interest in his next movie on a greater scale than he had experienced before. His most recent film, 2012’s Modus Anomali, is a tight exercise in storytelling – clearly a low-budget effort – relying on Anwar’s trademark sense of suspense. Built like a delightful puzzle box, the film teased genre fans at festivals all around the world. Modus Anomali tells of a man who wakes up buried in a shallow grave with no recollection of his identity or of how he got there. Wandering through the woods, he discovers a house with a murdered pregnant woman inside and a videotape. Playing the tape, he discovers the cabin is his and he’d arrived there for a holiday – however, an unknown party has intruded and harmed his wife and taken his children, capturing the grisly scene on video. He realises he must try to save his children and discover exactly what happened. Also, the psychopath is still on the loose. Modus Anomali was shot in English by Anwar and while the accents of the lead actors can be distracting, there’s something so refreshing in the simple intelligence of the tale that it’s hard not to be drawn in. Crafted meticulously, one of the joys of the picture comes through repeat viewings, revealing Anwar’s keen attention to detail, not leaving room for any lapses in logic. Like Christopher Nolan’s Memento before it, Modus Anomali is a film which rewards the audience for keeping up. Anwar is also a prolific actor, taking an approach that allows him to get inside a character’s head and understand their psychology.
His reputation is strange – in his home country he’s called arrogant, blunt, and brash but upon meeting him it’s hard not to be impressed by a mischievous and modest man clearly in love with what he’s doing. Recently, Modus Anomali screened at the Sitges Film Festival in Spain. Anwar was always around and exuded a charming energy with a jovial manner in the way he interacted with guests and festival attendees alike. Recently, Anwar has started work on three projects: a horror film, a thriller, and a drama. He remarked that the horror film is the first of its kind for him – the script scared him whilst writing it which considering his previous movies is quite a feat. The thriller’s premise revolves around five young people who decide to start bumping off Indonesian politicians. And the drama? Well, all he’ll say is that it’s called The Last Wedding on Earth, and that it’s being marketed at the Hong Kong Asian Financing Forum. Joko Anwar’s filmography is ripe for discovery; his intelligent, striking visual sense is consistently coupled with well-written scripts that could teach better-established directors a thing or two. His sense of fun (he once walked naked into a mini-mart because he’d promised on Twitter he’d do so if his followers hit a certain number) is always apparent in his works, and more than that, his films bring to the table what a hundred remakes, sequels or franchises could never do. Joko Anwar is a talent to watch and is more than ready for further genre acclaim.
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Modus Anomali (2012)
VERITE MARCH 2013
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