After Rory O’Connor reviewed Kamila Andini’s Before, Now & Then some 18 months ago at Berlinale, where it picked up the Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance, we’ve been awaiting a U.S. release, which finally comes this month. Set amid the political violence of late-1960s Indonesia, the film follows Nana, the beautiful wife of a wealthy plantation owner whose inner life remains with her deceased first husband, murdered in the civil war a decade prior. A survivor, Nana values her safety and material comforts, but carries out a haunted existence, dreaming of her lost love. Forced to confront her husband’s blatant infidelity, Nana makes an unusual connection with his younger mistress, Ino. The two women, sharing their secrets and desires, discover a newfound freedom and intimacy withheld from them both by the strictures of patriarchal society. Ahead of an August 25 theatrical release from Film Movement, the first trailer has arrived.
Rory said in his review, “The social and political upheavals of 1960s Indonesia provide a hardened backbone to what is otherwise a tale of longing and simmering romance. It’s the fifth work by Kamila Andini, an Indonesian filmmaker whose dreamy 2017 film Seen and Unseen became a festival darling, screening in Berlin and Toronto that year to acclaim. Before, Now & Then sees her return to the German capital––premiering in competition this week, a sharp ascendency––with her most ambitious film yet. Drawing a number of deeply felt performances from her cast, it is an aching period piece, if frankly staid, that comes complete with many of the genre’s most reliable tropes: sharp intakes of breath; glances stolen through laced curtains; and love, as ever, in opprobrium.”
See the trailer below.
Before, Now & Then opens on August 25 at BAM and will expand.