This is another unofficial site for Lav Diaz, "...the great Filipino poet of cinema." (Cinema du reel, Paris).

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Sabayang Panahon, Produksyon ng Alaala At Proaktibong Cinema

ni Roland Tolentino

Rebyu ng “Death In the Land of Encantos” (Kagadanan sa banwaan ning ga Engkanto, ) ni Lav Diaz


Hindi ang kahabaan ng oras ang isyu sa pelikula ni Lav Diaz. Sa Engkanto, siyam na oras ang palabas, tulad ng naunang Ebolusyon ng Pamilyang Pilipino at Heremias. Sino ang handang maglaan ng isang araw ng kanilang gising na buhay para sa pelikula ni Diaz?

Sa aking palagay, isinulat ni Nil Baskar sa “Poetic Post-mortem” ang pinakamataas na pagpuri sa mga pelikula ni Diaz:

[...] Death in the Land of Encantos proved to be a wholly enchanting experience, both a lesson in cinema’s capacity to profoundly shape time and space, as well as a rediscovery of its fundamental gestures, of conceiving an associating images with true artistic and political necessities. It confirmed that the work of Lav Diaz is not unique because of its epic length, but because of its original ideas and its confidence in telling a story with purely cinematic means as something that is becoming quite rate and even strange to observe in these times, when it seems that so much of contemporary cinema has elected a noncommittal and ironic detachment from everything and anything.

Tatlong antas ng panlipunang tunggalian ang tinatahi ng Engkanto. Una, ang debastasyon ng supertyphoon sa Bikol, bilang kahindik-hindik na topography ng mga aktwal na dokumentaryo ng mga biktima, at ng binabalikang lugar ng bida, si Benjamin Agusan. May tunay nga bang babalikan pa?

Ikalawa, ang personal na biyahe ng pag-alis at pagbabalik, ang “panunumbalik” ni Agusan. Existensyal na iniimbistigahan muli ang kanyang buhay bilang makata, kasamang artista, at kamamamayan, at sinusuma ang halaga ng mga salik na ito sa kanyang pagkatao. Paninimbang na parating kulang.

Ikatlo, ang fasistikong pambansang politika na nagsiwalat ng pagkawalang-bahala sa mga nabiktima ng bagyo, kabangkaratohen ng moral na uniberso ng lipunan, at karahasang minumulto at literal na tinotortyur si Agusan. Na tulad ng bagyo, malawakan ang saklaw at epekto. Pero di tulad ng bagyo, gawa ng naghaharing uri bilang pang-araw-araw na operasyon ng panlipunang buhay.

Familyar ang mga tunggalian ito sa iba pang pelikula ni Diaz. Sa Batang Westside, ang pulis na nag-iimbestiga ng pagpaslang sa isang Filipinong migrante sa US ay isang dating tortyurer sa diktaduryang Marcos. Sa Ebolusyon, ang pamilya ng maralitang tagabundok ay ipit pa rin sa pambansang politikang lalong nagpapahirap sa kanila.

Ang produkto ng mga pelikula ay isang pag-aresto sa panahon: sabayang pinagsisiksikan ang panahong nakalipas, kasalukuyan at hinaharap; na tila isinasaad na ang hinaharap ay nakalugmak sa isang kasalukuyang iniligmak din ng nakalipas. Kaya rin isinasaad ang kondisyon ng imposibilidad, ng di-tuwirang pagharap sa hinaharap.

Sa pamamagitan ng pagkahon sa tatlong panahon ni Agusan at ng bansa, lumilikha ng alaala ng lipunang patuloy na pinangingibabawan ng mapanupil na politika. Kaya literal at epistemikong naghihirap dahil hindi naputol ang panahon ng pambansang politikang nagbibigay-buhay at substansya sa kasaysayan.

Kung inaresto ang panahon, ito ay para likhain ang interkoneksyon ng mga sandali. At sa temporal—kahit pa siyam na oras ito ng pelikula—ipinapatunghay ang produksyon ng kontraryong alaala (counter-memory). Ito ang panahon ng dikdaturyang Marcos sa kagyat na nakaraan, o ang konkretisasyon ng fasismo ng estado sa anumang panahon.

Pero ito ay panahon din ng pakikipaglaban. Ang alaalang inilalatag din ay alaala ng pakikipagtunggali, na hindi lahat ay nangatulog sa hele ng latay ng fasismo, noon at ngayon. Na parang masangsang na babala para sa panahon sa hinaharap.

Ang natutunghayan sa kontraryong kolektibong pag-alaala ay ang proaktibong kalikasan ng cinema—na nakakapagmulat ito sa politikal na ugnayan ng filmic at historikal na realidad. Di tulad ng Hollywood at mainstream cinema, binubura ng suture at continuity ang magkatuwang na ugnay ng manonood na mamamayan din, para lumikha ng identifikasyon sa white, Anglo-Saxon, upper-middle class values.

Sa pamamagitan ng long take (umaabot ng kinse minutos ang walang sawang paglalalakad, halimbawa) at long shot (na nagapatampok sa devastasyon ng Bikol sa ironical na backdrop ng Mayon, ang “world’s most perfectly shaped cone” na bulkan), ibinubuyanyang ang kapasidad ng cinema para i-cite o i-quote ang historikal na realidad, ang pinaka-topography na nagbibigay-landscape sa pelikula at realidad nito.

Black-and-white ang pelikula na nagbibigay-diin sa dialektika ng katotohanan at kamangmangan, ng karahasan at kasiningan bilang kalakaran sa pang-araw-araw na pakikipagtunggali. Sa huli ng pelikula, ang eksena ng tortyur kay Agusan ay tila pagpapalaot sa animong irony sa pelikula: multo na lamang ba ang nagbibiyahe, na ang natunghayang pelikula ang kanyang paghahanap sa sariling iwinaksi ng estado? Paano magkukuwento ang winalang multo?

Idagdag pa rito ang diskursibong gamit sa cinema. Sa gitna ng devastasyon, ang argumentasyon sa sining, artista, intelektwal na kapital at halaga ng buhay ay tinatalakay ni Agusan, kasama ng kanyang mga kaibigang artista. Sa pamamagitan nila nagkakaroon ng muling kulay at substansya ang buhay na binabalikan at isinasabuhay ni Agusan.

At self-reflexive rin ang pelikula sa sarili nitong pagpipinta sa kantong sahig. Ano ang laban ng sining sa karahasan ng pambansang politika? Na sinasagot din naman nito sa kanyang artikulasyon ng cinematikong paradox sa lipunang Filipino.

Sa pamamagitan ng pakikipagtunggali lamang nagiging mayabong ang lupang pagtataniman ng sining. Walang ibang panahon ang fasistang politika, walang ibang panahon din ang pakikipagtunggali ng sining.

Roland Tolentino

Thursday, September 25, 2008

XXV. Batang West Side

By Francis Cruz


More than being a turning point in Diaz's career as artist, Batang West Side also represents one of the most important junctures in Philippine Cinema, directly or indirectly heralding a new wave of filmmakers who have have pierced and continue piercing the veil of mainstream commercial cinematographic entertainment by making films that are fueled by personal aches and visions.

Batang West Side (West Side Avenue) represents a turning point in Lav Diaz's career. Unrestricted by the demands of commercial filmmaking, Diaz was able to establish himself as an uncompromising and relentless filmmaker. He populates the film's visuals with frequent motionless and staggered shots of fractured souls framed against the desolate and artificial landscapes of New Jersey, and rare close-ups (and when Diaz does indulge in a close-up in the latter part of the film, particularly of Joel Torre as snowflakes settle and melt on his sorrowful face, the effect is utterly tremendous). Shot by cinematographer Miguel Fabie III utilizing whatever light is available over a period of eight months in New Jersey, Batang West Side looks absolutely mesmerizing. The film is elegant in its visual austerity, something that has since then defined Diaz's unique brand of aesthetics, which is always reflective of the crises that his characters seek salvation from. From the sleepy streetlamp-lit alleyways of Batang West Side's foreign cityscape that enunciate the internal turmoils of the troubled immigrants that populate them, Diaz will similarly afflict the endless roads of the Philippine countryside, the farmlands and mines, the typhoon-ravaged towns with the vast emotional weight of his embattled characters.

It's length of five hours is both famous and justified. Of course, compared to Diaz's later features like Ebolusyong ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino (Evolution of a Filipino Family, 2004), Heremias (2006), Kagadanan sa Banwaan Ning Mga Engkanto (Death in Land of Encantos, 2007) and Melancholia (2008) whose running times range from nine to eleven hours, Batang West Side is very short. Diaz's editing is pitch perfect with scenes that extend to several minutes precisely to immerse the audience into the film's disparate reality. The prolonged moments, mostly draped with ominous silence and staticity, invite arduous contemplation on the matters tackled head-on by Diaz. Joey Ayala's sparingly used score has a haunting effect. His melodies are subtle reminders of the country is totally invisible in the film but perpetually lingering.

