“Ayat-Ayat Cinta” Ranks Top on Indonesia’s Box Office
Hanung Bramantyo’s movie “Ayat-Ayat Cinta” or The Verses of Love undeniably is the most favourite movie in Indonesia. At least 3 million people have watched the movie which based on a novel by Habiburrahman El-Shirazy. The novel itself sold more than 400,000 copies across the nation.
The story tells about a young-handsome Al-Azhar University’s student Fahri bin Abdullah Shiddiq (act by Fedy Nuril), who attracts beautiful young women surrounding him. Fahri, in this movie is being potrayed as a “perfect” muslim guy. He supports modern ideas such as gender equality which sometimes become a hot topic in the Islamic world. Fahri ended up following an unpopular move of polygamy by marrying 2 women due to the conditions. The women who plays in the movie are:
- Nurul (played by Melanie Putria), also an Indonesian in Egypt, the daughter of an important East Java kyai or Islamic scolar.
- Noura (Zaskia Adya Mecca), an ungrateful Egyptian girl (Fahri saves her life but she betrays him later. The reason is because she also love Fahri but Fahri didn’t give any response).
- Maria (Carissa Putri) a Coptic Christian living next door to Fahri, who inexplicably converts to Islam at the end of the film.
- Aisha (Rianti Cartwright), from a wealthy German-Arab family.
The movie also attracts Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the vice president Jusuf Kalla. They both watched this movie in the cinema at different times. Together with them, some ministers of the cabinet and parliament politicians.
This overwhelming response to the movie give more spirit to the Indonesia’s movie industry. One of the evidence is another production house is ready to make another movie based on Habiburrahman El-Shirazy’s second novel “Ketika Cinta Bertasbih”.
The question is, when will this “Islamic-movie-based-on-novel” hype will end? And what will it bring to the nation’s movie industry in the future?
Here are some trailers of the movie:
