GROUND-BREAKING
Manuel Silos’ BIYAYA NG LUPA
Part 2
By Jan Philippe V. Carpio
“We all talk of making Filipino films world class, but actually we aren’t. We may have the technology but look at the kinds of films they’re making abroad. There is something fundamentally missing in our films … Substance. Maybe honesty.”
- Mike De Leon
On initial viewing, Biyaya ng Lupa does not seem to be any different or special apart from the other commercial productions of its time. Yet there lies one of the film’s main strengths: its use of the familiar as method for sneaking in radical visions. It walks along the genre lines of the rural family melodrama then suddenly steps across their borders.
The film is a constant interplay and conflict between the differences of what film critic Ray Carney calls, “reel life and real life”. It also examines our tendencies to confuse the two and the dangers this confusion creates.
Whereas with other films that merely deconstruct genre for the sake of deconstruction, or for formal and satirical purposes – usually an empty play of genre conventions that reveal how clever the filmmakers are about film forms rather than how much they can express about life - Biyaya ng Lupa’s intentions and ultimately the expression of these intentions are deeply set in the latter, more essential purpose.
The possibility exists that the decision for the filmmakers to use this particular form at the time was to get the necessary production approval and budget, but I believe more importantly this form was used as a means to lull the unsuspecting audience into partaking heartily what looks like a fast food meal before suddenly revealing that all the dishes are in fact, vegetarian.
This treatment is illustrated in a subtle manner by the opening wedding sequence of Jose and Maria that resembles most of the song-and-dance routines of musicals of the time, complete with choreographed native and folk numbers evoking the celebration of the couple’s union. With repeat viewings, one realizes that things are not as we – the audience – would make them seem.
First, it immerses us in medias res at the end of the wedding ceremony as a couple leaves the church to the cheers of their guests. Little establishing information, save for a couple’s wedding celebration, is given to us. Establishing information is given in later scenes but it is usually in relation to a present action or relating to another character as when Jose gives Maria a “guided tour” of their new home, and explains their way of life on the farm. Apart from examples like this, we are usually put in the middle of an action or event already in progress especially during key points in the film like Bruno’s final and tragic encounter with Choleng. The effect of which can make us (or force us) to become directly involved in the experience of the film rather than our usual passive sleepwalking that masquerades as “film viewing”.
Apart from the scripting, this is visually and editorially accomplished by the film’s generous use of fading-to-black and fading in-from-black. Elementary film language states that this indicates a long passage of time in between scenes. But instead of merely just indicating the state of time, the dissolves more importantly serve to suspend us within the final action of the scene or sequence. Our minds are still processing the last scene when the next scene appears in medias res jarring us to form a new thought process. The structure of the film narrative and the character behavior also adds to this measure of unpredictability. All this, constantly keeps our perceptions busy and shifting, making it difficult for our tendency of trying to predict and get ahead of the experience of the film. We are kept as much as possible in the here and now.
As Carney observes, we really get to know the characters’ lives just as we would get to know them in real life: tentatively and gradually. Our understanding does not precede learning and initial confusions.
By keeping the audience in the now, our mental conclusions and judgments are delayed. This somehow helps eliminate that mostly unconscious but nonetheless arrogant stance of audience superiority over the characters and their situations. It helps us become more open, less judgmental, more sensitive audience members, and ultimately, perhaps, better human beings. Our handholds of “this all seems too familiar” move from how we identify the familiar redundancies of genre film to how we identify how much of the film has to do with our own day-to-day living and even our tasks of understanding the lives of those people completely unfamiliar to us.
This opening sequence also illustrates another point visually. Silos chooses to focus not on the magnificence of spectacle and/or the mere visual indication of an event, but on some “small” moments that usually get lost or ignored in most other films. Examples of these moments come in the wordless and slightly anxious expressions on Jose and Maria’s faces as they ride the buffalo cart from the church to the reception area with the dancers trailing them, a boy snatching a piece of food from the feast table as a woman swipes her hand at him in irritation, a trombone player going off on a solo riff in the middle of a band piece, and an old couple dancing at the center of a circle of reception guests. Again, in other films, these moments would merely serve as pieces to establish the event. In Biyaya ng Lupa we are treated to vignettes of lives happening within the main action. Silos reminds us that in the midst of our hurried living it is the small and specific details that matter.
