Introduction

The early development of cinema during the post-independence era in Southeast Asia is commonly marked by the cinematic depiction of armed struggles against the colonialist regime. Cinema has generally been used strategically ‘to enforce the myth of the unitary nation and to interpellate the textual subject as willing members of the nation’ (Dissanayake 1994, p. xvi). In particular, the framing of World War II tends to be from a national perspective since each nation tells its own stories through its films (Chapman 2008). Indonesian cinema was no exception. The ‘Father of Indonesian Cinema,’ Usmar Ismail, established the first wholly owned Indonesian film company in 1950, a year after Indonesia gained its independence (merdeka) and directed pioneering films depicting the real lives of Indonesians and their struggle for independence. Usmar's first film, DARAH DAN DOA (THE LONG MARCH, 1950) can be understood as part of such a movement in the post-independence era, paving the way for subsequent war film productions in Indonesia.

After the political turmoil in the late 1960s, Indonesian cinema gradually revived with some popular genres such as drama, action and horror (locally called ‘mistik’). There were at least 1640 films produced during the heyday of the New Order regime.