Opera Jawa

Its a shame that, for moments of visual inspiration, I felt completely disinterested in what was happening on screen. Films where all there is is singing seem like an awkard concept for me, and in this case it does not work.

As a western viewer with no experience with the subject matter, it was difficult to understand this film. The movie still had some meaning for me, and I think it's ability to get some of its themes and images across to a complete outsider like me makes it a success.

As the title implies, it's an operatic requiem for Java, a beautiful telling of a traditional tragic love story with exquisite sweeping visuals and quite lovely music. It's also two hours and the story just isn't that compelling to me, grand world shattering love stories rarely are, and poetic song works better when you can hear the words instead of having to read the trite lyrics as subtitles. If grand sweeping opera is your thing this is well done, but it's not my thing.

Beautifully filmed tragedy, all done to music, Opera Jawa makes use of a wide palette of colors, voices, and musical tempos. The story moves almost excruciatingly slowly, and while the movements of the performers are definitely intriguing for a while, the two hour run time just wore me down by the time the film was about halfway through. I suspect this would play much better on a large theater screen than it did in my living room.