The Wedding Contract

The American film and theater director David Dawkins has been living on the Indonesian island of Bali for a year now. He speaks the language, has been accepted into the local community and has been given a Balinese name. He is also head-over-heels in love with his young Balinese girlfriend Mariyati and wants to marry her, but first he needs her father’s permission. When her father refuses to listen, the couple resorts to a traditional method of resolving such issues: they draw up a “wedding contract” before the man kidnaps his lover and takes her to his village to get married. It is a complex procedure involving the entire community. Using video footage he has recorded over dozens of years, Dawkins illustrates his Balinese love story, which he tells from start to finish in voice-over: how he was first enchanted by the music and beauty of the island; the whole business of marriage and the lack of understanding for one another’s customs and traditions; right up to how the couple is doing now, years later. His film is both a personal love story and an immersion in Balinese culture, full of dance, music and sacrifices to appease the gods and the ancestors.