Ada Apa Dengan Cinta? 2: Breathing is Quite Optional

By: Andre Suprapto

A great love story must involve depth, and when we are talking about depth; breathing is out of the question, or at least optional.

Indeed, the second installment of the movie franchise that symbolized the artistic rebirth of my generation’s post reformation era has established Riri Riza as a director who is in the business of taking his audiences’ breath away.

It’s truly a sequel that does not disappoint. A triumph, a grand visual and audio feast that gracefully make their way to the heart.

The ability of movies to paint human story through pictures, acting, and music surpass other medium of art due to its holistic approach.

I highly regard and appreciate those who have the guts to devote their lives in the movie industry. I never have the courage to write bad reviews on bad movies. I only write reviews on movies with superlative quality because I feel indebted to the makers of the art not to add another words of praise.

One word regarding Ada Apa Dengan Cinta? 2 (AADC 2) that you can always find from mass media, or social media comments on Facebook, Instagram, Path or Youtube is “baper – kebawa perasaan” (carried away with feelings).

Fantine: “I will sell what is left.” How Anne Hathaway’s portrayal of the tragic Fantine deserves at least two Oscars

By: Andre Suprapto

“Pity is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the human sufferer.”

                                 -James Joyce, A Portrait of The Artist as A Young Man

            Vito Corleone, of Mario Puzzo’s haunting mafia novel, The Godfather; said that each man is allowed one foolishness in his life time. To my shame, I almost conducted such ultimate foolishness of a life time by seeing the much-anticipated musical, Les Miserables, in pirated DVD.

            Luckily, good reasoning got the better of me as I was watching (in a DVD with terrible English subtitle thank you very much) Hugh Jackman’s “A-Game” when he delivered the heart-wrenching “Valjean’s Soliloquy” almost in one take and with pathetic red shot eyes. I decided to stop and understood that I owe it to Victor Hugo and to the French in general to see this movie on the big screen.

It proved to be one of the best decisions I made in my life so far. Since the experience of seeing the movie with the full embracing aura of the theatre was magical, surreal, and “not-of-this-world”.

            As the title of this essay suggests, out of the great performances pulled off by the actors and actresses in the movie, except for Russell Crowe whom I think played Javert in a rather soul-less piece of acting; I was completely mesmerized from head to toe (and toe to head again) by Anne Hathaway’s portrayal of the pitiful and tragic Fantine. Seeing her wearing Fantine’s pathos to her very skin as if it were her own life story, made it impossible to believe that she once was Mia Thermopolis, the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Genovia in The Princess Diaries (not that I have seen the movie).

            Surely, in overall, Tom Hooper’s adaptation of the musical that has been seen by more than 60 million people world-wide which in turn is based on Hugo’s timeless novel on the universal theme of suffering and the possibility of hope or redemption; is worthy of a standing ovation as long as your emotion allows you to give. However, amidst the almost flawless performance of the actors, the precisely harmonious execution of the choruses, and the perfect rhythm of the scenes; it is Anne’s Fantine that stood gigantically and was able to tie up the movie altogether, and became the soul and the spirit of the movie.

"In Love We Trust?"

by: Andre Suprapto

“Love…is the great creative process”

-D.H. Lawrence-

Love is in the air… Love Actually… All you need is Love… PS: I Love you… We seem to just can’t get enough of love, can we? And it’s actually an undeniable fact that the defining theme of our generation’s culture and arts has been LOVE. Just like medieval-ism was the golden age of religious faith; the twentieth and the dawn of this century have been the age of the reinvention of that mythical mystery of the way of a man and a woman that always thrill our senses, and charms our emotions. However, to have love in a microscopic scrutiny, have we really fathom this bizarre concept or is it just a myth? 

Love. What a refreshing and at the same time revolting idea. From the day that we were born we have been completely surrounded by this four letter word, that we can actually see and hear it at anytime and anywhere, especially through the arts. 

For better or for worse, nothing stirs the emotions the more as art; and humans, since time beginning, have always exhausted their best artistic endeavour in composing poetry, singing songs, painting, and depicting dramatic scenes about love. 

Thanks to our age of instant media; the messages of love through the arts have become part of our daily bread. As we tuned in the radio in the morning, we will hear dozens of love songs played perpetually throughout the day. Switching on the TV what would we see; love movies with romantic final-scene kisses have become the defining epitome of the movie industry. Accordingly, we have unconsciously drifted under the influence of love in the hope that somewhere, sometime, and somehow, we will also experience that joyous thrill of love that the arts have depicted so beautifully. Indeed, as Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University, said: “They (people) live for love, die for love, and kill for love. It can be stronger than the drive to stay alive.”

“How Death Speaks Louder than Arguments: A Christian’s thoughts on the Death of Christopher Hitchens”

by: Andre Suprapto

“To die, to sleep; To sleep! Perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come…

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that dread of something after death,-

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveler returns-puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.”

-William Shakespeare, Hamlet; Act III Scene I

“…the conduct of God is hidden under nature, as in all His other works.”

-Blaise Pascal, Pensees, Section XIV 

Death is the ultimate question that we mortals prefer to avoid for the longest time. Given the fact that this existence is all that we know of, there is nothing enchanting about meeting the ‘sickle-carrying faceless man in a black cape’ any time soon.

As we are already aware, death and the question of the existence of God are two sides of a coin. If that single syllable that gives chill to most of us -namely ‘God’- does exist, it would be strange (not to mention cowardly) for Him not to show Himself and open the Q & A session at the time we conclude our odyssey in the world. However, if he does not exist, we don’t even have the slightest ability to form the words ‘Ah, we are mere evolving mammals after all’. Because at that moment, we are not; we have returned to that dark, thoughtless nothingness. That nothingness that we now can recall as the moment before we were born, of which no thoughts were framed in our minds. But even this acknowledgement of pre-birth nothingness itself we owe to existence.  

The intriguing thing in the mystery of death and the existence of God is this, because the dead is stubbornly silent whenever we ask them is there another show in the back of the curtain or have they now met the reclusive Old Man (God)? we must place our bets on His existence now, while we know we still exist. Before the dice is thrown to our death, we must place our wager with the information that we manage to gather in life, quickly. The stake is breathtaking, literally. 

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