Following the excellent “Ali Topan”, Sidharta Tata moved towards a completely different direction with “Respati” a supernatural horror featuring teenagers, in a style that could be described as an Indonesian version of Harry Potter.
Respati is screening at Neuchatel International Fantastic Film Festival
After his parents’ tragic death, teenager Respati is living with his grandfather, trying to recover from the shock and gain some sort of balance in his life. That he is suffering from horrible nightmares every night, however, does not exactly help, and the young man’s nerves are completely shot. However, when a new girl comes to school, Wulan, who seems to have the same issues, and his unspeakable visions soon start spilling over to the real world through a killing spirit, Respati comes to realize that there is something rather sinister hiding behind his nightmares. With the help of his best friend, Tirta, and Wulan, they start investigating and soon meet Ms Mystica, who explains the mystery and also sets them on a history of the long past, involving Sukma, who met a tragic ending in Bajingjowo and is sworn on revenge.
Essentially wasting no time, Sidharta Tata presents a supernatural horror film that includes a number of cliches, but also has enough elements to make it stand out. Regarding the latter, the combination of coming-of-age through these extreme situations is rather well-presented, while additionally highlighting comments about regret, trauma and the value of friendship.
The more general comment results in another set of remarks, this time revolving around the concept of ‘witch hunt’, racism and prejudice, revenge and the blights of blind dedication. The incorporation of folk elements and an overall atmosphere that can be described as ritualistic also works quite well for the film. The same applies to the presentation of the Dream Realm, and the human and supernatural monsters that appear throughout the movie, all of which are rather well implemented both for the story and to add to the sentiment of horror that permeates the film.
Particularly the presence of Sukma is one of the most imposing in the whole film, in both her capacities, with Ratu Felish giving a great performance in the role. Overall, the build up of the story is excellent, with Tata having the various twists and revelations placed ideally within the narrative, thus adding to the overall atmosphere. This mixture of atmosphere, social comments, the supernatural and the jump scares works excellently for “Respati”, in probably the biggest trait here.
This mixture also benefits the most by the production values. The job done in the SFX is excellent, resulting in a style reminiscent of Guillermo Del Toro, with the same applying to quality of the sound. Bagoes Tresna Aji’s cinematography captures the variety of settings with gusto, while Ahmad Fesdi Anggoro’s editing results in a relatively fast pace, that fittingly slows down or speeds up according to the essence of each scene.
Devano Danendra as Respati, Mikha Hernan as Tirta and Keisya Levronka as Wulan give functionable performances, although their characters, particularly of the latter, could have been written a bit better. In the grand scheme of the narrative however, all of them work well and their chemistry is good.
Although it does not exactly reinvigorate the genre, “Respati” is a well shot, highly entertaining supernatural horror that will appeal to most fans of the category.
