Position Among the Stars

Stand van de Sterren

Netherlands, Indonesia

2010

111 Min

Color

Indonesian

Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
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PROD Hetty Naaijkens-Retel Helmrich

SCR Hetty Naaijkens-Retel Helmrich, Leonard Retel Helmich

DP Leonard Retel Helmich, Ismail Fahmi Lubish

MUSIC Danang Faturahman, Fahmy Al-attas

Sundance (World Cinema Documentary Competition): Special Jury Prize, San Francisco (Documentaries), Melbourne (Documentaries), Vancouver (Nonfiction Features), Abu Dhabi (Documentary Competition): Best Documentary, Belfast (Documentary)

This final installment of the trilogy follows the award-winning documentaries The Eye of the Day and Shape of the Moon (winner of the World Cinema Documentary Jury Prize at Sundance in 2005) as filmmaker Leonard Retel Helmrich concludes his in-depth portrait of Indonesia seen through the eyes of one family living in the slums of Jakarta. Grandmother Rumidjah, a poor old Christian woman, weathers a changing society and the influence of globalization reflected in the lives of her juvenile granddaughter, Tari, and her sons, Bakti and Dwi, who are Muslims. Modern-day Indonesia is entrenched in a tug-of-war between Christianity and Islam, young and old, rich and poor, and beset by encroaching globalization that threatens the simple life that Rumidjah knows so well.

Forgoing interviews and voice-over narration, Position Among the Stars allows each exquisite detail to come together and construct a rich mosaic of Indonesia today. The result is poignant, breathtaking, and a singularly stellar vérité triumph. –Sundance Film Festival

sami

4Mar12

Great doc. I absolutely love grandma Rumidja, and even though I can’t bring myself to blame Bakti for being useless (I relate to him too much for that), I do feel for his wife (and good on her for frying his stupid fighting fish). More importantly, my problem is that I don’t have faith in Tari at all, and anyone who’s seen "Position Among the Stars" will know exactly how fucking sad that is.