Ave Maryam

Beautifully written, shot, diction. Ave Maryam is about a nun who live in Semarang that has her confusion what will she choose, the love or the vows she made. The story just as simple as that, what makes it more beautiful is the story with beautiful diction. "If my heaven is not promised by, then why I bothered your hell?" --this line is my most memorable words from this movie. Also beautiful cinematography. Love the Semarang shot and the beach shot. The acting is brilliant by its lead actress, Maudy Koesnaedi. Her acting just describe her confussion, her confession, her sadness. This movie have minuses. The dub of the conversation bothered me, not exact naturally from the movie. And there is shot of a beach, the priest give birthday cake for the sister, with candle afire. Beach, we know that that place is very windy right, and the candle is not out! Wow magic! Over all this movie offers you different Indonesian cinematic experience. Oh yes, this movie also told us about diversity, love, confession and faith.

As my review headline stated, this will be very subjective according to me, my nostalgia to he exact.

I spent my chuldhood and adolescent elyears studying at a Marsudirini school in North Jakarta. It is an Asisi Fransiscan order school with a Sister as headmistress. They can dish out discipline and tough love like no one else, but they're all actually kind hearts.

The older sisters in the movie reminded me very much of my school's headmistresses. They too go to such nursing home in Semarang when their age caught up to them.

And the location's architecture and especially interior design details really is likw my school looked like. Tiles high on walls, faded pastel colors almost everywhere, that distinct style on doors and window railings, arching door frames and so on.

About the movie itself, I like how the direction kind of took a big chunk of the style of Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai, telling its story strongly through combination of every element shown on screen and jot just theough dialogue. Thus the dialogue here fan often feel so very short, but it is sharp with less wasted words. I particularly liked the dinner scene, so creative and impactful.

The cinematography is a feast for the eyes, incorporating various angles, calmed color palette, and litlle camera movement which enhanced the aura of stillness commonly found in these kinds of places.

The acting was solid, the leads and supporting cast all gave out good performances.

Very outstanding DOP and great story, in very low budget (i beleive) in scene setup, such as modern car, and in train station its not like 1980's, its very recent.

This movie is soooo good, top notch cinematography and performaces by Maudy as Maryam. Have a lot memorable scene like "the cafe", "spiegel", "beach", "stairway". I love the musicand the mood. I love the set so much too, i never knew Semarang can so romantic. This movie is beauty. Just go watch it.

While much of the hype around Ave Maryam talk about forbidden love between father and nun, within the 73 minutes of runtime, I found myself something higher than the acting and the screenplay. It's the power of visual and cinematography that able to speak louder than its dialogues.

The premise of the movie is quite simple. Sister Maryam who lives in a nursing home for old nuns as a caretaker must choose between her vow or love when she meets father Yosef, who shares the same feeling.

This movie's power relies on its cinematography that heavily utilize long shots, which capable of depicting Sister Maryam's feelings, her introverted self, about the rigidity, loneliness, and emptiness that fills the nursing home, to the audience. This narration is highly useful to replace Sister Maryam's words. Like a moving picture, most of the scenes play as a daily event but the shots able to be translated as our titular character's perception.

Another strong point in this movie is how tame the climax that goes with the slow and steady flow of the whole film. The climax isn't full of tears and music to usher the emotion, but the little or no music in the scenes along with few handheld scenes, able to convey how intense the situation is. I love how the director takes this direction, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but for me, it's a direction that this movie has to take to grasp its full potential.

While the story adds few interesting elements (like living in harmony with other religion, old nun's "jealousy"), the cinematography still unable to explain the resolution from the characters. My next question is the lack of authority that usually becomes the major antagonist in movies with a similar theme aren't shown clearly. Lastly, lots of episodes of multiple "philosophical" dialogues, were thrown awkwardly and make the scenes seem unnatural.

To sum it up, drama movies aren't new in Indonesia and how to seek audiences' tears aren't that new attempt. However, a drama that used multiple technical aspects in clever way to told a perspective and a story, gives Ave Maryam more than just a forbidden love tale people love to know. It's a living proof of a proverb that a picture is worth a thousand words.