Since its inception, photography has been a technique used to freeze reality in the form of still image recordings. It serves as a repository for events and memories of the captured objects. The film The Photograph, directed by Nan Achnas in 2007, presents elements of photography as its primary subject. Based on its title, the main subject of this film is the printed product of photography, or what we commonly refer to as a “portrait.” While several portraits are presented to support the narrative, some possess specific themes that indicate the medium’s role as a storage for one character’s past and a tool for identity formation for another. However, the film overlooks a crucial element of aesthetics related to the process and technique of photography—elements that could have served as the aesthetic foundation of the film itself. The aesthetics of photographic technique lie in how reality is selected and framed.
Technically, Azoulay (2019) explains that the process of framing, discarding, and removing everything irrelevant to the photograph’s needs is cut away and finalized by the shutter [1]. Our eyes also select what we want to see, even framing it. However, the eye does not reproduce that selected frame; the mechanics of photography do that for us. According to Walter Benjamin (1935), photography frees the hand from the most important artistic functions, which henceforth depend only on the eye looking into the lens [2]. The reproductive work of photography inverts the concept of what is original and what is not. Benjamin argues that in the context of a manuscript’s authenticity, for example, the presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity, and its manual reproduction would be considered a forgery. It is independent. This is not the case with technical reproduction, where the reproduction of the process is more independent than manual reproduction. In photography, for instance, process reproduction can bring out those aspects of the original that are unattainable to the naked eye yet accessible to the lens, which is adjustable and chooses its angle at will.
Photography is a technological development of the (Western) human desire for reality. Ronny Agustinus (2003) argues that […] while Eastern art is characterized by decorative qualities and flatness, all efforts in Western visual art—supported by the science they developed—were mobilized to capture that reality (which for a long period was equated with precision) [3]. Thus, at the birth of photography, painting was considered dead. The pursuit of precision, or “likeness,” was resolved by the mechanical reproductive work of photography.
Dziga Vertov later gave meaning to the capability of the (moving) camera beyond a mere recording tool through his Kino-Eye manifesto:
“I am kino-eye, I am a mechanical eye. I, a machine, show you the world as only I can see it. Now and forever, I free myself from human immobility, I am in constant motion, I draw near, then away from objects, I crawl under, I climb onto them.” (Vertov, 1984) [4].
Vertov emphasizes that technology (the camera) is capable of infiltrating daily life more deeply than the limited human eye. It is logical when Benjamin states that technology (film) can dissect human life like a surgeon.
Still Images and Moving Images
In the film The Photograph (2007), we are shown two characters who both intersect with photography. However, the difference between them lies in how they treat their respective portraits. Sita (Shanty) utilizes portraits as a tool to manipulate her identity. Sita constructs a new persona, transforming from a sex worker and bar singer into a factory worker. She uses this alternative identity to lie to her grandmother and daughter as a form of life negotiation. The portrait serves as a metaphor for Sita’s second identity in the eyes of her daughter.
In the context of reproduced reality, Campany (2008) juxtaposes the assumption between movement in film and stillness in photography. According to him, film imagery has duration, and thus the movement of the subject we see in a film exists at a mental level, because the chosen subject is one that moves and can be seen moving. Meanwhile, the stillness in photography clearly presents to us either stops movement or does not stop movement, or it affirms the immobility of inanimate objects [5].
If we realize, Lumière’s 1895 cinematography, Workers Leaving the Factory—a milestone as the first to represent moving images—was emphasized by its moving subjects, not the static building. Campany mentions that this mentality only becomes readable after juxtaposing it with Andy Warhol’s 1965 work, Empire. Warhol recorded the peak of the Empire State Building statically, using Kodak TRI-X ASA 400 film push-processed to ASA 1000. He used 10 reels of film, each lasting about 48 minutes when projected in slow motion at 16 frames per second, resulting in an 8-hour screening. Warhol separated cinematic duration from the depicted movement.
Sita utilizes the stillness of photography to freeze her alternative representative identity. Sita seems aware of utilizing photography’s reproductive character to halt actual reality. But perhaps this happens by accident. Perhaps the director lacks this awareness, as it is evident how the film tries hard to over-explain Sita’s representative reality: her phone conversations with her daughter; her self-affirmation and embracing of her second identity through monologues in front of a mirror; and wearing an evening gown beneath her prayer robe (mukena). Meanwhile, the portrait remains a mere ornament appearing occasionally throughout the 98-minute duration. The film’s consciousness in presenting the portrait as a cinematic montage fails to achieve its aesthetics. Cinema, in Achnas’s hands, seems to forget its fundamental nature—photography—whereas Warhol sophisticatedly dissected the most essential relationship between photography and cinema: stillness and movement within a single shot.
