A woman in the frame’s foreground watches events unfolding in a room. Suddenly, hitherto hidden by her figure, her double enters the scene, and catastrophe ensues. Is this a tricky horror-mystery-thriller by Dario Argento or Brian De Palma? No, it is the extraordinary, unexpected gesture of Indonesian master Garin Nugroho marrying his penchant for other-worldly fantasy with myriad devices of popular genre. A Rotterdam regular over the past twenty-seven years, Nugroho’s impressive body of work spans features, documentaries and shorts, among these acclaimed Opera Jawa, selected for IFFR 2007.
