‘Levitating’ review: Global singing star Anggun impresses in ambitious, lyrical Indonesian drama

Dir: Wregas Bhanuteja. Indonesia/Singapore/France/Taiwan. 2026. 119mins

At a trance party that has absolutely nothing to do with house or EDM, an aspiring animal spirit channeller tries his hand at helping the residents of a small Indonesian village become possessed – and, in doing so, find joy. Levitating is director Wregas Bhanuteja’s third, and most ambitious, feature, in which indigenous spirituality, tradition, progress and late-stage capitalism collide in a musical, fantastical and singular way. Interrogating the nature and diversity of pleasure and the criticality of community, Bhanuteja’s energetic quasi-coming-of-age story is as enlightening as it is formally astute.

Musical, fantastical and singular 

Premiering in Sundance’s World Cinema Dramatic competition, Levitating is anchored by fluid cinematography from Gunnar Nimpuno and a suitably superstar turn by singer-actor Anggun as a shaman vocalist. The film should generate plenty of additional festival interest both in Asia and further afield. High production values give the film a chance at theatrical release in markets where films like Jang Jae-hyun’s Exhuma found audiences.

Bhanuteja is likely to be a beneficiary of the recent mini-boom and growing interest in Southeast Asian horror. Titles like Primbon (2023) and last year’s The Book Of Sijjin And Illiyyin are tapping folklore, superstition and urban legends for inspiration, giving the genre a distinct voice. After Andragogy (2023) and Photocopier (2021), Bhanuteja is now following in those footsteps, turning his lens on the supernatural and offering just enough stylish twists to stand out in na increasingly crowded field.

Bayu’s (Angga Yunanda) first foray into playing his flute at a trance party in his Indonesian hometown of Latas doesn’t go well. The event – at which villagers allow themselves to be swept away by traditional music and possessed by all manner of animal from the area, from leeches to tigers – relies on focused musicians and their ability to care for revelers that fall too deeply into their trances. Bayu, by contrast, is extremely distracted. His father (Indra Birowo) is considering selling his home to a land developer that wants to put up a hotel and exploit the village’s sacred water – a powder keg of an issue – and move back to Jakarta. Bayu is resistant to the idea, dedicated to shamanism as he is and unwilling to face another business failure by his father.

The party isn’t a total bust, however, as Bayu meets Laksmi (popular singer-actor Maudy Ayunda), who agrees to help Bayu become Latas’s official spririt channeller. Also guiding him is singer Asri (Anggun), one of the exacting judges who’ll have a say in who that person will be.

Bhanuteja has a firm handle on the material, and he and co-writers Defi Mahendra and Alicia Angelina have a clear destination in mind. Despite feeling a little unwieldy in the third act, Bayu’s progress as a musician and growing maturity feel organic, even when the film takes a turn for the overtly mystical. The creative use of theatrical black box staging, sequences of gravity-defying leaps and a hyper-stylised, graceful interpretation of bed bugs could be jarring, but instead dovetail effortlessly with the larger story. They demonstrate Bayu’s triumphs and failures, and visualise pleasure in all its facets. Bhanuteja’s formal leaps highlight the interior emotions of the so-called ‘spirit addicts’ – trance party-goers – and they are surprisingly affecting.

Central to Levitating’s success, however, are the physical, almost acrobatic performances from Yunanda, Ayunda and Anggun. Yunanda keeps Bayu wound tightly as a musician unable to surrender completely to his craft, and Ayunda balances casual confidence with lingering guilt that never tips into the maudlin. But it’s Anggun who proves why she’s a rock star, demanding attention every time she’s enveloped by Nimpuno’s swirling camera and giving voice to the film’s musical language, peaking in the inevitable showdown with the developers.