The Representation of Contemporary Indonesian Society in Cinema : Focus on Travel, Culinary Culture and SNS

This paper is a report on the research project titled “Interdisciplinary Study of Mutual Cultural Exchange between Japan and Indonesia (II),” which was funded by the Research Institute of St. Andrew’s University. I suppose cinema is one of the most important media for understanding other cultures. Focusing on Indonesian films screened at international film festivals in Japan held from 2016 to 2019, I aim to analyze how changing aspects of contemporary Indonesian society are represented in Indonesian cinema. By using smartphones, nowadays most Indonesians can obtain sightseeing and gourmet information from various websites. They also often post photos they have taken at tourist destinations and their favorite restaurants, as well as comments on SNS such as Facebook and Instagram. Domestic tourism and culinary culture are depicted as vivid backgrounds to the three Indonesian films I comprehensively discuss in this paper. The first film is Ada Apa Dengan Cinta ? 2 (“What’s up with Love ? 2”), a 2016 Indonesian feature film screened at Focus on Asia : Fukuoka International Film Festival 2016 and the sequel to the box office hit, Ada Apa Dengan Cinta ?, released in 2002. Rangga reencounters his former girlfriend Cinta (which means “love” in English) at the famous tourist spot Yogyakarta, and tries to explain why he suddenly broke up with her. He takes her to a locally renowned restaurant, and they spend the night in a uniquely constructed church from where they enjoy a beautiful sunrise. The locations that appear in the movie are introduced in detail on various websites, and attract many tourists. The second film is Filosofi Kopi (“The Coffee Philosophy”) screened at Tokyo International Film Festival 2016, which depicts how the protagonists Ben and Jody ,who jointly run a coffee shop named “Filosofi Kopi,” succeed in crafting the “perfect coffee.” The characters searching for the best coffee discuss their coffee philosophies passionately. The last film is Aruna dan Lidahnya (“Aruna and Her Palate”) screened at Osaka Asian Film Festival 2019. This is a road movie in which Aruna and her two friends, Bono and Nad, are eager to find authentic local cuisines in several cities of East Java and West Kalimantan when she and her former colleague, Farish, are dispatched to investigate curious cases of avian flu. The protagonists discuss their own views of life and love while eating the local specialties of the areas they visit. The local cuisines and coffee, as components of Indonesian culinary culture and the developing domestic tourism industry, become integral parts of these films. It is clear that the growing interest in local cuisines and tourist attractions are closely related to the prevailing uses of websites and SNS in Indonesia as well as Japandepartmental bulletin pape