Torre plays Juan Mijares, an investigator who is tasked to solve the murder of Hanzel Harana (Yul Servo) in West Side Avenue. The investigation serves as mere backdrop. As Mijares delves deeper into Harana's murder, the film further dissolves into a meditation of the ills that burdens the Filipino. Harana dies a defeated youth, plucked from the Philippines by his mother supposedly to rescue him from the motherland's contagious deterioration only to be lured into the shabu (or crystal meth, the drug of choice, cheap and readily available, of the impoverished Filipino youth) trade and the nightly and often violent escapades of the street gangs of New Jersey.

The participants in Harana's life and death in New Jersey are similarly situated. Lolita (Gloria Diaz), Harana's mother, in order to support her family in the Philippines, travels to the United States to marry a wealthy old man, who has been left physically incapacitated by age and disease. Her husband's mansion becomes stage to a Bergmanesque chamber drama, where Lolita is held captive both by her marital affiliation with her useless husband and her asphyxiating love affair with the Filipino helper (Arthur Acuña). As her reason for leaving the Philippines and entering into a loveless marriage was rendered moot by her son's eventual reversal of ideals and demise, her story warps into an existential void where her sacrifice and suffering become pointless. Fundamentally involved are Harana's grandfather, Abdon (Ruben Pizon), and girlfriend, Dolores (Priscilla Almeda), who offer faint glints of hope to Harana's misdirected youth. Their inevitable failure further emphasizes the painful futility of change in a culture that is headstrong with regards to its vices although stubbornly persistent in its struggle for salvation.

Diaz drifts further from the investigation, as Mijares' personal conflicts become more apparent. As the investigation of Harana's murder mutates into the indictment of the Filipino psyche, his initial recurring dreams of his mother (Angel Aquino) graduate into violent nightmares, torturing him to seek redemption from the sins repressed in his self-proclaimed exile to America. Redemption arrives by the exposition of truth through an act of cinema, represented by a documentary filmmaker recording Mijares' confessions. For Diaz, cinema is not and should not merely be a means for escapism, it is also redemptive in its search for truth.

Through the film, Diaz asks a pressing question, "what has become of the Filipino?" His answer is as bleak as the atmosphere he deftly paints. The Filipino, wherever he may be, whatever he has become, is still a Filipino. The Philippine diaspora, caused by the earnest search for greener pastures, is not the panacea that will cure what aches the Philippine psyche. It is merely a temporary displacement, since the blood, the vices, and the virtues, that bind the Filipino people as dictated by its culture and history is as inescapable as the sins that individually haunt them.

More than being a turning point in Diaz's career as artist, Batang West Side also represents one of the most important junctures in Philippine Cinema, directly or indirectly heralding a new wave of filmmakers (the list includes Raya Martin, John Torres, Khavn de la Cruz) who have have pierced and continue piercing the veil of mainstream commercial cinematographic entertainment by making films that are fueled by personal aches and visions. Although there have been filmmakers like Kidlat Tahimik (Mababangong Bangungot (Perfumed Nightmares, 1977), Turumba (1981)), Raymond Red (Bayani (Heroes, 1992), Anino (Shadows, 2000)), and animator Roxlee whose works have opened the floodgates long before Diaz's five-hour masterpiece, it is the epic scope, the undaunted ambition, and the artistic integrity of Batang West Side that beacons the brave and independent spirit that ignites this new generation of Filipino filmmakers.

from Lessons from the School of Inattention, Francis 'Oggs' Cruz, 2008

Sunday, August 31, 2008

XXIV. Rotterdam Delights aka Asia Expanded, Russia Displayed and China Revisited

The 37th International Film Festival Rotterdam
23 January – 3 February 2008

by Barbara Wurm

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Barbara Wurm is a Berlin- and Vienna-based film historian, critic and programmer (Dok Leipzig). She is currently writing her PhD on Early Soviet Non-Fiction Film and recently co-edited a book on Dziga Vertov.

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If one had the time, if one were able to perceive life and its screens on a multiple level, if one were gifted to grasp the many entirely rounded up festivals within this one festival, the (special, dear, exceptional) International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), one could have started with something extensional and experimental like this: Lav Diaz’s Kagadanan sa banwaan ning mga engkanto (Death in the Land of Encantos), the 540-minute docu-fictional account of a region on the Philippine islands struck by the incredibly strong hurricane Durian in December 2006, a story, loosely knit around the existentially and politically active poet Benjamin Agustan who returns to his devastated native soil after a long stay in Russia, written and directed by Lav Diaz, this wonderful charming contemplative lonely hero who again and again seems to return to his morally and economically shattered home country as if after several longer stop-overs on a completely different (cinematographic) planet. Or with this: Standing Up, Waise Azimi’s second trip (and voluntary embedment) into the heart of darkness of Afghanistan (still and involuntarily at war), a 120-minute (also) Philippine documentary shot in Camp Alamo, the training camp of the allied forces, a serious, harsh, yet unemphatic attempt in realising who they are, these men shaping this War Against Terror on both sides (soldiers here, refugees and unemployed recruits there), a sociologically clear cut picture of a life we usually have no access to, deliberately interrupted by very personal reflections. Or with this: one part of the “Exploding Cinema” section (the framework for the transgression of cinema and its black-box and one-screen-limits as a framework), an intersection of film and art, a series of videos and installations called New Dragon Inns, including works by the Thai master-dragon Apichatpong Weerasethakul (plus some more or less newly introduced names like Uruphong Raksasad, Jakrawal Nilthamrong, Nitipong Thintuphthai, Thunska Pansittivorakul and Thaweesak Srithongdee), some smaller Chinese-Taiwanese border- and gender-crossings as well as a large number of longer videos by Thai, Taiwanese and mainly Chinese artists – the most outstanding of which being Yang Fudong’s Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest Part 1-5 (229 min.) and Wang Bing’s two hallmarks in political filmmaking of respectable length, He Fengming (Fengming, a Chinese Memoir, 186 min.) and Cai you ri ji (Crude Oil, 840 min.).

In Rotterdam you start counting days, hours and minutes, you work out short cuts between the theatres, you want to be here and there and everywhere, you realise how precious the time of life and its screens are. You didn’t want to miss the sensational comeback – as a free man, as a filmmaker – of the former Japanese Red Army- and pro-Palestine terrorist Adachi Masao with his wild, fierce, angry, gross, nasty and sadly enough not entirely fictional, or rather not entirely phantasmagorical behind-the-bars physio-psycho torture-drama Yuheisha/Terorisuto (The Prisoner/Terrorist), which is Adachi’s own story in a way, but actually based on another real hero, Okamoto Kozo, also a member of the Red Army and still living underground in Lebanon; a film, recalling the times when avant-garde and extreme politics could go hand in hand, when trash and splatter met critical notions on a highly repressive system and lead to a kind of insanity, simply unimaginable elsewhere and elsewhen. You also didn’t want to miss the other exceptional and other extreme of Japanese psychoanalysis on film (in a way…), Kobayashi Masahiro, whose latest Locarno-winning film Ai no yukan (The Rebirth), a very special love story in more or less complete silence, therefore in an utterly (nearly hurting) precise body language (plus communication via culinary rituals), starring the master himself in the main role, stood miles out of the rest of his nevertheless quite interesting oeuvre which was shown in one of the Film Maker in Focus portraits.

You wanted to get familiar with some new names in documentary filmmaking like Mahmoud al Massad (Recycle), Anna Hoffmann (Welche Richtung geht’s nach Hause?/Where Is That Home Now?), or Takefuji Kayo (Hanshin hangi/Half Empty or Half Full) – and you didn’t regret either of the choices. Recycle is an investigative and powerful video painting of Abu Amar, an ex-mujahideen, and of Zarqa, the Jordan city where the former Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi was born and where, until today, many recruits to the jihadist cause come from. If al Massad, born in Jordan in 1969 and an emigrant since 1988 (living in the Netherlands since 1995), went back to a familiar yet politically and socially different hometown to shoot Recycle, Anna Hoffmann, a 28 year-old “German Russian” from Kazakhstan, had left her Central-Asian background at the age of ten (shortly after the break down of the Soviet Empire) in order to study film and theatre in Germany. This wonderful personal documentary road-movie of her “essay” to return back to one’s roots (her roots, her father’s roots, her uncle’s roots), Welche Richtung geht’s nach Hause?, is an astonishing honest examination of family and cultural bonds, intimate and sincere, yet never too private; it offers beautiful, sometimes metaphorical visuals of an estranged but beloved landscape. One striking aspect in Hoffmann’s film, the intensity with which conversations between generations can take place, may also be considered the generic element in Takefuji Kayo’s Half Empty or Half Full, the docu-fictional account of a young female filmmaker meeting an old paralysed man who turns out to be a former filmmaker, too. There is great filmic artistry and mastery in both, the way these two get acquainted with each other as well as in the film-in-film being produced during the shooting of the documentary. All three films are reflections on the connection of memory, oblivion and filmmaking, they convey a sense of loss, emigration, and change.



