Secluded in a rundown crocodile zoo, Johan (Yusuf Mahardika) has lived a sheltered life under the thumb of his mother (Marissa Anita).
When he meets and forms a relationship with Arumi (Zulfa Maharani), a young woman his own age, tension builds with his mother.
That tension boils over when it turns out Arumi is pregnant...
It is so rare to see a movie without any context. It was also great that I was un-familiar with the cast.
A slow-boiling thriller, Crocodile Tears takes its time revealing the fault-lines between our central trio. Even before Arumi shows up, it is clear Johan is living in a very unhealthy home.
The film does not shy away from showing our protagonist's desires, or the oedipal undercurrents of his relationship with Mama.
For much of its runtime, the film is a powder keg of unspoken desire as the mother tries to keep control of her child - they even share the same bed.
There is a quiet, desperate sadness to Mahardika's performance, of an adult man struggling with a sense of a delayed adolescence. When he has to interact with people his own age, he is awkward and monosyllabic - he feels like a child, treating these outsiders like adults.
The film does not even try to sugarcoat his relationship with Arumi. A former sex worker, her bond with Johan comes from a similar desire to escape - in her case, poverty and exploitation. Johan's innocence and naivete - qualities which other people denigrate and ridicule - are what Arumi is drawn to.
At no point does it feel like a purely transactional relationship - the film is too nuanced to be so simple. And the film recognises the inherent suspense that comes from people's own contradictions and motivations. Most of the film's conflict comes from Mama's need to control every aspect of her kingdom (the crocodile zoo), including its human residents.
After the screening, I joked that it felt like a prequel to Psycho, if Norman brought a girl home to mother. But the movie is more singular than that.
The final sequence is genuinely terrifying, and the ending takes the film into a completely different space. I am still wrestling with where it ends.
A gem.
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