Pagdating sa Dulo (1971)

Pagdating sa Dulo (Ishmael Bernal, 1971)

English Title: At the Top

In Guru Dutt’s Kaagaz Ke Phool (Paper Flowers, 1959), a film director, played with piercing sensitivity by Dutt, sees his career flounder as the career of his muse, a beggar he discovers while shooting a scene in his adaptation of Devdas and subsequently grooms to become a very successful actress, blossoms. The painful downfall of the director who at one time was celebrated by crowds of adoring fans after a very successful run of one of his films and at a later time is seen alone, walking the paved ways of his former studio in tattered rags, unrecognizable by his friends and peers, destroys the very core of these double lives that are forced to exist to suit the inflicted fantasies of working in cinema notwithstanding the need to endure the realities of living. Amidst the several musical interludes, the film lyrically reflects on the gargantuan gap that separates the facile glamour of the silver screen and the material, spiritual and emotional poverty of everything else.

Ishmael Bernal’s Pagdating sa Dulo (At the Top) ends with a striking sequence that consummates the hypocrisy that was portrayed in the carnivalesque affairs of the film. Ching (Rita Gomez), scandalously tipsy after a day of lonesome drinking, and Pinggoy (Vic Vargas), who attempts to salvage Ching from further embarrassing herself in public, see a mob of adoring fans, separated from their fantasy world by a metal gate and obviously oblivious to the excesses of their fleeting limelight. Their faces transform. The once self-absorbed alcohol-glazed gestures of Ching and the guarded yet clearly affectionate concern of Pinggoy suddenly breaking to give way to faces jolted by a sudden but timely awareness, of how far they have gone up and how far they have fallen. As with Dutt’s immortal masterpiece, Bernal, by mapping an actress’ deliberate and painful rise to the top, reflects on the disconnect between the realities of life and the quasi-realities of cinema that debilitates the men and women who chose to indulge in its promising allures.

The film opens with Ching, then a stripper, performing to the lustful stares of her patrons. She arrives home, slowly climbing the stairs, with every step turning into a gargantuan struggle as she carries herself and all her life’s worries up to her room. There, she breaks into a silent yet tearful soliloquy until Pinggoy arrives, attempting to woo her into bed only to be rebuked. Bernal finally breaks the several minutes of quiet yet persuasive storytelling with the first of the many arguments between the eternally incongruous lovers, with Ching’s vocal frankness overpowering Pinggoy’s contained machismo, to the point of the latter attempting to wrestle Ching’s dominance with violence, only to end in conciliation and lovemaking. In that initial sequence, Bernal adequately summarizes Ching and Pinggoy’s relationship. By portraying with painstaking detail the overbearing imperfections of their life together, characterized by the graveness of Ching’s discontent with her current state in life as afflicted by Pinggoy’s paralyzing satisfaction over his existence as a cab driver, Bernal sets the stage not only for the couple’s surprising reversal of fortune, initiated first by Ching’s discovery by an idealistic film director (Eddie Garcia), and later on, the forced entry of Pinggoy to showbusiness (he figuratively and literally penetrates his way to fame and fortune), but also the accompanying transformation of their less than ideal but honest union into a publicized and sensationalized sham.

Pagdating sa Dulo is an impressive first feature. It confirms Bernal, very early in his career as a filmmaker, as a director who fully comprehends the value of the moving image. There are very impressively directed sequences, perfectly composed with every minute gesture or piercing gaze from the actors timed and orchestrated to evoke a subtle sensibility that is all at once strange and fascinating. The opening sequence, with its several minutes of quiet assuredness that unpredictably erupts in domestic cacophony, arrests in the way it portrays the couple’s weariness of their meager existence. Nearing the film’s conclusion, Bernal revisits the pensive mood of the opening sequence in the gorgeously shot sequence right before the film’s culminating summation, only this time with the two lovers in the heat of their careers yet suffering from a different malady, one that is caused by the callousness of the professions chosen for them by fate. The intoxicated air slows seems to slow down the sequence, which is further elaborated by the film’s recurring musical scoring. Ching, wearing a glamorous gown yet clearly under the influence of alcohol, flutters down the stairs as Pinggoy climbs up to fetch his former lover and current onscreen partner. You wait, even wish for an emotional outburst, a torrid embrace, a crazed kiss, even an exchange of harsh insults, yet nothing happens. The silence unsettles.

