Riar Rizaldi is an Indonesian filmmaker who works as an artist and researcher. His films and installations have been shown at various international film festivals (including, IFFR, FID Marseille, Viennale,) as well as at art centers and art festivals such as Centre Pompidou Paris, Venice Architecture Biennale, National Gallery of Indonesia. His short film ‘Tellurian Drama' won the 2020 Silver Screen Award for Best Southeast Asian Short Film and was awarded Honourable Mention at DOK Leipzig 2021. He mainly researches on the relationship between capital and technology, labour and nature, and the possibility of theoretical fiction and uses mixed media resulting in hybrid art works. After his short film and installation ‘Pyroclasts are Eloquent Storytellers'(2020) Riar Rizaldi returns to the subject of Mount Merapi for “Monisme”, his first feature film.
Riar Rizaldi and his team have been researching Mount Merapi since 2018 and while doing so met different people who talked very openly about their connection with the mountain and how the volcano was an important part of their life. He decided to work more closely with three of them: Pak Yulianto a volcanologist, Pak Suparno a sand miner, and Pak Juritno a mystic shaman. This collaboration not only resulted in a co-written script, but Rizaldi also involved them in decision making about the type of film he was going to make.
Monisme screened at Singapore International Film Festival
Set-in modern-day Indonesia, ‘Monisme' tells us stories of people dwelling on Mount Merapi, the country's most active volcano. Throughout the film, we follow different groups that somehow have their lives organized around Merapi: the scientists that observe it, the sand miners that excavate its resources, the shamans that worship it and the militia that terrorize everyone and as such, make a living off the mountain as well. They could be seen metaphor for the nation-state that controls the mountain.
‘Monisme' is not a straightforward (documentary) film. Not only does the script bring together multiple stories, Riar Rizaldi combines different cinematic genres to construct his movie. This gives each storyline its own aesthetics and follows its own cinematic rules. As in his other works, Rizaldi uses mixed media such as photographs, drawings, radio news bulletins and surveillance footage. And on top of that interviews, are inserted throughout the film, albeit reenacted or not
Check also this interview
The first part deals with the story of the militia. These scenes have all the hallmarks of a horror film: the tone of voice is dark, the setting gloomy and the music sinister. Also, it is the only narrative that is split up and whose characters show up in the others as well. The storyline focusing on the scientists seems the most straightforward drama film. However, it quickly turns into a very philosophical discussion about mankind's hubris and at times it is almost filmed as a documentary. The third section shows a female documentary-maker interviewing exploited and disabused miners. It would have been logical to have this filmed in documentary style, but it is the most narrative part of ‘Monisme'. Finally, the shaman's storyline is the most experimental of the four, in tune with the (super)natural phenomena the shaman talks about.
This all could have resulted into a very incoherent film, however there are aspects that clearly bind all the parts together and give the viewer something to hold on to. First and foremost, there is Mount Merapi. Not only is it omnipresent, it also is the catalyst for the movie and its main subject. It connects all the characters and what drives them. Another binding element is the story of the body found in the forest. It links the different sections to the same time and place. The main, professional actors play multiple roles: Rendra Bagus Pamungkas plays the shaman, the miner and the vulcanologist and Kidung Paramadita plays the filmmaker and the research assistant. This has a dual effect: on the one hand it renders a feeling of familiarity to the different scenes, but on the other hand it also confuses the viewer.
All in all ‘Monisme' fits very well into Riar Rizaldi's body of work: a hybrid film, a mix of dramatisation, re- enactment, genre-filmmaking, and staged interviews. At heart it is an essay film talking about mankind's place on earth and the different way we use and abuse nature for our own benefits.
