Garasi

Let the music speak for itself.

But this is a film, right?

We are very much tickled with the above two statements upon watching the film which tries to revive a rock-film genre. As music is strongly linked to this kind of genre, Garasi does what it knows best: pulsating rhythms that make filmgoers tap in their feet despite the sorrowful lyrics or the gothic-look of the band’s members, the score that works within the same note of the soundtrack, altogether potentially gives a way for spawning merchandises, in particular, a rocking soundtrack album.

Set aside the music, what else do we have?

Sadly, not much.



What draws me to the film prior to watching it is the premise of the film that tries to balance the narrative structure of storytelling with the rock genre as mentioned early on. What I have seen later is the imbalance of the two, leaving each one standing on its own, and not supporting one another. Thus, we will see the highly-energized scenes of the band’s performances do initiate our heads to bang and nod, but once they stop, we are retreated back to the literally dark scenes which will take our eyes for a while to get used to. Patiently waiting for the next few minutes, we will see Prima Rusdi excels in writing dramatic scenes and their twists, particularly the climatic revelation between the band’s singer and her mother (in addition to the slip-in of criticism towards gossipy news which is subtly done very well). And Prima knows not to dwell on this kind of scene for too long to create a good impact to the entire film, leaving the path back to the rock scenes to quench the thirst of the film’s intended audience, i.e. teens or youngsters with high aspiration in music.

There goes how the film will appeal, and for those who prefer to scratch their heads over its simplistic story line, let the comical scenes entertain you instead, for the film knows what it aims best, that is, to rock, the hard way.