It can be said that mother knows it all in Crocodile Tears. This syndrome is illustrated in Tumpal Tampubolon’s low-key debut feature that examines the pathologically dysfunctional bond between an adult man and his doting mother, slowly moving from the domestic world into the genres closer to horror. Such relationships and the service of a crocodile farm coverage adds some complexity to the slow paced and at times muddled mix that should draw interest from the festivals keen on new breed of Indonesian cinema having its world premiere at Toronto Centrepiece and later London siege.
Tampulbolon’s short film The Sea Calls For Me (2021), which won the Best Asian Short Film award at the Busan festival, had touches of lonely boys and missing fathers. The same line is taken in his first feature – this time the setting is a run down crocodile farm in West Java run by Mama (Marissa Anita) and son Johan (Yusuf Mahardika). The writhing hoards of crocodiles are all sorts of cinematic candy for Teck Siang Lim who captures them thrashing and climbing on each other while gaping mouths await edible chickens that are hurled at them.
Tampubolon seems fascinated by those crocodiles, especially the close ups when the crocodiles flick their eyes open like the shutter of a camera lens, or those night scenes when tons of eyes can be seen shining in the dark. This is where it looks quite obvious that crocodiles will come in core of the story but for now the attention is on an anxious mother son relationship. It cannot be all one way, and so they brought her son. Every day, Mama and her boy shower each other with affection and attention. Mama kisses her boy, orders him to give her shoulder rubs, and embraces him when they are asleep with both of them sleeping on one bed. There are limits and private space is a foreign word. Johan’s father disappearance is another story line than will and cannot take the entire film revow, though generates whispers and speculation.
By such means they will also derive in equal measure together owing to different aspects, which is especially important in conveying the amother/son complex through physical interaction. Johan appears bored with the skin he is wearing; thrashing annoyed, bracing, struggling to be composed in the midst of irritation and heightened feelings of lust. Mother possesses a certain scornful perpetuity, for example when she is doing laundry for Johan and he has stained some underpants.
Johan’s relationship with Arumi (Zulfa Maharani) is the turning point for him, helping him pull himself away from the dull life he was leading. She is a foundling, a poorer one who is employed in some karaoke bar and has none of the family responsibilities or emotional ties that thrilling and endearing To Johan. As the two of them get closer, Mama begins to discern danger in Arumi. The audience can only wonder why Arumi moves to a crocodile farm when any sane person would take a hundred steps back from the place.
Crocodiles become more and more interesting as we learn that they are capable of eating their own eggs. The film still fascinates us as we are led to think what will be her reaction on her son decision to seek independence, and what will be her response as well from the powerful jaws and all those sharp teeth of the dancing crocodiles, so to speak. Mama seems to have some sort of weird but wonderful fusing co-existence with a pet white crocodile who gets its own block cage. All that is needed to announce that things are about to go to a tipping point is a rumble of thunder somewhere in the soundtrack and, as the story develops, the film also goes a tad into the territory of the likes of Get Out directed by Jordan Peele.
Crocodile Tears has all the things present in shlocky B-movie fare — relationships, family drama, action, murder, wounded lovel cockroaches, murder — but in this case, Tampubolon is not that interested in the subplots and relationships, instead, he chooses to regard them with clinical subtlety. Some viewers may still find the ultimate reversal of the true identity of the white ghari a bit too much.
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