Impetigore

Impetigore
Film poster
Indonesian	Perempuan Tanah Jahanam
Directed by	Joko Anwar
Written by	Joko Anwar
Produced by	Shanty Harmayn Tia Hasibuan Aoura Lovenson Chandra Ben Soebiakto
Starring	Tara Basro Marissa Anita Christine Hakim Ario Bayu
Cinematography	Ical Tanjung
Edited by	Dinda Amanda
Music by	Bemby Gusti Tony Merle Aghi Narottama
Production companies	Rapi Films Base Entertainment CJ Entertainment Ivanhoe Pictures
Distributed by	Shudder Originals
Release date	17 October 2019 (2019-10-17)
Running time	107 minutes
Country	Indonesia
Languages	Indonesian Javanese
Box office	Rp 71.8 billion[1] ($5.13 million)

Impetigore (Indonesian: Perempuan Tanah Jahanam, lit. 'Woman of the damned land') is a 2019 Indonesian horror film written and directed by Joko Anwar. The film starred Tara Basro, Marissa Anita, Christine Hakim, , and Ario Bayu. Impetigore was released in Indonesia on 17 October 2019.^[2] It showed at the Sundance Film Festival on 26 January 2020,^[3] and was released in the United States on Shudder on 23 July 2020.^[4]

The film is an international co-production between Indonesia's Rapi Films and BASE Entertainment with South Korea's CJ Entertainment and the US-based Ivanhoe Pictures.^[5] In November 2020, it was selected as the Indonesian official entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.^[6]

At the 40th Citra Awards, Indonesia's top film honours, the film received a record-breaking 17 nominations and won 6, including Best Picture, a second Best Director for Anwar, and a third supporting actress and ninth overall win for screen veteran Christine Hakim.^[7]

Plot[]

Maya and Dini are friends who work as tollbooth collectors. One night at work, Maya is attacked by a man wielding a golok. Her assailant claims to be from the village of Harjosari and calls Maya by another name, Rahayu.

Following the inscription on an old photo showing a young Maya with a couple in front of a large house, Maya and Dini travel to the remote Harjosari to look for the house in hopes of selling it for money.

At Harjosari, the pair encounters cold, suspicious villagers. They witness funerals taking place daily and observe that many headstones in the cemetery belong to children. Dini is lured away by villagers who slit her throat and skin her, mistaking her for Rahayu whose parents owned the house.

At night, Maya spies village leader Saptadi drowning a skinless newborn infant. She finds out from a sympathetic villager, Ratih, that 20 years ago, a rich wayang kulit artist was rumoured to have made a pact with the devil to heal his daughter Rahayu who was born without skin. Since then, all babies in the village have been born skinless. The villagers are persuaded by Saptadi to believe that Rahayu/Maya must be skinned to stop the curse.

The spirit of one of the little girls murdered by the wayang artist for her skin reveals to Maya that the actual way to end the curse is to bury the skins of the slain children together with their bones. The ghost also reveals that Rahayu was born skinless because Saptadi’s shaman mother had cursed the baby who was conceived from an adulterous affair between Saptadi and Rahayu’s mother.

Maya buries the wayang puppets made out of dead children’s skin and the victims’ spirits are pacified. She is captured by the villagers and, begging for her life, tells Saptadi that he is her biological father. Full of remorse, Saptadi kills himself as a healthy baby is finally born in the village. Out of guilt, Saptadi's mother kills herself too. Maya escapes as the villagers celebrate the first healthy birth in 20 years.

One year later, the wife of a villager has a violent miscarriage as it is shown that the spirit of Saptadi's mother has devoured the fetus, thus indicating the start of a much more horrific curse on the village.

Cast[]

Production[]

Development[]

In 2011, director Joko Anwar revealed a poster for the film which simultaneously announced as one of several planned films,^[8] although the project was cancelled due to the large number of films produced by Lifelike Pictures which was initially on board to produce. The project began to see the light seven years later when Ivanhoe Pictures announced a three-film collaboration with Anwar which includes Impetigore, Ghost in the Cell, and The Vow.^[9] He announced on Instagram that the film will be called Perempuan Tanah Jahanam on 31 December 2018, adding that it will be different from his previous horror film Satan's Slaves (2017).^[10][11] In February 2019, Anwar announced the cast members, including frequent collaborators Tara Basro, Marissa Anita, , Ario Bayu, and Arswendi Nasution.

Filming[]

The film was shot in villages around Malang, Gempol, Lumbang, Bromo, Lumajang, Ijen, and Banyuwangi.

Soundtrack[]

Reception[]

Critical response[]

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 95% approval rating based on 37 reviews, with an average rating of 7.30/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Impetigore uses its folk horror setting as the brutally effective backdrop for a supernatural story that sinks its hooks into the viewer and refuses to let go."^[13]

Awards and nominations[]

See also[]

• List of submissions to the 93rd Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film
• List of Indonesian submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film

References[]

External links[]

• Impetigore at AllMovie
• Impetigore at IMDb
• Impetigore at Rotten Tomatoes