Samsara follows the story a man from an impoverished family who is rejected by the wealthy parents of the woman he loves. He strikes a bargain with the Monkey King, performing a dark ritual to gain wealth but in the process, curses his wife and child into suffering. Rooted in Indonesian mysticism, this is a universal narrative about the insatiable hunger to be what one is not, and the boundaries one is prepared to breach to realize this.
Adam, the Village Head who entered regional election politics brought his politics home, affecting his relationship with his wife and younger siblings. Mixed with the love affairs of the widowed Mother Earth with Mr. Janji, a widower, a former village head, the euphoria of the village residents ahead of the regional elections and political brokers and dynastic political issues that spread to the village via social media became increasingly chaotic.
Pertiwi, a strong and independent woman who took care of her three children: Adam, Sekar, and Isham until they became adults and left their hometown. Her husband died after losing the village head election against his rival, Janji Upaya. The children of Pertiwi, who blamed Janji Upaya for their father's death, harbored deep feelings of resentment towards Janji Upaya.
A civil servant taking shelter from the rain in front of a laundry shop. Then, he was given a bag of laundry clothes which he thought belonged to the laundry shop clerk. Unexpectedly, he took the bag containing lots of clothes and ran away and sparked a commotion in the surrounding community.
Set in Indonesia's Dutch colonial era, in 1927, a young and beautiful woman lives with her sick and aged Dutch husband. This woman loses her own name and is called Njai, which means a foreigner's concubine, and realizes that she is living in a kind of prison, while she deals with loads of visitors to her residence. Director Garin Nugroho shows in a distinctive way how much effort a woman, deserted both by the colonial country's law and the colonized country's traditional culture, puts in to retain her dignity.