Paper Cannot Wrap Up EmbersGetting in the mood of watching documentaries – which in Rotterdam is always connected with a certain sportive competition in catalogue-reading (the festival intentionally does not divide the landscapes of film into feature and documentary) – you, of course, wanted to trace the latest turns and developments of experienced and experimental auteurs. Rithy Panh’s Le papier ne peut pas envelopper la braise (Paper Cannot Wrap Up Embers), for instance, the shocking, warm, and deliberately half staged portrait of young prostitutes in Phnom-Penh. Michael Pilz’s A prima vista, a structurally surprisingly “narrative” and autobiographic poem in Super-8, the selective and randomly organised looking back of a man of growing age on his many lives and paths. Garin Nugroho’s Teak Leaves at the Temples, a film that sets out as a simple music documentary of a concert by the free-jazz trio, especially performed for the film, but turns into something completely different – the very special Nugrohian way of intermingling local history and culture of Java, its spiritual rituals and traditional music, ethnographical information, everyday life, etc. with the plot of a film – following up (and maintaining some stylistic features of) the Indonesian master’s grand Opera Jawa (2006). Ken Jacobs’ RAZZLE DAZZLE the Lost World, a prime example of his virtuosity and metamorphotic qualities, or James Benning’s Casting a Glance, another prime example of forming and shaping a certain auteur-cinema, this time the minimalist and steady study of Robert Smithson’s famous landscape artwork Spiral Jetty. Another famous experimentalist’s latest oeuvre, the much discussed Mogari no mori (The Mourning Forest) by Kawase Naomi, testing again the unstable borders between document and fiction, this time by alienating a forest in which two souls get lost. Maria Ramos’ Juizo (Behave), the impressive (and sometimes hardly bearable in terms of absurd punishing methods) follow up of Justice (2004), her prize-winning documentary on the Brazilian judicial system. Or Sergei Loznitsa’s Predstavlenie/The Revue, a sensational footage film based on archive newsreel and propaganda material, dealing with Soviet social and cultural politics of the ‘50s and ‘60s; Loznitsa’s extraordinary handling of the material and its sensual qualities as well as his montage skills make this film a highly informative source for the exploration of the ambiguous nature of official and everyday life in the USSR.

The promotion of Sergei Loznitsa, this major talented Russian filmmaker, might also be regarded as significant for a general tendency of Rotterdam’s programming policies, displaying not only the widely acknowledged and favoured (nearly “expected”) focus on Asian cinema, but also revealing a strong orientation and intense research activity in Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union. For those with a special interest in Eastern European Cinema, this course could be clearly observed during the last few years already, in 2008, however, it became a real chance and challenge for a broader audience. Besides Loznitsa’s little “Belorussian brother”, Viktor Asliuk, whose humble petit masterpiece Maria reflects the depressive (his- or rather her-)story of a former socialist “best worker”, or the Ukrainian artist’s Ihor Podolchak’s visually intense essay in artistically recreating a claustrophobic family atmosphere Las meninas, one could finally see three mature masterpieces of contemporary Russian cinema side by side, its experienced wing, so to speak, the outstanding triangle Balabanov-Sokurov-Muratova, not the much appraised – sometimes a bit prematurely, as it turns out – young wave (Popogrebsky, Khlebnikov, Zvyagintsev), favoured by those who had been waiting all too long for a simple, free, which ever – light or heavy, but definitely always average European type of arthouse cinema from the generation bearing no longer the stigma of the former USSR.



Cargo 200I think it shows of great insight that the IFFR (besides its unquestioned, daring and encouraging policy to advance talented newcomers mostly before they are acknowledged anywhere else) at the same time persistently, nearly stubbornly continues to focus on directors who, judging from certain representation strategies displayed by official Russian film institutions and politics, are by far not everybody’s darlings any more (if they ever were): at the Kinotavr, the Open Russian Film Festival in Sochi, for instance, three main prizes were given to Alexei Popogrebsky’s Prostye veshchi (Simple Things), whereas Aleksei Balabanov’s outstanding chef-d’oeuvre Gruz 200 (Cargo 200) got none (officials hate the film, it brings disgrace, disgrace, and again, disgrace on Russia). Thanks to this maybe even more daring Rotterdam attitude to not turn its back on formerly big names, these in a sense paradoxical outlaws were given their deserved public appearance and international contextualisation – and we were given the chance to finally see (or see again) Balabanov’s shocking and cynical comment on Russia’s near past Cargo 200, Aleksandr Sokurov’s sublime, enigmatic post-political comment on Russia’s presence Aleksandra, but also the grand old lady Kira Muratova’s latest manifesto in weirdness, Dva v odnom (Two in One), an ever-so-ecstatic diptych of great idiosyncrasy and style, a contemplation on death and love, generations and sexes, relation and confrontation, starring a handful of the country’s most excellent faces, Bogdan Stupka, Renata Litvinova, or Aleksandr Bashirov.

Last but not least, there was the personal retrospective of Svetlana Proskurina’s films, one of two absolute program section highlights of the festival (the other one being the fantastic and long awaited retrospective of the “Chinese 4th generation”, which I am going to turn to in a moment). In contrast to the focus on Kobayashi Masahiro, whose earlier works Closing Time (1996), Bootleg Film (1999), Aruku-hito (Man Walking on Snow, 2001), Kanzen-naru shiiku: Onna rihatsushi no koi (Amazing Story, 2003), Flic (2004) and Bashing (2005), displayed many of the (“Truffautian”) stylistic and idiosyncratic features also dominant in The Rebirth (tameless desire, wintry desolation, silent humans), but doesn’t yet possess the same inner flow, surreal psychological depth, and exorbitant temporal intuition of this new film, the screening of all six of Proskurina’s feature films and one TV-documentary – on her soul-mate Aleksandr Sokurov – unfolded a whole small universe of extraordinarily strong individual films, each dealing with the human psyche, its heavenly heights, its abysmal depths, but more than anything with its nuances so hard to describe and narrate, that the only possible way of rendering them on celluloid is by the mastery of sense and sensibility.

Already her first (short) feature, Roditelskii den (Parents’ Day, 1982), like in all other films of the first working period between the early ‘80s and the early ‘90s starring her then-husband Viktor Proskurin, proves of a tremendously confident cinematographic mise en scène and of an experienced handling of visual and sound techniques; the intensity of the story (a child of an earlier marriage, now a teenager, visits her father and threatens to destroy the fragile family settings) is mediated solely by the language(s) of cinema, the reduced dialogues functioning as just another device of generating atmospheres. Proskurina’s three major films of this first period thus represent a multifaceted elaboration of these genuine skills and intentions: Detskaya ploshchadka (Playground, 1986), a late socialist komunalka-love story between two teenagers who want to simply live their lives of a new generation among the strict behavioural settings and codices of the typical Soviet backyard society; Sluchainyi val’s (Accidental Waltz, 1989), the structurally loosely-knit camera flight right onto the faces and bodies and into the interior and surroundings of the life arrangements of the specific perestroika-generation, precisely displaying this chrono-topos in which a multitude of psychic states and social relations seemed possible (and unavoidable); and Otrazhenie v zerkale (Reflection in the Mirror, 1992), Proskurina’s only attempt in trusting (and exploring) the metaphysical nature of the world, an enigmatic dive into the world of theatre and masks, reflections and mirrors, crisis and depression.



The Best of TimesProskurina’s latest film Luchshee vremya goda (The Best of Times) is a bright version of a similarly dark (or at least intense) story and probably the most explicit in terms of complex construction, drawing the dense picture of a spiritual love story as almost ancient tragedy between a man and two women at the age of 20, 40 and 60. The highest form, however, of this masterly demonstration of the skilful interaction with actors and actresses, but also with the mature and subtle arrangement of psychological atmospheres by a balanced confrontation of sound, colours, set design, camera movements and minimalist narration, remains Svetlana Proskurina’s first (unfortunately ignored) Venice-appearance Udalionnyj dostup (Remote Access, 2004), the clear-cut depiction of a nouveau-russe-family on the edge of existence, tumbling between utter adaptive professionalism, cold hearted intelligence, and eruptive as well as constantly repressed electronically mediated emotions – a film about trauma, gender and generations, a melodrama against its genre-roots and settings, a deconstruction of usual narratives, an exercise in the possibilities and the depths of communication, a masterpiece of virtual encounters in a world which no longer offers (and actually never had offered) any form of home, any kind of identity with oneself or the other(s).

