Merapi is not merely any natural landscape attraction, it is a space and time.
Monisme (Riar Rizaldi, 2023) takes us on an in-depth journey into the magic of Mount Merapi by presenting a story about human relationships with nature. Its presence integrated with whomever and whatever is around it. Monisme (2023) is no different. Merapi, which is still blanketed by a million mysteries, gives power to those who want to understand and venture deeper into it. Merapi’s mysteriousness cannot be reduced to just an ordinary tourist attraction as might be seen by foreign tourists who occasionally pass by along the way to its top.
Monisme (2023) reminds us that everything around us is a manifestation of God’s mysterious wonders. Merapi is there to teach us valuable lessons about the spiritual relationship between humans and nature. When we try to look at the stories of hikers who have climbed Merapi, before entering its territory or during the journey there, they are taught to behave politely, speak respectfully, and make peace with all the inhabitants of Merapi, including the wild animals, plants, and other creatures that inhabit the mountain.
Mbah Marijan, the warden of Mount Merapi, forbade anyone to speak rudely about Merapi during his lifetime. He told off people who said “Merapi njeblug” (Merapi is angry). It is better for us to subtly say “Merapi lagi duwe gawe” (Merapi is having an important event). Through Monisme (2023), we are invited to perceive Merapi not as an enemy or threat, but as a friend that has given a lot of meaning to people’s lives. When Merapi is having its important event, it means that Merapi is in the process of finding a new natural balance based on its own natural laws. Humans are the ones who must adapt to nature, not the other way around.
Monisme (2023) presents a story about two volcanologists who are assessing the activity of Mount Merapi through a seismometer that is linked to a mystic who, under the tyranny of the state, insists on living together with Mount Merapi. In an instant, we are presented with another tyranny, extractivism, that grows on Merapi’s body. Mining practices that are either legal or illegal are addressed through the presence of a filmmaker who wants to raise this exploitative issue. The tangle of mining is spun with his conversation with one of the miners who is unsteady with the situation before him. Sand mining as the source of his family’s economy, the environmental impact that haunts him and the presence of mass organizations that rule and control his life as a miner.
The film’s dynamics seem to have a different aesthetic offer from the other dynamics that follow. However, strangely-or perhaps, magically-everything onscreen can be fully understood. Riar Rizaldi boldly mixes opposites into something that can be savored and swallowed. The use of professional and non-professional actors, the process of involving indigenous people in the writing of the story, myth and science, material and incorporeal, future and past, and fiction and nonfiction, become an immersive cinematic cocktail.
Monisme (2023) is in competition at International Feature-Length Competition Festival Film Dokumenter 2023. (bonivasios dwi & Tirza Kanya) (Vanis)
Film Details
Monisme
Riar Rizaldi | 115 Minutes | 2023 | Indonesia, Qatar | Color | 17+
Screening Schedule
12.06 | Gedung ex Bioskop Permata | 19.00 WIB
