Malvarosa (1958)

Malvarosa (Gregorio Fernandez, 1958)

Gregorio Fernandez's Malvarosa is the acknowledged inspiration behind Auraeus Solito's Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, 2005), the story of a gay boy who does the household work for his family of petty crooks. It’s originally a comic book by Clodualdo del Mundo Sr. (father of Doy del Mundo, screenwriter of much of Mike de Leon’s films such as Itim (The Rites of May, 1976) and Kisapmata (Blink of an Eye, 1982), and Lino Brocka’s Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Neon, 1975)). Adapted into a screenplay by Consuelo Osorio, and realized into a beautifully weaved film by Fernandez, who has this uncanny ability of turning pulp goodness into visually fascinating templates of humanity.

Fernandez frames his scenes with intelligence --- you admire how scenes are blocked in a way that is practical, aesthetically pleasing, and also elicits themes (the brothers’ dominance over their servant sister (as shown in the first few scenes where we see her doing the laundry of her brothers; each brother is then introduced visually as imposing figures towering over her meager frame)).

Rosa (Charito Solis) is the youngest, and the only female in a brood of six. As typical of a Filipino family, she has been delegated the task of keeping the house in order, while her parents gamble and drink, and her siblings gallivant or become preoccupied with their own selfish interests. Her fate (and this is pretty much emphasized by the film’s introduction, brisk and concise: the mother (Rebecca del Rio) asks her fortune from a soothsayer who tells her that she will be widowed, but will have five sons and a single daughter) is to be intertwined in her familial duties (especially when her mother becomes insane upon the death of her father). Her only consolation is Avelino (Eddie Rodriguez), her only brother who seems to have an ambition, and her boyfriend Candido (Leroy Salvador), who is indefatigable in persuading her to marry and start a new life.

Most interesting is how Fernandez was able to breathe life into the family’s community, which is an additional character in itself, a lingering burden upon the many burdens Rosa has to carry. The setting aggravates the predicaments --- Alberto (Carlos Padilla, Jr.), Rosa’s older brother who uncharacteristically works under the parish priest, has to weed out the reputation of his family in the community in order to satisfy his romantic longings; Rosa is also a victim of this societal indignation (in that scene where Vedasto (Rey Ruiz), the lazy yet enterprising brother, declares to the neighborhood how Rosa supposedly submitted herself to impurity, Rosa succumbs to the shame and embarrassment), as well as the victim of everything from fate, to callous siblings, to the Filipino patriarchy.

That glimmer of hope for Rosa rests in a land (gorgeous piece of unoccupied real estate, lovingly photographed with all its picturesque trees and farms; it’s a postcard image of a perfect future), that is far from the rumor mongering, the perpetuated squalor, and the misplaced righteousness of the slums. It seems though that Rosa is as tied to their house in the slums as to her family; which makes the film’s ending where the house is burned, an apt transition to the perfect little ending (where the remaining characters are huddled together in hopes of a brighter future). Now that the roots have disappeared and traces of the past have vanished, a chance for a new life is gained. I completely buy it --- it’s a fairy tale ending that is deserved and ripe with reasons.

Jalsaghar (1958)

Jalsaghar (Satyajit Ray, 1958)
English Title: The Music Room

Satyajit Ray's Jalsaghar (The Music Room) is bookended by an image of an ornate chandelier swinging against a black background. The same chandelier is the centerpiece of the jalsaghar (or concert room) of landlord Huzur Bizwambhar Roy (Chhabi Biswas). It's a beautiful room --- large portraits of Huzur's ancestors adorn the wall; a large mirror backdrops each musical performance; majestic pillars serve as both pointers to the palatial status of Huzul's mansion and as sturdy backbones of the manor. It's truly a magnificent room, but there's an air of decay, of a fading glory to it. It's the same look that pervades the entire Roy mansion --- the lone imposing figure in a vast field of grass and crops but its walls are deteriorating; its master quickly fading along with the extravagance of the past.

Huzur is first shown as a weak, almost invalid man. He hears distant music and asks his loyal servant as to where such music comes from; Mahim Ganguly (Gangapada Basu) is celebrating his son's initiation. He wonders if he was invited; he was, but not personally. It's a brilliant opening scene. Ray instantly captures the lost splendor as Huzur is depicted as someone who seems to have just awoken from a long slumber; surprised as to how the world has changed and how he has completely lost touch with life. Ray's cinematographer Subrata Mitra showcases how little Huzur is against his mansion (he is seen in the rooftop) and the lands he presumably owns (there's a sense of vastness of empty and fallow land from the viewpoint of Huzur's rooftop). More importantly, Ray focuses on Huzur's facial features; Chhabi Biswas' eyes are rightfully deep and hurt and his face's lines evoke a forced aging.

And aged he has, at least after three years from the moment he rides his favorite horse home; and being greeted by his servants announcing a visitor --- Mahim, who was then an enterprising businessman asking a favor from the landowner. The Huzur we first see atop his mansion and the Huzur from the flashback are almost two entirely different personas; the former is weak and detached from the world while the latter celebrates life. He throws a concert to celebrate his own son's coming-of-age. Ray wades his camera from the musicians to the audience; Huzur in absolute satisfaction; nouveau rich Mahim uncomfortably getting used to classical Hindustani music. Huzur's pragmatic wife is clearly disappointed as her jewels were mortgaged to fund the party. The Roy family's coffers are thinning; the rivers are diminishing their estate; yet they remain to be their community's remaining aristocrat with a lifestyle that became their opium or addiction.

