Bahwa Cinta Itu Ada

Bahwa Cinta Itu Ada

Weak Debut from the Puppet Master

Release Year: 2010
Studio: Ganesha Creativity Industry
Director : Sujiwo Tejo
Producer : Budiyati Abiyoga / Tyas A. Moein
Screenplay: Arya Gunawan
Cast : Ario Wahab / Dennis Adhiswara / Rizky Hanggono / Eva Asmarani
Music : -
Cinematography : -
Editing : -
Budget : -
Duration : 90 min

Bahwa Cinta Itu Ada was premiered in March 4^th 2010, produced by an artist known more as a singer and puppet master, Sujiwo Tejo. It was his first time directing a 90-minute movie for theatre. This movie was full of newcomers like Ario Wahab, Risky Hanggono, Eva Asmarani, Alex Abbad, and Denis Adishwara and the seniors such as Slamet Rahardjo and Ninik L. Karim.

Once upon a time, there were five young men and one teenage girl coming from different regions to study in Technology Institute of Bandung (ITB). They are Fuad (Ario Wahab), Gugun (Denis Adishwara) Poltak (Restu Sinaga), Benny (Risky Hanggono), and Ria (Eva Asmarani). Coincidentally, they met since the registration time and made themselves a band of friends. Their relationship was very close and they often did their assignments together. However, their closeness resulted in love triangle between Benny, Ria, and Slamet. Benny always flirted Ria but failed most of the time while Slamet chose to hide his feeling for Ria.

The story is presented into two period of time in 1980’s and 2009, but the flashback is served only in the beginning and the end of the story. 80’s is the college period and 2009 is the time when they already worked. The glitch in this movie is its unfocused plot that’s not too convenient to follow. During the movie, there are too many truncated scenes. The emphasis on the six main characters would have been better if multi-plot technique was employed.

This movie tries to bring about the conflict of each character but it’s too superficial. There are six of them, but Slamet, Ria, and Benny look too dominant. The audience does not fall for every character because its truncated scenes are only explanatory. It can be seen in Fuad’s story whose house in the village is on fire, Benny’s sick father, and Gugun’s affair with an Australian woman. Some narrations seem to be imposed like Slamet who suddenly left his girlfriend to marry a woman of his mother’s choice, also Ria who unexpectedly gave a hope for a man whom she just met in her office. There is no clear and strong motive to clarify those stories.

In the other side, setting and costumes are a bit awkward. There is no effort to exploit those aspects to differentiate the scene for 1980’s and 2009. There is even no significance of the title in the movie. However, this film puts an element of originality with traditional Javanese melody filling some scenes. It is the director’s first movie and he still needs to learn to pack reality of life into a film.

Agustinus Dwi Nugroho

Alumnus of film academy in Yogyakarta, practitioner, writer at Montase, and focusing on Indonesian movies.