This City Is A Battlefield (2025)

Mouly Surya | Indonesia, Singapore, the Netherlands, France, Norway, Philippines, Cambodia | 2025 | 119 min | M18 (Sexual Scenes) Revolution does not come cheaply, as a gang of anti-colonial hopefuls find when present passions test their dreams of a future. In 1946 Indonesia, with the power vacuum left by the war, Jakarta’s streets are awash with the craving for independence, while colonial rulers brutally quell any hint of unrest. Isa, a teacher and loving father, fights in an anti-colonial guerrilla cell alongside the younger hot-headed Hazil, who has eyes for Isa’s wife Fatimah. When a plot to kill a Dutch official is formed, they find themselves torn between not just ideologies, but family loyalties and friendships too. In its kinetic action sequences, the film is shot through with the heat of political struggle. Yet, in quieter moments and cloistered sets, heroism gives way to frustration and hesitation – pressures that mirror the unspeakable weight of a nation and individuals in transformation. With this adaptation of Mochtar Lubis’s 1952 novel A Road with No End, Mouly Surya cements her reputation as a master of genre. Fusing noir tropes with the sensuality of a period piece, her film fleshes out a period quietly written out of national history.