Layar (2023) Review: A Story About Indonesian Cinema After the Pandemic

 

Layar | 2023 | 1h 10m
Genre: Drama | Country: Indonesia
Director: Ifa Isfansyah | Writers: Ahmad Aditya, Ifa Isfansyah
Cast: Siti Fauziah, Adi Marsono, Resti Praditaningtyas
IMDb: 8.7
My Rating: 6/10

Marni's determination and love for film lead her and her former colleagues to fight to revive the small cinema where they once worked.

Warning:

None

What happens when a good idea is asked to carry a story that does not always follow its own logic?

That was my biggest feeling after watching Layar (2023). I actually like the basic idea of this film. A small neighborhood cinema struggling to survive after the pandemic is not only relevant but also emotionally close to what many people experienced. Small businesses were forced to stop, places that once brought people together became empty, and some of them never reopened.

Unfortunately, for me, the problem with Layar is not the idea. It is how much the film depends on that idea without fully developing the practical realities surrounding it.

Marni (Siti Fauziah) loses her job as a ticket seller at Bioskop Merapi, a small cinema that mostly screens older films and still uses relatively outdated equipment. The cinema eventually closes as a result of the pandemic, forcing Marni to return to her hometown and figure out what to do with her life.

Her love for films began after her father's death. Curious about the hobby her father loved so much, Marni eventually started working at the cinema after spending years simply watching and enjoying films. The cinema becomes more than a workplace for her. It is connected to her memories of her father and to a part of herself that she does not know how to replace.

That becomes a problem when the cinema closes. Marni feels lost because she does not think she has another useful skill.

She later meets a neighbor who used to work as a newspaper writer but has now become a content creator. From that encounter, Marni gets the idea of bringing Bioskop Merapi back to life with help from her former coworkers. But the challenge is much bigger than finding audiences. The owner is planning to sell the building, so they have to race against time.

Their efforts begin to look more promising when a film producer becomes interested in holding a premiere at the cinema. Suddenly, they have a reason to believe that Bioskop Merapi may still have a future. They work desperately to raise enough money to get the cinema running before the producer arrives for a survey. They sell food online and even sell old movie posters stored inside the cinema.

The idea is simple, nostalgic, and honestly quite touching.

I can understand why Marni wants to save the cinema. It is not only about a business. It is also about preserving a place connected to memories, friendships, work, and her relationship with her late father.

But this is where I started to feel that Layar could have been much stronger.

One of the things I actually appreciate is a scene where the characters try to convince local residents to watch an outdoor screening. One resident says that if the only thing they are offering is an old movie, people might as well watch it on television at home without paying.

I think that argument makes perfect sense.

In fact, I found myself thinking that this could have been one of the strongest explanations for why Bioskop Merapi was already struggling even before the pandemic. The cinema mostly showed old films. Its equipment was outdated. The building and location did not seem particularly attractive anymore. These are practical problems that would naturally affect whether people still wanted to visit.

But the film seems to put almost all of the blame on the pandemic and then moves on to the effort to reopen the cinema. For me, that makes the central conflict feel less convincing. The characters are trying to revive the business without fully addressing the reasons the business may already have been difficult to sustain.

I actually wish the film had explored those problems more deeply. It could have made the struggle much more realistic. Maybe the challenge would not simply be reopening the cinema, but figuring out how to make people want to come back.

There is another contradiction that also caught my attention. A becak driver and a cake seller say that a large part of their income comes from customers visiting the cinema. Yet the cinema owner says the business has been losing money for a long time.

Those two things can certainly exist together under some circumstances, but the film does not explain the difference clearly enough. If the cinema really brings a significant flow of customers to surrounding businesses, then why has the cinema itself been struggling for so long?

This kind of inconsistency may seem small, but I tend to notice these details because they affect whether I can believe the world the film is creating.

