Badjao (1957)

Badjao (Lamberto Avellana, 1957)

As a romanticized document of two distinct cultures, the Badjao and Tausog tribes of Mindanao, Lamberto Avellana's Badjao is simply spectacular. It begins with a ritual, probably barbaric and shocking to our homogenized world. A baby is born to the pagan sea-faring Badjaos. The baby is then thrown into the sea, and a couple of Badjao men would dive into the sea to save the baby from drowning. A man would rise victorious carrying the baby and delivering it to the tribal chief (Pedro Faustino); and the baby, newest member is finally presented to the tribe.

We get a feel of their lifestyle through Avellana's curious and meticulous eye: the sense of justice of the Muslim Tausogs (there's a scene wherein the datu sentences a wrongdoer to pay the victim money and to be inflicted a slap that would erase all evidence of the wrongdoing); the intricate marriage vows; the codes of honor and bonds of dignity among and between these people; the clockwork commerce wherein the Badjaos supply the Tausogs pearls, and the latter supplies the rest of the world such pearls through shrewd middlemen.

The story, about Hassan (Tony Santos), a Badjao prince, who falls in love with Bal-Amai (Rosa Rosal), niece of the Tausog datu (Joseph de Cordova), is set in an age of the cultural inequality that has characterized the tensions that divide the two tribes. The vast cultural conflicts would lead Hassan to choose between his heritage and his heart. He chooses his heart and converts to Islam and cleansing himself of his Badjao heritage, and deciding to live as a farmer with Bal-Amai within the Tausog tribe. This decision leads to his banishment from the Badjao tribe.

It's a powerful picture, one that is very universal and human despite being set against the exoticized landscapes and seascapes of Mindanao. It pits traditions of honor, justice and civility of the two tribes, with sources of human fallibility like greed, prejudice and treachery. Characters are tested: Hassan with his decision to withdraw from the Badjao tribe and adopt Tausog culture; the datu who is blinded enough by the allure of money to descend to the level of blunt treachery; Bal-Amai with her insistence of making Hassan forget his roots.

Avellana always fills his scenes with intricacies and details. The Tausog town, with its port of bamboo scaffolds to the marketplace wherein the air of racism is quite apparent, is an impressively built set. Much more spectacular are the boats of the Badjaos: at night, we see these floating boats with their respective lighted torches, like will-o-wisps floating against the night sky. The action scenes are equally gripping: Jiriki (Vic Silayan), the datu's treacherous adviser, and Hassan's duel in the rock beach is nail-bitingly exciting; Muslim kris pitted against Badjao forked staff; and the two fighters end up rolling in the rocks. Avellana understands the mechanics of the fights (the same way he coherently choreographs the early duels in the Tausog town) and commits to celluloid such visceral intensity.

The film's final scene, a revisit of the ritual in the beginning, we begin to understand the rationale and humanity underneath the culture-specific ritual. We become more open to the similarities that bind us as a single people despite the diversity in religion, culture, and traditions. Badjao is a beautiful and intense film, probably the best and most ambitious Avellana made. Avellana, although a Catholic filmmaker and working under the grips of a commercial studio, paints a portrait of both Muslim and tribal cultures with forceful accuracy and affecting sensitivity.

Pyaasa (1957)

Pyaasa (Guru Dutt, 1957)
English Title: Thirst

The first Guru Dutt film I saw is Kaagaz Ke Phool (Paper Flowers, 1959), a film about a filmmaker trapped in the middle of a love triangle between a former wife and his muse, and choked by the public's overwhelming expectations of him. It has been said that the film (a box office failure in India) mirrors too much the life of Dutt, whose string of successes ended with his suicide. I was beholden by the film, which was an almost perfect marriage of beautiful black and white photography, understated musicality, lovely lyricism, as orchestrated by Dutt's perfectionist direction. I thought Kaagaz Ke Phool is Dutt's lone masterpiece, until now. Pyaasa (Thirst), made a few years before Kaagaz Ke Phool is even lovelier, more lyrical, and more fine tuned.

