Garuda di Dadaku

In Garuda di Dadaku, Bayu was a boy living with his widowed-mother and grandfather. Although talented in football, Bayu was under the strict regime of his granddad, who was deeply traumatized by the death of his footballer son in poverty. The tragedy left him an old grumpy who readily shouted a straight big No to football. Instead, granddad sent Bayu to different courses, from painting to maths, so that he could find and develop his potentials in fields other than just kicking the ball around.

Secretly, Bayu still played football – and he got a massive support from his friend Heri, confined to a wheelchair ever since he's born. Being unable to live his own football dreams, Heri put all his efforts and sources to ensure that Bayu could enter the U-13 Indonesian football team, including smoothing his way to be accepted in Arsenal's Sekolah Sepakbola Indonesia (Indonesian Football Academy). (It's a real, flesh-and-bone academy, situated in Ciputat, my homebase.) The premise is quite simple, granted, but I was entertained throughout the film by the astonishing performance of the actors and actresses, especially that of Ramzi, the comedian who played Bang Dulloh, Heri's chauffeur.

Some pointed out the weak point of this film: the reason why granddad hated football so much. His views seemed to be too outdated and peculiar, she said. I cannot fully agree; anyway, granddad was ancient and I've met people who earnestly hated things for reasons simpler than granddad's (and I won't go into details here). As much as I respect these people's views, I beg to differ.

The theme of this movie is very common in Hollywood pictures, a boy's dream to become a sport star, but this theme is rarely explored in Indonesian movies. This makes it very special in the history of Indonesian cinema, especially since it depicts the most popular sport in Indonesia, which is football (or in American English: soccer), while being the most popular sport, Indonesian national football team never again reach its peak in 1950-s era, when the team successfully held Russian team 0-0 in the Olympic Games.

The movie is lightly written, and lightly delivered, but the directors succeed in delivering all the potential of the movie. Yes, the story line look a bit too good to be true, but come on, it is a children movie, all of them are too good to be true.

The other compliment for the movie makers are their success in depicting children world as it is. You have friendship, puppy love, and sneaking out, and so on. A character in the movie which is a driver plays as the comic to add up to the cheer of the movie. All the children actors acted naturally and beautifully. It is the performance of the adult actor that is not at the highest point, especially for the coach character.

But it still lack of some magical ingredients to make it an extraordinary movie. It is a common movie about a common dream of a common kid, in a common country. It's the story itself that limits the movie, to be compared with Slumdog Millionaire or Spiderwick Chronicles for example. But nevertheless, the team has work very hard and successfully to deliver it to the max.

This movie really lights the day in Indonesia cinema, which too full of low quality horror movies, or low sexual comedies, and it brings the dream that one day, our football team can be a great team, and can compete in World Cup. It is a dream of all Indonesian, children and adults.

For an Indonesian film, this sport story of a passionate twelve-year-old soccer player seems entirely tooled for American tastes, so much so that it looks Disneyesque in the best sense (even down to the Disney detail of a dead parent). The craftsmanship in story, direction, writing, editing, camerawork, etc. is most certainly evident - spot on - with the presentation's only weakness in the story element of a soccer coach dealing with an angry stage-father who thinks his son the be-all/end-all of youth players. Not enough detail comes out beforehand to explain why the tale suddenly shifts to this coach late in the film, but then it's back on track with the kid winding up his dealings with his loving grandfather's deep bias against soccer. In that the boy's best friend is a cheerful, joyous, optimistic, paraplegic soccer enthusiast is an unexpected but wonderful touch - with the film so nicely and inclusively incorporating this character of physical limitations without milking it for sympathy or lapsing into self-pity. It's hard to imagine this character without a strong, fully-integrated future in society.

The movie turns out really inspiring for me, it kinda teach me more on how it is better to follow the parents rules rather than focusing on myself so turning out bad things wouldn't affect their and my own life.

Plus for the movie sometimes kinda also entertains well by the fact each character is having their own dreams they wanted to follow for their future life.

I would really recommend this movie for kids because the movie sometimes given a moral and some future consequences that may affect the next life if wouldn't follow their parents dream on what they wished for their own child and sibilings.