Jump to content

Wikipedia:Peer review/Sorga Ka Toedjoe/archive1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to bring this to PR. I am certain that this is the most detailed look at this film in existence (in either English or Indonesian) and would like input regarding grammar and context. I have a scan of the novelisation in the pipeline, and that should be fine to upload to Commons in a week or so if anyone wants to check it.

Thanks,  — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:55, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Wehwalt

Excellently done as always.

Lede
  • "couple which is reunited" I'm not saying "couple which" is wrong. I do say "couple who" gets twenty times as many ghits.
  • "after years of separation by another, younger couple" This can be read to say that the younger couple separated the older couple and kept them apart.
Body
  • "every day at 5" Perhaps "every day at that time" to avoid the repetition of 5.
  • "the son of a local landlord who intends to take Rasmina as his second wife" Who is so intending? Parta or Dad? Also, it's not clear what is meant by second wife, whether being the second Mrs. Parta means sharing him with another or putting flowers on a grave.
  • "She retreats into the shack and is chased by the pair." Must be a very large shack.
  • " takes her to Hadidjah's home." Rasminah's home too. Hm. Maybe "returns her home" (obviously "takes her home" doesn't work)
  • "outside of the city; Hadidjah's long-lost husband" I would either split the sentence or upgrade the semicolon to a dash
  • "when they helped reestablish the company after it had been dissolved in 1932 and directed the hit film Fatima." Hm. Maybe "when they directed the hit film Fatima, helping to reestablish the company after it had been dissolved in 1932".
  • " regularly been coupled on-screen" I would change "coupled" to "paired". Coupled has a definite double meaning.
  • "Singapore, then part of British Malaya." Part of the Straits Settlements then, no?
  • Reworked a bit.

Comments by Sarastro: Nicely done. No real issues, and I did some minor copy-editing which you can freely undo again. Seems like there is not much known about this film, unfortunately, but I have no doubts that every source has been combed. Sarastro1 (talk) 19:30, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

  • "… is a 1940 film from the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) which was directed by Joshua and Othniel Wong for Tan's Film." Slight redundancy, I think this makes the first sentence snappier.
  • "It follows an older couple, portrayed by Kartolo and Annie Landouw, who are reunited by another, younger couple (portrayed by Roekiah and Djoemala) after years of separation." Minor reordering to aid the flow, perhaps? "It follows an older couple, portrayed by Kartolo and Annie Landouw, who after years of separation are reunited by another, younger couple (portrayed by Roekiah and Djoemala)" And do we need "portrayed" or could we just have the actors' names in parentheses?
    • Reworked.

Plot

  • "Since then she has sung the kroncong song "Sorga Ka Toedjoe"…": The tenses seem odd here. Why not "Since then, she sings…"?
  • I generally wouldn't put "since then" with the simple present tense, as "since then" means that there was a fixed starting point (whereas the simple present is for habits / ongoing occurrences which need not have a fixed starting point). Changed to "now". — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:54, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Following an encounter with the rich and detestable Parta, who intends to take Rasmina as his second wife, Rasminah decides to go to the nearby city of Batavia ": Rasmina or Rasminah? And do we need to repeat the name, or could the first one become "her"? I also think "…goes to the nearby city…" would be more economical as her decision is implied.
  • "When she returns to Puncak after several days in the city": So she doesn't find a job?
  • Lots of "houses" in the third paragraph of the plot.
  • Another mix of Rasmina/h
  • "Hadidjah's long-lost husband had previously operated his own orchard, but had been evicted by a conniving and greedy landlord only days before": Perhaps just "Hadidjah's long-lost husband previously operated his own orchard, but had been evicted by a conniving and greedy landlord only days before"
  • To quote, from Present perfect, "The present perfect in English is used chiefly for completed past actions or events, when no particular past time frame is specified or implied for them (it is understood that it is the present result of the events that is significant, rather than their actual occurrence) (emphasis mine)," whereas the past perfect is "used in referring to something that occurred earlier than the time being considered, when the time being considered is already in the past". In this case we are writing from the point of view of what was contemporary in the film (hence the present perfect). In the "production" section, the events related to Terang Boelan and the stage acting were already in the past at the time of production, hence the pluperfect. Of course, if I'm wrong feel free to correct me. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:54, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Daft question. Why did Kasimin not look for his wife?
  • To quote the book, "If you don't want to trust me, I can't make you believe the truth of my explanation (that the girl he was hugging was his cousin). I want to leave this place, because I know that you cannot love me again, as before, until you can prove the truth of my words. (yadda yadda yadda, "I will always love you" etc.) Now goodbye!" (p. 10). From my reading, it's mostly pride that keeps him from looking for her. He knows he's innocent, and he wants her to know it too before he comes back to her. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:54, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Production

  • "Sorga Ka Toedjoe was directed by ethnic Chinese brothers Joshua and Othniel Wong for Tan's Film, a company owned by the ethnic Chinese brothers Khoen Yauw and Khoen Hian": Can we avoid two "ethnic Chinese" in the same sentence?
  • Sure. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:54, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Legacy

  • 'The film is likely lost. The American visual anthropologist Karl G. Heider writes that all Indonesian films from before 1950 are lost." Can we avoid repeating lost?

Nice images, too, by the way! Sarastro1 (talk) 19:30, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]