Tag: Gina S. Noer

Like & Share (Gina S. Noer, 2022)

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Two young women seeking escape from a repressive social culture find themselves betrayed by the hypocrisies and lawlessness of the online society in an infinitely empathetic drama from Two Blue Stripes’ Gina S. Noer, Like & Share. Like many young people, they see internet stardom as a path towards freedom and independence, but are too naive to understand its underlying darkness even when presented with evidence of its misuse in the alarming popularity of an illicit sex tape and its violent sequel. 

Lisa (Aurora Ribero) in particular is strangely fascinated by the video despite realising that in the sequel that followed the woman is crying and appears to have suffered sexualised violence at the hands of the man whose face is never seen. “No face, no case” the girls are fond of saying, naively thinking that they can safeguard themselves from potential harm simply by shooting from the neck down. When nude photos are leaked of another girl at school, she’s able to claim that it’s not her and encourage people to block the sender but still it seems like no one really believes her. Lisa and Sarah (Arawinda Kirana) seem to feel a sense of invincibility, that they’re in control of their online personas and the channel they’ve set up featuring beautifully produced ASMR videos accompanied by a deliberately “sexy” voice over. Though Lisa is unsure, Sarah brushes off some of the more unpleasant comments they get as simply par for the course while reminding her that they’ll get more likes and shares appealing to the sort of people that make them. 

But the girls are largely ill-equipped to understand the world they’re entering, not least because of the repressive atmosphere in which they’ve been raised. Lisa soon becomes fixated on the sex tape, addicted to pornography and masturbation which temporarily replaces ASMR as her preferred method of stress relief. The problem is compounded by the fact that her mother has married an older, quite conservative religious man and converted to Islam. She is very keen that Lisa not upset her new stepfather, who has agreed to pay for her education, mainly because it’s her own “second chance” to atone for the failure of her first marriage and prove herself a good wife and mother. “What sort of good woman are you that has no empathy for other women?” Lisa later asks her but gets little reply. Her mother advises her to read the Quran if she wants to calm herself down, though Lisa counters that she can’t read Arabic anyway.

As Lisa explains, she was merely curious and it’s not as if she could have asked her mother for knowledge or advice. Her addiction partly stems from the illicit nature of the activity, had she had a healthier outlet and better access to sex education she would probably not have reacted to the video in such an extreme way. Sarah later experiences something similar after meeting a boy, Devan (Jerome Kurnia), at a local recreation ground and agreeing to date him without necessarily seeing any red flags in the fact he’s 27 with a full-time job and wants to date a 17-year-old high school girl. Every time she expresses reluctance to take their relationship to the next level he calls her “childish”, later assaulting her and filming it to use as blackmail and potential online clout. “It’s always the girl’s life that’s ruined, never the man’s” he later sneers, certain that he’ll get away with it because it’s his word against hers and as her lawyer cautions her after Devan leaks the video going to the police is risky because there’s a chance she could end up being charged with obscenity under the country’s laws surrounding pornography. 

Misogyny is already deeply ingrained in the system. Ironically enough, the girls’ teacher tells them the school can’t afford to fund group activities so they need to go swimming on their own and film it for him so he can mark them. The videos are shown to the entire class with even the teacher appearing to salivate over the footage of teenage girls in wet swimsuits while their male classmates make inappropriate comments that go largely unchallenged. Sarah is unwilling to accept that what happened to her was rape, firstly brushing it off as a potential fetish for rough sex or suggesting that Devan did not hear her say no despite having previously told her about a too spicy dish at a restaurant that if she doesn’t like or want something she should say so. Lisa meanwhile is forced to accept her partial complicity after crossing paths with the woman from the sex tape and becoming somewhat fixated on her before reflecting on the harm that she had done in having watched it in the first place. It’s she that later helps Lisa come to an understanding of the best way to support her friend through her ordeal which may be simply to be there and to listen. 

Despite the judging eyes of the world around them, the two women have their friendship and the refreshingly progressive support of Sarah’s older brother who stands by his sister rather than blaming her. Even so, it’s other women who often fail her from the conservative judgement of Lisa’s mother to a lawyer at a court hearing who says that Sarah made her choice when she decided to enter the hotel room with Devan and has no right to call her “regret” “rape”. Yet Lisa and Sarah are finally able to repair their friendship and stand up in solidarity against a patriarchal social culture, refusing to let Devan off the hook while reassuming control of their channel by reading out some of the inappropriate messages they’ve been sent by men online. “Thank you for being brave” a message on the website of a woman’s legal organisation reads, once more reinforcing the power of female solidarity against systematised misogyny. 