The second concert of Huzur, funded wastefully from the few remaining jewelry of his wife and a mere afterthought by Huzur to top Mahim's house blessing, showcases a traditional Hindustani singer whose vocal prowess seems to match the atmospheric dread that will meet Huzur's wife and son's untimely demise. It's a powerful sequence; Ray lands his camera to the little indications of trouble (the uncomfortable swinging of the grand chandelier, the insect swimming in the expensive wine) before lashing out in an explicitly dramatic turn-of-events (Ray's powerful tableau of Huzur grasping desperately for his son's dead body).

The third concert, funded from the last few coins of a deadened estate, features a performer dancing to the beat of drums. The milieu has changed; Mahim has crossed-over to modernity (he arrives by automobile and has more than enough reasons to treat the faded aristocrat with much less reverence) and perhaps thinks that the modern age brings with it a complete erasure of the fact that he is merely a usurer's son; Huzur's jalsaghar is less grand with less servants and furnishings (Mahim scoffs at Huzur's last hurrah, complaining at the lack of fanners to ease the heat and humidity). The performance upstages all the deterioration, the faded glories, and the lingering poverty that surrounds Huzur, and in his final determination of class, reprimands Mahim in tipping the excellent dancer before the host. He throws his family's final fortune signalling the belated end of the landowning Roy clan.

In Ray's closing sequence, Huzur sees and fears the lights of his jalsaghar being doused (among other signals of his demise; a spider roaming in his portrait, his drunken ode to the blood (which is the lone reminder of his majesty) that flows in his veins and his lineage) before being reminded by his servant that it is dawn. He rides his horse before being thrown to his death. It's an entirely tragic affair and despite all of Huzur's flaws and his impracticality, there's a lingering grace in Ray's convicted depiction of the landowning class (Ray is himself a descendant of a long line of landowners). Huzur's passing is treated with a reverent mourning, mostly by his loyal servants as well as the film's viewers who are drawn to the aristocrat's addicted reliance on a faded and forgotten glory, not out of characteristic imperfection but of a misguided placing by a class-ed society entering the age of equal opportunities. Like the chandelier swinging in the opening and ending of Jalsaghar (as well as that stormy night of Huzur's family members' deaths), a breeze of change is more than felt, set in a background of indiscernible darkness.

Ballad of Narayama (1958)

Ballad of Narayama (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1958)
Japanese Title: Narayama bushiko

Tidings of good fortune apparently surface at the beginning of Keisuke Kinoshita's adaptation of the stories of Shichiro Fukazawa. A messenger from a neighboring town arrives at the house of old Orin (Kinuyo Tanaka), announcing the widowing of a female in their town which is a possible mate for her son, Tatsuhei (Teiji Takehashi). She breaks the news to her son and suggest that she undergo the ceremonial climbing of the mountain of Narayama which all aging members of their mountain village should do. Tatsuhei seems disturbed by the news, but with the wishes of his mother, adheres to the marriage and practices carrying his mother on his back.

Tatsuhei is left with a handful of dependents. To add to this, his eldest son insists on taking in his pregnant girlfriend, which the latter family has abandoned. At that instance, there will be two additional mouths to feed, not counting the fact that the girlfriend is pregnant and eats for two people. The mountain village adheres to tradition, mostly concerning food. White rice is only eaten once a year during the festival. Harvests are collected and are distributed to the villagers in corresponding amounts. Although implicitly addressed by Kinoshita, we cognize the fact that in the mountain village, food is scarce and as a result, survival is primary objective overtaking virtues of compassion, respect, and familial ties.

This concept of survival is enshrined in the traditions, the festivities, the laws, and even the general mores adopted by the village people. The wife becomes a useless member of society once widowed, which is why she is immediately offered by her brother to the neighboring town. A thief cannot go unpunished, and such trespassing may result to banishment or total annihilation of the erring clan. An elderly individual becomes useless, and is therefore, forced to climb a treacherous height to meet her unnatural fate, in the guise of religious sanctification. The system works, but the criticism is the resulting idea of dehumanization.

Kinoshita's Ballad of Narayama is filmed in traditional kabuki style with a narrator singing portions of the actual ballad to enunciate what is adequately portrayed visually. The narration is accompanied by the strumming of the traditional Japanese string instrument which is feverishly played to elicit heightened emotions. Kinoshita uses sets and artificial lighting, evoking a feeling of staginess. Time passes not through natural means, but by sudden brightening or darkening of the sets. Everything feels unnatural, the backgrounds are obviously painted, and are mechanically changed upon advancement of the plot. However, the acting is very much controlled, leading to a notion that it is not merely a filmed stage play but a stylized film. Kinoshita is discouraged from using close-ups except when such is proper and needed. His storytelling is disattached and formal but the emotional pullings are tremendous.

Shohei Imamura will later on direct another adaptation of Ballad of Narayama in 1983, and that version will inevitably win the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Imamura's version feels more cinematic, as he settles for more traditional (or Westernized) approaches to cinema, rather than Kinoshita's stylized adherences to traditional Japanese artistry. Kinoshita's version may be marred by cultural uniqueness, hindering a more complete appreciation of the film unless a deeper knowledge of Japanese culture is achieved. However, it cannot be denied that the film is truly wonderful. Despite the unfamiliar trappings of the film, one cannot help but ache when Tatsuhei pleads his mother to talk to him on their way to the mountain of Narayama.

One cannot help but feel a tinge of devastation when the first few snowflakes carefully fall, knowing that the mother is atop with only a single blanket and a lump of rice. One cannot help but acknowledge the sacrifices of humanity for mere communal survival, as the son goes back to his village, sees his sons indifference to the entire sacrifice, and listens to his new wife telling him that they too, will have to climb the peaks of Narayama, in adherence to cruel yet needed traditions.