If Proskurina’s psychological films allowed an analytical and also a socially and politically important insight into the decade(s) of Soviet/Russian perestroika, the second special program highlight of this year’s IFFR, Cinema Regained: Rediscovering the 4th Generation, curated by Shelly Kraicer, delivered a widespread and reflexive glance at the cultural landscape(s) of China during and after the so called Cultural Revolution. “The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) extended into and disrupted every social and cultural aspect of Chinese society, including cinema, which was given special scrutiny from the beginning of the People’s Republic, as a medium with the greatest possible propaganda value. These ten years began with a total cessation of film production”, Kraicer explains in his introductory article for the festival catalogue. The Fourth Generation was named retrospectively at the moment when it became necessary to distinguish this therefore randomly connected group of filmmakers from the ones working in the post-Liberation period (1949-1966) and those who regained international fame as the Fifth Generation (Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang among others). Generation Four appeared “in silence”, Dai Jinhua remembers in the second longer catalogue text, arguing “it is only in retrospective that they turn out to mark the historic break in recent Chinese history.” In terms of stylistics the twelve films shown in the retrospective thus bear only little resemblance to each other. What the represented directors share, however, is the weird and in most cases tragic fate of studying and intending professional careers (as fellow students of the first generation trained at the Film Academy in Beijing) during a time restricting every step outside the arbitrary, ridiculous framework of the Cultural Revolution. It may be paradoxical, but the films, mainly a Europe- (especially Bazin-) inspired cinema d’auteur produced between 1979 – Xiao hua (Little Flower by Huang Jianzhong and Zhang Zheng), Kunao ren de xiao (Troubled Laughter by Yang Yanjin) – and 1989 (Ben ming nian/Black Snow by Xie Fei), are truly revolutionary themselves in the sense that they reveal the anti-revolutionary character of the ten years of outspoken cultural and human catastrophes.

The methods of this revelation were multiple, the topics of the films manifold. The most pompous one – probably not only in this program section but the whole festival – Xiao hua, for instance, an aesthetic sledge hammer with the air of a soft lotus blossom, a radical fusion of melodrama, romance and war epic, seems more like a straight continuation of the patriotic war genre and ideological dogmas at first glance, and only smoothly, even covertly, turns into a subversive reflection of old ideas and clichés (before it ends in utter heavenly erosion – or maybe self-destroying apotheosis … of Socialist Realism). This too-good-to-be-true story about two girls called Little Flower – in Jia Zhang-ke’s latest film Er shi si cheng ji (24 City), by the way, the film becomes a major point of reference: a fabric worker is called Little Flower, too, because Joan Chen who plays the roll, looks just like the Little Flowers in the famous war-epic from 1979 – their growing up in poverty in the 1930s and their sacrifices as silent war heroines in the ‘40s, is a masterpiece of orchestration and verve, a veritable colour epiphany, aesthetically matched by no other film of the series.



My Memories of Old BeijingThere were other examples of extraordinarily great direction, however, like the two 1983-flag ships Mei you hangbiao de heliu (River Without Buoys) by Wu Tianming and Cheng nan jiu shi (My Memories of Old Beijing) by Wu Yigong. Three men sailing down a raft on the Xiao River during the Cultural Revolution – this simple framing generates Wu Tianming’s sensational narrative in which every going onshore turns into a new breeding ground for the little man’s outrageous fate at this time. Farmers and workers, men and women, every average citizen seems to have become a victim of Mao’s radical ravage. Along with the trip the crew members tell and live their individual stories, unfolding hereby a broad spectrum of classes and the recent history of China. Of similar pureness and simplicity in style, less dramatic, more lyrical, however, is the other historical panorama My Memories of Old Beijing, a masterpiece of Chinese cinema. The emotional but never sentimental attitude of this epic is created by the fact that the threefold chronicle is told through the eyes of a curious and serious little girl, pulling together the strings of a young madwoman’s, a young thief’s, and her own family’s story. Like in River Without Buoys we learn about different social classes and historical constellations by an elegant interweaving of timelines and hardly noticeable (but therefore even more significant) shifting details in narration.

The cinematographic maturity displayed in the two Wus films on spatially (rural) and temporarily distant Chinese livings was contrasted by the sharp irony and direct political critique of the Cultural Revolution’s corrupt and destructive force in Cong Lianwen’s Xiao xiang mingliu (A Narrow Lane Celebrity, 1985), the black-humorous depiction of the years during and after the fatal period in the urban micro-cosmos of a “narrow lane”, and Ben ming nian (Black Snow, 1989), a Berlin Silver Bear, Xie Fei’s realistic hand-camera portrait of a guy returning to Beijing after imprisonment, trying to gain ground as a private market entrepreneur. Naturally he fails to go straight and is drawn back into the world he was determined to leave forever. The film is shocking in the way it delivers a raw insight into the shabby biotopes of a bleak underworld, where no niche is accessible for life without despair. It really stood out in aesthetics, too, foreshadowing not only the many realistic urban documents by the Sixth Generation, but also casting a future glance at what was to become one of the deepest cuts in Chinese history (the suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen Square movement).

A different type of realism, maybe slightly more prone to story telling but nevertheless almost as documentary in style is the wonderful Yeshan (In the Wild Mountains, 1985) by Yan Hueshu. With its long takes, its peaceful framing, its stunning lighting, this husband-swapping drama about two families living their lives within the ancient settings of rural China (the Shaanxi province) – and yet breaking out of the system – became an absolutely striking film experience for many (and one of my personal festival favourites!). Told smoothly, almost as if avoiding to interfere in the harshness of the domestic order and the individual strength of the female characters (the men tend to be losers, generally), Yeshan never fails to keep hold of the small details of real-life-matters, including the physicality of eating, the togetherness of animal and man, or some astonishingly open references to eroticism. To me it seemed even stronger than Teng Wenji’s much appraised Haitan (At the Beach, 1984), the symbolically (over-)loaded other rural family melodrama, set in a fishermen’s village and boosted with really crazy occasional sci-fi tunes – an allusion to Godard, maybe even Tarkovsky, in a small world defended by a Fisherman King and his gang against the new satellite town arising on the horizons.

Strange modernist imagery and experimentalism also seem to be predominant aspects in Yang Yanjin’s works, Kunao ren de xiao (Troubled Laughter) from 1979 on the one hand, and Xiao jie (The Alley, 1981) on the other. Whereas the first, one of the earliest representatives of the Fourth Generation, is the hilarious deconstruction of the perversities and absurdity of the years of the Cultural Revolution, the filmic disruption (slow and stop motion, colour effects, rapid-fire montage) and a confrontation of the naïve and the corrupt, the latter is a playful, yet meditative gender-switching film-in-film-in-film allegory, the un-intentionally therapeutic re-telling of a love during the troublesome years in recent history.



Woman Demon HumanThe same estranging dream-passages, a similar merging of different layers of reality, and modernism at its best can be found in Huang Shuqin’s Ren gui qing (Woman Demon Human, 1987), by far the weirdest and visually most daring of all presented films, and together with the second female director’s chef-d’oeuvre, Zhang Nuanxin’s Qinchun ji (Sacrificed Youth, 1985), the absolute double topping of the amazing heights of Rediscovering the 4th Generation. Based on the life of the female Beijing opera star Pei Yanling the protagonist of the film, famous for portraying male roles on stage (Zhong Kui, for instance, the ghost-catching underworld god), soon identifies with her father and thus seems to start challenging traditional Chinese gender models all life long. It is not only the famed ecstatic scene, when she encounters her alter ego Zhong Kui in a dark abstract room full of mirrors and reflections, but also the elliptic narration, the subtle yet fierce story, and the several cross sections it allows through Chinese history that make Ren gui qing a masterpiece and meta-comment on the actual cultural revolutions taking place during the Cultural Revolution (figuring as a prominent blank here, the most radical rupture in the artist’s biography).

The touching sequence (taking place after 1976) in which the actress lives as a caring working mother, slowly withdrawing from the revolutionary model opera business – a direct allusion to the fact that almost all directors of this period had started out assisting the recording of this standard genre of Cultural Revolution Art – is the strongest connection (in style and in attitude) to the features elaborated and displayed so magically in Zhang’s Sacrificed Youth, one of the greatest films ever (if someone who likes superlatives anyway may say so without getting completely untrustworthy). What becomes visible here is not only the general alternative humanism proposed by the Fourth Generation, but also its thaw-inspired disposition, its passionate but at the same time careful handling of the idea that art should serve workers, peasants and soldiers exclusively, its love for but at the same time cautious retreat and alienation from the Chinese socialist system, its longing yet discreet desire for a another life, its silent and contemplative concern for the many tragic and destructive forces striking this generation of hope – the culturally and politically engaged intelligentsia of China. Qinchun ji is singular in the way it depicts a young woman being “sent-down”, that is, expelled from the city to the countryside in the idyllic Yunnan province, her life with the new and poor Dai minority family, her reluctant but ambitious and humble way of adjusting to the hard labour and the ancient folklore traditions of the community, her reflections upon this arbitrary act of dislocation and the new sensual experiences that came along with it. It is the inevitable (and ideologically probably even intended) reciprocity between rural minority – filmed with an astonishing, for the time shocking naturalism – and the sent-down urban intellectuals, their unavoidable communication and contact which makes the young woman’s experience and with her the whole fourth generation’s fate so special. They sacrificed their youths, their hands were bound when they had reached the height of enthusiasm and lust for life, they suffered from being restricted and thrown back; but somehow, later, being already in their thirties and forties mostly, they were able to discover and lay bare the natural beauty and the inevitable evil, the idealist truths and the constitutive conflicts, the enchanting personal desires and the vicious social constraint in this hilarious, ambivalent, contradictory, estranged world, a world bureaucratically established by a historically singular political intervention, a world they were doomed to live in. They lived in it, they worked in it, they suffered in and with it, they hated it, they loved it.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

XXIII. Indie Cinema bilang Kultural na Kapital

ni Roland Tolentino

Kung bilang ang pagbabatayan, indie films na ang namamayagpag sa Pilipinas. Sila na ang bumubuo ng bulto ng output taon-taon, nananalo ng awards sa loob at labas ng bansa. Sila ang tinaguriang “shot in the arm” ng naghihingalong industriya ng pelikula.

