Ketika Cinta Bertasbih—“Another Sinetron Movie”

I watched movie “Ketika Cinta Bertasbih” together with my friends last Friday. My curiosity about this second movie from the famous author of Ayat-ayat Cinta, Habiburrahman El Shirazy is because his first movie became a successful movie in Indonesia. I believe this is also the reason why some people are willing to stand in line for hours. Although this movie was taken in Egypt but in my opinion this movie was disappointed. I think this movie was quite the same as a sinetron movie in our national television. I will explain the reasons why I had this opinion.

Firstly, this movie tells a story about a man named Khairul Azzam (M. Kholidi Asadi Alam) who studied in Al-Azhar University in Egypt for nine years. He sells fermented soybean cake and meatball for a living and to support his family fund in Solo. This business also made him get acquaintance with a beautiful girl named Eliana Pramesti (Alice Norin), a daughter of Indonesia Embassy for Egypt, Mr. Alam (Slamet Rahardjo). The main character was quite similar with the previous movie, Fahri in Ayat-ayat Cinta. Both of them have some similar characteristics, such as handsome, tall, religious, and luckily many girls chase after him.

The story continued when Azzam thinks that he wasn’t right for Eliana, because of her lifestyle was totally different with him and afterward Mr. Ali (Didi Petet) suggested him to propose Anna Althafunissa (Oki Setiana), a beautiful, smart, and religious Indonesian woman which also studied in Egypt. Unfortunately Anna was already purposed by Furqon, Azzam’s friend. One day Azzam and Anna were accidentally met in the bus, but they didn’t know each other. Then, after Anna come back to Indonesia, by chance Anna and Azzam’s sister met and they become friends. Not long afterwards Azzam and Eliana also will come back to Indonesia. I think many coincidences happened here and this kind of plot was rather predictable for me just like in the sinetron (television drama).

The other factors which disappointed me are the quality picture in one of the scenes where Azzam and Furqon met in the sea shore. The sky background was changed and the effect wasn’t perfectly edited so that we can see the white lines at the edge of Azzam and Furqon’s body. This is quite disturbing when I watched the movie.

Lastly, when the movie was reaching its raising action where Anna finally accepted Furqon’s marriage proposal the movie ended with words “to be continued. . .” and it followed by the sneak peak of the upcoming Ketika Cinta Bertasbih 2. This is completely made me feel like I am watching a sinetron on the television and I grumbled a little while I’m leaving the theater.

To conclude this, I think Ketika Cinta Bertasbih was an average Indonesian movie, even though the scenes were taken in Egypt. It was not a guarantee to make this movie outstanding than the last one.

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