On the other hand, there is Johan, a photographer who owns a photo studio. However, he is an inheritor-photographer rather than a passionate one, merely continuing a family business tradition in running a small studio. He only photographs individuals or families wishing to document themselves or create memorabilia. He lacks a deep awareness of his medium’s capabilities, which could navigate his creative opportunities beyond his inherited business. The revolutionary principle of Vertov’s mechanical eye, celebrated for nearly a century, does not apply to Johan. For Johan, photography is an extension of business, not an extension of the eye. It does not penetrate the daily life of his community. Photography for Johan is only about himself and his private troubles. All he has is a past that haunts him. For Johan, the photograph is a vehicle to the past, functioning to remember his ancestors.
Roland Barthes (1980) argued that, ultimately, photography is subversive not when it is frightening, repels, or even stigmatizing, but when it is pensive, when it thinks [6]. When a photograph exists within a film, it demonstrates something opposite. It has the power to pause both literally and psychologically (Campany, 2008) [7]. The vast number of Johan’s ancestral portraits scattered throughout the film plays no role other than as narrative builders for the family business legacy. It is as if the history of these portraits’ presence is overlooked, eventually functioning only as narrative support for the background of Johan’s confinement in life. That confinement, too, must be revealed through verbal narrative; the portraits tell nothing. The meditative mentality brought by photography remains superficial in this film.
The ability of photography to provide an illusory pause in the reality of film time feels impotent. Portraits are present, but unfortunately, the images keep moving, and there is no illusion of frozen time. Given that film is an animated form of photography, moving through a sequence of hundreds of still images, it should indicate a series of subversiveness from deep reflection. With the clunky delivery of the word ‘family,’ the audience is given no space for contemplation on the photographic essence suggested by the title. Instead, the audience is invited to watch Johan say the word ‘family’ as a form of reflection on a sentimental past that is unpleasant to behold—not cinematic at all.
The Mystery of the Unmysterious Chest
It seems the director intended to characterize Johan as a mysterious figure. However, he is depicted with gestures that are quite comfortable, being close to the body of someone he has just met. Many shots depict the interaction between Johan and Sita. From the actors’ blocking within the frame to the psychological effects arising from that composition, everything indicates Johan’s ability to be warmly close to others, not mysterious at all. In fact, the variables for Johan to be a mysterious character were already available: he is alone, has past trauma, and interacts with others through a camera lens. These variables are rendered useless. Ultimately, Johan fails to be mysterious. The construction of Johan’s mystery is once again built by being “explained” simply through two conversations between Sita and Rossi (Indy Barends).
Every mysterious man must have a secret, someone said. But Johan does not. Yet the narrative demands it through the variables mentioned above. Thus, he has a “mysterious” chest, which presumably would serve as the narrative climax if opened. The chest is positioned as a code for Johan’s secret and trauma, appearing only four times. These four appearances fail to construct a “secret.” The attempted montage involves not completing the scenes—a sort of effort to create curiosity. However, every time the chest is bypassed, the audience easily forgets it, especially as it is overshadowed by various life dramas that prioritize dramatic elements over visual and sound construction—particularly with a soundtrack dominated by dramatic reinforcement.
The chest finally opens at the 82nd minute, as the film nears its end. It provides no sense of anticipation or curiosity because it has been forgotten. The building blocks of Johan’s mystery and secret are very weak, shown through scenes of placing ritual offerings on train tracks and staring at strange photos of tracks—which oddly come from a chest that seemed untouched. Ultimately, all secrets are revealed through dialogue supported by flashbacks: he regrets leaving his wife and child because he did not want to inherit the family studio business and did not love his wife. This leaves a question: is the resentment of obeying a will outside oneself a strong enough reason to abandon responsibilities as a husband and father? There is no explanation for this, despite the dialogue and flashbacks.
The secret inside the chest is portraits of the dismembered bodies of Johan’s wife and child, who committed suicide by jumping in front of a train after he left. These portraits are arranged on the chest to be shown to Sita. The scene intends to show the power of these portraits to depict Johan’s dark past and trauma.
A popular Thai horror film titled Shutter (Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom, 2004) uses the power of photography in an exquisite way. When the protagonist feels a ghostly presence in his house, he attempts to prove it by photographing his surroundings with an instant camera that prints images immediately. When these photos are arranged, the ghost manifests in the emulsion material printed on the film paper. The director materializes a supernatural idea into a Vertovian reality: “…I, a machine, show you the world as only I can see it. Now and forever, I free myself from human immobility…” This is a cinematic intelligence found in a popular film without serious pretensions; the filmmaker fully trusts the film’s aesthetics rooted in photography, where we can see a moving ghost through a sequence of still images. If cinema can move the static, like animating an inanimate object, Shutter pays tribute to cinema history by materializing a ghost into the same world as humans. This “mainstream” film is even wise in its title choice: Shutter—the window that opens and closes to gather light (photo) so it can be printed/materialized (graph).
The portraits of Johan’s family members arranged on the chest tell Johan’s trauma through dialogue and flashbacks. Consequently, the presence of the portraits serves merely as an illustration for the dialogue and flashbacks depicting Johan’s trauma. The photos in Shutter are dedicated to cinematic aesthetics. In contrast, Achnas is unable to find an aesthetic she trusts in the very medium she uses. As a title, The Photograph refers to a series of portraits scattered throughout the film without ever touching the idea of photography itself.