Kung pagbabatayan ang ikaapat na Cinemalaya ng Hulyo 2008, ang 27,000 nanood sa higit sa 200 indie films ay nagbabadya na mayroon nang deboto, kundi man komunidad, ang indie films. Ito ang tunay na box-office draw sa elitistang persepsyon at katangian ng Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP).

Ito lamang, maliban sa lingguhang pagtitipon ng El Shaddai, ang nakakapuno sa mga venue sa CCP. Indie films ang lumalabas na tunay na ideal market ng CCP—kabataan, culturati na may interes sa pag-unlad ng lokal na sining, willing tumangkilik, at higit sa lahat, magbayad. Ano pa ang hahanapin ng CCP?

Ang indie films ay nakalikha ng sarili nitong niche community. Niche pa lang ito dahil Metro Manila phenomenon, sa pangkalahatan, ang indie films. Bagamat mayroong pelikula mula sa rehiyon, mas ang itinatampok pa sa kompetisyon sa Cinemalaya ay ang sentrong nag-aaproba ng proyekto ng rehiyon o mga pelikulang may rehiyonal na flavor na pinondohan at nakakapasa sa panlasa ng sentro.

At dahil ang base ng komunidad—ang tumatangkilik—ay mga kabataang culturati na nakakapagbayad (kung gayon, gitnang uri na tulad din ng kasalukuyang audience ng lokal na sineng ang bayad ay P80 hanggang P140 kada tiket), hindi lamang sentrong phenomenon ang indie films, ito ay gitnang uring culturati na kaganapan.

Kumbaga sa pagsusuring pang-uri, ito ang pambansang burgesyang may interes sa pag-unlad ng lokal na industriya ng sining, kahit pa nga ito pinopondohan ng media na interes ni Tonyboy Conjuangco, ang patron ng Cinemalaya.

At kung ito ang katumbas ng pambansang burgesya, maliit ang bilang ng tumantangkilik ng indie films. Matapos ng apat na taon ng Cinemalaya, mabibilang ang indie films na nakapasok sa komersyal na venue, ang cinema complex sa malls. Tanging CCP, isang sinehan sa Robinson’s Galleria, at Cine Adarna ng University of the Philippines Film Institute ang may regular na programa ng screening ng indie films.

Ang empasis ng Cinemalaya sa naratibong pelikula ang nagpaunlad ng kasalukuyang “mainstream look” ng indie films. Kalakhan ng sampung pelikula sa kompetisyon ay mayroong diin sa narrative continuity at suture, tulad ng classical Hollywood narrative cinema.

Ang Boses (Ellen Ongkeko Marfil, direktor) ay epektibong nagpaagos ng luha sa manonood, kasama ako. Sino ang hindi maiiyak sa isang inabusong musmos na nakatuklas ng kapangyarihan ng musika ng biolin para makaagapay sa kanyang abang lagay? Na mula sa pagiging walang magawang biktima ng karahasan ng kanyang ama, siya naman ay naging willing na disipulo ng isang demanding na henyo, ngunit may mababang EQ (emotional quotient)?

Nawala na ang jittery movement na gamit ay mumurahing portable video camera. Napalitan na ng stilisadong off framing, panning at tilting movement para mag-simulate ng sinaunang dokumentaryo at new wave look. Sinadya na ang indie look, hindi nanggaling dahil sa indie mode of production.

Ang kinalabasan ay well-polished indie films, o indie films na may mainstream look. Ang tangi na lamang inaabanteng “indie spirit” ay ang paksa—batang inabuso at nakatuklas sa biolin, call center agents na inaanod (o nilulunod?) ng bagong buhay ng sunshine industry, sensualidad ng Ilonggo cuisine, at iba pa.

Wala na ang lingering camera movements ng poverty films at surrealist look na ang artist at manunulat ang pangunahing tauhan. Na-Hollywood-ized na ang indie films, o nagmistulang indie films sa U.S. na nag-aantay ma-pickup ng major studio. Na kaya na lamang indie films ang mga ito ay dahil hindi pa nga naipapalabas—bagamat kahit ngayon pa lang ay nangangarap na—sa komersyal na sinehan.

Sa awardings, nandoon si Mother Lily, ang anti-thesis ng indie films. Hindi nga ba’t si Raya Martin ay gumawa ng pelikulang misogynista at racista ukol sa pagkatupok sa “Mother Lily” character? Ano ang nangyari sa fantasy-ideal ng indie filmmakers na matupok ang Mother Lily-mainstream figure kung ang tunay na Mother Lily ay kabilang sa guest of honor ng pinakatampok na indie film festival sa bansa?

Ang mainstreaming ng indie cinema ay naghuhudyat ng reconciliatory position ng gatekeepers ng indie films—na may content na at kailangan na ng market. Sila na resulta ng pang-aapi ng mainstream cinema ay ngayon nag-aalok ng olive branch. Nakaka-touch, di ba? Pero dahil na rin hindi na nakakasapat ang CCP, Robinson’s at UP bilang venue. Kailangan nang makapasok ang indie films sa sinehan.

Kung gayon, ang kasalukuyang orkestrasyon ng indie films ay tungo sa mainstreaming nito. Naka-check na ang international awards. Muli nang nakapasok sa Cannes Film Festival Competition. Kailangan na lamang may manalo sa isa sa apat na first-tier festivals.

Naka-check na rin ang kabataang culturati—silang mga filmmakers ay ngayon ay audience. Kailangan na ng mas malakihang expansyon ng venue at market ng indie films. At hindi komunidad ng maralitang tagalunsod o unyon ang inaakalang venue nito. Ang oasis ng cinema complex sa tuktok na palapag ng malls.

May retransformasyon ng kultural na kapital ang kaakibat ng mainstreaming ng indie films. Ang dating indie filmmaker ay ngayon ay inaasahang maging astute marketers na rin ng kanyang pelikula. Kahit pa ang payo ng international programmers ay lumikha ng mga pelikulang orihinal, kakaiba at nanggagaling sa lokal na lipunan.

Sa 27,000 na nanood ng ikaapat na Cinemalaya, hindi iilan ang nangangarap maging filmmaker. Na hindi tulad ng writer na maaring gumawa ng akdang ibuburo niya sa pahina ng itinatagong journal, ang indie filmmaker, tulad ng blogger sa internet, ay may ini-imagine na publiko.

Siya na manonood ay umaasang maging manlilikha ng produktong mapapanood. Mayroong kultural na kapital ang indie filmmaker. Nakakapanghatak ito sa fantasisasyon ng nasa ibaba—ang kabataang culturati na makita ang sarili nilang ideal, at mahigitan ito sa matagalan.

Kahit pa ang indie filmmaker ay naglalayon maging mainstream. Na kung magpakaganito, siya na nag-iisip sa kanyang fantasya na nagsusunog kay Mother Lily ay siya palang nag-aalay ng bulaklak sa paanan nito, at nagpapakintab sa rebulto nito.

Kung magpakaganito, natupok na rin ang indie bilang kultural na kapital. Natransforma na ang kultural na kapital—anti-establisyimentong gamit sa pelikula, kontraryong bisyon sa sining, at pagtatanghal sa direktor bilang artist—at naging social capital na lamang ito.

Nakakaakyat na sa baitang ng mainstream at industriyang pampelikula ang indie filmmaker. Ang nagpakilos na rito ay hindi na dahil siya ay (ex-) indie filmmaker kundi kung sino na ang kanyang nakilala mula sa itaas na kaya ring maghaltak sa kanya sa higit pang panlipunan at pang-uring mobilidad.

Sa aking palagay, matapos ng ikaapat na taon, may krisis na ang indie films. Ang krisis ay sa pagbibigay-diin sa market—hindi pa audience na hindi naman nesesaryong nakakapagbayad—ng indie films. Ano ba yan?! Hindi ba nga nakakapaglakad ay nalulumpo na ang indie cinema.

