Peculiar Vacation and Other Illnesses
PRODS Emmanuel Ernawan, Tembi Rumah Budaya
SCR Yosep Anggi Noen
CAM Bayu Prihantoro Filemon
ED BW Purbanegara
PROD DES Bambang Iphoenk Kuntara Murti
PROD CO Limaenam Films
Yosep Anggi Noen’s striking debut feature finds the mystery in the everyday. Ning, a young Catholic woman, quits her job in a second-hand clothes shop because she’s had a better offer. She starts working in a big furniture store, learns the ropes, makes new friends. Meanwhile her husband (who earns a pittance re-selling gasoline by the roadside) spends a lot of time watching TV. We soon see that Ning and her husband are more or less estranged; left to his own devices, he makes do alone or with a cheap hooker. Ning meanwhile undertakes a long road-trip with a male Muslim colleague (they’re delivering furniture)… and their enforced proximity in the van and in hotels starts to generate sexual feelings in both of them. Noen (whose day-job is teaching in a university) identifies sexual repression as a key taboo in Indonesian culture, and sets about challenging it. Whatever its undercurrents, the film is also a tour de force of style. Plays with: Subhuman
— Tony Rayns