Southeast Asian cinema is one of the most underappreciated regions when it comes to understanding global cinema, but maybe this is changing as more films begin to make an impact on the international film festival circuits. This was evident in some of the newer films that have been released from Southeast Asia, including Yuni from Indonesia. Director Kamila Andini, along with co-writer Prima Rusdi and her husband (who also serves as a producer), laid down the groundwork for Yuni’s story only in 2017 as her third feature directorial effort. The movie premiered at Toronto International Film Festival four years later, in 2021.
The film won the Platform Prize at TIFF. It was further screened at festivals such as Busan, Philadelphia among others before ultimately becoming Indonesia’s submission for Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards, though did not go beyond final consideration. But recent gains by Andini in cinema show how promising it can be for Indonesian and Southeast Asian movies. Arawinda Kiranda played the lead role of Yuni, who offered a well-thought-out performance for struggling teenager Yuni. This is her first time playing a leading character in a movie. Although it was released in December 2021 in Indonesia, it is still being shown worldwide. Particularly timely considering women’s rights are currently so contentious especially concerning reproduction and birth control across Western countries.
Initially when viewers see Yuni through the lens of their cameras it might look like she has everything working out for her since she is just gorgeous! She goes to high school where she is popular both socially and academically with many boys lining up to date her if she ever wanted to have a boyfriend or something like that… Nonetheless, these expectations are disrupted slightly when one gets past that opening scene because Yuni begins removing her clothes within her room while being filmed from an angle allowing viewers some distance away or space between them so they cannot see too much detail about her body. This one small moment when the faucet is changed symbolizes her vulnerability and intimacy that indicates she is not just a surface level human being, but someone who has grown up like everyone else. It also reveals she is no longer a child as in-between phase between childhood and adulthood.
As Yuni and her girl friends entered school on one morning, they were confronted by the club president of Islamic group and an old teacher came in front of all the students for an assembly. The school has decided to enforce virginity tests for ladies as part of their effort in fighting what they consider as sin which is sex before marriage, said the headmistress. Singing songs and playing musical instruments are activities which have been banned by these same Islamic organizations even though each of them is grappling with budding crushes that morph into something more than that during formative years such as theirs’. In this way, we are presented with two different perspectives: a ban on singing and playing music by any musical group within Islam or those who are still struggling to come out from their cocoon –the story of Yuni focuses on one character’s growth experience in modern Indonesia.
Her friends and her, however, talk about boys and look at their Instagram accounts after school. They giggle together about their crushes and do their make-up between classes. One female instructor even asked Yuni what her plans for college were, if any, after scolding him for taking a hair tie from his classmate. It has become normal, a familiar routine of being a girl. Nevertheless, everything changes drastically when she comes back home in the evening one time and learns that she is getting married. And this leads to many things which appear to be her own eventual rejection of the proposal leading to a chain of events marking the beginning of another chapter in her life.
This departure is further fast-tracked by enforced belief systems together with society that ultimately takes over Yuni. She goes to the club with the woman who owns a divorced hair salon once but gagsman gets angry at Yuni because she has brought along with her the boy whom she really loves. However, upon returning home and meeting with traditional grandmother, Yuni confronts ideologies held by society that she was born into before eventually giving in due to pressure exerted on her part. These tension-filled moments experienced by Yuni as she becomes angrier and more frustrated with these circumstances are relieved by spending time with best friends talking about boyfriends and sex as well as other girls our age having babies at different points in senior high.
Yunita’s age isn’t mentioned until towards the end of the movie: she’s sixteen almost seventeen years old. Some of the most beautiful scenes in this film are those where Yuni can just be herself without worrying about getting married off soon enough. Her mind wanders off thinking about scholarships or attending school abroad whereby one friend falls victim of such expectations against all odds.“When I say no,” people gossip behind her back as walks past them but steadfastly holds out until everything starts spinning out of control.Yet these scenes are soft, and they stir feelings that go beyond borders and cultural differences. It is the secret of movies like Yuni.
The performance of its leading actress, Arawinda Kirana, makes Yuni so unique. This is her first film but she does not appear to be unfamiliar with it throughout the course of the movie. Even when the camera moves from her character’s perspective to another one such as a classmate who has a crush on her or other characters, it still remains focused on Yuni. However strong she tries to appear outwardly, Yuni is still a teenage girl attempting to maneuver through a male-dominated society as a young woman. To try and keep things together she takes purple items from everyone around her, whether hair ties or notebooks or pencils which she continues doing even if he has been scolded severally for this conduct. But this small action becomes constant while other men propose to her thereby providing stability in order for her not to lose control mentally all at once.
Her parents were away from her life as they worked in Jakarta, and she stays with her grandmother. Yuni shows she is intelligent behind the front she puts on by groaning about literature assignments, but at the same time as she lays in the grass with her friends gossiping about a fellow student who is now pregnant, she is still a girl on that cusp of adulthood. She browses online what was never taught in school and in the background there’s a TV talking about how virginity tests in schools have been deemed illegal. By overhearing conversations between adults, Yuni realizes that girls like her have no way to really get an education like hers for lack of opportunities.
She has occasional visions of this shaded world through an old lady whom they hang out with going to clubs to discuss how he beat his wife until the marriage ended up concluding into divorce only for everybody to say that it was all lies when at last he admitted it. The other woman becomes a foil character for Yuni as well; while Yuni resents the universe and believes she has been entrapped here; this woman represents such feelings perfectly since she has made it. However, some sacrifices had to be made along the way. Her family blames her for their failed marriage and they don’t talk anymore because they have burnt bridges. Still living with freedom despite having come through that, however moving ahead without getting stuck on what fate gave her.
There are those who might think, that not having many women directors might only be an issue within modern day Hollywood but it is actually global. Cinematography history lacks even one instance where young women’s lives or girls or femininity itself were genuinely represented hence very little authenticity exists when depicting films set around them What causes this problem? It’s because writers’ circle lacks women directors and storytellers therein. A remarkable part of Yuni as a film is its refusal to blame anybody else while bringing another form of compassion, however if more women filmmakers had the same access to resources and funding, perhaps there would be more of it.
Watch free movies on Fmovies