Young rapper deals with industry racism and father issues in Justin Chon drama

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Up-and-coming Indonesian rapper James (Brian Imanuel) has taken a big professional leap by signing with an international label. But just as music executives are eager to get his music known globally, they demand that he dilute his cultural identity to appeal to industry trends in the West. Yet Jamojaya – director Justin Chon’s new feature, premiering at Sundance – is only partially about James’ standoff with the greedy forces eager to exploit him. A family crack also haunts him.

The rising star chose to part ways professionally with his father and now former manager Joyo (Yayu AW Unru), a decision the latter did not take well. Under pressure to record his album in Hawaii, James first welcomes his father’s presence during an unexpected visit. However, the more time they spend together, the more toxic their interactions become.

Chon tries to connect the two thematic threads – parent-child dysfunction and an artist struggling to stay authentic in a field that thrives on homogenization – and for a time he manages to balance the seriousness of the two, until what pent-up grief and unresolved trauma over the death of James’ brother grips the drama in increasingly hurtful fits.

The heart of the film rests on a legend that tells the story of a prince named Jamojaya who turns into a banyan tree after being poisoned. His brother voluntarily decides to transform into a bird to reach the higher branches of his siblings’ new form, but now the two don’t understand each other, and the bird can’t know for sure that he’s on. the right tree. This metaphor of miscommunication and dependency remains a recurring motif throughout.

For Joyo, a humble man who named his two sons after said prince, the need to watch his boy closely stems from a guilt expressed as a sense of duty. James’s new American manager doesn’t fight for rappers’ interests like Joyo would, and though his English is limited, Unrus’ devastating performance – a complex change of tone and painful gestures – exemplifies what the words cannot. Unrus’ hard-to-ignore presence is captivating throughout.

In an effort to ease his pain or trick his mind into not collapsing, Joyo forces himself to laugh excessively every morning. This behavior will later have additional meaning. Above all, Joyo openly represents the loving but sometimes misguided ways of parents whose protectiveness can feel stifling. His desire to be needed and to correct past mistakes serves the opposite effect and widens the distance between him and his son.

Chon uses Joyos’ attempts to prove himself useful to James, by cleaning up or taking on menial duties for those in charge, to explain how white music producers and their staff watch the two Indonesian men with disdain. These dastardly industry figures, including racist label owner Michael (Henry Ian Cusick, “Big Sky”) and a pompous music video director, come across as simplistic and uninspiring representations of a rapacious business.

Opposite Unrus, Imanuel (also a real-life rapper, known as Rich Brian) is tasked with a less flashy, more contemplative, and ultimately defensive role. But as Chon leads his two leads through some interesting ups and downs in their relationship, as we witness, it often feels like Joyos’ ordeal dominates James’ search for autonomy. His artistic inspirations or what he wishes to communicate in his verses do not make the difference. Instead, it’s in the quieter moments with Dad, under a banyan tree or via wistful double-voiceover narration that we get a glimpse of his psychology.

With cinematographer Ante Cheng tasked with filming all of Chons’ feature film projects to date, the director capitalizes on the heavenly location not relying on postcard-perfect views, but rather finding compelling elements. that speak of a certain calm in the midst of interpersonal turmoil, like billowing curtains. in the wind from the seashore.

Co-writing with Maegan Houang, Chon mostly strays from the overworked melodrama that sometimes sank his earlier effort, Blue Bayou, but some of his tendencies to throw too much at the wall remain. For example, a few magical, realistic sequences — which, like those in Blue Bayou, deal with death and water — provide visually arresting imagery but tend to read as slightly out of place in a story already overflowing with ideas.

Other scenes, like a bizarre visit to a strip club where father and son are pressured by their peers to do drugs, look set to have major plot implications or perhaps even consequences for the characters. links, but instead fade to the background. Towards the end, a climactic howling match reveals all the previously unknown details of their mutual loss and its aftermath; perhaps a more subtle resolution might have preserved some of the solemn reflection that sometimes shines through in the less elegant passages.

As uneven as Jamojaya is, it’s still a step in the right direction toward restraining Chons’ prolific filmography of stories that center on people of Asian descent in life-changing circumstances. Although all of the titles on her resume revolve around similar concerns of alienation and legacy, Chon finds new angles to explore them. This one’s premise, where a tree refuses to drop its apples too far from it, might be its most original yet.

“Jamojaya” makes its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

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