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Today I just watched Cin(T)a, a movie directed by Sammaria Simanjutak, with Sunny Soon and Saira Jihan as the main casts. I rarely watch movie, really, when I watch a movie, it falls under some possibilites: either I’m bored, I’m forced, or It’s very good. Fortunately Cin(T)a falls under the third.

Until now Love to Share is my most favorite indonesian movie, and Cin(T)a just recently added to this list.

This is one of the most rare film you could expect in the Indonesian movies (which are filled garbages such crappy ghost movies and crappier emo dramas). It’s premiered in London, and just several week ago played in Blitz Megaplex. Foreigner could watch it too because it’s english subtitled. Something you don’t see everyday.

Cin(T)a tells story of “public secret” and what “hidden under carpet” in the social life of religion and diverse ethnicity in Indonesia. This movie touched sensitive issues which we often want to discuss openly, but often discouraged because it’s simply too dangerous to ask: the interreligious and interfaith life in our society.

This movie is focusing issue about God, whose public definition are:

A guy who talked to some Jewish guys, some Christian guys, and some Islam guys, and accidentaly caused more people to die than anyone else in human history.

and also

The universal scapegoat for forces yet to be explained, originating back to when man thought the wind was Satan farting.

and to sum it up:

the most popular star in human history. loved, hated, or talked about by almost every person ever walked on earth.

The two main casts are Cina (Sunny Soon), and Annisa (Saira Jihan). Cina was named Cina due error in his birth registration, the officer mistook that his father gave him name “cina” when he father thought of giving “chinese name”. I think I will sue my parent if one gave me such name. At first I thought it’s offesive since “Cina” (without “h” in China) is deeply associated with “communism”. In the past when someone call you “Cina” they are meant to insult you and your origin. But after I found the main reason, I think its hilarious name. Annisa, the girl said:

“You are chinese already, how come your dad give you name China?”

While in Annisa case, her name means “woman” in arabic. Cina replied her previous mark by telling:

“You father was meanier, he knew you woman, then why he gave you name “woman”?”

There are lot of witty, smart symbolisms and remarks all in the movie. I even starting to suspect all the lot conversation is really dialogue in the Sammaria Simanjutak’s mind: the interaction between her Anima and Animus in mind.

The dialogues between Cina and Annisa is often provoking our thought, blurting many aspect of stereotypes and issues that keep down under the carpet, I couldn’t remember all the lines, but they are like slap(s) in your face, because they carry issues such as:

Why God creates everyone different? If God is one, why He can’t make thing simpler?

God is written as Tuhan, in Indonesian. The original word is “Tuan” which means “Lord” and the word “Tuan” itself is adopted from “Tian” which is “Sky-Father” Deity of possibly chinese origin. The “T” in cin(T)a refers to Tuhan.

The movie maker did the homework well. In the opening of the movie, we are introduced with different names of God: YHVH, Allah, El, and God.

Incase you are not familiar with history of ancient religions, YHVH is the name of Jewish God, Allah, the name of Islam’s God, and El, the common name of “God” in mesapotamian region. Abraham’s God “Elohim” was believed by scholar as high God of sumerian origin. It’s good the movie maker didn’t go beyond these different names. The knowledge of the origins of the names of pagan gods might sparked controversy, because most abrahamic religions these days don’t know they are evolved from ancient pagan religion in mesapotamia.

YHVH  was believed as tribal god of war, Allah’s original name was probably from Allat, a high moon God of pre-islamic religion. In the Early christianity, bishops feared the knowledge of pagan gods might rivalling christianity, they systemically destroyed all the records and demonized paganism to ensure they will always be treated as some demonic religion which will bring the believers to the hell.

Interreligous Marriage, Christian and Moslem Debate, and other sensistive blah blahs

Watching Cin(T)a is like seeing what hidden beneath of our society. Cin(T)a brought the most sensitive issues about intermarriage and interfaith issues to the screen. Cina and Annisa are portrayed as unlucky couple who are attracted to each other, but the man is chinese-christian, and the woman is javanese moslem. This movie even brought the issue of divinity Jesus Christ from Christian’s and Moslem’s viewpoint, which actually, enough to spark an endless debate if someone give it a damn.