The director, presumably patterned by Bernal after legendary filmmaker Lamberto Avellana (director of well-regarded films like Anak Dalita (The Ruins, 1956), Badjao (1957) and Kundiman ng Lahi (Song of the Race, 1959)), becomes Bernal’s mouthpiece for his aches and hopes for Philippine cinema. Bernal has made startlingly accurate observations, pertinent up to this day. The dichotomy in Philippine cinema, as characterized by two existing and seemingly irreconcilable halves that form it (one half is a capitalist creature, more interested in profit-making than culture-creation; the other half is the problematic so-called independent film scene, where most of the interesting works hail from but is largely ignored by the populace), becomes the wellspring of his woes and frustrations. Kalapati, the film he made with Ching as lead actress, is a flop at the box office, to the ire of his producer, which will eventually lead to his voluntary decision to dedicate himself to making artful yet unseen documentaries. The director represents the consummate Filipino artist who is unfairly pushed outside the expanding bubble of public consciousness despite a veritable grasp in his artistry simply because integrity is not bankable. One of Bernal's most understated tragic figures, the director persists despite living a life of unfulfilled ambitions: his marriage is a failure, his film that sought to marry truth and cinema is a failure, his unpronounced affection for Ching is also a failure.

Pagdating sa Dulo opens with Ching exploited by the several men who paid money to see her dance and strip. It ends with Ching similarly exploited by her adoring audience who await the screening of her movie, a titillating feature that promises only to sexually arouse. At the top, everything is the same except that their sacrifices are bigger, their risks are greater, and the money and fame they reap only entrench them deeper into the system, changing them completely. It's a tremendous film; probably ranks right up there with Dutt's Kaagaz Ke Phool as one of the best films about filmmaking ever made.

Shake, Rattle and Roll (1984)

Shake, Rattle and Roll (Ishmael Bernal, Emmanuel Borlaza & Peque Gallaga, 1984)

Never mind Emmanuel Borlaza's episode entitled Baso (Glass), a tepid tale of a tragic love triangle ending in the spirits of the pre-Independence lovers crossing over to the modern world when three youngsters decide to perform a seance inside an abandoned estate using a glass vessel. Although interesting in some parts, Borlaza's forty minute contrubition is a downright embarrassment compared to the next two installments of this omnibus of horror shorts entitled Shake, Rattle and Roll.

Peque Gallaga's Manananggal (Monster) is the last portion of the omnibus. It opens with Douglas (Herbert Bautista) traveling the forest to court a barrio lass (Irma Alegre) who lives alone in the middle of the forest. Little does he know that the barrio lass is in fact a manananggal (a maiden who turns into a monster in the middle of the night --- the upper half of her body grows bat-like wings and separates from the lower half to hunt down probable victims) who takes the opportunity of Christ's death (the short film takes place during Holy Week) to wreak havoc to Douglas' family.

The story itself is quite bare. Uro dela Cruz's screenplay tries its best to create something compelling out of the folklore-inspired monstrosity. Yet the sparseness of the plot gives way for Gallaga to brandish his cinematic expertise. He overloads the film with atmospheric gravity which does not really help the plot, but merely expands the scenario --- creating a sense of Catholic impression to the old wives' tale. The afternoon of the manananggal's havoc-wreaking, Douglas goes to town and meets up with the actors of the passion play (Gallaga flavors the scene with the soundtrack of Jesus Christ Superstar playing on the background, the music coming from the town's store). Later on, during a brief seduction scene between Douglas and the suspect barrio lass, a man is shown flogging himself in repentance for his sins. There is really no direct connection between these Filipino Catholic traditions and the manananggal but the inclusion of some sort of local color helps create a distinct atmosphere for the feature.

The barrio lass' transformation to the bat-winged monster is an example of Gallaga's prowess in technique. There's a sense of seduction, of exotic allure in the lass' vulnerability during the transformation --- she oils her naked body and winces in what seems to be both pain and pleasure. Prosthetics and substandard special effects come to play, but Gallaga manages to still keep the believability factor intact with masterful editing and appropriate framing. Alas, Gallaga had to abruptly conclude the transformation with a laughable animated stand-in for the flying manananggal. The rest of Gallaga's film is Douglas defending his family against the manananggal's intentions --- filmed with adequate impression by Gallaga but the predictable ending betrays whatever atmosphere or squeezed-in depth Gallaga tried to infuse early on.

Shake, Rattle and Roll's middle and undoubtedly best portion is Ishmael Bernal's Pridyider (Frigidaire). It's also the silliest and most far-fetched of the bunch: Borlaza's Baso has history to back it up; Gallaga's Manananggal has folklore. Pridyider bases its horror from an inanimate object, a refrigerator (the Filipino term is gathered from the most popular brand of the home appliance) which has murderous and lustful intentions. A family moves into a house mysteriously left vacant for a number of years. The family is composed of the stern matriarch (Charito Solis), the beautiful daughter and target of most sexual intentions (Janice de Belen), the household help, and the stuttering distant male relative (William Martinez) who was asked to accompany the family of mostly females by the father who is working in the Middle East.

