Robert F Becker

Michael a struggling young artist from Melbourne comes to Bali in 1973 to escape the rat race and look for inspiration in the pristine tropical paradise. He is met at the airport by the driver of a close family member of the King of Ubud, in a pink cadillac. His host is also an artist, who he had met previously at an exhibition of Balinese art in Melbourne. He is driven up to Ubud in the gathering dark and misty rain along a winding road through numerous villages. There are no streetlights, only hundreds of fireflies. He is welcomed by his host’s family with a sumptuous traditional feast. At the feast is his host’s 18 year old daughter with whom he is immediately entranced and falls helplessly in love.

 

Over the weeks that follow he meets an eccentric resident artist of Ubud, Antonio Blanco and is influenced by his style. He paints an inspired portrait of the young woman, the best work he has ever done by far. Then he receives a letter from his long time girlfriend in Melbourne from whom he had separated before leaving Australia, feeling they were going nowhere. The letter is to tell him she is pregnant and he realises he must return so reluctantly he gives up his new existence and the inspiration he has found under the guidance of Blanco and flies back to Melbourne where he marries the girlfriend and they settle into a mundane existence together. He becomes a copywriter for an advertising firm and they earn good money and become well established, buying a house and having a daughter together who mysteriously reminds Michael of his lost love as she grows into a gorgeous young woman.

 

Meanwhile back in Ubud the young girl marries a man from a village in the north, the third son of a king and in accordance with tradition, goes to his village to live with his family, There she has a son, named Wayan Andika and they live a traditional life, coming to Ubud regularly to see her family. They witness the transformation of Ubud from a rural paradise to a tourist mecca, trampled by the press of insistent feet and choked by swarms of scooters and taxis. 

 

Back in Melbourne nearly forty years has gone by and Michael’s wife is very ill and dying from cancer. He is now 68 years old and has continued to paint although more as a distraction. He is holding an exhibition of his life’s work. Prominent amongst the pieces on display is his most treasured work, the portrait of his long lost Balinese love.

Meanwhile back in Ubud, Wayan Andika has got himself mired in huge amounts of debt through gambling on cock fighting. He meets an Australian woman from Melbourne and she persuades him to come back to Melbourne with her. When they get there she treats him like a servant and has flagrant affairs. He has to work in a menial service job in a hotel cleaning rooms and toilets.  It happens to be the hotel where Michael is displaying his work and Andika Wayan recognises the portrait of his mother as a very young woman. He meets the artist and gets speaking to him about his mother. When Michael realises who he is, he is astounded and they forge a firm connection.

 

Michael’s wife dies soon afterwards and he is grief stricken. Wayan has had enough of life in Australia and wants to leave his unfaithful wife and go back home. Michael decides to pack up his life again and go back to Ubud after nearly forty years away. His daughter has grown up and is working restoring old masterpieces in the Vatican. Michael and Wayan travel together and arrive in a country vastly different to the one he remembers from forty years before. There are cars and tourists everywhere and the trip up to Ubud is just one long snarl of traffic. He feels lost and disconsolate, thinking he will never rediscover the inspiration of his youth. Wayan has to face his creditors and goes to the Ubud cockfight with the money he has managed to save from his earnings in Melbourne. He has just enough to pay out what he owes. However he is tempted to put it all on one last fight so that he can double his money and buy a rice paddock. Then at the last moment he relents and doesn’t place the bet. Instead he pays out his debt and leaves a free man. Michael agrees to buy him a taxi and set him up in business.

 

There are no fireflies left in Ubud. They have all died out because of the building of resorts on the rice paddocks and the pesticides used on the crops. Michael is sitting on the verandah of his villa and he sees a single firefly. There is still just a glimmer of awakening hope. Wayan takes him to the rural village where Wayan’s mother lives and she is now a widow. They recognise one another instantly and although she doesn’t speak English they communicate through their eyes and Wayan translates. Michael leases a villa nearby from the family of her deceased husband and paints her again. Although now nearly sixty she is radiant and they are both fulfilled. Michael spends his remaining years painting ceaselessly, releasing his pent up passion and creativity. Each piece is more inspired than the last. He leaves a body of work that rivals that of some of the great masters. He is cremated in a traditional ceremony when he dies and his ashes are interred on the cliff overlooking the ocean. His love keeps watch over the site.

 

 

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