Ang ginagawang pantawid para sa nilikhang kakulangan ng indie films ay ang pag-market ng pelikula. Kung ganito, pumaloob na ang indie films sa diskurso ng komersyalismo at industriya. Hindi iilang beses kong narinig sa mga nagsalita at filmmakers na “suportahan ninyo (manonood) ang indie films” na ibig sabihin ay bumili ng tiket at manood nito.

Imbis na isipin ang problema ay audience development, ang itinatampok na diskurso ay pag-penetrate sa palengke (market). Nagpapababa ito sa nakamit na kultural na kapital ng indie filmmakers—bilang propeta ng transformatibong sining. Kaya hindi rin kataka-taka na ang kalahating milyong grant mula sa Cinemalaya ay iniisip na kulang pa para makamit ang bisyon.

Nakadikit na rin ang estado sa Cinemalaya. Nandito ang karagdagang pondo at kredit sa Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) at National Commission for Culture and the Arts. Na ang bisyon ng filmmaker ay dumadaan na rin sa kapital, kundi man sa lente na rin, ng estado.

Kaya rin hindi ako nagtataka kung bakit wala na ang legacy ng social realism ni Lino Brocka at modernistang critique ng gitnang uri ni Ishmael Bernal. Nawala na ang politikal na filmmaking sa bokabularyo ng indie filmmakers. Ang piniling idioma ay halaw sa language ng mainsteam filmmaking.

Tanging ang indie filmmakers na piniling manatili sa laylayan ng laylayan (ang naunang posisyon ng Cinemalaya) ang may nalalabing bisang gamit ng kultural na kapital. Na tila nagsasaad ng sumpa: na kapag piniling maging (tunay na) indie filmmaker, kailangang magpakatotoo sa sarili, na ang sarili ay konektado, sa batayang antas, sa sining, at ang sining ay halaw sa lipunan.

Walang short cut dahil kina-cut short ng mainstreaming ng indie films ang pagpapanatili sa indipendiente at transformatibong sining. Kaya rin hindi kakatwa na CCP ang venue at host ng Cinemalaya dahil tunay na tagapagpadaloy ang institusyong kultural ng estado sa nesesaryong kondisyon ng pangangapital ng estado.

Parang harsh, di ba? Pero alin ang mas harsh: ang kooptasyon ng CCP sa indie films sa direksyong tinungo nito sa paanan ng kapital—may audience pero bawas na ang integridad; may puri pero dulot na ng pagka-pickup nito ng international film festival programmer (kahit pa kinuwestiyun din itong purposiveness ng indie films sa pagiging circuitable sa foreign art market)–o ang kawalan ng market pero may mas angkop sa mas maliitang niche audience na sabayang tumatangkilik at trinatrasforma ng sining?

Dalawang magkausap na representatibo ang boundary markers nitong huli. Sa isang banda, ang figura ni Lav Diaz na nagbukas at nagpanatiling bukas ng panibagong landas para sa indie filmmakers—ang pagtuon ng susing diin sa sining at politika ng pagsasaad nito para sa politikal na transformasyon, hindi man ng politika, kundi ng sining ng politika.

Sa kabilang banda, ang dokumentaryong politikal na film collectives na lumilikha ng indie films (hindi naratibo, hindi feature-length) para sa partikular na sektor ng kilusang masa. Politikal ang panuntunan ng sining at ang sining ay gamit sa politikal na transformasyon.

Ang ipinagkaiba ng nakapaloob sa dalawang markers na ito sa Cinemalaya ay ang politikal na intent sa indie filmmaking. Pinananatili ang politika ng sining at ang gamit ng sining sa politikal na transformasyon sa panuntunan ng mga figura ni Diaz at political film collectives. Nilulusaw na ito sa Cinemalaya.

Kapag mainstream, wala nang gamit ang kultural na kapital. Mismong kapital na ang impetu ng sirkulasyon ng pelikula, filmmaker at indie cinema. Kung gayon, pangangapital na turing ang mainstreaming ng indie filmmaking.

Kaya sa huli, ang tunay na indie filmmaking ay wala na sa kamay ng estado, kahit may aspekto pa rin ng paggamit dito (FDCP, halimbawa, sa pagbibigay ng pondo sa mga natanggap na pelikula sa dayuhang festivals, at siempre, ang pag-claim nito sa produkto bilang kanya na rin). Ang vanguards nito ay ay pagtungo sa pinakamalayong sulok ng estado, kung saan ito mahina at walang lubos na galamay sa pagpapatagos ng pangangapital nito. Kung saan ang tao ay pinakadahop ang kondisyong panlipunan, at kung gayon, pinakahinog para sa pagbabalikwas.

Ang tunay na indie cinema ay ang pagpanig sa tao at bayang mas nakapanig sa interes ng indie filmmakers, at kasangga sa paglaban sa estadong puno’t dulo ng malawakan at malalimang kaapihan nilang lahat. Ang tunay na indie films ay ang lumalaban sa interes ng estado, at nakakiling sa interes ng mamamayan.

Kaninong kwento ang ikinuwento at ikukwento mo? Alin rin kwento ang papaniwalaan at papanigan ng mamamayan?

from Bulatlat
Volume VIII, Number 26, August 3-9, 2008

Thursday, July 24, 2008

XXII. Lav Diaz: "Uso el cine para educar"

Por Pamela Biénzobas Saffie

Lav Diaz es una de esas personalidades que la gente conoce más por reputación que por su trabajo. Una reputación a la vez basada en el carácter monumental de sus películas, de duraciones fuera de toda convención, y que por lo mismo muy pocos de los que conocen su nombre han visto.

El cineasta filipino estuvo en el festival Cinéma du Réel como jurado y también objeto de un homenaje en el contexto de la retrospectiva En Asia del Sudeste, que mostró sus películas Ebolusyon na Isang Pamilyang Pilipino (Evolution of a Filipino Family [2004]; 650 minutos; una saga que atraviesa casi dos décadas de historia filipina a través de la historia de una familia) y su trabajo más reciente, Kagadanan sa banwaan ning mga Engkanto (Death in the Land of Encantos [2007]; 540 minutos, también conocida como Encantos), que rodó en la región de Bicol, totalmente destruida el 2006 por un tifón, a donde volvió tras haber filmado en el pasado. Tras llegar a filmar sin un plan concreto, para registrar lo que había pasado, viró hacia la ficción sintiendo que le permitía transmitir un discurso de manera más honesta que el documental, del que de todos modos guardó la forma en varias partes.

Sobre esas películas conversó con Mabuse al terminar el festival, y sobre todo de sus preocupaciones permanentes en torno al rol del artista en su sociedad.

-¿Por qué eliges el blanco y negro, en particular como vehículo para la realidad en Encantos?

-En verdad no tengo una explicación teórica. Es sólo que me encanta; me encanta mirar una imagen en blanco y negro. Para mí dice mucho; tiene una atracción emocional. Es una elección muy personal.

-¿Te lo planteaste específicamente frente al tema de captar la realidad?

-Es una cuestión de discusión interna. Me encantan las películas en blanco y negro, Charlie Chaplin y todo eso. También en cierto punto me pregunto por qué estoy siempre usando el blanco y negro. Me pongo en la posición del... no me gusta la palabra público... del individuo que está interactuando con este trabajo. Para mí el blanco y negro te tira hacia dentro de este espacio. Se trata de lo directa que es la imagen.

-¿Para quién haces películas? Y, si la respuesta no fuera la misma, ¿a qué espectadores quisieras llegar?

-En Encantos estaba tratando de definir mi rol. En todo mi trabajo busco una responsabilidad básica. Si haces arte, en verdad eres muy egoísta al respecto: éste es el trabajo que quiero hacer, ésta es la película que quiero ver. Pero en nuestro caso, en las Filipinas, tienes que anteponer la responsabilidad, dadas las condiciones del país, y usar el arte como una herramienta para educar a nuestro pueblo. Es una parte importante. Es tan fácil ser llamativo, vanguardista, ser muy cool. Pero luego piensas que en las Filipinas tenemos que educar a nuestro pueblo, especialmente en cuestiones como confrontar el pasado, examinar nuestra historia, nuestra psiquis. Estas cosas realmente importan si eres un cineasta. Tienes que usar el medio para educar, para empujar la cultura hacia una perspectiva mayor.

-Entonces sí tienes al espectador en mente cuando filmas...

-Sí. Soy muy testarudo acerca de mi trabajo. La duración es testaruda. El tipo de planos... ya no es realmente parte de la convención del cine, sino más bien decirle a la gente que tienes que examinar las cosas. Usar la convención del medio y tu experiencia: reexaminar la ley marcial, reexaminar todo lo que está sucediendo aquí. Miremos nuestro entorno, nuestro pueblo, nuestra historia. Se trata de eso.

-En términos prácticos, ¿piensas que la forma de tus películas las hace menos accesibles?

-No tanto. Siempre me enfrento a esa pregunta: "quieres educar a nuestro pueblo pero tu trabajo es muy elitista, aislado".

