Mother Dao The Turtle-Like Movie Analysis

Mother Dao, the Turtle-like (1995) is a surrealism documentary that shot in early 20th century in Indonesia which was under Dutch colonial rule. The film has a unique characteristics unlike the traditional documentary that has a narrative structure. By not only combining the original footage that had no soundtrack along with the natural Indonesian music and songs, but also to eliminate the voice-over, the Dutch-born film director, Vincent Monnikendam wanted to let viewers to not be disturbed by any kinds of stereotypes and perceptions. Vincent wants the viewers to draw their own conclusions based on what the audiences feel and receive. Also, to bring out an idea of viewers should take history questionable instead of purely accept. Mother Dao, the Turtle-like (1995), was filmed in a purpose to show the people back in Holland about what sort of activities that the Dutch do in order to help the natives “grow” to become a more “civilized”, as well as how the exploitation colonialism works. Moreover, to unmask some of the mysteries that audience back in Holland might have for such colonial action, in order to create a positive propaganda for “serving the local natives”. However,

The post-production soundtracks that the film set includes natural voice, local music and poetry. The film also contains footages that has different point of view from different perspective on two different lands. Such documentary is a really in depth piece of art that focus heavily on the creation of natural sounds, and relativity light on the visual senses. In the film, by separating the visual and auditory, viewers can enhance the concentration of the pictures and also escape synchronied sound environment. As a result of that, as a viewer of this film, I can truly feel such unique way of presentation of the film allow different perspective to be brought out, and give audiences a better understanding of what the “fact” is