Long time no see, P–assengers! We hope you’re ready to face the day’s rhythm and tackle every life dissonants with unwavering spirits, just like the heroes of Indonesia. Before we do that, however; let’s dig for inspiration from Indonesia’s beloved composer, Ismail Marzuki.
His name swirls timelessly as one of the ardent fighters of Indonesia’s independence. Born at Kwitang on May 11th 1914, little Ismail had been an acquaintance—a close friend—of the art world, especially music. He’s known for his several music masterpieces such as “Rayuan Pulau Kelapa” (1944), “Gugur Bunga” (1945), “Indonesia Pusaka” (1949), and so many more.
As a national hero, there are lots of extensive recounts of his life journey until he passed away on May 25th, 1958. Talking about recounts, we usually had to steel ourselves and face a long list of journals to truly learn about one hero’s life. While it’s encouraged, the work can be quite tedious, sometimes there’s a lot of ‘what if’s’, a wish if there’s a more ‘animated’ version of learning it: through a musical drama for example. What if we can dive deep of Ismail Marzuki’s life through a musical drama, just as we enjoyed Hamilton’s?
Turns out, a YouTube channel by the name of IndonesiaKaya is here to save the day!
Created on June 7th 2011, IndonesiaKaya served as an online medium of creative artworks, focusing on local performance arts such as dance, music, and acting. The channel has reached 209,553,930 views in total and is growing, and is dedicated to share the beauty of Indonesian arts. One of its standout productions is the musical drama web series of Ismail Marzuki’s life journey, titled Payung Fantasi (2022), which is named after one of his songs and heavily inspired contents from a biography titled “A Century of Ismail Marzuki: Melody Across Time” by Ninok Leksono. In collaboration with acclaimed filmmaker Garin Nugroho and BOOW Live, the series has six episodes and twenty-seven soundtracks, with most songs featuring Ismail’s best composed works.
The series starts with depictions of Ismail’s childhood, played by Mitchel. Ismail or Ma’ing, was regarded as an academically brilliant student, able to speak several languages as well as getting good grades each time. His love for music starts to grow when his father, Marzuki Saeran (Renno Krisna) introduced to him a ‘speaking machine’ or gramophone to young Ismail, which he promised to buy if he’s able to graduate to the next class. As the time passes, Ismail Marzuki (Gusty Pratama) grows into an idealistic young man who believes that the war on colonialism didn’t rely only with swords, but with his pen, music and words. To achieve his dream of a big music career and nation’s independence, he joined a popular keroncong orchestra group named Lief Java, led by Hugo Dumas (Beyon Destiano).
Ismail’s struggle to join the group was a tiring one, as the leader believed he was only an immature ‘fanboy’ who wants to get close to Lief Java’s inner circle, but he eventually proved himself to be an able musician and quickly warmed his way to his friends’ hearts. There, as a member of Lief Java, Ismail aired and traveled his music endeavors, where one day at Gambir Market, he met the recently famous singer Eulis Andjung or Eulis Zuraidah (Mariska Setiawan), who quickly captured his heart and later became his wife.
As natives, Ismail Marzuki alongside his friends often felt underappreciated and faced a lot of prejudices during the tenure of their career by the colonial Dutch radio, which not helped their already insufficient salary and short airing time. By the time Dutch colonials surrendered to Japan and signed the Treaty of Linggarjati on March 8th 1942, Lief Java, which later renamed to Kireina Djawa under Japan’s influence, was given much more freedom regarding intellectual matters, but later Ismail realized that it was part of Japan’s plan to win people’s trust and take advantage of it to colonize Indonesia once more, similar to the Dutch. Japan demanded his obedience later on through painful interrogations, but Ismail kept standing on what he believed in.
Ismail’s steadfastness was tested heavily during the year of 1940s, where early Indonesia’s politics and military struggles against colonials was at its peak, even after independence declaration in 1945. He had to find a way to discreetly air his voice, balancing his music career and family, and survive another day as the Dutch came back for another attempt at colonization. He had to forcefully move his family from Jakarta to Bandung around 1946, coming to terms with his father’s death, and then witnessed the southern part of the city he migrated into burned down to the ground. This real-life event was also known as Bandung Sea of Fire, one of Indonesia’s significant sacrifices to deny colonialism that inspired Ismail Marzuki for creation of the “Halo-Halo Bandung” (1946) song. After the nation’s turmoil had ended, Ismail later passed away at 44 years old in his wife’s embrace due to sickness, more specifically lung complications.
From the writer’s perspective, Payung Fantasi had successfully captured Ismail Marzuki’s complex yet colorful life through vibrant performances of its actors, fused with pleasant vintage-themed music arranged by Ivan Tangkulung that fits every scene’s emotions. It’s also worth noting that the series had re-introduced several Ismail Marzuki’s underrated yet beautiful works such as “Karangan Bunga Dari Selatan”, a melancholic yet moving song about a man’s calling to fight for his motherland and the thought of his possible death; “O Sarinah”, one of Ismail’s early works written in Dutch that captured Indonesia’s natural wonders; “Juwita Malam”, a romantic song about love at first sight, and so much more.
The series also depicts Ismail in a more realistic way as a human with vices and struggles. Even with his status as a successful artist and idealistic hero, there are moments where Ismail needs to rely his shoulder on his closest ones due to problems he faced or where he had to be reminded of humbleness and not to drown in his own ego. As a human, his path is carved not only by himself, but also by the people’s influence–his father, Lief Java, his wife, and ultimately, the collective dream of freedom from Indonesia. Combined with amazing storytelling and cinematography, the musical drama deserves high praise and hopefully much bigger recognition.
So, P-assangers, what do you think? Are you ready to see the maestro in action with his unique melodies through Payung Fantasi?