-O al menos poco práctico para su circulación...

-Puedes pensar en tantos trabajos comerciales que la gente hace cola para ver, pero siguen siendo ignorantes. Un trabajo como Ebolusyon… se mostró siete veces en Filipinas, con un promedio de diez a treinta personas. Multiplica eso.

Tienes que pensar más en la calidad. Si cinco personas vieron la obra y fuiste capaz de cambiar su perspectiva, es mejor que los millones que vieron una película de acción o una comedia que no cambia nada en su perspectiva o en su psiquis. Es escapismo. Yo no soy un entertainer.

-Y tampoco te sitúas en la posición de "tengo que hacer una obra masiva para enseñar..."

-No, definitivamente no. Yo me veo a mí mismo como un trabajador cultural. Soy parte del esfuerzo por empujar la conciencia nacional de mi país hacia algo mejor. Hay tantos problemas, y para el cine todo se trata de la estética. Estoy trabajando en una estética mayor, no en el entretenimiento. Sé trazar la línea. Respeto demasiado el medio, por eso no quiero comprometer mi trabajo.

-En cuanto a Encantos, ¿cuál es el rol narrativo de la cámara? Hay tres cámaras distintas: la subjetiva, en movimiento; la tipo documental, con cierta proximidad a los personajes, y los planos de conjunto donde casi nunca te acercas a los personajes y que son quietos, con una cámara muy discreta.

-Es muy estricto en la parte claramente ficticia de la historia. Es el mismo encuadre que uso en todos mis trabajos: sólo soy el observador, el contador. Cada toma es una historia completa; ése es el principio. Hay un comienzo y un final. Cada encuadre es como una tela. Y luego los junto.

Con la parte de estilo documental, por supuesto que hay una interacción. Te mueves. Especialmente en Encantos, donde soy el camarógrafo, quiero acercarme o alejarme al interactuar con el sujeto, buscar la mejor posición. Es más fácil ahí, me puedo mover. Pero soy muy claro respecto a la ficción: el principio es observar, dejar que todo se mueva. La naturaleza es un actor principal en mis trabajos.

La cámara es muy instintiva. Por supuesto que estoy consciente de que es sólo tecnología. Soy un "grabador". No quiero usar la palabra "orgánico". Vuelvo al tema de que esto es lo que quiero ver en el encuadre. Entonces me pongo en el lugar del pintor: "esto es lo que quiero ver en la tela". De hecho es un principio muy simple. Por supuesto que en el curso de la realización de películas creas un llamado estilo. Es una elección que ves en todo tu trabajo. La gente dirá "ah, éste es un encuadre de Lav Diaz". Resultará simplemente de mirar la geografía, el paisaje. Es una cosa muy personal, como una pincelada, a menos que hagas un cambio radical en tu estilo. Pero cuando estás trabajando simplemente fluye, como una vérité. Como en tu caso tu propia forma de escribir, simplemente sale. En la creación viene naturalmente, no es necesario intelectualizarlo o crear un discurso crítico.

Cuando la gente pregunta "¿qué es para ti hacer cine?", respondo "es sólo la grabación de sonido e imagen". Puedes intelectualizarlo, pero sabes que es así de sencillo. Y también no es tan sencillo. Hay muchas cosas...

La pregunta por la función narrativa de la cámara en Encantos es también porque introduce a los medios en la historia, y por lo tanto estás haciendo un comentario al respecto. Y en Ebolusyon… están las radionovelas, que también son un comentario sobre los medios masivos.

-Nosotros los filipinos crecimos escuchando radionovelas. Es una suerte de subcultura. La gente realmente los adora. Y puedes identificarte con ellos. Los malayos tenemos una cultura de escuchar historias. Antes de que llegaran los españoles, la gente contaba cuentos las veinticuatro horas del día. Tenemos esa cultura del cuenta-cuentos, especialmente en Mindanao. Te sientas bajo un árbol y hay un sabio y la gente viene y la historia sigue eternamente, mientras te vas a tomar un café. Aún hay lugares así entre las tribus indígenas de las Filipinas y también de Malasia e Indonesia. Se sientan y cuentan cuentos. Y luego llegó la radio. La gente trabaja con la radio encendida ¡muy fuerte! Y puedes oír la historia por todos lados, porque todas las radios tienen puesta la misma estación. Las historias flotan en el aire. Puedes oírlas estando en la calle. ¡Es toda una experiencia!

-Este tipo de melodramas y de narración está también presente en tus historias, pero también se ve una mirada crítica hacia la masificación de las radionovelas.

-Sí. Así es la psiquis filipina. Estas cosas nos influencian, naturalmente, pero al mismo tiempo conoces su lado bueno y su lado malo. Sabemos que política y sociológicamente también crea problemas. Conoces el tipo de dialéctica. Escuchas la radionovela y es cool, pero es como el cine, por ejemplo: millones de personas lo ven, y estas cosas alimentan la psiquis de nuestro pueblo, nuestra cultura. ¿Cuáles son sus efectos? Miras hacia atrás en la historia del cine en Filipinas, y todos estos años ha sido una mala cultura. Hollywood, toda esta basura que se le ha alimentado al alma de la gente. El escapismo. Se puede rastrear toda la apatía, la pasividad, en esta cultura cinematográfica. La influencia occidental, los asuntos post-coloniales.

El cine, la radio, son una parte tan grande de una cultura. Así es que estas cosas nos afectan. Lo examinamos y criticamos, los medios masivos, la cultura popular. En algún punto es muy malo, especialmente Hollywood. Adoro Hollywood. Adoro a Chaplin, a Orson Welles. Adoro a los cowboys. Pero tienes que ser crítico en relación con la cultura de tu pueblo. Y tienes que corregirlo. He ahí la responsabilidad de mi cine. Haces el "anti". Destruyes todos esos muros.

Adoro Hollywood pero veo los problemas y tengo que destruirlos para mi pueblo, para mi público. Con la duración, destruyes todas esas estructuras limitantes que están hechas sólo para lo comercial y el marketing. El condicionamiento de que el cine debe ser sólo dos horas... ¡A la mierda con eso! No es cierto. Es una cuestión muy importante porque están aislando al cine como si fuese una especie de arte novedoso. Lo limitan, pero no limitan las novelas, la poesía, la danza, todos esos grandes medios. El cine es el arte más moderno y más poderoso. ¿Por qué lo tienen que tratar como una novedad? ¿Por qué tiene que durar dos horas? ¿Por qué se clasifica de manera distinta un corto o un largometraje? Es sólo cine, no un corto o largometraje. No hay que dividir. ¿Por qué digital o celuloide? Tu tela es así de grande (señala un cuadro pequeño) o como el Guernica. Da igual; es arte visual.

-Pero cuando estás planificando, rodando o montando una película, ¿piensas en el modo en que podría ser exhibida? En tu intención de llegar al público, ¿alguna vez consideraste la televisión, la mini-serie?

-Eso comprometería mi trabajo. Yo lo pienso como una cosa entera.

-¿Lo sentirías comprometido incluso después de realizado, sólo para su exhibición?

-Cuando los programadores me preguntan cómo mostrarlo, digo "sin pausas, o a lo más una al medio". Para mí no hay pausas. Pero ellos consideran al público también, y creo que a veces mi trabajo se ve comprometido por eso. Se debiera ver de una sola vez.

-Pero incluso en términos prácticos, si alguien quiere ir al baño o comer y se retiene, le va a costar concentrarse.

-Que vayan y vuelvan. Es una experiencia como los malayos y el sabio hablando, contando cuentos. Si quieres te vas a casa a dormir y vuelves después; el sabio sigue ahí hablando. Luego te pones al día; vuelves el lunes y tal vez te enterarás de la escena que te saltaste. Es lo mismo. La pintura siempre está ahí. Te vas a dormir y sigue ahí. Es una manera distinta de verla. Por eso no me gusta hablar de "espectadores", pues es una interacción. Y por eso me interesa que aunque sea a una persona le guste, y eso ya está bien. No busco un público masivo. Porque es cine. Siempre es bueno ponerlo en la oscuridad total en la sala grande, para la experiencia colectiva.

-Un tema fundamental es la posición del artista. En Encantos trabajas con distintos grados de separación: Benjamín Agusan, el protagonista, no sólo es artista, sino que además está llegando del extranjero. ¿En qué punto se transformó en el tema central, y la película pasó de ser acerca de la tragedia del tifón a ser sobre la conexión o desconexión del artista con la realidad?

-Desde el comienzo. Siempre estoy tratando de definir mi rol en la sociedad, y también el tema de la estética. En cierto punto es confuso, y no sabes lo que estás haciendo. ¿Realmente va a funcionar esto? En Encantos, soy muy claro acerca de mis motivos. Debo ponerme a mí mismo y mi perspectiva al medio. Debo luchar conmigo mismo. Es una discusión interna. ¿Cuál es mi rol ahora? Siempre me lo estoy cuestionando. Toda esta egomanía, el rock and roll.

