DE STAND VAN DE ZON

The Eye of the Day is an inventive, cinematic documentary focussing on a particular familys struggle to survive in Indonesia around the time of the fall of Suharto, personal experience intercut with political footage. It is a film of contrasts and parallels, set partly in Jakarta, partly in rural Java, incorporating family arguments and civil unrest, political campaigning and harvesting maize, clamouring for a few handfuls of rice sold from the back of a truck and jostling for position to vote at the first democratic elections. Extraordinary images include a fairground roundabout with far too many people hanging on, men climbing on each others shoulders on a mud pole to reach a prize a pack of t-shirts and an encounter with a cobra during the maize harvest. (Alex King)