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By Sharon Calingasan
Director: Eddie Cahyono
Directed and written by Javanese director Eddie Cahyono, Siti allows the audience to feel the film’s desperation and melancholy from start to finish owing to its tone and its black-and-white format. The absence of colorful hues effectively helps to establish desolation, especially on the part of the title-character, played by Indonesian actress Sekar Sari.
This intimate film engages the audience by allowing them a peek into the day-to-day struggle of Siti, a dutiful mother to her precocious son Bagas (Bintang Timur Widodo) and attentive wife to her disabled husband who becomes bedridden after an accident at sea. In order to make ends meet, she sells crackers by day and works as a karaoke bar attendant by night. In one particular scene, she lashes out at her husband Bagus (Ibnu Widodo) after being visited by his disgruntled creditor. When her husband refuses to respond, she is left confused, angry and desperate. We witness a dramatic outpouring of these frustrations when she angrily tramples on clothes whilst doing the laundry.
The film vividly presents a character study of a woman who is deeply conflicted about what her life has become. She is distraught at how she has become caught up in a never ending cycle of financial burden and emotional suffering. Cahyono presents a relentless array of issues that broaden Siti’s anguish; she struggles with knowing how to settle her husband’s debt, she is confused and angered by her husband’s lack of communication, and she becomes increasingly distracted by another man’s attention. These matters enlarge Siti’s inner turmoil and allow the film’s tension to build, before climaxing during a karaoke bar scene, in which Siti gives a sultry performance to the jovial crowd.
Sekar Sari is undoubtedly in charge of this film. Her thin figure and weary expression make her a good fit for the character physically, while her ability to deliver a meaningful and expressive portrayal of the internally pained Siti is exceptional. Her remarkable performance in the film won her a Best Performance Award at the 2014 Singapore International Film Festival. In one standout scene by the sea, a colleague from the karaoke bar encourages her to vent her anger towards her husband. In this scene, Siti isn’t even able to curse, however, when she finally hears the taunting words of her husband in a later scene, she lashes out at him and finally manages to curse at him with conviction. In this scene Siti seals her fate and finally arrives at a decision.
Ultimately, the film aims to raise awareness about the desperation, confusion and anguish of a woman that is handed a burden that she is unprepared for. The dream-like hallucinatory sequences and flashback scenes that dot the entirety of the film provide moments of clarity and insight into Siti and her family’s past, while also acting as premonitions about future events. Cahyono’s relatable and realistic portrayal of intimate struggle won him the Citra Award for Best Film at the 2015 Indonesian Film Festival. Siti was certainly deserving of the award as it has a remarkable ability to make its audience stop and consider: ‘How would I handle the same situation if I were in Siti’s position?’
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