While Kaagaz Ke Phool's hero was a filmmaker, Pyaasa focuses on a different kind of artist --- the poet. Vijay (Guru Dutt), is a poet whose works are quickly dismissed by publishers. Driven out by his brothers, Vijay lives in the streets where he meets Gulabo (Waheeda Rehman), a prostitute who accidentally buys Vijay's poems from a junk shop. Vijay's thirst for recognition, both from the public and his former sweetheart Meena (Mala Sinha), leads him to work for rich publisher and Meena's husband Mr. Ghosh (Rehman), who jealously dismisses Vijay after knowing of his wife's former relations with the young poet.

From the start of the film, Dutt introduces us immediately to his character's poetry. He also subtly opens our knowledge to the film's theme. Vijay is lying beside a pond, poetry is sung in the background: about a bee being intoxicated by nectar, and how we it is inevitable that we cannot contribute to this world. The visuals move from Vijay to a bee gathering nectar from a flower, only to be crushed by a man walking past. We see Vijay startled by the mindless destruction. He then travels to his publisher's office, and we realize that like the bee, he is also mindlessly destroyed.

Dutt populates his film with this kind of rich mixture of imagery, poetry, and music. It's as if Dutt has so much to say that his intentions cannot merely be covered by plain cinematics. Another moving scene is where Vijay, intoxicated after learning that his mother has died, goes out with his friends to Calcutta's red light district. Dutt's camera wildly motions as a street dancer feverishly dances as her baby is suffering from sickness. Dutt segues to a song number about prostitution and how a so-called noble land can exist with such treatment of its women. The lyrics is powerful enough to move, but mixed with the gorgeous music, Dutt's wonderful acting and directing, the fluid camera movement and gorgeous lighting, you have one of the most telling, most emotional cinematic sequences about prostitution ever put on screen.

Pyaasa is the film wherein Dutt found collaborators who would fit his film style perfectly. Before that, it was only Dutt and screenwriter Abrar Alvi who crafter their magic together. Of course, V.K. Murthy's cinematography has given Dutt's previous films topnotch visuals. In Pyaasa, Dutt discovered S.D. Burnam, whose music does not require itself to be the centerpiece of each scene but is ravishing in its subtlety. Dutt also discovered his lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi, whose poetic verses can be regarded as first class literature by themselves. Burnam and Ludhianvi's songs mix very well with Dutt's style of putting his musical numbers as backdrops to his cinematic style. An example here is when street performers sing a song about the thirst for love, whcih is perfectly counterpointed by Gulabo finally realizing that she is in love with Vijay. There are no loud instruments, or intricate choreography, just a melody that can distinctly mold into the film's scenery, and lyrics that pertain directly to Dutt's intentions. It is that marriage of all these elements that make Pyaasa a perfect film.

Finally, Mala Sinha, who beautifully balances a materialistic exterior and an interior longing to love the poor poet, is also a newcomer. Waheeda Rehman, that beautiful woman with perfectly sorrowful chestnut eyes, was handpicked personally by Dutt to portray the prostitute with the heart of gold. Years later, in Kaagaz Ke Phool, Rehman would portray the director's love interest, who is curiously, a newly discovered actress. In Pyaasa, Rehman provides the film with the focal point for Dutt's rich emotions and perfectly drawn melodrama. She gives Dutt's themes a visual form.

It is quite interesting to note that Pyaasa is not really original in its storyline. It resembles timeless tales of poets and sages falling for women of lower classes. The love triangle here is similar to that of Devdas, which was filmed two times by two different directors, before Pyaasa was released. In fact, Dutt's themes aren't all very new. They've been the topic of stories, novels, epics, poems written ages before Dutt's time. However, the magic here is that Dutt borrows plots, themes, and characters, and breathes into them his personal touch and perfectionist eye, and the result is simply, the most beautiful, probably the greatest unsung musicale ever made.