{"id":56642,"date":"2025-11-08T23:24:57","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T16:24:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/?p=56642"},"modified":"2025-11-08T23:24:57","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T16:24:57","slug":"cleaning-cleansing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/film-review-en\/cleaning-cleansing\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleanliness is Part of Faith, They Say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cCleanliness is part of faith.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That dogmatic proverb has long been internalised into the bodies and minds of people, becoming an unwritten rule that governs our lives in one way or another. In Thomas F\u00fcrhapter\u2019s documentary, obsession manifests into a system that is almost religious; a faith in neatness, order, tidiness, and a(n idealised) spotless world. <em>Cleaning &amp; Cleansing<\/em> (2024) observes how humanity bows down before the hygienic apparatus that they themselves have created, believing that even a speck of dirt is sinful, that what is unclean must be erased for the sake of a peaceful social order. Cleanliness, then, isn\u2019t merely a daily practice, but a dogma that purifies while simultaneously excludes. Excluding those deemed dirty.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-54907 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Cleaning-Cleansing-Still-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1014\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Cleaning-Cleansing-Still-3.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Cleaning-Cleansing-Still-3-500x264.jpg 500w, https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Cleaning-Cleansing-Still-3-1280x676.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Cleaning-Cleansing-Still-3-768x406.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Cinematically, the film, too, appears spotless; static camera, precise composition, clinical lighting. Minimal verbal narration; rich in visual gestures that are tidy yet unsettling. Unsettling for there is a subtle awareness about the inner workings of a dominating hygienic system. Hands wiping tables, liquids being sprayed, machines humming\u2014resembling modern litanies. F\u00fcrhapter turns cleanliness into cinematic form incarnate, as if the film itself wishes to be washed free from meaning. Behind the \u201cclean\u201d visuals, we are made aware of something whirring in harshness: humans cleaning other humans; for traces of stains left by people must be erased by other, unnamed human hands. This sacred labour then carries an almost religious exhaustion\u2014a penance endlessly repeating.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-54903 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Cleaning-Cleansing-Still-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1998\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Cleaning-Cleansing-Still-1.jpg 1998w, https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Cleaning-Cleansing-Still-1-500x270.jpg 500w, https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Cleaning-Cleansing-Still-1-1280x692.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Cleaning-Cleansing-Still-1-768x415.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1998px) 100vw, 1998px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In the end, <em>Cleaning &amp; Cleansing<\/em> (2024) brings us back to the simplest yet most unsettling question: why must everything be cleaned? Beneath the rhetoric of hygiene, the film reveals a fa\u00e7ade of a civilization that washes its hands not only of dirt, but of guilt, historical sins, and violence that are neatly swept away under the expressions of \u201ccleanliness\u201d and \u201cpureness.\u201d It shows that every act of cleaning always leaves behind residues of memory, bodies, and wounds. And it is at that very point where the film stands; between utopia and dystopia, between the desire to be sterile and the fear of becoming too pure. But again, as the saying goes: isn\u2019t cleanliness part of faith? (Hesty N. Tyas) (Ed. Vanis\/Trans. Timmie)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Film Details <\/strong><br \/>\nCleaning &amp; Cleansing<br \/>\nThomas F\u00fcrhapter | 91 min | 2024 | Austria<br \/>\nOfficial Selection for <strong>Utopia\/Dystopia<\/strong><br \/>\nFestival Film Dokumenter 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cCleanliness is part of faith.\u201d That dogmatic proverb has long been internalised into the bodies and minds of people, becoming an unwritten rule that governs our lives in one way or another. In Thomas F\u00fcrhapter\u2019s documentary, obsession manifests into a system that is almost religious; a faith in neatness, order, tidiness, and a(n idealised) spotless [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":788,"featured_media":54906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"edition":[781],"class_list":["post-56642","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\/56642","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=56642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56642"},{"taxonomy":"edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/edition?post=56642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}