Review Film of 13 Bom di Jakarta: A Film About Chaotic Economy

A film about chaotic economy

Beside of sophisticated action of gun war –according to the director (Angga Dwimas Sasongko) have been well trained and prepared– and every instrument to support this film is already well prepared –like the scene of a vehicle shot by an RPG gun. This film also introduces a new fresh theme in the industry film of Indonesia, economic chaos.

If we watch the trailer of the film, we are probably a bit confused with what the message –I do not know, between the message of the film is too high for society or the society does not understand. The majority judges a good of action and war of gun, they are not wrong, however, still have much interesting for this film.

After I watched this film, I remembered about the film of The Dark Knight (2008), Arok or Ismail Gani (Rio Dewanto) was drawn as the Joker, a villain character who did not care about money, “It’s not about money, it’s about sending a message”. In this film was drawn with the scene of a money box car shot by RPG and a quote by Waluyo (Muhammad Khan), “We did not need money, We are filling free days because all of stuff’s have been stolen, stolen by corrupt financial system.”

However, Joker and Batman in The Dark Knight (2008) are illustrated in black and white, then, the corrupt system in the Gotham still has abstract according to Geger Riyanto in the article Joker dan Kekerasan Objektif. In other words, the Joker (2019) has several social-political dimensions illustrated as a Joker, probably Arok or Ismail Gani (Rio Dewanto) in this film too, that illustrated in a corruption case of Dana Surya.

More than that I remembered an article from Martin Surjaya that has the title Libertarian Bersaudara: Resensi Buku Anarchy, State, and Utopia dan The Philoshoper and His Poor. To sum up, explain about economic chaos from the right wing and left wing because both anarchy exists.

The political right wing was represented by a bad government that used an ‘uncontrolled’ free market economy system and produced the mafia and oligarchy of economy. In this film illustrated by a quote from Arok a.k.a Ismail Gani (Rio Dewanto):

“Every doctrine of economy growth, just only makes elites to rich become richer, and poor peoples continuously exploited and life miserable, thereby on behalf of the systematic of bad economic system impact on entire our life, we are fighting to injustice, oligarch, and mafia finance, the justice will be enforcement with the radical move and every chance of people for equality in life must be return, … the greedy economy system must take responsible and now time for fighting.”

According to my paper about oligarchs, the birth of oligarchs is because both state and private corporations –especially nepotism culture– take mutual benefit to reach and defend a resource, like nature, finance, and others. This system makes a few people become super rich –and keep the resource because can govern the state.

Meanwhile, in this film context, the left-wing is represented by terrorists that used the Bitcoin system.

Why bitcoin? because it draws accurately of chaotic economy, why? without personal information or anonymous and decentralised or just noted between seller and buyer of bitcoin, without institutions or government, and encrypted by the crypto system, that context in this film used to money laundering of terrorism activities.

From a system of anonymity that is why Bitcoin became a place for money laundering of corruption, narcotic, and terrorist. Money laundering is money from criminal activities that hide or laundering or shift to other activities crimes and normal activities however still not legal.

In this film illustrated by a quote of a founder of Indodax, William (Ardhito Pramono), “The suspect it is clear understand about redemption with a bitcoin will be safe than cash money, the transaction of crypto is anonymous and pseudonym, so, will be very difficult to trace of sender and receiver.

The data on money laundering of crypto currency from the report of The 2024 Crypto Crime Report by Chainalysis, noted the transaction of money laundering in bitcoin from 2019 to 2023. The newest, 2023 noted by 22.2 billion dollars, meanwhile the peak of this period is in 2022, which is 31.5 billion dollars, and the lowest in 2020 which is 9.9 billion dollars.

Bitcoin itself is illustrated by the manifesto of the Bitcoin founder in the article Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, which plainly explains a transaction without an institution. Meanwhile, contemporary economics needs an institution to govern the financial system, like a central bank and every instrument.

In the context of the film illustrated by the quote of a founder of Indodax, Oscar (Chicco Kurniawan), “We face the future, a financial world become inclusive and transparent, freedom from inequality and centralisation.”

However, both of this system (between bitcoin that is decentralised and the economy of government that is centralised) can happen on both sides, because they are unwell controlled, thereby called ‘the twin’ by Martin Surjaya. To sum up, draw to chaos of economy.

Overall, Indonesia needed a film that can explain a complex context into an interesting and good movie, not only following the wave of ‘bullshit’ romantic films. For what? to illustrate the worst possibility if the government cannot handle massive corruption.

Thereby this film is very accurate to illustrate the complexity of a chaotic economy, including the element of bitcoin, with a good and accurate transcript of writing.

From my watchlist have 30 conversations about chaotic economy and bitcoin. 22 conversations about the chaotic economy and 8 conversations about Bitcoin.

However, if this film cannot deliver the message, it at least illustrates the weakness of the digital security infrastructure of the government, especially in the chairman of Stakeholder. Illustrated in this film by the quote of Damaskus (Rukman Rosadi), “Just you are both and crypto that makes they are one step in front of than me.”

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Film Review of 13 Bom di Jakarta: Terrible Side of Bitcoin’s Face and Hidden Message of Economy System