‘The more society progresses, the more it seems to stay the same and even regress, and always at the expense of girls and women’, is just one of the many observations Indonesian student filmmaker I Made Suniartika makes in his short film Purusa: Wedding Sacred.
(Photo credit – I Made Suniartika)
Premiering in the Minikino Film Week 10 of the 2024 Bali International Film Festival, Purusa: Wedding Sacred, may be just 15 minutes long in its run time, but it takes years of observation of all the ways patriarchal societies and cultures dismisses the wants, needs and well beings of young women at the expense of familial honor and male ego.
Pregnant with her fiancé’s baby, Kadek Shanti’s (Kadek Divta Pradnya Dewi) excitement for their impending nuptials turns to dread when Phutu Dharma’s family calls off the wedding because they believe the marriage would bring shame to their family name on the grounds of Nyentano, a cultural belief that men should not be bonded to a family with no male heirs to carry on their own lineage. Phutu and his family, wanting to preserve their own honor and family name in the community, leaves Kadek to deal with the fallout of social stigma.
(Photo credit – I Made Suniartika)
Because of this, Kadek’s parents, with guidance from the village’s religious leader, decides to have her take part in an age-old Balinese tradition of having her marry a “purusa”, a relic Kris, a traditional blade sacred in Balinese culture, endowed with the ritual status of male identity. Meaning, that for all intents and purposes, Kadek (and women who have gone through the ceremony) will be marrying a male object to substitute for the human male she had intended to marry.
But she would still be seen as a single woman and mother by the people in her community.
It is this dichotomy of wanting to preserve a female’s honor, this abstract idea created by men something to be beholden to, much to the emotional and even social detriment of the girls and women the world over.
Made, displays a deft hand at showing how these traditional beliefs clash with the modernity of Balinese culture for its through text messages that Kadek is jilted by Phutu. It is her cell phone that provides her a connection to a world she feels is progressing without her. Leaving her trapped in a circumstance she should never have been placed in by people who claimed to love her. Because why should being bound to an inanimate object for the rest of her life be seen as honorable? Why should she be left to raise a child alone because the father of that child and his family value what strangers may think of them because he married a woman with no male siblings?
(Photo credit – I Made Suniartika)
It is these questions and observations and more that Made and I discussed in our interview for Purusa: Wedding Sacred. Made shared why he made it a priority to work with female producer Yohanna Lila Rosanti and how working with her and Kadek Divta helped him to understand and change his perspective of the world as a man in a patriarchal society, and his thoughts on the contradictions between cultural traditions and social progress.
During Minikino Film Week 10, Purusa: Wedding Sacred was awarded the MFW National Competition Award.
Carolyn Hinds
Freelance Film Critic, Journalist, Podcaster & YouTuber
African American Film Critics Association Member, Tomatometer-Approved Critic
Host & Producer Carolyn Talks…, and So Here’s What Happened! Podcast
Bylines at Authory.com/CarolynHinds
Twitter & Instagram: @CarrieCnh1
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