Tanda Tanya Review

Religious conflicts in this developing country of Indonesia, are rather common, where
the decade-long strive for religious tolerance and interfaith dialogues, has deemed
insufficient and should be further elicited. Religious Pluralism is still a controversial
subject in this Muslim-dominated country, even though it has accepted the presence of
other religions such as Hinduism, Christianity, etc. This film highlights this issue, as it
presents an example of the issue itself, as it revolves around the intertwined lives of 6
individuals, who in one way or another are faced with the consequences of a lack of
inter-religious tolerance and open-mindedness towards other religious beliefs. This
review considers an analysis of their individual stories and follows a short conclusion.

Menuk
Menuk is a young Muslim woman, who is a waitress at ‘Rumah Makan Canton’, a
restaurant run by Tan Kat Sun, and his family. She is married to Soleh, who has a sister
named Rifka, and a daughter named Mulia. Through Menuk, we see the struggles of a
failed interracial love, that is largely due to difference in religion, and the difficulties of
a working woman to support her family. It is revealed in the film that Menuk has
previously had a relationship with the restaurant owner’s son, Ping Hen, and were
destined to marry, but the religious lady chose Soleh, a man who she did not love, over
Hen, because he is a Muslim. However, Menuk still works at the restaurant and we see
that tensions are still high between her and Hendra as every time they pass each other
Hen most definitely shows a vexed look. Furthermore, we see strain on Menuk’s and
Soleh’s marriage, as Soleh finds difficulty to find work, and is often jealous and insecure
of the close proximity between his wife, and her former lover, to the point that he
threatens to divorce her. Menuk works relentlessly at the restaurant, and is often seen as
a bridge between the other workers and the upper management (Tan Kat Sun and his
family).

Tan Kat Sun

Tan Kat Sun is an elderly individual in his 70s, whose health is deteriorated and
worsening with each passing day, but still keeps a positive attitude throughout it all
and puts forward an idealistic example towards religious tolerance and harmonious
living. What strikes most about this character is that when confronted by his own son,
he defends himself by saying that he has achieved it all; a great house to live his life in
(although what is shown is a rather rural and simplistic house), a restaurant to fulfil his
lifelong dreams and passions (although the restaurant is small, and he is still the head
chef despite the fact that his health is not good), a loving and supporting wife and a son,
who he takes such great pride in and never stops believing in (which is shown as he
always tries to teach him to cook, and never stops believing in him).

The main symbol of this film, the book of 99 names of God, is introduced by Tan Kat
Sun himself, which he asks his wife to set aside and to be presented to his son when the
time comes. His tolerance for different religions can also be seen as he keeps separate
utensils for pork and other meats, provides sufficient time for his workers to worship,
and allows 5 days for Idul Fitri. His death at the end of the movie, brought about by a
chain of events caused by the intolerance of his son, serves as another symbol where the
device of irony is utilized. The hatred and intolerance of his son, brought on early death
to his father, who was loving, kind and extremely tolerant, the opposite of him. The
book destined for his son served crucial to propel this legacy of tolerance and love, and
in addition to his death, it served as a turning point for Hendra.

Soleh
Soleh is Menuk’s husband who is seen struggling to find work and refuses to accept
help from his wife when faced with the consequence of his lack of income. Soleh,
unemployed, seeks to find work everywhere but lacks the motivation to look for a job,
as it is revealed nearing the end of the movie that he wishes to do something
meaningful and be an example; a mark to be left in this world, rather than just a
passing soul. He refuses to accept Menuk’s hard-earned money to pay for their daily
necessities, including his sister, Rifka’s school fees, which shows his narrow state of
mind, further elicited by the hurling of slurs (racist slurs) during his confrontations with
Hendra. Menuk’s extreme anger issues is seen when he threatens to divorce Menuk at
her place of work, due to the fact that he feels incompetent as he could not find a job. It
is also seen when he (and several other people) thrashes Tan Kat Sun’s restaurant in the
middle of the day with people inside, which ultimately caused Tan Kat Sun’s early
demise. These 2 impulsive and irrational events brought by Soleh put a strain on his
relationship with his.

In the middle of the film, Soleh seems to have found his calling and joined the group,
Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), which aims to protect people. Although hesitant at first, he
finally helps protect the local Catholic Church, even laying his life down to protect its
people at the end of the film. His efforts to save the church and its people, all the while
sacrificing his life to diffuse the bomb, proved fruitful as everyone is saved, with no
casualties. This noble act served as his redemption and fulfilled his lifelong dream of
becoming someone to be remembered.

