Kebun binatang
Director: Edwin
Writer: Edwin, Daud Sumolang, Titien Wattimena
Cast: Ladya Cheryl, Nicholas Saputra
Part of: Viennale

Plot:
When Lana (Ladya Cheryl) was a little child, her father left her at the zoo, where she was found by one of the employees and squatters. Now she’s grown into a young woman who practically has never left the zoo. That is, until she sees the Cowboy (Nicholas Saputra), a magician, and is enchanted by him. He brings her out of the zoo and into the world as his assistant and girlfriend. But will Lana be able to cope with the world?

Kebun binatang was a mixed bag of beans. I did like its fairy tale-y, magic realism approach, but when it tries to get a bit more realistic, the movie does fall flat.

[SPOILERS]

The fairy tale things worked perfectly to me. The inexplicable Cowboy who does actual magic, the abandoned child that grows up in the zoo, the eternally naive way Lana has about her – apart from the magic, it’s all possible, just not realistic and it gives the movie its own kind of logic.

And that is great – until this logic collides with the real world. When Lana starts working as a prostitute, it’s handled with a little too much “that is all quite normal” shrugging.

I also wasn’t really convinced how Lana was handed from one man to the next, without much agency on her own. It’s her father who abandons her. It’s another man who brings her up, until she meets the Cowboy. When the Cowboy disappears, Lana immediately goes to the only other man she knows outside the zoo – a pimp (which is how she ends up being a whore). And she only leaves from there, when magically a car from the zoo appears, not because she made any decision to quit or did anything for changing. At least she drives that car herself and finally fulfills her dream of touching the giraffe’s belly.

In the end the film does have its moments and is rather entertaining, but it wasn’t good enough to blow me away.

Summarising: Okay.