This video is about the Indonesian film ‘Photocopier,’ which takes a unique approach. Sur, a young girl, embarks on a trip to remember the events of a night out she does not quite recall. Sur comes from a poor working-class family and is only able to attend her prestigious university thanks to an academic scholarship.
She joins the Mata Hari theater company just as they win a national competition for a daringly imaginative show created by Rama, a wealthy child. Sur, a college freshman who studies computers, is the central character of the story. She swiftly joins Mata Hari, a student drama club, and develops a small family with her classmates.
The Photocopier is a fresh and lively debut that, while it may appeal to domestic viewers the most, should spark the interest of participants and establish Bhanuteja as a director to keep an eye on. It has a not-so-happy ending, and justice does not come quickly.
The story is gripping, depicting the harsh realities of society—gender generalizations in which men are allowed to wander and smoke in public while a girl is denied educational opportunities for the rest of her life if she tries—as well as the sensitive issue of sexual assault and the terrible culture of attempting to shame the victim.
The theatre company rejoiced in their victory and the support they received for their broadcast in Kyoto. Sur, on the other hand, has no idea how the night of revelry will turn her life upside down. A slow-burning thriller that takes you on a journey with a young woman who is desperate to defend her version of events, only to leave us wondering, “Is it so, is it?” Is it true, or is it false? All of these questions and assumptions culminate in a breathtaking conclusion.
The party was rather eventful. Sur wakes up the next day foggy from something other than drinking, with a blank space in her memory of the event and the fear that one of her companions did something wrong. Sur uses her technological abilities to uncover the truth about the night. This thrilling techno-thriller deconstructs the inequities in Indonesia’s traditional society, both economically and sexually, to offer a remarkable reflection on the steep cost of discovering the truth.
Shy Sur is on the outskirts of the Mata Hari theatrical group. Still, her contribution to the development of the organization’s slick new website — is appreciated, garnering the attention of Mata Hari’s playwright’s affluent father, the softly spoken Rama. She is somewhat sheltered. Maybe even a touch naïve. Her mother ran a diner, and she was a scholarship student. The affluent classes’ practices did take them off as a surprise.
On the other hand, her friends urge her to come out of her shell a little more. So, they ask her to a party to celebrate their group’s success, something that would anger and upset her father. Sur attends the party hosted by his parents at Rama’s mild prodding. Sur is not allowed to drink since she is a Muslim. Her father only permits her to attend the party because she refrains from consuming alcohol.
She was meant to leave by 8 p.m., but she refused to accompany Amin home. Anggun, the play’s director, offered her alcohol as the celebration began, and Suryani accepted. Sur, however, succumbs to peer pressure and drinks a glass of wine followed by a shot because of some drinking game to satisfy her sophisticated new pals. A round of shots followed these instances, and while Suryani was having a good time, Amin was ready to go. She persuaded him to remain for a bit, but the rest of the night was a struggle for her.
Sur awoke to find herself in bed and realized she had missed the yearly scholarship review interview. Her father tried to stop her and ask her about the previous night, but she raced away. The remainder of the evening goes by in a haze. Her scholarship evaluation comprises a group of conservative males who are in charge of handling. However, the dizzy pictures she posted on social media throughout the night are seen by the panel examining her scholarship. The men in the interview room began questioning her moral background as soon as she walked into the room.
They inquired if she had consumed wine and had a good time at the party. Suryani was taken aback by the inquiries. She was then shown images of herself from the previous night posted on her social media accounts. She denied taking the photos and claimed that she had met all of the conditions for the scholarship. The guys turned her down, claiming that a student’s activities and moral upbringing were equally vital. Suryani was upset by this. Suryani was taken aback. She couldn’t figure out how her photos ended up on her social media account.
The first source of concern was how the photographs were shot. Sur was aware that she favored snapping selfies with the front camera. Still, the images in question were taken using the back camera. Sur’s doubts were reinforced when she visited a public restroom and discovered the label of the blacktop she was wearing beneath was on the front.
That looked strange given that she would never make such a mistake; she snapped shots of the top. Suryani is shown in these images passed out, likely from intoxication, a taboo issue in Indonesian society. Her father throws his daughter out onto the street with a zero-tolerance policy for family shame. As a result, she loses her scholarship, gets expelled from school, and is evicted from her own house by her family. Suryani’s battle to establish her innocence and identify the perpetrator is continued in Photocopier.
As Suryani gathers evidence from the events of that night, doubts start sprawling in her head. Was it a joke to take and share those images of her? Did she become roofied? Anggun, the play’s director, phoned a cab for her, but who drove her to her home? She now resolves, with Amin’s aid, who owns a copy store frequented by university students, to turn the tables by hacking into computers, phones, and tablets to piece together what happened to her that night.
She scours social media for the party videos and photographs, then takes the forensic collecting a step further by enlisting Amin’s assistance in hacking partygoers’ phones. She is a follower. Some are dead leads, some are illuminating, and still, others incriminate other pupils. They set out to face the Mata Hari and hack into Amin’s clients’ phones to try to put together the missing parts of her blacked-out night.
