Berlin Film Festival – Variety

When Indonesian cuisine and romance make your mouth watering, "Aruna & Her Palate" is a feast for the crowds. An outbreak of suspected bird flu is less tasty and puts a budding epidemiologist in touch with his secret crush. Adapted from Laksmi Pamuntjak's 2014 novel "The Bird Woman's Palate", "Aruna" manages to overcome its sometimes delicate ingredients with precise direction and attractive performance from a leading cast. It is unlikely that the talented filmmaker mononym Edwin ("A blind pig who wants to fly", "Maps of the zoo") "Aruna" enjoys an exhibition in the section Culinary Cinema Berlin. The film received widespread critical support and worked well at the box office after a local release at the end of September.

In the first segments, Aruna (Dian Sastrowardoyo, "Whispering Sands") establishes a warm and winning relationship with viewers by addressing the camera directly. The device works great, and it's only a disappointment to see that it fades over the course of history. We discover she is a happy single and about thirty employees in a Jakarta company providing public health services. More importantly, she is also a dedicated gourmet who plans a culinary road trip with the bests Bono (Nicholas Saputra, "Zoo Cards"), a cheerful and high clbad chef; and Nadezhda (Hannah Al Rashid, "The Night Comes for Us"), a writer specializing in live reporting with a series of unsatisfactory business behind her.

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The trio's project seems doomed to failure when Burhan's company chief (Deddy Mahendra Desta) instructed Aruna to investigate reports of bird flu in several cities of the Indonesian archipelago . Undeterred, she decides to combine work and pleasure to discover regional dishes and exciting street food with her friends. Farish (Oka Antana, "Killers"), former colleague of Aruna's and former crush who was sent by a rival health services organization to oversee the same trio and add a hint of romantic spice to the tale, is now available. Case.

Although the company is good and every dish they taste has an absolutely delicious look, "Aruna" at first struggles to reconcile its playful and food aspects with the desolate reality of a health crisis that threatens. Diurnal sequences involving sick patients and people wearing biohazardous suits are well executed and highlight social, religious and cultural issues, but do not stay comfortable with fun romantic maneuvers and meaningful conversations. between the main actors once the work day is over. completed. Revelations about the reasons for the impending crisis are losing some ground and leaving the coast clear so that the public can have fun entertaining and come up with romantic conclusions both inevitable and very satisfying.

Titian Wattimena's screenplay and Edwin's direction fulfill their mission of pleasing without upsetting feelings. The confessionalists between Aruna and Nadezhda really bit. Sastrowardoyo is great as a woman whose search for new sensations is perfectly parallel to her discovery of the true novel. Al Rashid plays the vampire but never plays like a man eater. Saputra and Antana are absolutely right because they deserve to find happiness – if only they could express themselves correctly.

Shot attractive in interesting Indonesian places in Surabaya, Singkawang, Pontianak and Pamekasan of the photo direction Amalia TS, "Aruna" extends to a jazz-tinged score by Ken Jenie and Mar Galo used a little more than necessary but still nice to the ear. All other technical work is polite.