Evolution of a Filipino Film Lover

Lav Diaz's Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino (Evolution of a Filipino Family)

Evolution of a Filipino Film Lover

by Francis Joseph A. Cruz

I’m sure it did not happen deliberately, like a well-hatched plan from an expertly crafted heist film. And unlike dear Alexis Tioseco’s important pronouncements about film criticism, that it be fueled not by anything else but love, my almost accidental foray into film writing was borne out of frustration and a tinge of subtle rebellion.

Bullied by my traditional parents who thought anything relating to film can hardly be a career, I jumped from my graduation with an almost useless degree in psychology to law, where I spent most of my time reading about other people’s woes dehumanised into pieces of statutory provisions and their repercussions, and the rest of my time watching movies, and recording my reactions to them in a blog, mostly for my fragile memory’s sake than anything else. What I considered as mechanical routine turned into the most delicate of loves when I experienced suffering for film. See, in the Philippines, film has always been synonymous with enjoyment and escapism. Shying from the most pressing of real national concerns, commercial films delight in tackling the fleeting-like teenage romances or kitschy fantasies.

However, Lav Diaz’s Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino (Evolution of a Filipino Family, 2004), seen in my university’s film theater with the director running to and from his post-production house to deliver the DVDs and effectively turning the 10 hour-and-so running time of the film into a half-day event, woke me up. The physical pain of resisting sleep, hunger, and thirst, compounded by the emotional and spiritual pain of what Diaz had so eloquently communicated in his film affected me like no other film. It opened me to a family of Filipino filmmakers who are working outside the capitalist instructions of the businessmen governing the mainstream. It allowed me to transcend the selfish beginnings of simply writing about films for my requirements, and to start doing it for those who are open to see films beyond their more popular reasons of existence.

I opt to persist, notwithstanding the understandably love-hate relationship I have with the filmmakers whose products I love and adore so dearly that I cannot simply treat them with forgiving dishonesty, notwithstanding that writing is never lucrative and never materially rewarding, notwithstanding that most of my countrymen are more interested in the private affairs of actors and actresses than the merits of their work, notwithstanding the fact that the government has remained paranoid with its outdated censorship laws and film support programs, notwithstanding the fact that masterpieces have disappeared because of neglect and lack of information. I opt to persist - not notwithstanding, but because of what I enumerated above.

My participation in the Berlinale Talent Press is for me a validation that there is a lot more that needs to be done, to be written about, with regards the thing I love the most. I am simply humbled to have this experience as part of my continuing evolution as a Filipino film lover whose utmost goal is to propagate this seemingly insignificant love for a seemingly insignificant art form to as many countrymen as I possibly can.

(First published here. Read more in the Berlinale Talent Press website)