Tumpal Tampubolon’s Crocodile Tears opens with an arresting scene: A young man in his early twenties is masturbating when his mother’s scream interrupts him. He rushes outside to find her standing before a white crocodile cage, her body rigid with fear. It’s a bold introduction to what promises to be a psychologically complex exploration of maternal overprotection, working-class Indonesian life, and a potential spiritual dread. By the film’s end, however, that promise remains unfulfilled. Not because it lacks ideas, but because it never commits to developing any of them beyond surface provocation.
Johan (Yusuf Mahardika) and Mama (Marissa Anita, who remains nameless even after the credits roll) live and work at a crocodile park that serves as their sanctuary from the outside world. However, it’s practically Mama who remains confined there. Mama insists a white crocodile in the park is Johan’s missing father. Their bond fractures when Johan meets Arumi (Zulfa Maharani), a karaoke hostess new to the area. Mama’s possessive control is established early. She sleeps in the same bed as her adult son, washes his semen-stained underwear, and displays episodes of what appears to be spiritual possession. When Arumi enters their lives, the film spirals into a psychological confrontation between maternal devotion and adult desire, all shadowed by the enigmatic white crocodile.
The film introduces multiple thematic threads (class anxiety, oedipal dynamics, spiritual possession, the politics of smell and hygiene, to name a few), but none cohere into a meaningful statement. The most promising involves the sense of smell as a marker of class. Johan, reeking of sweat and live chickens from crocodile farm work, buys perfume to impress Arumi, masking his working-class markers. His mother initially delights in the birthday gift until she realizes Arumi wears the same fragrance. She immediately throws it away, preferring honest stench to any association with her rival. This is compelling material that shows hygiene as achievable through consumer goods, and a mother who rejects that transaction to maintain her family’s “purity.”
But the disconnect between character and setting muddies the film. Johan and Mama are costumed as struggling workers. They are sunburned, dressed in sweat-soaked clothes, and performing backbreaking labor at a mostly empty park with Rp15,000 (~$1 USD) tickets. They count their money after a near sold-out crocodile show, but the modest earnings do not square with their surprisingly comfortable two-bedroom house, complete with a manicured garden, dining table, and a cabinet filled with china ceramics. During the Q&A I attended after the film, director Tampubolon mentioned the house resembled his childhood home. It speaks as a sentimental choice but creates formal incoherence. This isn’t about insisting on strict realism in every film, but when production design contradicts the film’s economic reality, it confuses rather than clarifies who these characters are.
Marissa Anita’s performance as Mama is the film’s singular achievement. She disappears into the role, displaying only agony, sadness, and barely suppressed rage. Even her attempts at smiling collapse under the weight of her wrath. It’s a precise, controlled performance that deserves a better film around it. But Johan and Arumi feel inert. Johan’s actor delivers lines with static emotional expression. Arumi, costumed as a feminine girl, is meant to be soft with Johan but fierce with others, pushing away handsy customers and snapping at men who mock her during motorbike lessons with Johan. These moments suggest defensive complexity, but the actress portrays the character in the same soft-spoken register. Midway through the film, a costume choice attempts to signal Arumi’s transformation to her new life with Johan. But without stronger performance or writing, it instead creates meaningless character development.
Most frustratingly, we learn almost nothing about life at a crocodile farm. After 90 minutes with this fresh premise, I still don’t know what crocodile farm workers do all day. They throw live chickens to the crocodiles, yes, but what else? The cinematography is also timid. Shots of crocodiles are mostly filmed through cages and dividers. The camera is seemingly afraid of its subjects. Close-ups of the crocodile’s eye are clearly zoomed and cropped digitally, enlarged with visible quality loss. What’s the daily rhythm of maintaining a crocodile park? What does proximity to danger shape in Johan and Mama’s psychology? The film never explores these questions, treating its setting as an exotic backdrop rather than a lived reality.
Cinema, at its best, rewards attention by asking us to notice patterns and construct meaning. Crocodile Tears asks for that attention without earning it. For all its original premise and Marissa Anita’s committed performance, it ultimately sheds only crocodile tears. It’s a display of emotion without genuine feeling, patterns without purpose, and form without function.
Watched at Jakarta Film Week 2025.
