The review this time is written in English. Although it was a long time since its release, but I think I need to review this film: Mencari Hilal.
Mencari Hilal is a religious film by Ismail Basbeth. Released in July 15th 2015, this film gave me a honest truth about Islam in Indonesia. Not like another religious film which covered by "love-romantic-in-different-religion", this film in my opinion is a something new.
The main character in this film is Mahmud. He is a 60 years old man who religiously strict. Mahmud found that the cost of finding crescent event is gonna spend about 9 billion rupiah. He feels that it's not Islam were used to be. In his experience at pesantren, he didn't spent anything but only looking at the crescent moon at some place. Later, he forced to doing exactly the same experience he had at pesantren.
But it's not that easy.
His daughter is disagree with Mahmud's plan. At the same time, his son came home for several reason. Mahmud has a son named Heli. He is a grown man whom is not religious like his father. Because of it, they did not get along with each other. Even, Mahmud didn't consider Heli as her son anymore.
Mahmud is a stubborn old man. His daughter tried everything to thwart his plan, but it seems so impossible. In another case, Heli is asking his sister a favor to ease the process of making passport of him. And finally the idea came, Mahmud's daughter is going to let Mahmud doing his plan but only with one condition: Mahmud have to accompanied by Heli. Heli can't refuse because his sister is not going to help, if he refuse to accompany his father. And then, they are having a great journey.
The conflict in this film is so Indonesia. They faced some problems through their journey and I think it's really logical and reasonable. Maybe some of the conflicts is cliche but it's still reasonable. One of the point that I have about this movie is: however stubborn are you, sometimes you need to calm and take others words. We are not 100% right at everything, how if the thing we believe is the wrong thing?
This film also visually good. The composition, the camera movement and the properties, it all seems so great. A must watch movie in 2015.
Rating: 8/10
I insist you to watch if the dvd released.
