Merantau… coming to a movie screen near you…
The story goes something like this:
“In Minangkabau, West Sumatera, Yuda a skilled practitioner of Silat Harimau is in the final preparations to begin his “Merantau” a century’s old rites-of-passage to be carried out by the community’s young men that will see him leave the comforts of his idyllic farming village and make a name for himself in the bustling city of Jakarta. After a series of setbacks leave Yuda homeless and uncertain about his new future, a chance encounter results in him defending the orphaned Astri from becoming the latest victim of a European human trafficking ring led by the wildly psychotic, Ratger and his right-hand man Luc. With Ratger injured in the melee and seeking both his “merchandise” and bloody retribution, Yuda’s introduction to the city is a baptism of fire as he is forced to go on the run with Astri and her younger brother Adit as all the pimps and gangsters that inhabit the night hound the streets chasing their every step. With escape seemingly beyond their grasp, Yuda has no choice but to face his attackers in an adrenaline charged, jaw-dropping finale.”
Or, as Twitch has it: “Nearly Three Minutes Of Extreme Ass-Whuppery!”
Just what Jakarta needs, ya?
But can he save Manohara from the evil Malaysian Prince? Will he help SMI become VP? Can he poke Probowo in the eye? Or whip Wiranto for his misdeeds? Have tea and cookies with Megawati? Kick Kalla all the way to Kediri?
I suddenly see the Jakarta streets alive with the followers of Silat Harimau.
Merantau is both written and directed by Welsh born filmmaker Gareth Evans. The film is presented by Pt. Merantau Films and opens in theaters in Jakarta, Indonesia in August later this year.
The official Merantau web page is here go to site…>
A short cultural primer…
“The Minangkabau–who predominate along the coasts of Sumatera Utara and Sumatera Barat, interior Riau, and northern Bengkulu provinces–in the early 1990s numbered more than 3.5 million. Like the Batak, they have large corporate descent groups, but unlike the Batak, the Minangkabau traditionally reckon descent matrilineally. In this system, a child is regarded as descended from his mother, not his father. A young boy, for instance, has his primary responsibility to his mother’s and sisters’ clans. In practice, in most villages a young man will visit his wife in the evenings but spend the days with his sister and her children. It is usual for married sisters to remain in their parental home. According to a 1980 study by anthropologist Joel S. Kahn, there is a general pattern of residence among the Minangkabau in which sisters and unmarried lineage members try to live close to one another, or even in the same house.
Landholding is one of the crucial functions of the female lineage unit called suku. Since the Minangkabau men, like the Acehnese men, often merantau (go abroad) to seek experience, wealth, and commercial success, the women’s kin group is responsible for maintaining the continuity of the family and the distribution and cultivation of the land. These groups are led by a penghulu (headman). The leaders are elected by groups of lineage leaders. As the suku declines in importance relative to the outwardly directed male sphere of commerce, however, the position of penghulu is not always filled after the death of the incumbent, particularly if lineage members are not willing to bear the expense of the ceremony required to install a new penghulu.
The traditions of sharia and indigenous female-oriented adat are often depicted as conflicting forces in Minangkabau society. The male-oriented sharia appears to offer young men something of a balance against the dominance of adat law in local villages, which forces a young man to wait passively for a marriage proposal from some young woman’s family. By acquiring property and education through merantau experience, a young man can attempt to influence his own destiny in positive ways.
Increasingly, when married couples merantau, the women’s roles tend to change. When married couples reside in urban areas or outside the Minangkabau region, women lose some of their social and economic rights in property, their social and economic position becomes less favorable, and their divorce rate rises.
Minangkabau were prominent among the intellectual figures in the independence movement of Indonesia. Not only were they strongly Islamic, they spoke a language closely related to Bahasa Indonesia, which was considerably freer of hierarchical connotations than Javanese. Partly because of their tradition of merantau, Minangkabau developed a cosmopolitan bourgeoisie that readily adopted and promoted the ideas of an emerging nation state.”
