Yazman Yazid’s Blood and Crown of the Dancer: What a missing film adaptation can tell you

Abstract

This article investigates Indonesia s Darah dan Mahkota Ronggeng (Blood and Crown of the Dancer) (Yazid, 1983), a discredited and missing film adaptation of Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk (The Dancer of Paruk Village) (1982), a commercially successful and critically acclaimed novel. Using textual and sociological approaches, this article demonstrates the following: how the disappearance of the adaptation can shed light on the cultural constructs of Indonesian popular film and adaptation and how the surviving screenplay, combined with other secondary sources, can reveal the politics of adaptation, society and government in New Order Indonesia. The film�s loss reveals the poor infrastructure of Indonesian film archiving, the dichotomy of popular and non-popular film adaptation, and the neglect of critically and commercially unsuccessful film adaptations. The screenplay embodies the depoliticization and politicization of critical issues in societal and governmental lives such as indigenous religion, traditional women, supra-local crime and social discontent.