Alternative title: Ladies on Top

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A ride to visit Bu Lurah, the head of the village, turns sour as the light gossip about the most beautiful woman in a village begins to escalate between the overloading truck's female passengers.

Why It’s Worth Watching

Tilik (means to pay a visit) brings the unexpected gritty comedy within the inconceivable setting into the play. The dialogues alongside the notorious perpetrator and hero of this short movie, Bu Tejo, create an unusual charm that likely leaves the entire audience in a mixture of annoyance and amusement.

When Ladies’ Bickering Fuels a Long Journey

There are a few movies that successfully place their strength on a dialogue-driven story. The most notable movie in this area may be given to Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men. Richard Linklate’s popular romance “Before” trilogy also counts as the first two movies that combine the same style with a one-shot technique. Speaking of Indonesian movies, Riri Riza’s 13 Hari untuk Selamanya may fill this entry, although it doesn’t apply much of it.

All the mentioned movies above play heavily on conversations between their characters, and surely, it would be a hard task to cram a light or deep conversation into an 80-120 minutes movie. Thus, these movies still can deliver their charm and effortlessly hinder themselves from being too stilted or boring as their conversation grows and develops into something unexpected.

Tilik a short movie published by a small production house in Yogyakarta named Ravacana Films  manages to apply this formula, and after it was aired in its Youtube channel, it soon becomes an internet sensation. What’s surprisingly good about this movie is how the main characters can deliver each of their dialogue in the most natural and amusing way.

Tilik isn’t Wahyu Agung Prasetyo’s first rodeo. He has directed more than seven mini-movies and series. Most of his work might be considered simple, straightforward, and often takes cultural items that instill a down-to-earth, yet profound experience. Although most of the casts are relatively new, there are at least three main characters that stand out among others: Bu Tejo (Siti Fauziah), Yu Ning (Brilliana Desy), and Bu Tri (Angeline Rizky). These three females (or you could say “emak-emak”, which means a married woman, usually refers to a middle-aged woman who’s often referred to as a law-breaker and stick herself too much into others’ privacy), are played by them who were rarely noticed by local cinephiles. Despite that, they have played in the small production or theatre before landing to their own roles in Tilik that gains them immediate fame. There is no doubt that’s something “click” from the embodiment of their characters as it feels like it’s their innate personality.

The dialogue in Tilik that flows throughout the 32 minutes is not much as deep as the dialogue in the aforementioned movies. Though the conversation is simply gossip and might be considered a classical, misleading conception traversed by word of mouth of an emak-emak group, Tilik is gleamed with triumph, from the epic story that most would relate, Prasetyo’s sensible directing, the magnificent shots between the ordinary places, and the sole question that will catch the deep of audiences’ attention and imagination: “Who is Dian, the village most beautiful woman, and what she’s up to?”

Quote

“Mangkane, tha nduwe hape kuwi ora mung dinggo nggaya thok. Ning nggo golek informasi ngono loh, yo!”

“You need to learn to use your phone not only to show off, but to find some information, okay!”

A mysteriously fishy story of a beautiful single woman who become the attraction of women’s gossip in their way to visit their village chief.

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