SARI-SARING SINENG PINOY

Ikaw At Ang Gabi

In Ikaw At Ang Gabi (Diosa Productions, Inc.), we listen to the story of Tom (Dindo Fernando) and Emily (Beth Bautista), a couple whose marriage is on the rocks. Its apparent cause is an unexpressed contempt a three year old familiarity has bred. The main conflict of the film is fairly simple. Tom is a rising executive whose understanding of marriage matches that of his grandmother (Mary Walter). Emily, a librarian, feels the surge of new womanhood freed from the bondage of domesticity and is unsatisfied with marital bliss. At the start of the film, she is fascinated with the terribly plastic voice of Midnight Blue / Jake (Ronaldo Valdez), a disc jockey philosophizing over the cheap sentiments of pop music. She experiments with infidelity only to find another realm of emotions just as contemptuous as her husband's. Emily expresses her misgivings and returns to Tom without any indication that she has escaped boredom. Jake on the other hand has a free wheeling liaison with April (Chanda Romero) which is, however, always on the border of possession. The couples switch, humorously revealing the truths and embarrasments of their adventures. Danny Zialcita treats the film as a genre movie. He played around with overused situations in Filipino cinema by twisting its ending. A gun slaying turns into a bourgeois rationalization although a cold blooded murder in the manner of slum revenges is expected. This kidding around adds surreal dimension to the film but is marred by some uninspired acting.

Ikaw At Ang Gabi, however fails to weave the fabric of connection between husbands and wives. Tom is shocked with the ephemeral nature of one night stands and Emily realizes the ease of infidelity. Inasmuch as the film juxtaposes them against their intimate thoughts, they could have played out the complexity of their roles in a more cinematic detail. Here they simply wait. Also, the film neglects to locate Beth Bautista's emotional dilemma, she is lost to the idea of a modern woman. It is admittedly a difficult role which requires intellectual understanding to successfully pull it off. Wearied by a traitorous screenplay, she finds herself furiously gesticulating stock emotion and is never able to mine the resources of a thinking and feeling character. Ronaldo Valdez has this same fault. He has the strained English accent perfect for the part but doesn't progress from being mere physical equipment. It proves that an actor cannot just be typecast, he should possess some intelligence in order to make the necessary comments. Valdez is unable to switch from a carefree philanderer to a man in need of some permanent relationship. Dindo Fernando is very much alive to the nuances of his character. He acts out a mixture of masculine power and industrial impotence. "I am what I am," he confesses to his wife near the film's end, wounded by her infidelity but still sentimentally attached to his marriage vows. Chanda Romero in a brief but effective role as Ronaldo Valdez' lover depends largely on her sensual presence to make an initial impression. Her insight pierces through the layers of socialite fantasies and pampered, struggle-less growth. Finally, Zialcita's direction greatly suffers from a kind of verbal storytelling that is bridged with maudlin music. It is disappointing to note that the best sequence in the film, a confrontation between the two women at the Ayala museum is diffused into a mutual understanding though a flare-up is anticipated. On the balance, the film is a well made chamber drama which packs no dramatic power, only feeble sentimentality wrung dry from middle class marriage-go-round. As a rehash of the motif embroidering Eddie Romero's Sinong Kapiling, Sinong Kasiping (1977) and Ishmael Bernal's Dalawang Pugad, Isang Ibon (1978), Danny Zialcita's Ikaw At Ang Gabi does not push the limits of the theme into new frontiers as the director is severely remiss in creating cinematic devices which would have scanned the erratic emotional climate weathered by married couples in search of a happy ending.

Screenplay And Direction: Danny L. Zialcita
Story By: Ed Palmos
Director Of Photography: Felizardo Bailen
Musical Director: Demet Velasquez
Film Editor: Ike Jarlego, Sr.
Produced By: Diosa Productions, Inc.
Release Date: December 14, 1979

Nunal Sa Tubig

In the opening sequence of Ishmael Bernal's Nunal Sa Tubig (Crown Seven Film Productions), dark clouds start to gather in the sky. The island is then drenched by heavy rains, the village enveloped in darkness. Life goes on, birthing and dying, both communal and individual. In the film's last sequence, we see the island bathed in the sun's scorching heat. There has been so much death but very little life, yet people go on struggling for dear life. A cycle is achieved, but it ascends to another level of life and death. At the start of Nunal, people stare at the darkening skies. They gather their clothes from the clothesline to prevent them from getting drenched by the rain. At the film's close, Maria (Elizabeth Oropesa) and Tiya Urbana (Ella Luansing) stare at the sky while gathering wood at a nearby hill and see the sun coming out from the clouds. So does Adyang (Nenita Jana), hanging her panels of embroidered cloth which she has been working on for nine months to have them dry in the sun therefore, another cycle is achieved, again rising to another level of life and death. At the start of the film, residents of the coastal community are going back to the island, the waters of the lake and the wind coming from the lake is threatening to ravage the village.  At the end of the film, two young boys go to their boat, leave the island to go fishing in the lake. The two are seen paddling their way through the vast expanse of the now tranquil lake, at least on the surface. Nunal ends in an emotionally disturbing frame. The film frames a few small islands dwarfed by the lake's vastness, imaged as moles on the waters. The islands look serene and static, yet we are aware of the people's restlessness and the contradictions of social realities they are confronted with. We also see the slow and quiet movement of the boat, also imaged as a mole on the waters, its size accurately picturing the state of small fishermen in the country. The boat is made of timber, suggesting reliability and sturdiness, like the courage to struggle for a place and identity. Liwanag at Dilim are presented in constant opposition to each other. It is only when Chedeng (Daria Ramirez) bathes in the moonlit lake as an expiation of the sin she has committed that liwanag at dilim are interplayed to put to fore not the contradiction but the dissolution of dilim to liwanag or of liwanag to dilim.