Still, in this particular sequence and the succeeding sequence of the couple settling into their new home, the feeling of everything being staged for the camera somehow still persists. An artificial quality seems to hang in the air. We still seem to be consciously watching a “movie” instead of witnessing lives unfold.
This is not a flaw or a contradiction of Biyaya’s intentions. Silos uses these sequences as a kind of transition point and points of comparison with the natural quality and spontaneity of the sequences to follow. The effect of which is that we are suddenly shocked by what seems like a sudden shift in the film’s aesthetics and treatment.
The first rise usually comes in a scene where Jose chases Maria playfully around the lanzones grove with such sincere delight and mischief that most people who have been in relationships or marriage would instantly recognize. The couple’s chase shifts into in a wonderful, and completely unexpected tickling contest on the front stairs of their house. (This location occurs throughout the film as an area where key emotional flashpoints for each of the family members occur.)
This scene is only one example of many throughout the film where one wonders how much of it is scripted and how much of it was improvised. When you learn that the film is mostly if not entirely scripted you become humbled by how incredibly this does not appear to be the case for the most part. This is due in large part to the very natural and understated performances of the actors. Lines or behavior that might feel “written” or “acted” in other films flow naturally in most of Biyaya.
This usually elicits a viewer response of what filmmaker Raya Martin (Indio Nacional, Autohystoria) calls “life laughter”. Most laughter that results from the comedy in other films finds its basis usually again in the stance of viewer superiority to the characters and events of the specific film. The feeling of a viewer being “entertained” and comforted by this formulaic set-up does hold some value, but only in the short-term. In the end, it is an empty comfort because this means there is no real work and learning for the viewers. Existing emotional and mental patterns that may be unhealthy are reinforced instead of being questioned and criticized. Life laughter on the other hand usually indicates several things and comes in many forms.
Here, laughter usually explodes from the spark of recognition. We don’t laugh merely because it’s funny (even though sometimes a particular instance may be actually so). We laugh because we recognize something as true to a specific experience. (Carney).
Carney notes that we are influenced by so many fake and preprogrammed emotions from media and our own lives that if we were presented with a real emotion, we would laugh out loud from the shock of recognition.
On the other hand, if something is undeniably true and we do not recognize it, this is usually not a failure on the film’s part, but rather our denial and/or avoidance of that truth. It may also be the case that our current level of life experience falls behind or falls out of the experience presented in the work. We can become silent and puzzled by what is onscreen and think that nothing is happening or completely fail to perceive it altogether. Also, laughter can take on a different tone and purpose. It can become a defense mechanism. We laugh to relieve the tension from the film that has become so unbearable at that point.
We laugh as a way of fooling ourselves, continuing to try and lump in this particular film experience as simply a mistake, a joke that we can easily dismiss. (Carney).
Biyaya ng Lupa is one of the films that deny us that false comfort and empty entertainment. Other great films usually throw us into the deep end of the pool leaving us either to stay in the water to feel the temperature or to find ourselves at the bottom with our lungs full of chlorine. The experience of watching Biyaya – returning once more to its use of genre – is like a parent teaching a child to ride a bicycle for the first time with the training wheels off. With a hand on the bike seat steadying us, we keep pedaling and pedaling till unbeknownst to us, at some point, the hand has already let go and we are left to find our own balance. Much of Philippine media prefers to play the well-meaning but growth stunting role of the overprotective parent who never lets go of the bike seat, let alone removes the training wheels to begin with.
The socioeconomic situation of the Philippines or more appropriately its living conditions have hardly changed for the better over the last three hundred years. Some things that do continue to change are our ever growing population, and the ever growing distance between the edges of two cliffs where the distribution of resources has always been greater on one of the other.