Bernal has a competent hold of the wild concept. The refrigerator remains immobile for most of the film (except for the occasional door swings and shakes --- just to make sure that the inanimate has some sort of mobility) yet despite that, holds considerable power. First and foremost, the refrigerator has become an appliance of necessity and second, because of the unbearable heat, the appliance has garnered a sort of seductive and sensual quality. When one is made uncomfortable by a gush of heat wave, one can't help but stand near the opened doors of the refrigerator --- a metaphorical exposing of oneself to temptations.

Mysterious things start happening. The mother starts seeing chopped human parts inside the refrigerator. Things get more gruesome as one by one, people are getting killed. As the police enters the scene, Pridyider starts failing with the threat of a possible need for a logical explanation to the refrigerator's evil deeds. Indeed, Pridyider does give a rational story behind everything which somehow lessens the haunting impact of the film (I won't be as scared of my ice box since I bought mine brand new --- I'm assured that there won't be evil spirits of butchering rapists invading this appliance). Yet Bernal does come up with scenes that just makes you forgive that one glaring mistake of rationalizing the hauntingly mysterious: the atmosphere of freely-flowing pheromones within the house (the distant relative makes love to the loose household help, the refrigerator itself moans and breathes deeply whenever the daughter is nearby like it were masturbating hidingly, the slow sexual awakening of the daughter with her boyfriend's prodding to devirginize her), the immobile yet ultimately shocking final horror set piece (wherein the daughter is first seduced to the icy coolness of the appliance, and then violently devoured).

Hinugot sa Langit (1985)

Hinugot sa Langit (Ishmael Bernal, 1985)
English Title: Snatched From Heaven

Ishmael Bernal's Hinugot sa Langit (Snatched from Heaven) is a very challenging film to watch. Right from the start, the audience is introduced with scenarios of complex problems pressed after other problems. The characters are drafted from your typical melodrama stereotypes. The center of the drama is Carmen Castro (Maricel Soriano), the impossibly patient victim of the screenwriter-created dilemmas. Revolving around Carmen's personage and dilemmas are other characters that are seemingly cut from traditionally established cinematic stereotypes. There is Stella (Amy Austria), the liberated and seemingly modern cousin of Carmen. Juling (Charito Solis) is Carmen's overly religious landlady, an avid member of a charismatic prayer group. Jerry (Al Tantay) and Bobby (Rowell Santiago), are the two men in Carmen's life, the former, an irresponsible playboy-gambler, the latter, a traditionalist who is stuck to his life plans.

Hinugot sa Langit, on paper, sounds like your typical Filipino melodrama where histrionics and impossible scenarios abound, but fantastically, the film is far from that. Beautifully restrained, simple, and hard hitting, Hinugot sa Langit tackles a controversial topic with an uncontroversial control and a humanistic approach to a central character that has all the problems of the world to withstand.

During the first few minutes of the film, we are informed that Carmen is pregnant. Her cousin Stella scoffs and recommends abortion. The father of the child, Jerry, also recommends abortion. Her landlady, who is busy juggling her religious aims and her legal quarrel with the poor families illegally living in her land, suggests that she keeps the baby as killing it would be a sin against God. Carmen sees signs that would seemingly suggest an answer to her difficult decision. Her poor neighbors struggle for money to feed their children. She sees a physically malformed child vending goods outside the church. She loses her job at a financing company due to the struggling economy during that time.

Hinugot sa Langit may be branded as preachy and anti-abortion but in reality, while its focus is that controversial issue, Ishmael Bernal and screenwriter Amado Lacuesta, populates the film with side stories that suggest a latter more pressing issue, which is societal hypocrisy. It just so happens that abortion is the most telling of issues. The Philippines being a prominently Catholic nation declares abortion as criminally and morally wrong yet funnily, the practice is unwrittenly accepted among women who are time-pressed with a decision. Such is the scenario here, Carmen is surrounded by suggestions of what to do but is left upon her own faculties in deciding. Each suggestion is clouded by a tinge of doubt. The characters surrounding her aren't naturally sure of their own lives. Stella is outwardly happy and wild but inwardly is insecure and lonely. Juling carries within herself an unerasable guilt which she tries to forget through her religious practices, forgetting that the world has deeper problems than her past. All the events and the characters have unnatural and seemingly impossible roots, but as a screenplay, as a dramatic film, Hinugot sa Langit works.

Thematically sound, Hinugot sa Langit also boasts of technical mastery. The music is sparse and controlled. Bernal forgoes the over orchestrated notion of what a drama should be and instead relies on his visuals and his actors talents to draw out emotions. The cinematography is simple but there are some very wonderful shots where the lighting, the blocking of the actors, and the framing, contribute to an impressive addition to Bernal's atmosphere of confusion and cynicism for this unsure Filipino society. The acting is very impressive. Maricel Soriano is wonderfully restrained, letting go of her usual histrionics for the more difficult style of acting that comes from what is felt within than what is outwardly presented. Charito Solis is a wonderful presence, and so is Amy Austria, who singlehandedly gives the film a lighthearted humor.