JAKARTA - Director Joko Anwar has released his latest film which he says has a religious horror genre entitled Siksa Kubur. This film itself collaborates with several big Indonesian actors such as Widuri Puteri, Muzakki Ramdhan, Faradina Mufti, Reza Rahadian, Christine Hakim and Slamet Rahardjo.
The film, which was broadcast on April 11, received a lot of positive responses from fans of Joko Anwar's films. One thing that attracts attention about this approximately 2 hour long film is the background music used which is one of the elements that makes the audience quite uncomfortable while watching this film.
In an exclusive interview with VOI, Joko Anwar, who collaborated with Aghi Narottama on music, tried to tell about the creative process of the music and songs used in the film Siksa Kubur, which he admitted had different music from his other horror genre films.
"The sound creative process for the film Siksa Kubur can perhaps be divided into two, the first is the process of making this music consisting of music scoring and songs, the second is sound design. So two different things. Well, specifically for the film Siksa Kubur, the film is a bit different from my other films," said Joko Anwar to VOI in the Kemang area, South Jakarta, recently.
Not without reason, this was done deliberately by Joko Anwar because it is in accordance with the theme of the film Siksa Kubur itself which tries to touch the audience's deeper faith. So Joko Anwar tries to use this music according to the feelings that represent the characters.
“Because when we talk about faith, we talk about something that is internal, we have to be able to create a sound design that can describe that. So often in the film Siksa Kubur the sound and music represent what the characters feel, so we take the feelings of the characters for certain scenes and we translate them in the form of sound and music," continued Joko Anwar.
So Joko explained in more detail that the music that might be a source of discomfort when watching this film is music from the human heartbeat and pulse.
"So that's why yesterday when you watched the film Siksa Kubur it seemed like something different from what we've heard from Indonesian films, right? Because the concept is an externalization of the characters' feelings. For the sound, we use a lot of heartbeats, so the heart beats and pounding," he explained.
"So it's like this when the blood flows, right? That's the heart's dizziness, the blood that is pumped by the heart, for our music we use a lot of subconscious elements. So maybe the music isn't something that suddenly booms, but something that exists in our subconscious," explained Joko Anwar.
It wouldn't be Joko Anwar if he didn't include elements of old music in every horror film. Likewise, in the film Siksa Kubur, Joko again included some old music with the aim of showing the innocence of a child, represented by the roles of Widuri Puteri as Sita and Muzakki Ramdan as Adil.
"I like old music or new music that is made to look like old music because personally I grew up with music like that, I was born in the 70s and my mother always played songs like that, it took me into every film I had, I always portrayed innocence, the innocence of children," he explained.
"For example, in Siksa Kubur there are those represented by Sita and Adil, played by Widuri Puteri and Muzakki Ramdan. When I think about it, I reflect on my childhood, when my thoughts as a child were still very simple, asking, 'Why is it the country that is said to be religious, so many people are religious, but sinful. How come more and more people are doing this to hurt each other?' and so on, especially for the film Siksa Kubur, I brought myself to ask my questions when I was a kid, by bringing a collections of music that sounded like the songs I listened to when I was little," added Joko Anwar.
Learn the Discipline from Horror Film Production
Joko Anwar said that he had been interested in horror films since he was around 6 years old, this was proven by his courage to walk alone to the cinema near his house at that age just to watch a horror film. It's not surprising that this 48 year old man eventually turned into a horror film fan.
"Actually, I've been watching horror films since I was little. Since I was 5 or 6 years old, I was walking to the cinema and coincidentally the cinema that was showing films close to my house was called youth theater and it was a popular cinema for the people, of course that was the one that was screened. Also, the films that people like are mostly horror films or kung fu films, but there are more horror films because I have watched horror films since I was little, so I am a fan of horror films, I watch all horror films," said Joko Anwar.
“Horror films are the films that best represent the times, because what? Because when we make horror films we take the fear that society is feeling at that time. For example, the fear that existed in the 60s, 70s may be different from now. So that's what makes me really love horror films because they really represent that time," continued Joko Anwar.
Even so, the director of the film Perempuan Tanah Jahanam admits that it is not an easy matter to work on a horror film. Joko himself explained that he only dared to produce a horror film after previously having 7 films, where the first horror film was Pengabdi Setan which was quite phenomenal in 2017.
"Even before making the film, I wanted to make a horror film, but I realized that making a horror film was difficult. So I only dared to make a horror film after the 7th and 6th film, namely Pengabdi Setan in 2017. Previously there was a film I had which was a thriller but not a horror, there were horror elements but not a horror film," said Joko Anwar.
"But I only dared to make a horror film because when I decided 'Okay, let's make a horror film', I was brave when I felt like I could at least make a film like that. I'm afraid I'll disappoint myself, who really likes horror films, but when making horror films bad. So I took courage in 2016," said Joko Anwar.
After producing approximately 3 horror films, Joko Anwar began to feel that when producing horror films you must have good discipline, especially in terms of time. The reason is that according to Joko, when horror film makers make the wrong time to release scary elements, the horror film is no longer scary.
"Horror films are the most difficult because making a horror film has to be very disciplined technically and in making it. Phishing timing, there is such a thing, if it is in comedy there is also comedy timing, this also has hortaining that has to be right because we are playing with the audience's expectations. So if it's off a little bit, maybe it won't be so scary. Technically it's difficult to make and in terms of passing the film, so you have to resize it very precisely," said Joko Anwar.
Furthermore, the winner of the Citra Award for Best Director revealed that he still feels that there are challenges in horror films, one of which is the novelty of the horror film story itself. Therefore, Joko Anwar and his production house Come and See Pictures are trying to create a new trend in horror films in Indonesia through their films.
"The challenge is that we actually have a very broad range of horror literature, but how do we ensure that the audience doesn't get bored, so there has to be something new every time we make a film. That's what we are trying to do at Come and See Pictures, so when we made the film Pengabdi Setan 1 to Pengabdi Setan 2, the treatment was different, especially when we made Perempuan Tanah Jahanam it was different and when we made Siksa Kubur it was also different. There must be novelty offered in every horror film so that the audience doesn't leave," answered Joko Anwar while closing the interview with VOI.
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