Film The Last Of Us: Ketika Christine Hakim Dan Yayu Unru Facing Outbreaks

Poster for The Last of Us, also stars two Indonesian film stars, Christine Hakim and Yayu AW Unru. (Sky Atlantic)

Actress Christine Hakim and actor Yayu AW Unru played together in the series The Last of Us Season 1 Episode 2 which premiered on HBO GO on Monday (23/1). Christine plays Ratna, professor of mycology from the University of Indonesia. While Yayu plays Agus Hidayat, a 3-star TNI official.

Even though it only flashed back for 9 minutes, Christine Hakim and Yayu's dialogue succeeded in bringing the audience into a tense atmosphere. Drawing the condition of Jakarta which will experience a concordyceps outbreak, a rare disease that can be transmitted very quickly through a bite. People infected with thecordycepaskan are like living bodies that behave aggressively.

Ratna, who understands the character of the outbreak, strongly suggests carrying out mass culling.

"I've spent my life studying this. So please listen to me carefully. There is no medicine and no vaccine," Ratna told Agus. So, what should we do, ma'am?

Ratna was silent for a moment while kept looking into Agus' eyes. "Bom, start the bombing. Bomb the entire city and everyone else in it," replied Ratna.

In The Last of Us Season 1 Episode 1 which aired one week earlier, directors Craig Mazin and Neil Druckman briefly presented a brief explanation of the deadly fungus. The director described it through a scientific talk scene that was held 35 years earlier.

Doctor Neuman's epidemiologist in 1968 explained that there are diseases that can threaten human life. Not from viruses or bacteria, but fungi.

There are fungi that infect insects. Entering the ants, for example. Running through a blood pressure system into the brains of the ants. Then flooding it with a subinogenous so as to change the minds of the ants as they wish. It started to direct the behavior of the ants. Giving know where to go, what to do," Neuman said in the scene.

Like a puppeteer with a doll. Slowly the sea is getting worse. Her husband began to eat his host from the inside. Replace the ant meat with his own meat. However, he kept the doll alive by preventing decay.

Doctor Schoenheiss, who is Neuman's talk partner, denied it, "This fungus infect is real but not human."

Right, said Neuman, mushrooms cannot survive if the host's internal temperature is more than 34 degrees. Currently, there is no reason for fungi to evolve to survive at high temperatures. But what if that changes?

"There is no treatment for this. There is no prevention, no medicine. They do not exist. It is even impossible to make it. If that happens we will lose," said Neuman.

The theory of fungal infecting ants in fact does occur. There are a number of researchers calling the type of fungus that infects wood ants and turns them into zombies (living bodies), generally ants living in plants and trees fighting for their place of life. This sword is known as unilateralist ophiocordyceps.

Epidemiologist at Imperial College London, Matt Fisher shared his experiences while conducting research in the dense forest of French Guiana. He found an ant carcass that was deposited by a parasite climbing the plant. There is a kind of structure with sporaous bags sticking out of their heads. This formula is likely to control the body of the ants and infect other ants.

LaunchingTempo.co, a researcher from the University of Central Florida, Charissa de Bakker explained, the unilateralisha parasiophiocordyceps mold attacks and disrupts the nervous system. However, in his notes, there are special chemicals that the fungus removes to influence the work system of the ant's brain indirectly.

"Something (the study) is much more complicated," he said.

Ophiocordyceps unilateralists are mostly found in ants that live in tropical climates such as Brazil, Africa, and Thailand.

However, until now, there is no strong evidence that the fungus can infect humans.

As a senior actress, Christine Hakim's track record in acting has no doubt. He won a series of awards. The woman who was born in Kuala Tungkal, Jambi, December 25, 1956, is an Indonesian artist with the most Citra Cup collections, 5 Citra Cups from the Best Female Lead category and 3 from the Best Supporting Actor category.

In the 2016 Indonesian Film Festival (FFI), Christine Hakim also received a Lifetime Achievement award. And, being the first Indonesian to be an honorary judge at the Selection Official "Feature Films" at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. Christine became a judge with world filmmakers David Lynch, Sharon Stone, and Michelle Yeoh.

Acting with Hollywood stars is also not the first time he has felt. In 2010, he had the opportunity to play with Julia Roberts in the film Eat Pray Love. Not surprisingly, his appearance in the series The Last of Us looks perfect.

Likewise Yayu, the man who was born in Makassar, June 4, 1962, is also experienced in the world of acting. He has played in dozens of film titles. Noted, he twice won awards as the best male supporter in the FFI event.

Apart from being an actor, Yayu is also known as a pantomist. He has collaborated several times with several great domestic and foreign artists such as Roland Ganamet, Elizabeth Ceki, Milan Slamek, and Sardono W. Kusumo.

Director, producer, and screenwriter from Indonesia, Timothy Tjahjanto, praised the acting of the two of them.

Very proud of Christine Hakim & Yayu Unru's short but powerful & terrible appearance, both carry a fear feeling, finding a start from the end," Timothy tweeted on January 23, 2023.

According to Christine Hakim, the shooting process for The Last of Us was carried out in a Canadian studio at the end of October 2021. She initially had doubts about taking the offer because of the world conditions in the midst of a pandemic. Not to mention, she is still worried about her husband's condition, and her old mother.

"You have to quarantine for a week. You can't bring an assistant, manager, husband, alone. It's a tough risk if I get anything, or in Jakarta something," Christine Hakim told Feni Rose, quoted from the Trans TV Official YouTube Channel.

Not only The Last of Us, there have been many series or films that tell stories about disease outbreaks. Among other things, the film Outbreak in 1995 which tells the story of a virus that attacks the entire population of Cedar Creek, Texas, United States. The World War Z film, starring Brad Pitt in 2013, was about a zombie virus that hit the world, to the 2010 series The Walking Dead, which had entered the season 11 years ago.

The Last of Us series is considered special by Twitter activists because it aired after the COVID-19 pandemic. So, many viewers get carried away, imagining if a fungal outbreak actually happened.

Based on Nielsen and Warner Bros. data, the number of viewers of the premiere series The Last of Us episode 2 reached up to 5.6 million viewers. Increased compared to the premiere of the previous episode which only reached 4.7 million viewers.

"However, after The Last of Us episode 1 aired for a full week, it was tracked that it had reached 18 million viewers," wrote HBO as reported by Variety.