Review of the movie "de Oost"
History learning was not what I expected when going to see this movie. I would not mind to see dramatization of true events. With all due respect to the intention of the maker of the movie, i.e. To start educating the Dutch people about the dark past of their nation, unfortunately I have to say that in general the movie is kind of boring. I wish I had seen a more "entertaining" piece.
Also, to my feeling, the movie is tinted here and there by illogical artefacts. This is partly because, being an Indonesian, while seeing the movie I constantly tried to project scenes and settings in the movie onto real images that you would have or would recognize in your mind, though not intentionally. So while watching I kept murmuring "it does not add up... it does not add up..."
Some examples are:
It seems that the movie wants to depict Saigon-like circumstances with prostitution scenes. Prostitution did happen but most probably only in large towns. The setting looks too artificially traditional (rural). It is difficult to imagine it with any possible real specific locations.
With the rate of killing reaching hundreds of executions per day, the actual events in Celebes (Sulawesi) must have been much more arbitrary than depicted in the movie, not according to a list of names from the intel, complete with the first and last names. It is amazing to watch that no one was called forward by only one name to be executed by Westerling! The villages were not that advanced in terms of administration, as if a "citizen registrar's office" already existed in villages at Celebes in the 40s. The execution scenes must have been a significant moderation of the actual events.
The ambush on the river... well, I had expected an intense battle scene here with more Dutch casualties where some of the wounded ones calling their moms, "mommie... mommie...". Note: this is according to an interview of the late general A. H. Nasution by a Dutch TV station. He was telling a story when his unit ambushed Dutch patrol soldiers who were at a hopeless position when crossing the river. The interview was aired in 1995 when there was a lot of commotion around the planned visit of Queen Beatrix to Jakarta for the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the independence of the Republic of Indonesia.
I don't know if this makes sense or not, but the uniform of the Westerling's unit seems more like those of "The Expendables". On the other side, the Indonesian independence fighters were depicted like savages, with long hairs, muddy faces and badly dressed. One should only take a few minutes to observe video clips of many documentaries available in various media sources showing different images.
There are fragments of the movie that seem to be randomly inserted. For example, for those who are not familiar with why there were still armed Japanese in Indonesia after capitulation would have to do a home work to understand the scene. In this scene, the Dutch soldier was (being of course the good guy and has not committed any crime yet) defending an Indonesian who was being beaten badly by the Japanese soldiers.
Again, with all due respect to the intention of the maker of the movie, I would not rate it anywhere near other war movies like Platoon which also depicts a conflict of conscience.
Last but not least, it is a big pity that no text is shown at the end of the movie summarizing historical statistics, future events, and/or notes stating that Dutch war criminals being free from any trial or prosecution (even after ICC was founded and sits in The Hague).
bisriasm's Review of The East - IMDb