Ping Hen/Hen/Hendra
Hen is a Buddhist Chinese-Indonesian, who is the son of Tan Kat Sun and Lim Giok Lie,
and is the sole heir of their family business. He is a young, broken hearted man who
apparently unable to cope with his heartbreak to the point that he refuses to do
anything all day, and instead goes out with his friends drinking smoking and talking
about various enterprises. Despite all that, his father has never given up on him. In the
middle of the movie we see a good version of him, before it deteriorates even further
when he becomes the head of the restaurant as his father slowly transfers the
responsibility to him, due to his deteriorating health. It is revealed that he had
previously has had a relationship with Menuk, and were bound to marry, but because
he is a Buddhist and not a Muslim, she rejected him. From the movie we can
understand that he has not yet gotten over this fact and most possibly his hatred
towards Islam itself arises from this event in his life. Towards the end of the film, he
orders his Muslim workers to work on Idul Fitri, and refuses to give them any holiday
break. this spites Soleh, Menuk’s husband, who along with a few other men precious
the restaurant that his dad built. During the fight, whose father gets hurt while he hides
and cries in the backroom. This serves as a turning point in his life after which he
becomes more accepting to Islam and is culture, by converting to Islam himself. another
contribution to this turning point, is the book 99 names of God that his father had
previously saved for him. Amongst the debris from the horrendous fight, he saw and
took upon reading the book ’99 names of God’, to which he recalled; it was a special
book between him and Menuk, when they were still together. This book reminded him
of who he was before all the pain, when he was kind, young and optimistic, and how he
has changed, and these sequences of events brought the young Hendra back.

Surya
Surya is another character facing difficulties with finding a job mostly because he is an
actor who seeks to find huge rules but instead is stuck with playing the small roles of an
extra or antagonistic role. Because of that he was evicted from his home and often slept
in the mosque. He is friends with the Rika, who later on becomes his girlfriend, and a
closer bond develops between him and her son. Surya’s journey is a rather intriguing
one, as although in the beginning it is unclear whether he was religious or not, what we
do know is throughout the whole film we see his journey to accepting and
strengthening his belief in his own religion, and be more open, more open minded , and
even more accepting of other people’s religion. this is done as he accepted the role of
playing Jesus in the local Catholic Church Easter play.

Through this experience he understood and lived through the experience that Jesus
lived through and therefore understood true pain, whose meaning before this was only
‘not getting what he wanted’. we see him accepting and embracing other religions by
the fact that he falls in love with Rika, as he sees her as this amazing an independent
young lady who is strong and gave him the example to become stronger. a scene where
Surya meats a young boy diagnosed with cancer, as Santa, opens his eyes towards the
truth of religion; as a mean to provide comfort. At first, he was more concerned about
other people's thoughts to him acquiring the role of Jesus, but at the end we see him
happy to play various roles, such as Joseph during the Christmas play.

Rika
Rika is a young divorcee, who has converted from Islam to Catholicism. She is a young
independent woman who owns her own bookstore, called footnote, and has a young
son name Abi. Throughout the movie it is revealed, that she got a divorce from her
husband because her husband fell in love with another woman which comes in he
broke her heart. During her process of getting better from this ache, Jesus helped heard
through it. the moment we meet her in the movie is when she decides to convert to
Catholicism, that is when she starts to join night classes to learn more about capitalism
and prepare her for being a Catholic. during one of her classes, when asked about the
meaning of God, she answers the 99 names of God according to long, which much
upsets or other classmates. However, this scene is important as it shows us how one
who is born into a family of 1 religion, knows aspects of that religion only, And
continues to worship in that religion, whether he or she believes in it or not, especially
in a rural areas such as Semarang. She decides to become a Catholic based on her own
rational decision, and therefore is a symbol of religious pluralism. through this
experience not only has she gained independence but also strength and has also
positively affected those around her such as her friend-turned-boyfriend Surya and her
son Abi. Moreover it is revealed that her neighbors look down on her for this
conversion you went as far as her parents do not even speak to her that much but at the
end of the movie her parents accepts her for who she is no matter what religion she
believes in and she finally feels happy and fully herself.

I would like to commend the directors, actors and all other people involved in the
making of this movie, as in a developing country such as Indonesia where although
they accept religious freedom, the concept of religious pluralism and even, religious
tolerance is still one that needs to be improved. despite the many riots and backlash
they faced for this movie; it is still amazing that they got the message that they would
like to convey ahead. The story of the six intertwined individuals with different beliefs,
different lives, different personalities etc. serves as another symbol of how all of us in
this country live together, our lives intertwined. the many different types of characters
and symbols contribute to the making of this beautiful piece of film, art and literature,
that will go down in history as in visionary idea in a realistic film.