Sex education has been a confusing issue in Indonesia. The country suffers from child/adolescent marriages, illegal abortion, and premarital pregnancy yet sex ed class is stigmatized due to the belief that it may suggest (safe) sex before marriage.
Dua Garis Biru offers a feature with simple premise to guide us into sex ed with more neutral approach, unlike the last 2000s-early 2010s trends of the local adult movies which always involving suggestive materials to usher some lame moral lessons about sex. The premise is honestly just what you'd expect of the unwanted pregnancy, but this movie dig more into the social class, relationship, family problems, and discussions about future.
This movie is giving a treat: for being so close as possible to our daily life. It does not dramatize the anger, provoke tears, or social gap. Most of the dialogue also went so smooth and natural, so that we are can relate to the situation. Honestly, the dialogues are not quite memorable in my opinion, but the situation being so relatable make the scenes always give nice impression.
The main treat is also accompanied by supporting casts acting whose mostly play a big role to assist the main casts. Zara and Angga as two teenagers, honestly feel don't quite charismatic nor having chemistry greater than their promotion videos on YouTube. However, their clumsiness giving a genuine presentation about the real condition, thus able to increase the "relatable level".
Its visual game also interesting. Many have been pointed the strawberry scene(s) is a genius visual analogy to an abortion, without even talking about it! This movie has many easter eggs like that one that are worth discussing.
Although this is a directorial debut, Gina S Noer has prove that her experience in writing screenplay and being a producer, can give a new life to a directing style that is different than the rest. Her screenplay however, focusing much on the sequences so that the climax can't justify all great things happened in other scenes. It's a pity because it makes the movie seems like missing a resolution. But, it's probably a nice companion to the other scenes, with so much things happened, the ending feels more real, rather than being so dramatic about it.
Hopefully, this movie can give new inspiration for other filmakers to explore this new style of directing/screenwriting that Indonesia needs.
