The Raid

There is a wonderful Indonesian movie, released on September 8, 2011, called  "The Raid: Redemption", by Welsh director Gareth Evans that truly deserves the international acclaim it received with the Midnight Madness Award at the Toronto International Film Award in 2011, the Dublin Film Critics Circle Best Film and Audience Award at Jameson Dublin, and the Sp!ts Silver Scream Award at Imagine Film Festival in Amsterdam in 2012. The acting by Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Donny Alamsyah, Yayan Ruhian, Pierre Gruno, Tegar Setrya and Ray Sahetapy is superb. This martial arts movie is a fine piece of cinematographic art, flawless and stunning in its stark beauty, in spite of the seedy subject of drug violence and police corruption. I had never even heard spoken Indonesian, but was riveted in spite of the initially distracting subtitles. I felt like I vaguely recognized Portuguese in some of the words. It turns out Indonesian is a language that is Malay and borrows heavily from a number of languages, like Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, Dutch and yes, Portuguese. It was fascinating to be so riveted by a language I had never even heard. The stark setting of a run down apartment building controlled by a local ruthless drug lord, who is being raided by a special forces police team, is brought to full power by the adrenalin fueled Indonesian martial art of pencak silat. I knew I had never seen anything like it in fierceness and deadly effectiveness. It made me vaguely, briefly think of Kung Fu, because of the very close contact and technical finesse and complexity, but I knew this was something very unique. As black belts (Tae Kwon Do), my husband and I had seen a variety and large number of martial arts movies in different styles, but this Indonesian style was the most impressive and interesting I had ever seen. The actors were incredible in their energy and control. I liked the way the camera was so close to the audience at all times, drawing us in, but without judgment, like a witness, a tolerated observer. The story too, of two brothers finding each other again after years of estrangement only to realize they are on opposite sides of the law, is done very convincingly and very soberly. I thought it one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. Sure, it is very violent, but it is a movie about drug violence and a vicious drug lord and his ruthless minions, so of course it is violent! If violence in movies is something you have a problem with when it comes to the world of drug trafficking, watch something else. This movie is very graphic, but very convincing in getting the message across of the malevolent nature of big time crime. It is a world of kill or be killed. The energy of this movie is amazing, the stamina, also emotionally, is impressive. Hats off to the director and all the actors for a true piece of film art.