Whether their intentions have been well meaning or exploitative, majority of Philippine media (both commercial and artistic) have and continue to use this sad and unacceptable ongoing reality of our country as a basis for expression. In life, this usually manifests itself in what others have called the “I-versus-them” or “I-against-the-world” or “us-versus-them” attitude. I call it local media irresponsibly exploiting the “victim-victimizer” relationship. And on the other side of the screen, viewer responsibility to accept this or not becomes paramount. Media practitioners are well aware that people tend to see themselves as the leading stars in their own personal dramas: self-sacrificing, hardworking, good people constantly thwarted by “evil” people and obstacles. People do abuse each other’s humanity in inexplicably horrible ways, but to view this problematic reality and to frame it for the viewer in a simplified manner does nothing to help solve it. Instead of criticizing or questioning this way of thinking, local media plays on our tendency to blame someone or something else for all our problems.
Local film, television, radio and print forms are usually built around protagonists suffering torment at the hands of merciless, vicious and inhuman antagonists (whether they be literal or figurative) and how these protagonists finally “win” over their tormentors or lose out to them. This system of presentation is recycled over and over again in variations of forms like daytime radio dramas, primetime telenovelas (soap operas) like Flordeluna, variety and game shows like Eat Bulaga or Wowowee, and films like Fernando Poe Jr. action flicks and scores of romantic melodramas over the years. Newspapers, news programs like primetime news broadcasts, magazine shows and documentaries are not apart from using this form to sensationalize and grab viewer interest under the guise of “getting all the sides of the story”. On the surface it seems that the reports are delivered in an unbiased and objective manner, but one should pay attention more closely as to how they also tend to label the people involved as “protagonist/s” or “antagonist/s” in a subtle or not so subtle manner. Some examples of this can when the news reports on heinous crimes, political issues, and even something as seemingly benign as sports or showbiz gossip.
The problem with recycling is not so much that we grow tired of stories copying themselves like succeeding generations of photocopied paper, the same image growing fainter and fainter with each pass of the machine slider. Rather than the stories, it is the images of our selves that become mere facsimiles where we no longer recognize the original from its subsequent clone generations. In essence, we begin to equate living our lives with the fantasies onscreen that vaguely resemble them.
Media is not the root cause of this problem, but again is it is capable, and more often than not does dangerously reinforce these false views of ourselves, others and life. Again, going back to viewer responsibility, the problem is exacerbated by us for the most part when we choose the easy way through. And the easy way is usually not the right way.
It must also be noted that media is not below putting up an appearance that it is giving the viewers some kind of a choice and responsibility for the purposes of advancing their financial gains. This can be usually seen in advertisements for products like soda, clothes, fast food, electronics, etc. aimed at the so-called “youth market”, that “demographic” who seem to value “making their own choices” the most. The idea of having a choice and some kind of responsibility are actually illusions since the only choices and responsibilities that advertisers want people to own up to are buying into those selling points and buying the products they are selling.
In Biyaya ng Lupa, the characters are tested by the use of plot conventions like murder, rape and villainy, ripe fodder for them to spiral into self pity and life paralysis. Stunningly, the film turns away from those denials of living and instead places the responsibilities of their own lives on the characters. They are not reduced to mere filmic devices but are allowed to choose for themselves and be multidimensional. Yes, familiar archetypal characters exist in the film, but the writing, direction and acting help turn these archetypes into specific people. The unexpected shifts in human behavior here should not be confused with characters that are created to merely go against filmic conventions. Ultimately, Biyaya asks us to reexamine some of our prevailing unhealthy emotional and mental conventions.
Surprisingly, these invitations for reexamination seem to find their manifestations revolving around the person who at the ground floor does fall under the label of antagonist or the person the audience would love to simply mark as a villain: Bruno. After getting to know each of the family members, we are introduced to Bruno not as a villain but as an overly aggressive, seemingly desperate but misunderstood person ostracized by the entire community. The basis of his treatment comes solely from a rumor that he murdered his wife. This rumor never moves into the realm of fact. Here is where Biyaya deviates from the romantic portrayal of rural community life often seen in bourgeoisie or socially left leaning works. It shows our quick and uninformed judgments of others and our mindless marching to the step of the crowd cause us to fall off that edge into space. The possibilities of cooperation and generosity that our Filipino bayanihan spirit fosters can rapidly transform into a disheartening mob mentality that lashes out at anything different or what appears to be threatening to our set patterns.
