The idea was very good indeed, even surprising, to see that an Indonesian developed the same idea as Henry Thoreau, the idea of Civil Disobedience, more than 100 years ago, therefore built an isolated community that bears his name, Samin. And the movie tells about this.
But unfortunately, the idea fell into bad script, bad directing, and bad acting. What a waste. The story line is incoherent while trying to be too smart, and the acting barely surpass drama class students (or even below).
There are interesting teaching of Samin that can be explored further and woven into the movie. But the plot just seems not working. The character is not well designed, so there are many inconsistencies. A supposed idealist teacher looks more like a bureaucrat, a bureaucrat that sounds like an anthropologist. Why don't they switch place from the first time. And the appearance of a foreign researcher doesn't add anything to strengthen the plot.
