ABSTRACT
In the summer of 1996, I visited Taman Mini ‘Indonesia Indah’, a heritage park on the outskirts of Jakarta which presents a miniature representation of the nation of Indonesia.1 Allegedly inspired by Madame Tien Suharto’s visit to Disneyland in the early 1970s, the park was one of the major cultural initiatives of the Suharto regime after its seizure of power in 1965-67, and as such has attracted the attention of a number of Indonesia scholars (Anderson 1990b; Pemberton 1994b; Errington 1998a). What first caught my eye when I arrived at the park, however, was a giant shell-like structure which proved to be one of its more recent additions: the Keong Emas (Golden Snail) IMAX theatre. The theatre, I was to discover, houses a 1,000-seat auditorium containing what is claimed to be the world’s largest IMAX screen (21.5 m.×29.3 m.),2 as well as being-to my knowledge-the only IMAX theatre to include its own VIP lounge. For double the usual entrance fee of 3,000 Rp. (around $1.25 in 1996), indeed, the visitor can watch films from a lounge adjacent to the projection booth, in comfortable seats with side-tables previously graced by the likes of Vice-President George Bush (1984), King Hussein of Jordan (1986) and Princess Diana (1989). A visitor’s book in the lobby outside records the signatures and comments of some forty-four heads of state who have visited the theatre since its official opening by President Suharto on 20 April 1984.3
In addition to American IMAX films (To The Limit (1989) was playing when I visited), the Keong Emas’ main attraction are a series of three films depicting the nation of Indonesia, its geography, people and culture: Indonesia Indah (Beautiful Indonesia, 1984), Anak-Anak Indonesia (Indonesian Children, 1988) and Indonesia: Untaian Manikam Di Khatulistiwa (Indonesia: A String of Emeralds on the Equator, 1991). The films were commissioned especially for screening at the Keong Emas from MacGillivray-Freeman, a Los Angeles company which has been a pioneer in the development of IMAX films since producing To Fly for the National Air and Space
If nation-states are widely conceded to be ‘new’ and ‘historical’, the nations to which they give political expression always loom out of an immemorial past, and, still more important, glide into a limitless future. It is the magic of nationalism to turn chance into destiny. With Debray we might say, ‘Yes, it is quite accidental that I am born French; but after all, France is eternal’.
