Indonesia Malaise

Indonesia Malaise (1931)

A woman, who already has a lover, is forced to marry someone else. Tragedy then piles up when the husband has an affair, their baby dies and her former lover goes to prison. The woman falls ill due to her suffering and yearning for her former lover. When she is about to die, the lover that she has been longing for appears. This gripping moment is interrupted by jokes made by Oemar, the comedian. The woman's illness is cured when she hears actor M.S. Ferry sing keroncong songs. The film ends with a scene of Oemar courting the maid on top of a rubber tree.

Date of release
1931-11-27
Genres
Comedy, Drama
Director
Joshua Wong, Nelson Wong, Othniel Wong

Casting

Interesting facts

Indonesia Malaise is a 1931 film directed by the Wong brothers. It was the brothers' first sound film and one of the first such films in the Dutch East Indies. Billed as a comedy, the story follows a woman who is overcome by tragedy in her personal life. A commercial failure, it may be lost.

Production

Indonesia Malaise was directed by the Wong brothers (Nelson, Joshua, and Othniel), ethnic Chinese who had studied film in the US. They also handled the cinematography and sound editing, using a single-system camera made in Europe and lent from a Bandung-based operator. Like the Wongs' other films, Indonesia Malaise was primarily targeted at lower-class native audiences. Only two of its cast members' names are recorded, MS Ferry and Oemar.

The film was among the first sound films released in the Indies, and the brothers' first sound film. The first such film, George Krugers' Karnadi Anemer Bangkong had been released the preceding year; The Teng Chun had followed with Boenga Roos dari Tjikembang (Rose from Cikembang) in 1931, although whether it preceded Indonesia Malaise is not certain.

The film has also the particularity of being the first in history to have the word "Indonesia" in its title.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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