Hong Kong Film Festival: ->-bleeped-<-s, Muslims and a 'Lovely Man'
March 25, 2012 |  4:02 pm

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2012/03/hong-kong-film-festival-between-->-bleeped-<-s-and-muslims-a-truly-lovely-man.html

This provocative and powerful film, part of the indie showcase here, is a father-daughter story unlike any you've seen. She's 19, a devout Muslim, hoping to reconnect with the father who abandoned her and her mother when she was 4. He's a fixture in the Taman Lawang area in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, where ->-bleeped-<- hookers ply their trade in the midnight hours. Both father (Donny Damara) and daughter (Raihaanun) are at turning points in their own personal crises.

There is a lot to be sorted out in writer/director Teddy Soeriaatmadja's sixth film. The  indie director has been making movies steadily since 2005. But "Lovely Man" may be the one that finally puts him on the international map; it has certainly emerged as one of the hot tickets in Hong Kong. His keen eye and intimate storytelling earned him a best director nomination at this year's Asian Film Awards. (The prize went to Asghar Farhadi, the Iranian writer/director of "A Separation," which won the foreign language Oscar last month.)

Soeriaatmadja has essentially created a conversation between the two that unfolds over one night when the daughter takes a train from the countryside where she's grown up to the city, in hopes of just seeing him. What she finds is nothing like the memories of a man blowing soap bubbles with her as a child -- instead he's a vamp in a beaded red miniskirt and black stilettos working prostitute's row. It's hard to tell who is more shocked, the girl or the father who thought his secret would be safe from her forever.