Ironically, a later victim of Bruno’s unfortunate decision to remain within the patterns placed upon him by the community is Jose who first defends his goddaughter Choleng from Bruno’s aggressive romantic advances and at the same time defends Bruno from the townspeople’s misguided and ignorant treatment. We learn in the course of this encounter from Jose’s son Arturo that Bruno himself is unaware of why people in town treat him this way and particularly why all the single women fear him.
The townspeople’s hypocrisy is compounded in a scene at a sari-sari store where several men of the town share a drink with Bruno. (This is a practice that continues to prevail in our country to this day.) Here Bruno expresses his loneliness and bewilderment over how the single women of the town treat him. Again and again he asks the gathered group what he has done wrong. The camera and editing cuts across the faces of the other people present, some with looks of remorse and embarrassment, but all remaining silent. None either care or fear to tell him the truth.
The complexity and depth that this scene helps give Bruno as a character serves both an aesthetic and a deep moral purpose. By placing this scene following Bruno’s encounter with Choleng, Jose and Arturo, Silos halts the audience’s habitual quick judgment of the character just as he criticizes the townspeople’s false judgment of Bruno at the same time. Silos questions our close-mindedness and our usage of labels like “villain” that de-personalize and oversimplify our relationships with others. Once we get to know someone and try to understand their humanity, it becomes much harder to dismiss it.
Again, other films usually set their characters down in stone, but Biyaya allows each of its characters their own measures of accountability. Bruno is allowed to explain himself even when he is self-deluding. This is seen later in the instances after formally choosing to play the role of “town villain” he continues to see himself largely as a victim of circumstance and the townspeople. As the great French filmmaker Jean Renoir said, “Everyone has his reasons.” And to add to that truth while borrowing from my friend and actor Emerson Sanchez, we have our reasons, but they do not excuse our actions. Sadly in this sense he gives Jose and his family special attention in the measure of his wrath. Despite all this, his nurturing nature remains as evidenced in one scene where he defends the life of a wild hen he has made his pet from one of his men’s suggestions to kill it. This kindness for animals of course does not condone Bruno’s viciousness to people. Still, it is never as clear with any other character, than with Bruno himself of how much the filmmakers really care about him and the other people in the film.
As Carney explains, that’s what separates the great works of art from lower creations. Biyaya and other works grow from a place of real love, patience and a genuine attempt to understand others. Lesser works base themselves on light sentiment, hatred, meanness, arrogance and dismissal.
Bruno chooses to be the “bad guy”, but we’re also made to understand his decision, and also presented with the suggestion that perhaps we might do the same if we were left holding his gun. Instead of giving us the conceptual “bad guy” of other films, Biyaya makes us try to understand a human being choosing to do bad things. This thankfully denies us our smug and easy hatred.
The only person who can truly be called “bad” in the film is the town businessman and moneylender who hires Bruno and his gang to destroy the family’s lanzones crop so that he can take over their land mortgaged to him by Maria. A marginal character who seems to be only there to advance the plot, the film affords him little room for human possibility. This is perhaps the only glaring weakness of the film amongst the host of its humble strengths.
NOTES
Ray Carney, “Questioning Film Culture—Inside and Outside the University”, http://people.bu.edu/rcarney/indiemovie/viewerrighttext.htm
Ray Carney, “I don't teach content. I teach ways of knowing”, http://people.bu.edu/rcaryney/indiemovie/newwaysofseeing.htm
Ray Carney, “The Difference between Fake and Real Emotions in Life and Art”, http://people.bu.edu/rcaryney/indiemovie/fakeemotions.htm
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Edward S. Cabagnot, Emman De La Cruz, Shane Escueta, Hammy Sotto, Tessa De Guzman, Raya Martin, Grig Montegrande, Emerson Sanchez, Lav Diaz and Yvette Pantilla.