Aside from the primary essence regarding cinema and photography, there are many unanswered questions in this film. The use of Johan’s ethnic Chinese identity, claiming he came from Mainland China, is placed in the film without any significance. A small clue in a frame, the year 1956, indicating Johan’s birth, makes it difficult to connect to the vague history underlying the film. If Johan says he came to Indonesia as a child, meaning around the late 50s or early 60s, the Chinese community faced difficulties in trading at that time (Presidential Regulation No. 10 of 1959 prohibited foreigners from opening retail businesses at the non-urban level, though The Photograph provides no location details). This could be seen as incongruous. If the political climate at the time restricted the movement of the Chinese community, why did Johan and his family migrate to Indonesia? Based on the context of that era, the Chinese community was actually trying to leave Indonesia (Zainal, 1995) [8]. The Chinese government even urged Chinese citizens to leave Indonesia due to the regulation. Yet Johan had just arrived, owning a photo studio—a family business from his ancestors. The motive for Johan’s arrival in Indonesia ultimately becomes illogical. The photo studio fails to become a historical space for this multi-generational business. The photographs also fail to construct a deep idea of Johan’s ancestors. The foundation of the photo business is shaky. Instead, the importance of this studio is shown through Johan’s verbal remarks. By saying “this is important to me, I won’t meet my family in the afterlife if I don’t find a successor,” it doesn’t automatically make the studio important.
Conclusion
The Photograph is a film that does not discuss photography, but rather portraits that serve as narrative tools and memory connectors. It relies solely on storytelling and does not adhere to a full cinematic structure beyond narrative constructions that satisfy melodramatic requirements. The portrait (photograph) stores memory by materializing it. It is a technology originating from the West, and to discuss this medium, we need to examine it by dissecting its functional construction. The absence of any mention of the materiality of the photo in this film alienates photography. The portrait is not viewed as a material with a historical sequence of construction accompanying its birth. However, the film’s closing—a voice-over about preserving memory—shows that even in a narrative approach, the director still feels the need to explain further. Whether due to a lack of trust in the audience or a lack of trust in the film itself due to a stuttering grasp of the chosen medium’s aesthetics, memory is treated as something to be told or narrated. Memory, whose circulation space is in the realm of psychology, is always made verbal. Ultimately, the portrait does not become an aesthetic; it becomes a display that carries memory but never reaches its destination.
In discussing the daguerreotype principle in the context of Gabriel García Márquez’s Magic Realism, Otty Widasari (2025) reveals the distribution of camera principles and philosophy leading to its most fundamental concept: the print. However, it is explained that the daguerreotype did not take a giant leap to arrive in the magical realm. Márquez traced photographic elements as magical constructions, as Widasari explains: Before mentioning the daguerreotype, he first described the magnet, the lens, and the telescope—all operating on principles akin to those of the camera. He unraveled these principles and philosophies one by one, weaving them throughout the novel. [9].
Yet Márquez was able to sublimate modern logical principles with the Latin American tradition of magic realism. Even abstract memory was sophisticatedly dissected with the modern analytical tool of photographic selection: “…because solitude had made a selection in her memory and had burned the dimming piles of nostalgic waste that life had accumulated in her heart, and had purified, magnified, and eternalized the others, the most bitter ones.” (García Márquez, 1967) [10]—an element untouched by The Photograph.
References
1. Benjamin, Walter (1935). The Work of art in the Age of Mehanical Reproduction. In Hannah Arendt (Ed.), Illuminations. Shocken Books: New York
2. Azoulay, Ariella Aisha. Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism. 2019 London: Verso Book.
3. Agustinus, Ronny (2003). Video: Not All Correct, 2003. In Katalog Post Event OK Video
4. Vertov, Dziga. 1984. Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov. Los Angeles: University of California
5. Campany, David. Photography and Cinema. 2008. London: Reaktion Books
6. Barthes, Rolland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. 1980. New York: Hill and Wang
7. Campany, David. Photography and Cinema. 2008. London: Reaktion Books
8. Zainal, Muhammad . (1995). PP No.10/1959 Dan Akibatnya Bagi Hubungan Indonesia – RRC. Thesis. Depok: Universitas Indonesia
9. Widasari, Otty (2025). ……di Lenteng Agung, saat kereta lewat. In Manshur Zikri (Ed.), ARKIPEL: Years of Living Dangerously. Jakarta: Gajah Hidup
10. García Márquez, G. (2018). One Hundred Years of Solitude = Seratus Tahun Kesunyian (Djokolelono, Translator). Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama. (Original Works Published in 1967).
This article was written and published as part of “BUKAN SANDIWARA” KRITIK! Film Criticism & Curatorial Lab by Forum Lenteng.
Read the Bahasa Indonesia version of this article HERE
