General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Gie

Gie is a 2005 Indonesian biographical drama directed by Riri Riza, based on the diary Catatan Seorang Demonstran (A Demonstrant's Notes) by the Chinese-Indonesian activist and writer Soe Hok Gie (1942–1969)¹. It stars Nicholas Saputra as Soe Hok Gie and was produced by Mira Lesmana for Miles Films with SinemArt Pictures, opening in Indonesian cinemas on 14 July 2005². The film follows Gie from his youth through the political upheaval of 1960s Indonesia, the fall of Sukarno, and the rise of Suharto's New Order, a period the festival catalog for the film calls the darkest era of Indonesian history³.

Key fact	Detail
Director and writer	Riri Riza, his fourth feature¹^•⁴
Source	Soe Hok Gie's diary Catatan Seorang Demonstran, published in 1983, 14 years after his death⁴
Release	Indonesia, 14 July 2005²
Lead cast	Nicholas Saputra (Soe Hok Gie), Jonathan Mulia (young Gie), Sita Nursanti (Ira), Wulan Guritno (Sinta), Thomas Nawilis (Tan Tjin Han)⁵
Awards	Best Film, Best Actor, and Best Cinematography at the 2005 Festival Film Indonesia; Hubert Bals Fund prize at the Rotterdam International Film Festival²^•⁶
Runtime	147 minutes in the release version; some catalogs list 135 or 127 minutes⁴^•⁷^•²
Languages	Indonesian, with English and Mandarin also appearing⁷

Spoilers

The subject

Soe Hok Gie was a Chinese-Indonesian writer and journalist, born a Catholic during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies and educated at Canisius College and the Universitas Indonesia⁸. As a student activist and later a history lecturer at the University of Indonesia's Faculty of Letters, he published critical articles in national newspapers, mostly on political and nation-building issues⁹. He refused to join any political party, putting reason above loyalty even while remaining deeply committed to politics⁸.

The film's historical setting covers Sukarno's "guided democracy," tension between the military and the Communist Party, student demonstrations, anti-Communist riots and massacres, and the transfer of power to Suharto⁴. In the story, Gie is disillusioned when the struggle against the ruling regime produces a new dictatorship and massacres of people accused of communism, including his childhood friend Tan Tjin Han; his uncompromising idealism costs him his friends and the woman he loves, and only nature offers him refuge²^•³.

Gie died from inhaling poisonous gases while climbing Mount Semeru, Java's highest mountain and his favorite sport. The International Film Festival Rotterdam catalog states he died on his 27th birthday⁸, while an academic study of the film places his death one day before his twenty-seventh birthday in 1969⁶.

Production and adaptation

Riza wrote the screenplay, and the published script records that it went through eight drafts before reaching its final form⁶. Nicholas Saputra, a German-Indonesian actor Riza had worked with before, studied old footage of Gie to prepare for the role⁴^•⁸. Throughout the film, Saputra's voiceover quotes directly from the diaries, the text accompanying images of riots, opportunism, torture, and poverty⁴.

Recreating 1960s Jakarta. Because most of Jakarta had been intensively modernized, most scenes had to be shot in other towns that had escaped that modernization. Cinematographer Yudi Datau's work was described by the film critic Howard Feinstein of FIPRESCI, the international federation of film critics, as a stunningly textured recreation of Jakarta more than four decades earlier; the Indonesian Film Center notes the photography also tried to revive the color palette of 1970s Indonesian film⁴^•². Thoersi Argeswara composed a soundtrack mixing indigenous songs and rock 'n roll, and Sastha Sunu edited⁴^•⁷.

Reception and awards

At the 2005 Festival Film Indonesia in Jakarta, Gie won Citra Awards for Best Film (producer Mira Lesmana), Best Actor (Nicholas Saputra), and Best Cinematography (Yudi Datau), with nominations for Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, editing, sound, music, and art direction²^•³. The film also received the Hubert Bals Fund prize at the Rotterdam International Film Festival for its content and artistic value, and had its European premiere in the IFFR 2006 program⁶^•⁸.

Critical response was divided. Feinstein rejected Variety's "tediously conventional" verdict and argued the 147-minute release version was accessible to non-Indonesians, praising how tightly the film interweaves the personal life with the political upheaval⁴. Indonesian critics applauded its content and artistic value but expressed disappointment at its lack of focus and weak screenplay and dialogue; the journalist Hera Diani argued it concentrated too much on the political movement and not enough on the human relationships between its characters⁶.

Significance in Indonesian cinema

The film broke a long-standing taboo. Scholar Eric Sasono argued that Gie matters because it includes communist symbols such as the hammer and sickle and uses the genjer-genjer song associated with the PKI (the Indonesian Communist Party) in its soundtrack, both of which would have been impossible during the New Order era⁶. Coming twenty-three years after the 1982 government-sponsored Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI, the only other Indonesian film dealing with the destruction of the PKI and Suharto's rise, Gie provoked controversy because it was produced without government sponsorship⁶.

The film also treats a period still sensitive in Indonesia. The IFFR catalog notes that many issues surrounding Soe Hok Gie remain sensitive and that the film speaks to contemporary Indonesia; in censorship, only a kiss that lasted a little too long was cut, and no objections were made to the film's emphatic suggestion of homosexuality⁸. A content analysis of the film's political communication found that of 3,866 seconds of scenes containing political communication, 2,302 seconds (59.54 percent) fell into the category of abstention, reflecting Gie and his friends' preference to remain independent and neutral rather than join any faction or party¹⁰.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Documentary and biographical films › Biographical films of political, royal, military, and criminal figures › Political and revolutionary biopics

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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Gie