Darah dan Doa

Darah dan Doa

Produced on a budget of 350,000 rupiah and intended to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival, financial difficulties led production of Darah dan Doa to almost stop before the director received financial backing. After raising controversy for its subject material, the film underwent censorship and was finally released to commercial failure. Retrospective analysis has, however, been more positive, and Ismail has been dubbed the "father of Indonesian film".
While in prison Sudarto is tortured and begins to regret his actions, especially his womanising. After the Dutch recognise Indonesia's independence, Sudarto is released from prison, only to learn that his wife has left him and he is under investigation for poor leadership. After meeting with Leo, he realises that the division had reached safety. One night, as he reads his diary, Sudarto is accosted by a man whose relatives were killed in Madiun. After the two argue, Sudarto is shot dead.
Crew for the production consisted of cameraman Max Tera, a former SPFC employee, with makeup by Rancha', artistic design by Basuki Resobowo, G. R. W. Sinsu on music, and Sjawaludin and E. Sambas responsible for the sound effects. Ismail, using his military connections, received technical assistance from various members of the Indonesian Army, particularly Captain Sadono. The film's cast mostly consisted of newcomers who had responded to newspaper advertisements, a conscious decision by Ismail who was searching for "new faces with fresh talent"[b] Ismail adapted this technique from Italian directors such as Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica. Ultimately Del Juzar, a law student, was cast as Sudarto, with other spots going to Ella Bergen, Faridah, Aedy Muward, Awaluddin Djamin, Rd Ismail, Suzana, Muradi, and Rosihan Anwar.
Human factors also led to delays in production. He and the other crew members attempted to achieve realism by ensuring everything in the film was as it was in life, a decision which he later recanted after realising that "film was truly the art of make-believe, making people believe something, creating a new reality from what is."[c] Cast-wise, three actors, competed for the affections of Faridah, leading to frictions between the actors. In other cases, the cast would argue about interpretations of their role, with Ismail insisting on them following his direction.
During filming, Ismail typed his shooting scripts every night, expanding on the source material. After each day of filming had concluded, Ismail sent the results back to PFN in Jakarta and obtained rush prints which he screened for the cast and crew. One such showing spurred a deal between Ismail and local cinema owner Tong Kim Mew, in attendance at the time: Tong would lend funds the production, heavily in debt, needed, while Ismail would allow Tong to handle distribution. This funding allowed the crew to finish shooting. Upon returning to Jakarta, Ismail and the crew found that some of the footage was unusable, as the "story didn't move".[d] As such, additional footage was shot in West Javan mountains, including Mounts Lawu and Gede. Other scenes were filmed at the banks of Citarum River. Ultimately the film cost 350,000 rupiah (then approximately $90,000 USD), over three times that of an average contemporary production.
Darah dan Doa was released in 1950 and given the international title The Long March, which the American visual anthropologist Karl G. Heider suggests is a reference to the Chinese Long March of 1934.[e] Not long after the film's release, a two-pronged controversy grew around it, which resulted in the film being banned in parts of the country. Members of other military divisions considered the film to put too much emphasis on Siliwangi's role, while members of the general public had difficulty believing that Darul Islam could have betrayed the national cause. Ultimately it required President Sukarno's permission to be released, after he received a private screening at the Presidential Palace in mid-1950. However, several scenes had to be cut.
The Indonesian film critic Salim Said writes that Ismail intended to "not consider commercial aspects"[f] and send the film to the Cannes Film Festival in France. Ultimately Darah dan Doa was a financial failure, with losses that were not recouped until after Ismail released his next film the following year, and it wasn't screened at Cannes. In a 1960 retrospective, the company attributed the film's failure to a conflict of what the people wanted and what was provided; the write-up stated that Ismail had not meant to portray the military as it should be, but people actually in the military.
The Indonesian film community began celebrating the 1st day of Darah dan Doa's shooting, 30 March, as National Film Day in 1950. In a 1962 conference of the National Film Board of Indonesia, the date was given more formal recognition as National Film Day, and Darah dan Doa was recognised as the 1st "national film". National Film Day was formally established in 1999, when President B. J. Habibie passed Presidential Decree no. 25/1999. According to actor turned film director Slamet Rahardjo, the holiday is so that "Indonesians acknowledge their local film industry and are willing to develop it".

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