What is at work here is Nunal's interrogation of the dichotomy. The fact that Tiya Urbana, the village idiot whose vision of life is darkness and emptiness, is the only one in the entire island enlightened enough to reach a higher understanding of the social realities of their life in the island, points to the irony and paradox dispersed all throughout the film. Another case is Benjamin (George Estregan). Before he leaves the island, the people are lining up for water in the community poso. When he comes back, the same people have abandoned the communal poso which can no longer pump potable water from the earth. Liwanag at Dilim are also embodied in the aural text of the film. The stillness of village life (liwanag) is always challenged by the monotonous sound (dilim) of motorized boats scouring the lake. Adyang's solitude, the quiet conversations between her and Maria, the lovemaking of Maria and Benjamin, of Benjamin and Chedeng, the storytelling sequences of Mang Jacob (Paquito Salcedo), the eeriness of the wake, Tiya Urbana's silent walks along the shore, the birthing scenes of women in the village, the confrontations between parents and children, all these are disrupted by the sound of motorboats roaming across the lake, as if death is about to strike, as if danger is in the offing. Nunal's rich aural metaphor, which is by itself a liwanag-dilim confrontation is another arena of the dialectics of life and death. Space, in this regard is measured by the ear. The sources of such disturbing sounds or silences permeate their subject through the invisibility and the seeming invincibility of their power. On the other hand, the recipients of these sounds who either prevail over these powers or are vanquished in the end, interpret them in a manner intelligible to their ways of life and struggle. Obviously, Nunal Sa Tubig makes use of earth, wind, sun and water as objective correlatives of the movements, passions, desires, feelings and visions of the people either communal or individual. Changes in any of these elements pierce the souls of the people of the island.

Directed By: Ishmael Bernal
Screenplay: Jorge Arago
Cinematography: Arnold Alvaro
Music: Vanishing Tribe
Editing: Augusto Salvador
Production Design: Betty Gosiengfiao
Produced By: Crown Seven Film Productions
Release Date: August 8, 1976

Bukas... May Pangarap

Higit sa pelikulang tumitistis sa kalagayan ng pagkaaba ang  Bukas... May Pangarap (Tri Films) ni Gil M. Portes. Ang pagiging mababa pa sa inaasahan ng taong  nahulog sa patibong ng illegal recruitment. Bunga nito, lumabo ang dating pagkakakilala ni Udong (Tommy Abuel) sa kanyang sarili at kapwa. Nahintakutan siya habang ang maybahay nitong si Mering (Gina Alajar) ay nasindak ng gayon na lamang, kasabay nito, nalusaw  rin ang kahalagahan, kahulugan at katatagan ng kanyang buhay. Sa pagtatapos ng pelikula, makakabawi si Udong ngunit kung inaakalang mapapawi ang bigat sa dibdib at isip sapagkat kanselado ang lahat ng kontradiksiyong nagpagalaw sa pelikula mula simula hanggang wakas at walang naunawaan sa ipanagkaganoon ng mga bagay-bagay sa pelikula ay nagkakamali. Malayo rito ang Bukas... May Pangarap ni Portes bagaman tinalakay rin niya ang paboritong paksa ng mga teleseryeng madalas napapanood ngayon sa telebisyon. Una, matalino ang kanyang pelikula, ibig sabihin may ginawa siyang hindi karaniwan sapagkat nagmula sa sarili niyang pagmumuni-muni sa paksa ng illegal recruitment at ang kaibahang ito ay hayag na hayag sa naratibo ng kanyang pelikula. Tangi pa rito, hinabi ni Portes at ng kanyang manunulat ang pagmumuni-muning ito hindi lamang sa antas ng indibidwal kundi pati sa antas ng lipunan. 


Buong buo at paikpik na paikpik ang estruktura ng pelikula. Umikot ang banghay nang pabalik sa pinanggalingan nito noong umpisa. Payak, tuwid at malinaw ang dulang pampelikula. Walang alinlangan ang pagdating at pag-alis ng mga eksena, piling-pili ang diyalogo, timpladong-timplado ang musika at tunog at makabuluhan at makahulugan ang mga patlang ng katahimikan Sa madaling salita, inalis ng direktor ang anumang bahagi ng pelikulang makagagambala sa pag-unawa dito at sa pagdanas sa salimuot ng suliraning pampamilya kasabay ng pagdanas ni Mering ng pagkahabag sa sarili upang makita ng hayagan kung paanong hindi mapipigilan ni Mering ang tuluyang pagkaaba. Nakalubog na siya sa balon ng kahihiyan at hindi na siya makaaahon pa. Marahil ay hindi na bago ang paksang pagkaaba ng tao sa pelikula. Sa katotohanan, ito ang temang naglalayong magsiwalat ng kabiguan at kasawiang dinanas. Hindi nagpapatumpik ang pelikula sa nais nitong isaad. Ito ngang isyu ng illegal recruitment ay kagyat na ring nakapaloob sa higit na malaking suliraning ekonomiko. Hindi magandang kamatayan ang isinasaad na solusyon sa unti-unting pagkawala ng abang buhay. Kaya nang magpaalam si Udong upang muling makipagsapalaran sa Saudi Arabia, lilinga siya sa paligid nang parang nakasisigurong sa pagkakataong ito'y maliwanang ang tutunguhing landas.


Direksiyon: Gil M. Portes
Dulang Pampelikula: Ricardo Lee
Sinematograpiya: Ely Cruz
Musika: Vehnee Saturno
Editing: Edgardo Vinarao
Disenyo: Juanito Sy
Produksiyon: Tri Films
Release Date: December 25, 1984