Like & Share screens March 14/18 as part of this year’s Osaka Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Two Blue Stripes (Dua Garis Biru, Gina S. Noer, 2019)

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In less enlightened times, unplanned teenage pregnancy was sometimes seen as a grand tragedy involving the potential ruin of at least three lives. Thankfully, in many places at least, it isn’t quite like that anymore though for the young couple at the centre of Gina S. Noer’s sensitive yet lighthearted drama Two Blue Stripes (Dua Garis Biru) their impending parenthood exposes a series of divisions in a changing society as their families, one poor and religious, the other wealthy and secular though obsessed with respectability, react in quite different ways to the news their child is about to have a child of their own. 

At 17, Bima (Angga Yunanda) and Dara (Adhisty Zara) are a bashful high school couple eagerly planning their futures. While Bima is not exactly a top student, Dara gets good grades and is obsessed with K-Pop, hoping to travel to Korea for university. One day however they get a little carried away and some time later Dara begins to suspect she may be expecting. Originally opting for an abortion, she later finds she can’t go through with it and the young couple decide that if only they can keep the pregnancy a secret until after graduation they’ll be able to figure something out. Unfortunately, however, the ruse is uncovered when Dara is taken ill during a PE session and accidentally reveals the pregnancy while worried about the baby. 

The surprising thing is that Bima’s parents who are devoted to their Islamic faith are the most sympathetic, quickly accepting that what’s happened has happened and needs to be dealt with as calmly and sensitively as possible if also somehow disappointed in Bima while quietly proud of his surefooted though naive pledge to take responsibility. Dara’s parents, however, and in particular her mother Rika (Lulu Tobing) are far less understanding, intensely questioning their daughter in the grim “hope” that Bima may have forced himself on her and she is therefore “blameless”. This rather old fashioned, sexist notion of female purity is further borne out by the school who confess that they aren’t allowed to expel Dara because of her pregnancy, but all the same are asking her to leave meaning she won’t be able to take her exams with the other pupils while nothing will happen to Bima who will be permitted to go to class as normal. 

For Rika shame and confusion seem to be the primary motivators. Attempting to sweep the whole thing under the carpet, she begins talking to a pair of relatives who are desperate for a baby and weren’t able to have any of their own in the hope they will adopt. Affluent and seemingly secular, her worry is perhaps only partly reputation and the fear her own parenting will be called in question with the remainder a sense of frustration that a single moment may have undone all her daughter’s hopes for the future along with all the ambitions she had for her. 

Dara, meanwhile, continues to dream of going to Korea hoping somehow she’ll be able to make it work as young mother. For his part, Bima makes it clear that she should be able to fulfil her dreams if that’s what she wants, never trying to tie her down and always keen to shoulder his sense of the burden. Young and in love they want to stay together and try to make a family of their own, but they are also naive little realising both the differences between them and difficulties of supporting themselves independently. Bima ends up working in his father-in-law David’s (Dwi Sasono) restaurant, proving a good employee and perhaps earning his respect but simultaneously losing Dara’s as he slacks off on his studies, she somewhat disappointed to think he might end up waiting tables for the rest of his life exposing her slightly snobbish attitude further borne out by her reaction on arriving at Bima’s comparatively humble family home. 

In an interesting role reversal, however, it is eventually Bima who takes on the stereotypically “maternal” role pledging to stay home and raise his son while affording Dara the opportunity to pursue her dreams. The parents meanwhile also reflect on their failure to properly prepare their children for adulthood, wishing that they had been less bashful and talked properly about sex so that they might have made better informed choices. “How are we supposed to love, to breathe, to be, when it hurts?” asks the plaintive song running over the closing scenes ironically titled “Growing Up”, each of the youngsters perhaps wondering just that as they try to come to terms with their respective choices while embarking on the next stage of their lives no longer children but perhaps no more certain. 

Two Blue Stripes streams in the US until March 31 as part of the 12th season of Asian Pop-Up Cinema.

Original trailer (English subtitles)