Another Trip to the Moon

A small, rich film based on four very diverse sources. Alongside old oral Indonesian myths, the maker has clearly listened to Jim Morrison and watched science fiction. Using simple but very creative means, a fantasy world is created that is both serious and comic.
In the oldest legends and traditions – also in those of Islam in Indonesia – the role of the woman is usually a subordinate one, but Ismail Basbeth reverses traditional roles in his film. Here, the mythical hero is a young woman, Asa, daughter of a seer, who has withdrawn with a girlfriend into a wood, where they live from hunting and fishing. The story seems to take place in a remote prehistoric past, but when Asa leaves the woods following the death of her girlfriend – and because her mother is calling her – she is suddenly at a modern petrol station. With Basbeth, this is possible. The story is of all times.
After her return and the death of her mother, Asa leads a very different life. From the primitive woods, she arrives in a beautiful classical Javanese house. The dog who came to collect her turns out to be a man and they have a child together, like in the ancient fairy tale of Dayang Sumbi.
At times the story seems bizarre, but Basbeth directs with a great and in fact very dry elegance that makes the vicissitudes of a plastic rabbit something quite ordinary, in the same way the entire film makes the exceptional everyday. Which, in turn, makes the everyday exceptional.

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