VISUAL MOVEMENT' CODE ON “SETAN JAWA” FILM BY GARIN NUGROHO AS A CULTURAL IDENTITY

• Main Author: Kusuma Dewi, Agustina
• Format: Dissertations
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/67531
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

“Setan Jawa” (2016) by Garin Nugroho is a silent film with a cinematic-orchestral approach that combines multi-disciplinary arts, ranging from film, music, dance, and theater. The impact of this combination is an intertextual phenomenon in visual movement which is suspected to give rise to the identity of the other in the Javanese cultural context. In this regard, it is interesting to examine the visual motion in the film “Setan Jawa” as a cultural identity; which aims to find the rules of the game for the integration of visual motion elements, formulate visual motion codes, as well as the meaning and cultural identity built on the film “Setan Jawa”. This research is a cultural studies approach, using ethno-semiotics method, by relying on the discipline of Semiotics which is an integration of code theory and movement’ semiotics; including the narrative of Javanese dance movements and Javanese puppet shadow; also textual analysis to analyze the data. The results of the study conclude that in the film “Setan Jawa”, there are analog, digital, narrowcast, broadcast codes and mixed codes are iconic-symbolic. An understanding that the intertextual process that builds cultural identity in the film “Setan Jawa” as an art film, in principle, is the result of a cross and integration between Western camera movement codes and Eastern symbolic realism movement 'solah'—in this case, Javanese cultural narrative. In the “Setan Jawa” film, Garin Nugroho conveys the message that the Javanese people in principle have a noble philosophy as the foundation of life; however, in reality, it is not uncommon for these philosophical values to be polluted, which then lead to symbolic actions and symbolic language that are contrary to the social ethics of Javanese culture. The “ironic invention” of a new code, then, refers to the concept of Javanese philosophy, presents a "cultural movement’ code" which is marked by "trans-coding", "fluidity-code" and offers a definition of movement in a cultural sense. It can be concluded that the trans- semiosis process of this cultural’ movement is related to the mental imagery of Garin Nugroho as a Director, in interpreting the Javanese culture that is behind him—which has the effect of creating a pattern of cultural work with its own regularity in communicating Javanese traditions and Indonesian culture to the world community, through films.