Mementos

Karya's film suffers from the Hamlet syndrome: a hero who spends the whole movie doing nothing but go through agonised introspections. The script problem (compounded by the shortcomings of Komang's performance in the lead) finally works the film into an impasse that no amount of beautiful period set-direction can relieve. Karya cunningly invests his story (of anti-colonial resistance in the 1930s) with contemporary resonances, but his daring counts for little when the material is so uncompelling.