going Nana discovers her old husband icang. Nana confused what to do finally decides to divorce Darga with a mutual understanding however the movie ends with an open climax where Nana is single and takes a decision according to Ino which is unrevealed leaving the audience to guess. Throughout the film many political agendas exist in indo culture and are subtly shown by visual clues, minute dialogues. There's such a scene I particularly liked when Ino meets Nana for the first time in the kitchen at their house party. Ino asks Nana "why are you here? This is your party". Here nana replies "This is where i belong" on the next scene where nana goes to the entrance of house party just behind her ningsih's character covers her head. Ningsih's character throughout the film is been characterized for showing audience that how worse is a Indonesian superstitious women is .The scene where she introduces ino as bad girl cause of ino is butcher, communist is another example. Making Icang's character a positive one, Kamila won by never generalizing any category. While coming to technical and directional departments the first to be appreciated is Vida Slylvia's production design. Kamila andini and Vida sylvia has already proved their combo's quality in their former collaboration "The seen and unseen ". Vida Slyvia chose the famous cyan and cream color palette for this movie for the most of scenes and this made the drama happening more intriguing one. The color grading chose for night scenes such as green-red combo, yellowish lighting, violet -pink combo where used neatly and gave neon outlook. Batara goemper played a lot with composition especially by symmetry. Three part mirror reflection shots has been used exquisitely for detailing Nana's character. Akhmad fesdi even though using slow cuts elevated the context. Liked how he cut for ricky leonardi's music. Retno ratih's costumes outlooked well with the background. Moreover she gave much depth to nana's costume by giving her a maid like costume while giving white, liberal looking costumes for ino. Adha imans and kamila andini's screenwriting output is brilliant. The use of motif in screenplay where icang gets killed by people which haunts nana made the audience to believe icang was dead so his entry was a shocking twist. The stellar cast with " salma, basuki, ibnu jamil,pitaloka arswendi " performed well and even the kids too.
Even though the movie did well by showing Nana's Before, Now stages beautifully. Nana's then stage has been spoon feeded to the audience. Especially the scene where Nana seeing a dream in which herself killing icang with ino directly told what's going to happen .Thus the movie ending with a open climax failed the audience to draw many clues. However with no much other flaws in the movie "Before then and now " is another equally top notch output from Kamila andini and her comfort crew.