The Development Of The Local Film Industry In Indonesia During The Dutch Period,1926-1941

Cinema,as a medium of popular entertainment,is also a reflection of a society’s values and beliefs,a model of culture,and a window into the spirit of the nation.In the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries,the Dutch East Indies developed a thriving public culture,in which novels,plays and imported films became the three most popular forms of public culture during this period and were closely linked to each other,all of which provided the storytelling sources and technical basis for the subsequent emergence of local films.In this multi-ethnic society,the indigenous,Chinese and Europeans were the three most populous groups,and they all participated in different ways in the construction of the Dutch East Indian public culture.In 1926,with the production of the first local film,Loetoeng Kasaroeng,the local film industry in the Dutch East Indies was born.The fledgling local film industry was confronted with the cultural divide caused by the multi-ethnic society,so the film makers could only explore the local market by making films with different ethnic audiences as the mainstream audience.With the emergence of the global economic crisis and the local film industry’s own development difficulties,the local film industry entered a depression in the early 1930 s,during which only one filmmaker,The Teng Chun,monopolized the local film market during this period with his unique film style.Subsequently,Dutchman Albert Balink adopted a new and unprecedented approach to filmmaking,and his exploration produced Terang Boelan,which was a great success and set off the first wave of filmmaking in the Dutch East Indies,leading to many new developments in the local film industry.From the perspective of social effects,local films in the Dutch East Indies played a positive role in trying to shape Indonesian nationhood and ethnicity by providing community imagination and spreading modernity and anti-colonial ideas.However,because most of the local filmmakers in this period were Chinese and Europeans,the local films in this period also had the limitation of Orientalism.