No matter how hard i’ve tried, I just can’t. Yesterday for example, I got a chance to watch a work by Garin Nugroho, Opera Jawa. I met the person myself, younger than I thought really. The synopsis goes like this (from the youtube page).

Setyo and Siti live a peaceful life as husband and wife, selling earthenware in their village. But when Setyo is called away on business, a flirtatious butcher, Ludiro, takes advantage of Siti’s loneliness to seduce her. Tempted by song and dance, Siti initially refuses his advances but acquiesces in a moment of weakness, setting the stage for an epic battle between the two men. Located in lush forests and on pristine beaches of Java, director Garin Nugroho bases his deeply imagistic and dazzling visual narrative on the “The Abduction of Sita,” from the Hindu epic, The Ramayana.

Opera Jawa is featured in Global Lens 2008, a U.S. based touring film series presented by The Global Film Initiative. Global Lens 2008 showcases ten feature films from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

It was quite good, I must say. But the thing is, Why like that? Why doing such weird, unnecessary stuff like that? Why can’t it be more simple? But hey, it just me :P Everytime I see an art performance (real art, not modern art), all I want to say is :

whysoserious

Just take a look at the setup menu the first time you run it.

Opera 9.5 Setup

And after you’re done, a nice looking theme and beautiful welcome page greet you with such a wonderful… okay, here is the part where I’m over reacting :D

Opera 9.5 First Run

But really, just give it a spin, you might just like it. Opera 9.5 renders page very much like Firefox 3, but perhaps lacks a little bit on javascript and or AJAX support like on GMail or Plurk.

Get it on http://www.opera.com