Of Love and Eggs (DVD Review)

16 Nov, 2008 By: Holly J. Wagner

Of Love and Eggs

Street 11/18/08
First Run
Comedy
$24.95 DVD
Not rated.
In Indonesian with English subtitles.

Seen through the eyes of three children, Of Love and Eggs tells intertwined stories of life in Jakarta, Indonesia, as local Muslims prepare for the Islamic holiday of Lebaran.

Asih grieves for her absent mother by fiercely holding onto and protecting her prayer rug and her place in daily activities. Her father also can’t let go, and sets a place for her at the table every meal.

Meanwhile impish Bimo is smuggling eggs out of his family egg stand to a beautiful, cosmopolitan kept woman he befriended in the marketplace and hopes will take the place of his dead mother.

Rindu, a deaf girl who also serves as a sort of narrator at times, is working on her drawing skills, but refuses to draw the mosque as instructed. The town is poor, and the mosque here has no dome; her brother has gone to another village to bring one back.

The stories and situations are universal: Everyone is looking for love. Small-town life is centered on the mosque, the marketplace, school — wherever the community comes together. While rough subtitles make some sequences difficult to follow, the stories all work together, and when the holiday comes, prayers are answered with a Jane Austen-like flourish.

Much of the humor is cultural, but enough of it transcends those boundaries to reach foreign viewers. It’s a good reminder to Americans about how much of the world lives.

Of Love and Eggs is a sweet film, a festival award winner and part of the Global Film Initiative, an effort to share world cultures through film. It does a nice job of that.

Bonus materials include a downloadable PDF discussion guide (accessible via DVD-ROM), information about the Initiative, Global Lens Showcase and trailers; and information about First Run Features.