Cutting off Maryam's background really affects the perception of her character dynamics and leaves some pieces missing, primarily since they intended to show her inner struggles at the monastery. While perhaps the crew wanted to have subtlety as the main element of this film within the performance, the cinematography, and the dialogues, it unfortunately resulted in a lack of cohesion. The main attractiveness that pulls Maryam and Yosef is practically non-existent, some of the scenes contained rather pretentious lines than reflections of the wisdom from the bible, and the emotions only peaked in the third act after the slow-paced first and second acts filled with misinterpretation of "ascetic" with stale. On a lighter note, I hope this film will bring more ideas amongst Indonesian filmmakers, that religion outside the majority religion as well as cities outside Jakarta and Bali, can be equally beautiful on screen.
