Growing up in Germany, I come from a culture in which there is no dominant belief in ghosts and spirits. Even more, the belief in the spirit world is often regarded as superstition and related to pre-modern times. While living there, I have never been asked about my previous experiences with ghosts. However, this changed when I moved to Indonesia/Southeast Asia, where I soon learned that stories about ghosts and spirits are part of everyday life. Especially when watching films of the region, I discovered the strong presence of past lives in various ways.
In this year’s Minikino Film week selection, there are several short films that engage with the Asian spirit world. Exploring different issues through the presence of ghosts and spirits in their narrative, the films Hantu (2021) and Prosperity (2021) especially stood out to me. Being nominated for Best Fiction Short 2022, the two films represent an insight into the great diversity of Asia’s world of ghosts and spirits.
Ghosts of The Past
The first short film Hantu (transl. ghost) is a Dutch horror film by Kim Kokosky Deforchaux. Through the diasporic perspective of the protagonist Lies, the film touches upon postcolonial trauma and the encounter with demons of the past.
Lies is an elderly widow that comes from the former Dutch East Indies. For a long time, she has lived in the Netherlands, but her connection to her home country remains strong: In her house, there are family pictures of her past standing on a drawer, traditional Indonesian masks decorating the walls and the kitchen is full of Indonesian food that she prepares with much passion. However, during the night Lies is haunted by terrifying nightmares and encounters with ghosts of her past, keeping her awake and feared through the night.
Through the genre of horror, Hantu reflects on the trauma of war atrocities and violence. Throughout the film, there are masks that move from alone through the room, her deceased husband appears next to her in bed, and images of the past and ghosts menacing her. These nocturnal encounters represent Lies burdens of violent experiences in the past and the repression of it. In doing so, the film displays how historical traumatic experiences are reflected through stories of ghosts and how the tormenting memories of the past continue to endure in the present.
In the article Geister hinter den Kulissen der Macht (transl. Ghosts behind the scenes of power [2019]), Bambang K. Prihandono, describes the representation of historical traumas in connection to ghost stories as not uncommon in Indonesia. According to him, there are various stories on ghosts that carry the traumatic experiences of the past with them.
This connection can also be read about in the article Trauma in Post-1998 Indonesian Horror films (2013) by scholar Thomas Barker. As he argues, Indonesian (horror) films such as Jelangkung (Rizal Mantovani, 2001) or Suster Ngesot (Arie Aziz, 2007), in which the origin of the ghost is located in the past and therefore places the protagonists in a relationship with the violence of the past and its aftereffects. There are also other films such as Di Sini Ada Setan (Leo Sutanto, 2004) or Lentera Merah (Hanung Bramantyo, 2006) that are drawing more direct connections to historical traumas. While Di Sini Ada Setan features the ghost of a Chinese girl to reflect on the victimization of the ethnic Chinese in Indonesian history, Lentera Merah reflects on the violent mass killings of the 1965-66 in Indonesia with the representation of a vengeful ghost that has been killed due to its sympathy to the communist in 1965.
Another aspect that the film touches upon is the missing understanding of Lies environment. There is one moment in the film in which she confides her fear of her house being haunted to her son. But having grown up in the Netherlands and not believing in ghosts, his conduct displays a lack of comprehension towards her fear. Blaming it on her solitude, he sends a psychologist to her house to talk with her without taking the ghost encounters seriously. This reflects the predominant conception of ghosts in European countries and the missing awareness for other views.
The representation of ghosts in films is most often connected to the genre of horror as it is the case with Hantu. But their appearance also becomes visible outside the genre through the presence of spirits that engage with topics reflecting on issues of the presence. This also becomes visible in the film Posterity.
Family Relations and The Afterworld
The Chinese short fiction film Posterity by filmmaker Audrie Yeo touches upon the complexity of family relationships through the afterworld. Ah Ger is a young and curious girl. One day, while playing outside alone, she discovers a dead pigeon with its head detached from its body. Seeking to give the bird a proper funeral, she decorates the body with flowers and branches. When Ah Ger suddenly hears a crying voice resounding from close by, she follows the source of the noise and discovers the appearance of her deceased grandmother sitting on a bench. However, her body is inhabited by the soul of the dead bird, who is saddened about its miserable death. The bird asks Ah Ger to take care of the egg laying next to it. But when Ah Ger’s mother finds her with the dead bird, she is infuriated by her touching a dead animal’s body. Violently dragging her home and forcing her to pray and beg for pardon, the egg falls out of Ah Ger’s hand and breaks.
When I watched Posterity for the first time, it was difficult for me to decipher the meaning of the film. Merging the spirit of the bird with the appearance of the grandmother, there is a certain surreality to the film that reminded me of my first viewing experience of Uncle Boonmee who can recall his past lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010). By fusing the borders between life and death, Posterity reflects on the presence of spirits in mundane life.
In doing so, the film also touches upon universal values, such as being misunderstood by your mother and the structures within the family. This not only concerns the relationship between Ah Ger and her mother, but also between the latter and her mother. The presence of the grandmother is all around with her portrait hanging in the living room and her appearing in the kitchen, as if she is surveying the mother. This emphasis on the familiar relations between different generations is also reflected in the ending quote of the short film, saying “A tree planted by the ancestors, provides shade to the next generations. A tree cut down by ancestors, brings misfortune to the next generations”.
Hantu and Posterity especially caught my eye due to their way of merging the past with the present. Both films reflect on the endurance of the past in our daily lives and on the issue of being misunderstood by our environment. But when watching them as part of one program, it was most interesting for me to see the different ways of representing it. The films display the presence of ghosts and spirits in Asian cultures, but especially, they show how diverse the spiritual world is and how when comparing it to the western understanding of ghosts, it encompasses a way greater variety within the term.
International film festivals like Minikino Film week bring together different cultures from all over the world through the screening of films. In doing so, they provide a great platform for cultural dialogue and the exchange of different perceptions. This proves the intercultural competence of (short) films and its function to create new perspectives, but also to learn more about previously unknown subjects. As for me, I first discovered my interest in the Asian spirit world through Indonesian horror films.
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