Perang Kota This City Is a Battlefield
New York Asian Film Festival 2025
July 11 - 24, 2025
A schoolteacher and war hero navigates post-independence Jakarta, a city rife with political betrayals and intense bursts of sudden violence, in a potent portrait of masculinity under strain.
A compelling and vividly reimagined historical drama from acclaimed director Mouly Surya, Perang Kota This City Is a Battlefield follows a schoolteacher and war hero as he navigates post-independence Jakarta, after Indonesia claims independence from the Dutch and the Japanese. Beneath the surface tension of a city rife with political betrayals and intense bursts of sudden violence lies a potent portrait of masculinity under strain, with desire, frustration, and a growing sense of entrapment colliding. Marking her first foray into the action realm, and adapted from Mochtar Lubis’ 1952 novel A Road With No End, Surya blends complex psychological portraiture and grounded realism, imbuing her characters with tragic weight and evoking the eternal cycles of war and loss.
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