The fourth film from writer-director Eddie Cahyono, playing in competition at Busan, explores the struggles of migrant workers through the family left behind.
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Asian Shadows The fraught relationship between an estranged mother and daughter takes centre stage in “Ibuku,” the fourth film from Indonesian writer-director Eddie Cahyono. Despite the first-person perspective of the title — which translates as “my mother” in Indonesian — most of the film is seen through the eyes of Sumiati (Christine Hakim), a mother and recent widow struggling to gather money to visit her daughter Sri (Ayushita Nugraha) in a Saudi prison. Much of the film’s emotional burden, as well as its photography, lands on the face of Hakim, captured through still, observational camerawork as she enacts various rituals of cooking, gathering, dancing, even spelunking, all shaded by grief for the impending loss of her daughter, and her responsibility in driving her away from home.
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