In Christian’s viewpoint, as we know, Jesus is God, but in moslem’s viewpoint, Jesus is prophet. This is the primary reason why christianity and Islam doesn’t go well, and christian doesn’t go well with jewish either because in very purest form, one might said christianity is anti-jewish religion. So could we call Islam as anti-christianity religion? Might be so, because their origin came from different ethnic and different interest.

Judaism is traditional religion of jewish people, who were minority tribes in Roman’s colonials. Christianity was result of roman paganism and Jesus’s teaching. And Islam was born from revelation of Mohammad to arab tribes who felt inferior to Christians and Jewish because they didn’t have revelation like the others do.

Because of one thousand years hostility and nature evolution of religion, many times we are reluctant when we want to call their “God” is same with our “God”. It’s not easy to said Allah is YHVH, and also christian God, because the teaching of the religions contradict each other and their associated with different tribes.

Let’s be honest: sometime “their” God is too foreign for “us”.

Indonesia, where government is the God’s very highest almighty high priest

Indonesia is a very religious nations, really. The goverment made it sure that they won’t stop private issue being public issue. They are acting like holy priest, thinking they have the right to govern our religious affairs. Seriously, there are millions of people who are pissed off with them. To add the irony: Deparment of Religious Affairs has been long associated as one of the most corrupted institution in the Indonesia.

Our citizen id card is labeled with our religion identity to ensure we discriminate each other. Atheist and Agnosticism are big no no. There is also law to ensure there is no interfaith marriage. Few christians I know actually said it’s done to ensure the moslem people don’t convert into christian.

Cin(T)a promotional poster

Cin(T)a attacks our mind again about how religious affairs created more problem instead of world peace. The film was set in 2000, one of the scene depicted Christmas Eve 2000 bombing. I like this scene, showing the bitter reality of our social life: Annisa said sorry to Cina because she was moslem, and Cina understands it wasn’t her fault.

The situation is common in my daily life. In a lot of similar situations, my moslem friend feel disgusted and hated when radical islams bombed something in the name of God.

Then the next scene, Cina took down Garuda Bird, The symbol of our nations which has been long time carrying simbol “Bhinneka Tunggal Ika”. Unity in diversity. But in this scene we are seeing a young chinese christian man questioned the so called “Unity in Diversity” because unequal treatment. Even among christians these days, there are private discussion about their fear of islam, like how they might be targeted for random bombs by radicals.

But to make it fair, I know there are christians who say moslem (and the rest of non-christians) will go to hell because they don’t accept Jesus Christ as sole messiah. So much for world peace, because in the end both sides just demonizing each others in private space. It’s not their fault, really, I think it’s very human to feel xenophobic, to feel “they” are different from “us”. But to kill human in the name of God, that’s definitely unaccaptable. We forget being human first before we being believers.

And here is the ultimate quote from the movie

“God created love to unite all differences.”

I think this is one of the most pithy remark in the entire movie and describe what the movie really is. Yes, love. Love, care, and compassion actually the only one that unite us above all our differences. God is just like director.

There are lot much to tell, and I don’t think one post could describe everything I just seen in the movie. Cin(T)a is one of the best movie I watched to date. I hope there will be a dvd release as well, it’s worth to be added in my collection. It is too good to be missed. Atheist people will probably enjoy this movie as well.

I also had chance to chat several times with Sunny Soon in facebook. He is a promising actor, let’s hope he will be casted more movies in future .

End score: 9.5/10 (high score from a lazy movie watcher, don’t you think?)

• February 13, 2010 -- Council of god ban Valentine Day and Aerobic (1)
• July 10, 2009 -- Enuma Elish dan Bereshit (11)
• May 12, 2009 -- Mythological Deities in Indonesian Words (6)
• April 22, 2009 -- The Role of Women in Ancient Mythologies (4)
• April 21, 2009 -- My first Online Interfaith Dialogue (7)