Position Among the Stars (Stand van de Sterren) is the final part of Leonard Retel Helmrich’s trilogy about Indonesia and the Sjamsuddin family. It once again shows the Dutch director’s masterful camerawork, which is largely achieved with ‘single shot cinema’, a technique he developed himself, and his eye for detail.
Position Among the Stars
The film, which had its world premiere at documentary film festival IDFA in Amsterdam on November 17, 2010, begins by referencing parts one and two of the trilogy. In The Eye of the Day (Stand van de Zon, 2001), a restless Indonesia calls for ‘reformasi’ (reformation) and President Suharto is forced to resign. In Shape of the Moon (Stand van de Maan, 2004), the rise of fundamentalist Islam is portrayed.
In Position Among the Stars, the audience once again meets the Sjamsuddin family, made up of grandmother Rumidjah, her son Bakti and granddaughter Tari, an orphan.
Tari, who lives with Bakti in Jakarta, is under pressure to graduate from high school – the first person in her family to do so – but would rather be shopping in one of Jakarta’s mega malls with her friends than studying. At the same time, Bakti worries about where he will find the money to send Tari to college, while pinning his financial hopes on the expensive fighting fish he keeps in jars behind the house.
Rumidjah, who lives in a small Javanese village and represents Indonesia’s traditional, rural past, tries to navigate her way between the younger generations, acting both as matriarch and mediator.
Reaching a Broader Movie Audience
Unlike his previous films, in which he used a non-linear narrative sequence, Retel Helmrich chose a more conventional narrative style for Position Among the Stars, in the hope of reaching a broader audience at IDFA and beyond.
Many of the film’s themes, however, are the same. Foremost among them is the Sjamsuddin’s mixed Christian and Muslim make-up, which occasionally leads to domestic discord, the rural/urban divide, and Indonesia’s often frustrating political and economic situation as experienced by this working-class family.
Punctuating the story are the humorous details Retel Helmrich zooms in on that underline the contradictions in modern-day Indonesia: a ground-level shot of a cat looking on helplessly as a rat feeds from its bowl, or a cart/motorcycle contraption devised to carry Rumidjah to the nearest train station, on which you have to travel backwards to go forwards. Rather like politics, as Rumidjah astutely observes.
Single Shot Cinema
During a question and answer session following a screening of Position Among the Stars, a member of the audience asked if Retel Helmrich ever felt the urge to intervene in the life of his subjects, whom he has followed for 12 years.
It was interesting question given the Dutch director’s cinematic style, which he developed in order to be able to get ‘inside’ the stories he tells, rather than being a neutral bystander. His long, fluid takes, which he calls ‘single shot cinema’, have become one of his trademarks.
Stability and Flexibility with SteadyWing
He films these uninterrupted shots on what he describes as “small, cheap cameras”. These are equipped with SteadyWings, ‘wings’ he designed himself mounted on both sides of the camera, which offer both stability and extreme flexibility.
These wings have helped him to produce some spectacular scenes, as he proved with a vertigo-inducing shot of a man crossing an elevated train bridge in Shape of the Moon, and when he follows a running boy through Jakarta’s maze-like back alleys in Position Among the Stars.
Retel Helmrich’s repeated use of this technique can start to appear gimmicky, but it allows him to achieve the (sometimes uncomfortable) intimacy that he strives for, without seeming to ‘interfere’ in the scene unfolding.
This minor complaint of gimmickry aside, Position Among the Stars is an otherwise engaging film that succeeds in capturing in one family the essence of the populous, sprawling island nation that is Indonesia.
Double IDFA Winner
At an awards ceremony held on November 26, 2010, Position Among the Stars won both the VPRO IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary and the Dioraphte IDFA Award for Dutch Documentary.
Cecily Layzell - Cecily Layzell is a food and travel writer and founder of restaurant review site www.eat-amsterdam.com.
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