STIRRING THE BROTH
2024
2024
DIRECTOR/ WRITER
SHORT FICTION
06:57
Risa calls her mother to ask for guidance on how to cook sayur lodeh for her husband, a dish she was never really fond of in the first place.
For more info: PRESS NOTE
For more info: PRESS NOTE
Screening and Awards:
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Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival 2024 - Official Selection
Director’s Statement:
My mother loves sayur lodeh, a vegetable soup made with a coconut milk broth, and she made it all the time for my family. Although I was never fond of it, it has a special place in my heart because it reminds me of her and all the unspoken thoughts she has towards my family.
I was raised in a cold, distant, and passive family where expressing feelings with each other is not normal. I often became a bystander to my father’s hurtful actions towards my mother, even over the pettiest things. I can’t help but wonder what my mother truly thinks of my father. On the rare occasions when I tried to be vulnerable and asked my mother how she felt, she would change the topic or casually brush it off, saying, “That’s how your father has always been.”
We have a well-known restriction for women not to speak ill of their husbands to others, as it could bring bad luck and doom the marriage. This leads to even more seclusion for women, preventing them from expressing themselves and realizing their agency in a marriage or relationship. It’s a patriarchal pattern that still persists even in my generation. It is something that I helplessly feel I can’t do anything about.
As I get older, I see sayur lodeh as something special. It reminds me of my mother and her sacrifices for the family. It became a lost warmth within my cold family. I feel a deep connection with Risa and her mother, two people who feel stuck in a cycle that persists through generations. Stirring the Broth suggests that maybe the first step in breaking this cycle is to acknowledge these feelings and have compassion for others and oneself. Even though it is bitter and uncomfortable; just like the taste of sayur lodeh to me.
My mother loves sayur lodeh, a vegetable soup made with a coconut milk broth, and she made it all the time for my family. Although I was never fond of it, it has a special place in my heart because it reminds me of her and all the unspoken thoughts she has towards my family.
I was raised in a cold, distant, and passive family where expressing feelings with each other is not normal. I often became a bystander to my father’s hurtful actions towards my mother, even over the pettiest things. I can’t help but wonder what my mother truly thinks of my father. On the rare occasions when I tried to be vulnerable and asked my mother how she felt, she would change the topic or casually brush it off, saying, “That’s how your father has always been.”
We have a well-known restriction for women not to speak ill of their husbands to others, as it could bring bad luck and doom the marriage. This leads to even more seclusion for women, preventing them from expressing themselves and realizing their agency in a marriage or relationship. It’s a patriarchal pattern that still persists even in my generation. It is something that I helplessly feel I can’t do anything about.
As I get older, I see sayur lodeh as something special. It reminds me of my mother and her sacrifices for the family. It became a lost warmth within my cold family. I feel a deep connection with Risa and her mother, two people who feel stuck in a cycle that persists through generations. Stirring the Broth suggests that maybe the first step in breaking this cycle is to acknowledge these feelings and have compassion for others and oneself. Even though it is bitter and uncomfortable; just like the taste of sayur lodeh to me.