{"id":56614,"date":"2025-11-08T23:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T16:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/?p=56614"},"modified":"2025-11-08T23:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T16:25:09","slug":"last-may-in-theaters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/film-review-en\/last-may-in-theaters\/","title":{"rendered":"Between the Dark of the Cinema and the Light of Flames\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s the thing that comes to your mind when you hear Titanic<\/em> (James Cameron, 1997) screened in Indonesia for the first time? Long lines in front of the cinema? Trembling sobs at the end of the movie? Or something else that cracks off-screen, in the real world?<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t born then. However, Last May in Theaters (<\/em>Arief Budiman, 2025) made me realize that the year that film was released is not just a date on the calendar. He also tells about an unsettled world, about the anger that burns outside the building, while, inside, people are immersed in a sinking love story.<\/p>\n

\"Last<\/p>\n

In 1998, as a colossal ship vanished beneath the waves on screen, smoke began to rise over Jakarta. It had not burned yet, but the air hung heavy, thick with something aching to spark into fire. Outside the cinema, people\u2019s trust in the country began to crumble. However, Titanic is just one fragment of many memories that the film presents. Last May in Theaters<\/em> traces the various pieces of film that have been screened in critical times: entertainment footage that unknowingly holds echoes of ongoing history off-screen. That’s where Last May in Theaters has its roots: in May, in a distance: Gwangju 1980 and Jakarta 1998. Two cities bearing witness to people defying fear; two open wounds from which democracy was born; two struggles to endure and to grasp what it means to be human when history itself begins to fracture.<\/p>\n

Through this documentary, director Arief Budiman does not really capture the riot. Instead, he captures what is inside: into a dark room created to escape, the cinema. It is the place where we come to be lost to time, take a break, and share silence with strangers. In this documentary, cinema transforms into something else: an uneasy threshold between safety and peril, a place where fiction and reality bleed through each other\u2019s edges. Two ticket officers, one in Gwangju and one in Jakarta, try to recall that time. No shouting, only a soft and honest story, a voice that almost disappeared but refused to completely vanish.<\/p>\n

\"Last<\/p>\n

Last May in Theaters<\/em>, even, presents that an absence has a voice. Silence, rupture, empty spaces, and voices colliding. They tell stories about what once was, and about those who keep the light on when the world is burning. About the workers, ticket sellers, and projector guards: those who never appear on the screen, but without them, there is nothing for us to watch.<\/p>\n

When the movie credits roll, nothing really ends. Maybe that\u2019s how we remember, right? Refuse to close the story. Because history never ends. It kept turning, frame by frame; in the dark, waiting for someone to turn the lights back on. (Tirza Kanya) (Ed. Vanis\/Trans. Shafira Rahmasari)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Film Details <\/strong>
\nLast May in Theaters
\nArief Budiman | 21 min | 2025 | Indonesia, South Korea
\nOfficial Selection for Spektrum<\/strong>
\nFestival Film Dokumenter 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s the thing that comes to your mind when you hear Titanic (James Cameron, 1997) screened in Indonesia for the first time? Long lines in front of the cinema? Trembling sobs at the end of the movie? Or something else that cracks off-screen, in the real world? I wasn\u2019t born then. However, Last May in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":788,"featured_media":44150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"edition":[781],"class_list":["post-56614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film-review-en","edition-ffd-2025-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/788"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56614"},{"taxonomy":"edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/edition?post=56614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}