User Reviews

Since a very long,long time it has been a very popular belief that Indonesia is only famous for its tourist destinations.Few people know that it has a national film industry worth its salt. It was with these thoughts that I decided to watch a film from Indonesia in order to discover unknown facets of its cinema. I was not at all disappointed with this film from the most famous author of Indonesia cinema Slamet Rahardjo Djarot. Most of the film is set in a Jakarta city office where a young Indonesian man is waiting. He has a lot of responsibilities and somehow one gets the impression that he is not interested in fulfilling his duties. The pace of the film is dreadfully slow which might irk certain class of viewers. So only patient viewers will be rewarded.For "Telegram",Rahardjo wrote the script with the writer of the book Putu Wijaya. One admirable quality of this film is that even though the funds have come from France, Rahardho has not succumbed to the pressures of putting elements that might have a bearing on the likes of western audiences.

i just did not understand the movie! what's the story? this actor can't act, he was under the influence of -well, i don't know, but many stuff- during the entire movie. or he can act that well, that the wasn't influenced...

i guess i am just not part of the targetgroup that should be able to understand the movie. or, as my collegue said: you will understand the movie when you are at least 35 (ok, that will work) and a male (euh... no).

The movie is about a journalist in Jakarta who receives a telegram that his mother in Bali is dying. He does not want to read the telegram as he does not want to return to Bali.

Maybe the movie is such a failure (at least, that's my opinion) because the production budget shrunk to a sixth of its original size due to the Asia crisis.

Rahardjo based his movie on the novel Telegram by Balinese writer Putu Wijaya. I would suggest to buy the book instead.