Kala is big in hype, and the first 15 minutes managed to live up to it. I was easily impressed by the production value, setting, acting, art direction, and so forth. The well-structured first act also promised a lot.
However, everything went static to the next 30 minutes. The movie, dressed in noir style, started to tell a story that was neither horror, neither fantasy, or adventure. There was no whodunnit plot, there was no clear track of where the movie was going. I thought, then, the film makers perhaps wanted to offer me something new, and I had to really think out of the box. I went out of the theater because clearly I was not prepared.
I tried watching it again the next day, and this time with a new mindset, and getting ready for "something new".
However, I was not prepared for "something rotten".
As I was coping up till one hour, I started to realize that this was merely one of the most pretentious movies ever made in human history. Setting is out of this world, characterization is seemingly strong, but actually lacking of development. Fachri Albar delivered good acting skill, but the script brought him nowhere, so he ended up being a tiring person to watch. Shanty's talent was completely wasted by the pretentious characterization. Fahrani's body was exploited. The scene of her singing in a bar was clearly made only to make Kala seemed to be a real noir movie. It is not! Noir is a whodunnit plot, whereas Kala is whatthehellitis plot.
Somehow, the film managed to get worse, especially when the Reservoir-Dogs-alike scene was forcedly inserted to no particular reason. The conclusion of the "story" was foolish. I am not against homosexuality, but if Kala is made merely as a pro-Gay movement by making a statement that a gay guy is Indonesia's next big leader, then it is purely silly, unreasonable, and rather masturbatory. There was no strong reason why the leading actor should be gay, except that's just simply what the director wants. It is a very unfair treatment of a story.
Awful with capital A.
