NYAFF Report: Review Of Joko Anwar's KALA aka DEAD TIME

Joko Anwar's Kala, just out in Malaysian cinemas, has been deceptively labelled as a noir thriller, and it certainly had me thinking it was a hard-boiled detective story. But what a complete surprise the first half-hour or so turns out to be.

Kala isn't just a noir crime thriller. It has elements of horror, fantasy and political intrigue. It's a nice mix, with gorgeous visuals and a creepy and disturbing atmosphere, but it also has a huge problem towards the end.

I loved Janji Joni, Joko's 2005 loving ode to cinema, a colourful story about a guy who delivers film reels to cinemas who finds his daily routine becoming a desperate race against time and a quest for love. It's one of the most original films I've seen, and certainly one of the best films to come out of Indonesia. You could see how much Joko is influenced by Hollywood cinema, from the Fight Club-like opening minutes to the old-time romance at the heart of the film.

But don't expect the same feel-good-ness in Kala. This is one very dark, very ominous and graphically violent film. The first two-thirds of it is almost like Dark City as envisioned by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

The story takes place in an unnamed republic where political tension is at an all-time high, where mobs are going wild with rampage and indiscriminate killings. It's never made clear what the problems in the country are, but Joko clearly paints a portrait of a society quickly degenerating into civil unrest, apathy, corruption and blind rage, a society on the brink of swallowing itself whole. Eros, the archetypal hardened noir detective, or who seems to be one at first, is investigating an incident where five men were burnt to death by a mob while witnesses stood by watching. One of the dead guys has a spider pendant around his neck. In comes Janus, a reporter who pursues the same case. Janus has just been through a divorce because he's narcoleptic and can't satisfy his wife (he falls asleep every time they're about to get it on).

Janus tries to interview the wife of one of the five victims, but something tragic happens before he can do so. Later he discovers the name of a mysterious location, uttered by the woman earlier when she had visited the morgue, and captured on a tape-recorder he had hidden in the morgue. One of his friends listens to the tape and later meets with a grisly end after being haunted by the unsettling apparition of a pale man. And as Eros delves further into the mystery, he too begins to see the apparition. Meanwhile, Janus discovers that a lot of people are after the name of that mysterious place, and gets kidnapped by gangsters one night.

Joko plays with noir conventions, but sometimes he turns some of them on their heads, such as the hard-boiled detective who turns out to be not so typical nor so straight. The world the director creates feels extremely real, full of dilapidated buildings and decrepit apartments, and smoky underground jazz bars and rain-soaked streets. The disturbing atmosphere, draped mostly in dusky light, is very, very unsettling, and Joko punctuates the moments with equally dreary music. This looks like a ghost world, where people move through the shadows like lost spirits, and the air has the mossy taste of a tomb. Joko takes the shadowy noir setting and builds it into the perfect backdrop for horror.

From the very first frame, you'd know that you're watching a very unusual, offbeat thriller. The story keeps you guessing at every turn. Clues are dropped, characters are introduced who add to the web of intrigue, and there's constantly the feeling that there's a huge surprise waiting just around the corner. The supernatural and the noir sit so well together in Joko's hands that it seems like a forgone conclusion that they're natural partners in crime.

But as the mystery gradually unravels, so does the story, losing itself to some degree of video-game incongruity.in its suddenly hip ending. The wonderfully realised atmosphere gives way to a stylised, hipped-up idea of archipelago myth and mysticism, with a touch of sword and sorcery. Suddenly, from Raymond Chandler-meets-Clarke Ashton-Smith in an Alex Proyas city, we're right smack in Resident Evil territory. It's a very bizarre direction to take, and one that makes the ending seem like it's from another film.

But there's no denying Joko's visual artistry here, and his ability to build a palpable, otherworldly mood and atmosphere. Despite the strange turn of events at the end, Kala is still quite a film, and definitely something very different. I don't believe I've seen anything from Indonesia quite like it. It's worth checking out for its seamless mix of noir, horror and a good old detective yarn. Just watch out for that ending!