Few people outside of Indonesia are likely to be familiar with the war of independence that began there just as WWII was coming to an end, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths at the hands of both Dutch soldiers and warring sectarian factions. The country finally achieved full emancipation from the Netherlands in 1949, though the wounds opened by the long and often brutal conflict would remain for the decades that followed.

Prolific Indonesian director Garin Nugroho revisits that pivotal historical period in Red Before Dawn ( Merah Sebelum Fajar ), a wartime road movie that condenses multiple aspects of the revolution into one rocky and dangerous trip through hostile territory.…