Family Victim: The "Bad Coconut" of a Javanese Fam

Robert McKinley reviews Family Victim: The "Bad Coconut" of a Javanese Family, directed by Robert Lemelson (2010, 38 minutes)

The title of Family Victim: The “Bad Coconut” of a Javanese Family draws on a Javanese proverb that says there is “a bad coconut in every bunch” or as the related Balinese proverb would have it “not all coconuts from the same tree have milk.” This film shows with amazing sensitivity the complexities of a deviant personality within the strongly cooperative bonds of a large Javanese family. The one who is poorly adjusted, named Estu, has taken resources from his parents and siblings to support his gambling habit, he has often broken the possessions of others in destructive rages, and he has even threatened to kill his brother or his wife and their children through sorcery. Yet he feels that he is the one being misunderstood. He is the one not being listened to by his parents and siblings. He tries to tell them of his true feelings and anger by writing graffiti on the inside walls of his house and shop. The title “Family Victim” stems from one particular outburst. Despite the trouble he keeps causing his family, he is the victim! He explains that he has taken on all their misfortunes and they have taken on all his potential successes for themselves. So in his eyes he is a true family victim. On another wall he says he will get revenge. In tears his own sister tells of their mother having been driven to pray to God asking him to “please take Estu back,” for they have done all they can to take care of him. Somehow they have failed and can do no more. From where has all this pain and bitterness come?

That is the question director Robert Lemelson and his two Javanese colleagues. Dr. Mahar Agusno and his wife Dr. Ninik Supartini, a psychiatrist and a psychologist respectively, try to answer in this film. Estu is in fact Ninik's own brother. He had been included in a sample of poorly adjusted individuals Agusno and Supartini had been studying in central Java, Indonesia. Their joint research with anthropologist Lemelson is on culture and mental illness. Their intimate acquaintance with this case and their mutual sensitivity with regard to Estu and his family members makes for an exceptionally revealing account. It is frank, deeply well informed, and carried out over many years so as to have the effect of being an in depth longitudinal study. We get to see what can happen over time and in unforeseen ways in such difficult relationships as these.

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