During their Veronica Mars-style investigation, they come across the instance of Sur’s classmate, Farah, who was booted out of the theatrical group some a while ago — pointing to a concealed pattern of cover-up and abuse. Even though Amin and Anggun are sympathetic and supportive, Sur is constantly greeted with hesitation, doubts, and opposition.
Suryani got enough photographs from hacking into multiple phones to comprehend the circumstances of the night. She attempted to decipher the visuals. She knew that someone had drugged her drink, but the perpetrator’s identity remained unclear. Tariq, the production manager, had given her the shot, she discovered.
Suryani was suspicious about Tariq’s absence from the party before he emerged from the kitchen with the pictures. She also had photos from the theatrical troupe’s prior initiation ceremony to help strengthen her case. She assumed that the team had done inappropriate things to the troupe’s new members. Her drunkenness resulted from some initiation. She informed the dean about the photos, but it backfired.
Sur and Amin’s unethical and illegal digging for information is casually justified. At the same time, the film’s theatrically hammy finale with a kidnapped cab driver and a super criminal raid feels out of place and far-fetched in an otherwise genuine tale. Not everything works out. The total duration might be cut down, and a confrontation between Sur and the person she accuses of wrongdoing is oddly theatrical.
After Sur’s scholarship is withdrawn, her father, on the other hand, wants her to just repent and ask for her scholarship to be restored, while the police are unhelpful. Eventually, a much larger case is exposed, and Farah, who left the theatrical company a while ago, plays an important role. However, superb emotionally exposed performances by Sur and Farah, in a significant supporting part that increases in significance as the tale progresses, are an asset, as is the final explosive moment, which makes innovative use of the film’s title.
Sur and Amin had a falling out after it was found that Amin is involved in some nefarious activities that Sur strongly opposes. Amin and Rama were engaged in business involving images of girls. Sur was suspicious of Rama as a result of this incident. Rama was the team’s poet and dramatist; his father was a sculptor and a clearly affluent guy. Suryani looked forward to the party and decided to bring Amin with her. On the other hand, Amin never entirely sits properly but still seems like the pillar he is, while Farah is the much too cool youngster. The latter demonstrates her commitment and then some.
As Amin and Suryani became inebriated, they danced and even used the Photocopier to take images of their faces and arms. It was determined that Suryani required far more than four drinks to become thoroughly inebriated. As she attempted to retrace her NetCar’s path, she saw that the location where the car had stopped to change tires appeared to have a statue that she had previously seen.
She recalled seeing a picture of the monument on Rama’s phone. The photograph was shot that night. Later, as the gravity of the instances elevates, Sur finds out that the props and installations of the play had a darker past. As suggested, the “pictures of the milky way” were not what you assumed. It was, in reality, a compilation of pictures with a more cynical intention. Multiple people unaware of what actually happened to them fell victim to this disgusting and creepy act.
Suryani’s mother took her aside when the entire world was against her and told her that she believed her daughter. She recognized the photos as those of her daughter’s birthmark. She transported her to a secure location where her urine could be tested for drugs to aid in the investigation. This was necessary since Sur was constantly denied support, and her theories were dismissed by labeling her a drunk.
To be honest, the middle section of the film lagged a little. Sur is gradually shown as the victim of her poor decisions over the film’s first two-thirds. Obviously, you know better than this; she was under duress, and the photos were uploaded without her permission. However, the more she fails to give proof and the more people she falsely blames, the lower your sympathy grows. Her pursuit for the truth becomes tedious, if not annoying. Its excellent manipulation heightens the ending’s shock and makes you feel bad forever, finding her persistence less than admirable. Sur’s emotional transformation has a significant role in the film’s overall effect.
While the commentary is superb, the criminal thriller section appears to hit a snag by focusing on impression rather than content. Sur battling against all obstacles, the plot begins engagingly, but it quickly falters. Sur and Amin’s access to the group accounts is questionable on several levels; the reaction of the group’s leader appears somewhat illogical. The latter act as catalysts, the guilty, and the entire taxi driver concept. More than anything, the raid sequence appears entirely out of context, while being one of the most amazing in the whole film, in a decision that undoubtedly hurts the overall end of the film.
Indonesia has long battled for independence and the right not to be ruled. All of the other nations’ influence has resulted in disagreements among a group of people that are immensely diverse in culture and religion in the first place. The usage of Eastern vs. Western influence, which has kept the country oppressed for ages due to colonialism, is evident here, elevating his film above the conventional genre of mystery. Sur’s father symbolizes Eastern principles, while his daughter represents Western philosophy, causing tension.
