Stand van de sterren

is the concluding part of Leonard Retel Helmrich's trilogy on Indonesia, which follows the Christian-Islamic Sjamsuddin family. Here, as in part one s (2002) and part two (2004), Helmrich uses the Single Shot Cinema technique, whose characteristic style - with long, uninterrupted shots and no interviews or voice-over - is closely related to cinema verité and direct cinema. The camera's broad, intuitive movements are distinctive for these films: it is a fly in the air rather than a fly on the wall, roving among the various family members, including resolute grandmother Rumidjah, her son Bakti and her granddaughter Tari. None of them seem in the least disturbed by the filmmakers - and neither do the rats and cockroaches. The occasionally funny and moving everyday ups and downs of the Sjamsuddin family serve Retel Helmrich as an indirect channel for a portrait of modern Indonesia, with all its contrasts between urban and rural, wealth and poverty, and religion and globalization. In this land where religious leaders preach the adoption of Sharia, Rumidjah and Bakti hope that Tari will be the first in the family to study, while Tari herself displays all the familiar characteristics of a rebellious teenager: her primary interests are shopping and boys.