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| A scene from Position Among the Stars. |
Wrinkles beneath the twinkles
The third part of filmmaker Leonard Retel Helmrich's trilogy about the Shamsuddin family -- which chronicles 12 years of their lives beginning with Eye of the Day (2001) and followed by Shape of the Moon (2004) -- eventually culminated in the award -winning documentary, Position Among the Stars.
Set in the tightly packed slums of Jakarta, Indonesia, Bakti Shamsuddin and his wife, Sriwyati, are trying to raise their niece, Tari. Eventually requiring assistance, Bakti brings in his mother, Rumidjah, from her quiet, almost desolate village to help out with Tari during her final year of high school.
Jockeying for position in her teenaged world, Tari seems to want to spend more time with her girlfriends -- hanging out at the mall, watching boys do bike tricks, texting on her cellphone -- than she does applying herself to school. This simply will not do. Since Tari could be the first family member to attend university, the whole family is involved in her academic career with her grandmother going so far as to pawn her house to finance Tari's future.
Full of conflict and tension, Position Among the Stars could rival the best reality television show, except that it far surpasses any of them with it's beauty and charm. Using technology that allows him and his crew to shoot in confined spaces and extreme close-ups, Retel Helmrich's cinema verité style conveys the family's saga through Tari's transition.
As we watch her come of age, Christian family members argue with their Muslim counterparts, husband and wife fight about money, holy water and Siamese fighting fish (to the grim end) while Bakti takes advantage of the same government which employs him and an aging grandmother tries to adjust to modern life in a big city where no one can see the stars.
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