Emmanuel Ernawan

Peculiar Vacation and Other Illnesses

Ning, a young Catholic woman, takes up a better job with a furniture company, while her hapless husband—occasionally hawking gasoline—spends most of his time doing pretty much nothing. It is when Ning is required by her new job to go on a road trip with Mur, a male Muslim colleague, that the suffocation of her marriage gives way to an awakening of repressed desires. Set in Yogyakarta, this delicately observed mood piece and debut feature touches on unspoken issues of sexual repression and adultery in contemporary Indonesia.