27 Steps of May (2019) Review: Trauma Told in Silence

Is 27 Steps of May worth watching?

Yes, if you are prepared for its subject and its pace. 27 Steps of May is a quiet, courageous Indonesian drama about living after sexual violence, and Raihaanun’s almost wordless lead performance is remarkable. Ravi L. Bharwani treats trauma as something lived in routines and silences rather than speeches, which gives the film unusual dignity. The reservation is that its restraint can become opaque: long stretches are deliberately repetitive, and a more fanciful thread will not work for every viewer.

What is 27 Steps of May about?

When May was fourteen, she was raped by a group of men amid the violence of the May 1998 riots in Indonesia. Eight years later she is a young woman (Raihaanun) who has withdrawn completely from the world. She has not left the house since, barely speaks and keeps herself steady through a strict daily routine that allows no surprises.

Her father (Lukman Sardi) lives beside her in that silence, devastated and convinced he failed to protect her. He channels his guilt and rage outside the home, in bare-knuckle fights, while inside he tends to her needs without ever quite reaching her. The fragile balance between them is disturbed when May becomes aware of a stranger nearby, a magician played by Ario Bayu, whose presence tempts her toward the outside world.

27 Steps of May is an Indonesian film in Indonesian, directed by Bharwani, and it runs 112 minutes. It won the Golden Hanoman Award at the Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival (JAFF) in 2018.

A performance built from gestures

Raihaanun has almost no dialogue to work with, and she does not need it. Her May is precise, tense and watchful, a woman whose control over tiny tasks is the only defence she has. Every small departure from routine, a glance toward a window, a hesitation at a door, carries enormous weight, and Raihaanun makes those moments feel like acts of courage rather than plot points.

Lukman Sardi is just as strong in a role that could easily have become a cliché. His father is not a tragic saint; he is a man who does not know what to do with his helplessness, and the film is honest about how his pain spills into violence elsewhere. Their shared scenes, mostly silent meals and exchanges of objects, are some of the most affecting in recent Indonesian cinema.

Silence as form

Bharwani’s direction is patient to the point of severity. The camera often observes from a fixed distance, the soundscape of the house is kept spare, and repetition becomes the film’s rhythm: the same meals, the same chores, the same corridor. That structure makes the audience feel the weight of May’s confinement, and it makes the slightest change register like an earthquake.

The film is also careful with its history. It does not turn the 1998 riots into a spectacle or a lecture; the national catastrophe stays mostly in the background, felt through one family’s damage. Some viewers may wish the film engaged more directly with that past, but its reticence is a choice rather than an evasion.

The magician divides the room

The magician thread is the film’s boldest idea and its most divisive. It brings colour, play and a hint of magical realism into an otherwise austere film, and for some viewers it will feel like the necessary crack of light. For others it will sit awkwardly beside the grounded portrait of trauma, a symbol working a little too visibly. The pacing, too, will test anyone expecting conventional dramatic progress.

Who should watch 27 Steps of May?

It suits viewers who appreciate slow, performance-led drama, those interested in Indonesian cinema beyond genre films, and anyone who values serious films about recovery. Allow just under two hours and full attention. The film deals directly with rape and its aftermath, and includes violence and emotional distress; it is for adults, and survivors may want to approach it with care.

Related Indonesian films worth your time:

• Autobiography, another restrained Indonesian drama that confronts the country’s history of power and violence.
• Arisan!, a much lighter, satirical film that also broke a social silence in its day.

The verdict

27 Steps of May is a difficult, deeply humane film that finds a cinematic language for trauma in silence and repetition. Its slowness and its symbolism will divide audiences, but Raihaanun and Lukman Sardi give performances of rare control, and the film treats its subject with the seriousness it deserves.

Rating: 3.5/5