Black umbrella a.k.a Payung Hitam documentary is a documentary about human right which is held every Thursday in front of the president house. The documentary reveals what lies within the women action of doing the speech in front of the building every Thursday. Aside from the reason of the story, there is several things that I have seen and want to wrap up on this weekly review. Those are the camera movement and effects and also the timelines that used two different stories into one film.
The story used two different story sides that are from two different people. The first person holds the background that her land was destroyed by the company that started the building there. Lands and fields are swiped in order to make a low land area. While the other women are asking for rights because her son was killed during reformation era and up until now, there is no word from government about the cases. Those two women are asking for rights directly to government to get what they deserve.
The way that Chairun Nisa (the director) blends the story is interesting. It started with the field scenery and then a song directly from the woman makes us like sitting in the field. After that, a sudden change directly to the action of the other woman giving speech with her people in front of president house. The combination of both stories is odd. However, because the real problem is about demanding human right to be justify, each of them are linked somehow. The way that Nisa linked the story is quite unique. She linked them with human right problem and then combined the story with different setting. As the story goes, the different of both of the women are seems gone. They are blending each other and become one problem, the human right.
Aside from the story and blending, the technical issue that I found is quite less than usual. I reckon that a few only that caught my eyes off. First, the different tense when she shot the mountain and environmental area, it has deeper feels and more esthetic. In the other side, the woman who is asking for right for the reformation incident has rougher and tougher situation. The different tense bring different feels each other. The camera shot is also different between each other. One giving more landscape and panorama movement that showing the whole place that being destruct by a company. And one with single and some choppy shot, attempting to get best shots in mass situation. The two different things made this documentary a whole different film for the documenter beginner like me.
As the different situation, it gives different feel when watching this documentary. I don’t really understand what it feels when watching this documentary. I have no real idea what is going on. But as reaching the end, I can see the path of both the story leading to closing and resolutions each other. They will keep the work and keep demanding the justify of human right. I cannot explain why I cannot analyze this documentary more. I do not know somehow why everything is quite different.
Putu Deny Pratama Saputra 