An elbow touching me; review about Laskar Pelangi

“The Catcher in the Rye” is a book I recently finished. It left deep resonance in my brain, that’s how I would describe the impact. I still could hear Holden Caulfield says stuff like “swell” or “it kills me” even days after I finished reading it.

It’s easy to make something nice, it’s hard to make something good, and only genius can create something that touch your heart, deep down there after layers of intelligence, knowledge and ego.

“An elbow touching you” – quoted from Cutting Edge Advertising book.

An elbow touched me indeed tonight when I decided to watch Laskar Pelangi, the movie, all by myself, on a day when everyone left early in order to welcoming the upcoming Lebaran break.

I haven’t read the book, and I don’t want to spend like so many of lines explaining about the story and the plot and the craft and what’s so good about it like in any other movie reviews. All you need to do is type Laskar Pelangi in google and you’ll find lots of stuff regarding to the movies itself. Like here, or here for example.

Instead, I want to share about how it made me feel, since not everyday I get a chance to see stuff that really moves me.

Indonesian children’s lack of education (especially in rural areas) is not something new, but it always feel fresh because it’s still one of major problem which still running up until this moment you are reading this blog. But carrying a message that can reach wide demographic range of audience in order to make them re-think about this problem, is a hard thing to do.

Laskar Pelangi told a story from a point of view of a boy who lived in Belitung Island, a small island in Indonesia. The irony was in the fact the the island was one of the richest island which produce timber, yet the majority of the people were poor. The “I” point of view was from one of the poor boy who could only go to school if the school had enough people (10 kids) to start the class.

It’s a simple story, about the struggle of having a dream no matter how poor you are. But again, it’s how you tell the story that matters.

I was carried away, and I don’t want to waste anymore crap on how good and natural the casting was, how brilliant the talent directing was and blah blah blah. I was there sitting in the dark cinema as an audience who was carried away by the movie, and boy how I cried several times (and I am not that easily touched by cliche, believe me!). Some scenes were able to touch my heart as hard as an elbow could in a simplest, most honest and humble manner.

There are a lot of good people these days that creates things right and makes you go “ah, that’s nice”, but when was the last time you see something so good it touches you deep and beyond, makes you see a movie with your heart beyond your intelligence?

Go see this one. You might want to end up doing something good to others, and it’s probably what the world need most now.