# Monisme (2023) Review: Merapi Between Fact and Myth > Monisme is Riar Rizaldi's experimental hybrid of documentary and fiction about life on Mount Merapi, a hypnotic, demanding film that rewards patient viewers. Canonical: https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/monisme-2023-review/ Published: 2026-07-23 Last updated: 2026-09-24 Author: Kaiser Khan — Founder & Editor Language: English Review basis: direct-viewing Spoilers: none Rating: 3.5/5 ## Verdict Yes, for adventurous viewers. It is a striking, atmospheric experiment about people and a volcano, but its elusive structure will frustrate anyone who wants a story. ## Is Monisme worth watching? **Yes, if you are open to experimental cinema. Monisme is a bold, often mesmerising portrait of Mount Merapi and the people who live in its shadow, one that deliberately blurs documentary and fiction.** Its images and sound design create a genuine sense of the volcano as a presence rather than a backdrop. The reservation is that Riar Rizaldi is more interested in ideas and atmosphere than in narrative, and at close to two hours the film asks for a patience that not every viewer will give. ## What is Monisme about? [Monisme](https://celluloidscore.com/movies/monisme-2023/) is set around Mount Merapi, the restless volcano that towers over Yogyakarta on the island of Java, and looks at the tangled relationships between the mountain and the communities that depend on it. Rather than following a single protagonist, the film moves between different people and ways of understanding the volcano: the practical work of those who make a living from its slopes, the scientific effort to measure and predict it, and older spiritual traditions that treat it as something alive. The film describes itself as formed between the factual and the fictional, the past and the future, the material and the spiritual. Some scenes play like observational documentary, others are clearly staged, and the line between the two is intentionally hard to find. The cast includes Rendra Bagus Pamungkas, Whani Darmawan and Kidung Paramadita, and the film gives none of them a conventional starring role. Rizaldi, an Indonesian artist and filmmaker, directed the film. It is in Indonesian, runs 116 minutes, and won the Golden Hanoman Award, the top prize at the Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival (JAFF), in 2023. ## A volcano as the main character The film's greatest achievement is how it makes Merapi felt. Rizaldi's camera often holds on the mountain's slopes, ash-grey landscapes and rock surfaces long enough for them to become strange, and the soundscape, heavy with rumbles, machinery and drones, gives the environment a constant low-level pressure. Even in scenes that are nominally about people, the mountain seems to be listening. That approach suits the film's central idea. The title points toward a philosophy in which everything is part of one substance, and the film keeps suggesting that geology, labour, science and belief are not separate spheres but aspects of the same system. It is an intellectually ambitious framework, and at its best the film turns it into something sensory rather than theoretical. ## Where fact and fiction meet The hybrid form is both exciting and slippery. When documentary textures give way to staged scenes, Monisme can feel like it is shifting between genres without warning, and those shifts produce some of its most memorable moments, where an apparently realistic scene tilts toward speculation or myth. The performances are low-key and naturalistic, which helps the fictional material sit comfortably beside the observational footage. The same quality will leave some viewers adrift. Characters are sketched rather than developed, context is rarely explained, and the film trusts its audience to assemble meaning from juxtaposition. For anyone who does not already know Merapi's significance in Javanese life, some of the cultural and spiritual references will pass without explanation. ## Where the ambition outruns the film At 116 minutes, Monisme is long for a work that avoids conventional momentum. The middle stretch in particular circles its themes rather than deepening them, and a few sequences feel more like gallery installations than parts of a feature. The film is rarely dull to look at, but its intellectual framework is more convincing in outline than in every scene. ## Who should watch Monisme? This is for viewers who enjoy slow, experimental and essayistic cinema, festival-goers curious about Indonesia's art-house scene, and anyone interested in films about landscape, ecology and belief. It is not a good pick for a casual evening or for viewers who need a clear story. There is little in the way of explicit content; the challenge is its form. For other Indonesian films that repay attention: - [Autobiography](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/autobiography-2022-review/), Makbul Mubarak's tense, festival-acclaimed drama about power and fear in rural Indonesia. - [Laskar Pelangi](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/laskar-pelangi-2008-review/), a far more conventional and crowd-pleasing portrait of a community shaped by its land and industry. More titles that sit between observation and invention can be found in our [documentary](https://celluloidscore.com/genres/documentary/) collection. ## The verdict Monisme is a serious, atmospheric experiment that treats a volcano as a meeting point for science, labour and faith. Its elusive storytelling and length will test many viewers, but those willing to meet it on its own terms will find one of the more distinctive Indonesian films of recent years. **Rating: 3.5/5** ## Related title - [Monisme (2023)](https://celluloidscore.com/movies/monisme-2023/) ## Editorial - [Editorial standards](https://celluloidscore.com/about/editorial-policy/) - [Report a correction](https://celluloidscore.com/about/corrections/)