I also noticed a strange contrast in the timeline. The story is set around the modern pandemic period, yet the visual tone sometimes feels much older. Even the vehicle used by the well-known producer looks dated.

Perhaps this was an intentional stylistic choice, but because the film does not make that intention clear, it feels more like an inconsistency to me than a meaningful artistic decision.

Another part that I found difficult to accept is the way the community suddenly comes together to hand over their savings simply to help reopen the cinema. Then an entrepreneur arrives and is willing to invest as well.

I understand the emotional message behind these moments. The cinema represents memories and something valuable to the community. But when an entrepreneur invests money, I still expect some consideration of profit and loss. A business decision cannot realistically depend only on nostalgia.

This is where I think Layar sometimes becomes too focused on idealism. There are many moments when the message the writers want to communicate feels stronger than the natural development of the scene itself. Some dialogue and transitions do not flow smoothly because the film seems more concerned with delivering its ideals than allowing the story to unfold organically.

And that is a shame, because I think the film has enough material to become something much stronger.

The ending is another example. After Bioskop Merapi finally reopens, the film does not really show what that success looks like. There is no strong sense that audiences have returned, that the cinema has become sustainable, or that the surrounding community has actually been affected by its revival.

For me, that makes the ending feel incomplete.

After following these characters through all their struggles, I wanted to see evidence that their efforts had truly changed something. Even a simple scene showing the cinema filled with people again would have meant a lot. It would have allowed the audience to feel that they had actually succeeded in bringing the cinema back to life.

The acting is also mixed for me. Most of the cast come from theater backgrounds, and sometimes I can still feel that stage-style acting in their performances. Some expressions feel too exaggerated, and some dialogue delivery does not feel completely natural for a film.

Still, I do not think Layar is without value.

In fact, there is one scene that I found genuinely meaningful. Marni's lie to her coworkers about the planned film premiere is eventually exposed. Her coworkers are disappointed, and Marni finally breaks down and admits how much the dream meant to her.

What makes the scene particularly interesting is her conversation with Wati. Marni speaks as though her dream is the only thing that has been destroyed. But Wati reminds her that it is not only Marni's dream that has been hurt. Her coworkers had dreams too.

That line stayed with me.

Marni spends so much time carrying the ambition alone that she forgets something important: she is not the only person who cares about the cinema.

I think this is one of the film's strongest messages, and it is also the part that feels most relevant outside the story.

Sometimes, when we care deeply about an ambition, we start believing that we have to protect every part of it ourselves. We make decisions alone, take responsibility alone, and struggle alone because we are afraid that other people will not understand how important the dream is to us.

But a shared dream does not necessarily become weaker when we share the burden. Sometimes, it becomes more possible.

Marni's story reminds me that asking for help is not the same as giving up control. It can mean recognizing that other people also have a stake in the dream. Their hopes matter too.

That is why the line, “How much does it cost to pay for a piece of memory?” feels particularly fitting.

Bioskop Merapi is not only a building. For Marni and the people around it, it holds memories. And perhaps that is why they are willing to fight for it even when the practical reasons are not always convincing.

But memories alone cannot keep a business alive.

That, for me, is where Layar becomes a film with an interesting tension. It wants us to believe in memory, idealism, friendship, and the value of preserving something meaningful. At the same time, it does not fully convince me that those things are enough to make the cinema survive.

Still, I appreciate what the film is trying to say.

Sometimes we hold on to a place because it reminds us of someone we have lost. Sometimes we fight for a dream because abandoning it feels like abandoning a part of ourselves. But there is also a point when we have to ask whether we are preserving the dream itself—or simply refusing to let go of the memory attached to it.

And perhaps that is the question I carried with me after watching Layar (2023): when you fight to keep something from the past alive, are you protecting a meaningful future—or are you simply afraid of losing what the past meant to you?

(Aluna Uwie)

Had been published in Alunauwie.com

"This article was originally written in Indonesian and has been adapted into English for international readers."

 

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