Ada Ape Dengan Cinta
Film Review – Ada Apa Dengan Cinta.
By T. Pratama
Since the name of the central character is ‘Cinta’, meaning ‘love’, the title could be translated as either ‘What’s Wrong With Love’ or ‘What’s the Matter With Cinta’. Either would be apposite for this moving story of first love, in high school.
The story, set in Jakarta, tells of the inner conflict between Cinta’s need for her long-standing school friends and her developing love for the ‘outsider’ school-mate Rangga. Cinta and Rangga first come into contact when he wins the school poetry competition. Cinta, whom many expected to win the contest, attempts to interview him for the school magazine but finds him unapproachable and difficult. Her feelings are ambivalent but strong – is it love or hate? She tells her friends that she dislikes him but underneath is drawn to his intense and intellectual character. His father is still persecuted as a result of the political activism which cost him his job and the father’s qualities have been passed to the son.
Cinta’s reluctance to admit to her other friends that she is drawn to Rangga results in violence against him by some of her male friends.
The inner conflict becomes intense when her best friend begs Cinta to come to her when the friend has yet more conflict in her family. Yet Cinta has an important date with Rangga. and we sympathise with her for giving her own life priority for once. However guilt and blame set in after her friend attempts suicide while Cinta is out with Rangga. This leads to one of the few irritations in the film which is the manipulation of the audience by leading them to believe that the friend has died, but eventually reveals that we were seeing Cinta’s guilt-induced dream - and that the friend does recover.
One other criticism one might make is that the violence perpetrated upon Rangga by Cinta’s male friends goes relatively unpunished.
The ending is rather enigmatic in that following Rannga’s decision to emigrate to America, where he may get the recognition he deserves, Cinta finally wakes up to the fact that she does love him. The conventional chase to the airport with her girlfriends does not, however, lead to the conventional uniting of the lovers, but in Rangga’s departure. However, it appears from her expression on the way back to the city that Cinta will not only recover from this blow but will treasure the memory and the learning experience. She seems to realise that ‘it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’ – and that love will come to her again.
This difficult-to-obtain DVD is strongly recommended for its story, social and cultural aspects and the very high quality of acting from the young players. Furthermore, the audience will experience linguistic benefits from both the formal and informal language that is used in the film. It will prove to be good tool in teaching both formal and informal spoken language.