While this mystery is well-crafted, with many twists and turns, Photocopier also focuses on the issue of abuse, particularly of privacy, as well as physical and mental health. Even while it’s busy putting us on edge, the picture manages to inventively touch on various elements of human life. Examples are friendship, betrayal, conservatism, fetishes, aesthetics, performing arts, and even an epidemic. The camera follows the protagonist as she hustles around Jakarta’s streets in quest of answers. The climactic finish is the cherry on top, proving the most spectacularly successful cinematic ending for this specific narrative.
Because of the profound ideas and striking images, Photocopier succeeds as a tense mystery Indonesian neo-noir et. It is comparable to Rian Johnson’s American film, Brick. Photocopier, like that film, has a frightening secret hidden under its dim, black, and green lighting and façade. Bhanuteja’s film, like the forbidden color itself, sheds light on taboo issues. He presents a fascinating tale to watch and brings to light his notion of resilience.
Sur, reeling from her rapid fall from prominence and fearing that she was drugged or even worse, is desperate to find out what happened. Suryani digs deep and plays detective, looking out for clues and interrogating supporters, creeps, and enablers with sharp bravura in many ways. This is also where Bhanuteja leads the plot down complex, implausible pathways. He writes two endings, one scary and weird, which leaves us scratching our brains. The other is more traditionally meritorious, which leaves us pumping our fists.
The picture is a character study, an art film, and a sizeable critical statement to the skull of institutional sexism. Bhanuteja takes on more than he can chew, and the film isn’t always successful. Still, it’s easy to respect for its combination of creative vision and emotional, empathic tone. It doesn’t necessarily add to the debate about sexual assault, but reaffirming that no one is alone in their pain is a worthy goal.
In fact, three days before Photocopier debuted on Netflix, its creators openly recognized claims of sexual harassment leveled against an unnamed member of the team. According to the production firms Kaninga Pictures and Rekata Studio, the shares were about the individual’s history, and Photocopier was shot “safely.”
The accused was removed from the film, and his name was deleted from the credits and the organization Rekata Studio. For some audiences, these claims will forever taint the movie about non-consensual photo sharing and sexual assault. However, Photocopier’s investigation into sexual assault and accountability in Indonesia is still fascinating. This unique criminal thriller adds its investigative mystery by bringing to light the human cost of crime and survivors’ challenges.
Bhanuteja, whose short film Prenjak was the first Indonesian film to receive an award at the renowned Cannes Film Festival, wrote and directed Photocopier. Bhanuteja’s keen eye for striking and compelling visuals. For example, the color yellow represents dread, yet it conjures courage. Then there’s Jakarta’s periodic fumigation. The fumigation indicates an oppressive cloud. This is a metaphor for government oppression and influence hidden from the “light,” which keeps concerns hidden. This may take numerous forms in his film, ranging from cultural servitude and political oppression to misogyny.
There are also some really stunning visual moments, such as the celebration held by the theatrical company before their party after winning a big prize. The mix of the colors and outfit choices and the music and general atmosphere establish the tone for the rest of Photocopier, indicating that it will be a well-directed picture.
And no sequence of scenes exemplifies this better than the final few sequences. The government’s response to a dengue fever outbreak, which periodically fills the neighborhood with toxic fumes, adds to the building tension, as does the nervous camera and buffeting sound design — there frequently appear to be several competing radios playing, layered against the hustle of the Jakarta streets.
We get a strong interaction between characters in the closing few minutes of the film, a horribly but brilliantly filmed final encounter, and a lovely ending that is really well produced and closes on a superbly inspirational shot. Bhanuteja’s direction throughout was fantastic, but these concluding scenes were simply outstanding.
Why you should watch Photocopier
The inventive cinematography, pulsing editing, and immersive sound design all work together to create a natural sensation of uneasiness and tension that holds the audience’s attention throughout. The film focuses fearlessly on how she deals with her guilt and uncertainty by taking a candid look at how survivors are handled and disbelieved – and, most significantly, by making Sur the agent of her own search for justice. Photocopier does all of this while simultaneously making incisive social commentary on the discrepancy in institutional assistance provided to affluent and poor people, the patriarchal character of Muslim households in Indonesia, and the hazards of social media.
“Photocopier” is a visually spectacular film that manages to transmit its socioeconomic and political messages very eloquently. Still, it would also profit tremendously from a more substantial writing work, which is ultimately what deprives the film of the label of “excellent.” The film makes it evident that the powerful may still get away with it despite mountains of proof and accusations. So, somewhat of focusing on whether he does or does not, or what the penalty would have been, the film instead focuses on the empowerment that comes from stating the truth and standing in solidarity with one another over it.
The final revelations of Photocopier may not come as a surprise, but they seem deserved. Sur’s complicated relationship with her father, the power of public shaming on social media, and the university’s preference for wealthier students over the likes of Sur all stink of authenticity. The film also acts as an eye-catching resume for the youthful talent behind and in front of the camera. Photocopier concludes with a stunning sequence. Each victim stands up and throws copies of their testimony across campus from the terrace. As the number of casualties on the terrace grew, so did the number of testimonials, leading everyone to believe the victims since they would no longer keep silent.