Zienema: Samsara

In the silent cine-concert film Samsara (2024), visionary director Garin Nugroho translates a Balinese folk tale into a hallucinatory visual language, featuring mythical creatures and gamelan-infused hardcore beats.

It is Bali in the 1930s. Darta, from the working class, makes offerings in the house of the wealthy family of Sinta. The two have known each other since childhood and fall in love, but Sinta's family rejects their relationship: Darta does not meet their expectations. In his desperation, he meets a shaman who directs him to a ritual with the Monkey King - he can sacrifice his future child in exchange for the wealth he needs to marry. The story has something Faustian about it: how far will you go to become something you are not really?

Nugroho draws inspiration from the German black-and-white film of the 1920s and wayang kulit, the traditional Indonesian shadow puppet theatre. The soundtrack is the work of gamelan master Wayan Sudirana and the Balinese duo Gabber Modus Operandi, who fused industrial hardcore, hazy noise and traditional gamelan elements into something that gives the story of a man caught in dark rituals its own unique weight.

The soundtrack is not live this time, but it will feel like it.