Empecé a crear la historia de Encantos luego de haber rodado para hacer un documental. La imagen es muy clara: estás en medio de esta devastación. ¿Dónde pongo al artista ahí? ¿Qué voy a hacer con eso? Se transformó en un discurso, que iba escribiendo en el guión cada mañana. También hay mucha improvisación, pero soy muy claro al respecto: tiene que ser un discurso. Estuve unos seis meses haciendo eso, y por supuesto que estoy tratando de seguir una línea, pero en algún punto ya no hay una trama. Es sólo esta especie de discurso, y el artista tiene un rol que estoy cuestionando, incluso ahora. Cuando vas a estos festivales, te pierdes en las festividades, y ¿cuál es tu rol ahí? Te lo cuestionas. Y luego vuelves al país y ves los mismos problemas de nuevo: la pobreza, la apatía, y los artistas con sus cócteles. ¿Qué estamos haciendo? ¿Es realmente importante el arte? No tiene fin. ¡Voy a hacer más películas al respecto!

-¿Has encontrado algún tipo de respuesta para ti mismo?

-Sí, es una cuestión personal. En mis propios términos, voy a intentar seguir esto. Creo que es la única respuesta que se puede obtener. Sólo puedes ayudar realmente de manera muy, muy pequeña; hacer una pequeña contribución en tus propios términos. Así es que si sólo lo vieron 150 personas, ¿importa? Es difícil situarse ahí. Como (el cineasta filipino de referencia) Lino Brocka, cuando estaba luchando por nosotros, y yo podía ver que también estaba tratado de definirse, de ser político. Y repentinamente murió en un accidente de auto y eso fue todo. Y ahora estamos tratando de empezar de nuevo, de alzarlo como un gran modelo. Para mí mismo, la inspiración que él me dio, creo que es suficiente. Tratas de hacer un trabajo y simplemente esperas que le importará a alguna gente algún día. Es un asunto fuerte, en todos lados: Fassbinder en Alemania, Pasolini en Italia, Orson Welles en Hollywood… ¿cómo reconciliar las cosas?

-¿Esta cuestión marca tu estilo de manera técnica, estética? ¿Tratas de hacerlo más accesible? En Encantos hay una combinación llamativa de un estilo muy contemplativo y otro muy didáctico. ¿Es tu opción libre o una suerte de compromiso para conseguir ese fin?

-A veces tienes tu encuadre y la escena es muy emotiva y te preguntas "¿voy a hacer un close-up para enfatizar la tensión?". También se puede ver como un compromiso en términos del encuadre habitual, del tema de cómo se muestran las cosas en el cine. Ver es también ver para el público, mostrar esa interacción. ¿Estás comprometiendo la acción de la escena si lo haces de esa forma? Si lo ves desde otra perspectiva, sí. Alguna gente dirá "quiero ver cómo se mueve ese dedo, pero es un plano de conjunto. Quiero ver las lágrimas". Es el tema del pathos y el eros y todo eso; el tema del movimiento versus sólo la imagen. También es una gran discusión. A veces también quiero ver la lágrima o un poco de movimiento, pero me pongo testarudo y digo "sólo quiero mostrar esto".

-¿Pero es una decisión estética o ética?-Estética y ética. Si me pongo en el lugar del público, entonces quiero ver esas cosas. Pero detrás de la cámara tienes todos estos principios a los que tienes que aferrarte. Sólo quiero mostrar una gran tela y luego sentirla, tener la experiencia.

-La importancia de enfrentar el pasado y lidiar con éste es evidente, pero en estas películas pareciera que el pasado y su peso eliminan cualquier posibilidad de presente o futuro. No es sólo la necesidad de enfrentarlo: es algo ineludible; su peso aplasta a la gente.

-Sí, es la cuestión de ser crítico. Te sientas en un bar en las Filipinas y ves toda esta decadencia, toda la negligencia. Ves el tema de las clases: quién es pobre y quién es rico. Y todo tiene que ver con el pasado. Tienes que seguir el hilo hacia atrás. Tomas cualquier condición, imagen o situación –política, sociológica, espiritual... todo- y se trata del pasado. No puedes escapar a eso. Si no, no puedes avanzar.

-Los personajes no parecieran estar viviendo, sino ser sólo una consecuencia del pasado. Y eso no sólo tiene que ver con la historia, sino en cómo la organizas cronológicamente, por ejemplo.

-Son espíritus, almas.

-En Encantos es como si los sobrevivientes fuesen fantasmas.

-Sí, ésa es la palabra. Es mi tipo de estética, el tipo de historias y personajes. El pasado es un personaje principal. Piensas en el pathos, la melancolía, la desolación, el aislamiento, la soledad. El pasado es muy importante, un personaje tan grande de todas las historias. Hablas de temas como la devastación. ¡Es el pasado! El presente es todo devastación. Sólo ves fantasmas. Benjamin Agusan es sólo un fantasma. Sólo puedes oír sus poemas. Yo no puedo ver Encantos, porque conozco a la gente que murió ahí. Estuve rodando ahí durante cuatro años.

-Pero hacerlo debe haber sido una forma de decir "estoy haciendo algo en el presente", ¿no?-Es una purgación. Buscas soltar al crear la historia, día tras día durante seis meses de rodaje, todos estábamos llorando. Hacer la película fue una experiencia tan dolorosa, ¡terrible!

-Pero catártica…

-Sí, fue soltar. Pero fue muy doloroso. Todos los actores sintieron la experiencia de la muerte. Estaban devastados. Cuando llegaron a la zona no pensaban que fuese a ser así. Sólo los invité a ir a Bicol para hacer algo. Todo eso arrasó con ellos. Especialmente para Roeder (Camanag), el actor principal, que es un médium, así es que de hecho siente los espíritus, los puede ver. De pronto paraba una toma y empezaba a llorar. "Puedo verlos, nos están mirando". Estás hablando de miles de personas que murieron ahí. A veces decía "¿podemos parar por una hora? Me están tocando". Fue una experiencia devastadora para él. Y para el resto. Pero valió la pena. Se transformó en una gran experiencia emocional y espiritual.

Cada vez que parábamos de rodar en la noche nos poníamos a hablar y hablar sobre las condiciones del país. En paralelo al rodaje estábamos siempre discutiendo sobre qué podemos hacer como artistas. Y nos sentíamos tan pequeños. No podemos hacer nada, así es que tenemos que hacer esta historia para crear un memorial de lo que pasó, y recordarle a la gente el pasado. Quizás sólo sea eso: creamos una obra que le recordará a la gente que esto pasó, simplemente. Para comenzar a hablar de lo que está pasando hoy, dónde estamos ahora, dónde está nuestra cultura ahora. De algún modo definimos nuestro rol. Somos una unidad tan pequeña en todos estos macro-eventos. Ahora me estoy tratando de desapegar del trabajo. La película es libre. Tú viviste la experiencia de las películas, así es que ahora son tuyas. Es ese tipo de interacción: ahora las películas te pertenecen, y creas tus propias historias, tu propia perspectiva de esa experiencia. No es una experiencia sólo filipina, sino universal.

from Revista de Cine MABUSE

Monday, April 28, 2008

XXI. Hesus Rebolusyunaryo

By Francis Cruz

"One of the ten best science fiction films ever made."
-- Noel Vera

Lav Diaz's near-future is something some Filipinos would be very familiar with: streets and alleys empty at night, checkpoints where erring citizens are lined up to sing the National Anthem (snatched by Diaz from memories of his childhood), literature and art flourishing in the midst of fascist asphyxiation. The nation has experienced similar circumstances under the Marcos regime, and faint but resounding reminders under the present regime. This is Diaz’s science fiction --- very Filipino; not a spark of progress in display (Manila in 2011 looks very much like Manila in 1990, made more melancholic by the uncomfortable stillness under the military junta), instead, an atmosphere of paranoia pervades the near-noxious air.

General Racellos (Lawrence Espinosa) controls the land through the television and the radio. Announcements and bits of propaganda are disseminated with mechanical certainty; the true artists are working underground or fighting for freedom. Hesus (a quietly intense Mark Anthony Fernandez) is the film’s hero --- he’s a poet, a gunfighter, a leader of the masses. His burden is an enveloping feeling of guilt, from killing his comrades as ordered by the mysterious Miguel Reynante (Ronnie Lazaro) --- their revolutionary unit’s methods seem as fascist as the government’s.

Hesus’ redemption is owed not to his movement, but to his nation. His poem, read by Col. Simon (perfectly interpreted by Joel Lamangan) while he’s in a coma, discusses the joyful simplicities of life as disrupted by that certain corruption that has killed the nation; it is sorrowful and powerful the way the poem weaves the nation with spoken images of the family. Throughout the film, Hesus travels, hunted by government troops, directionless. We witness his nightmare-like dreams --- memories from his childhood in Bicol, fantasies of Hilda (Donita Rose), miraculously cured of her blindness. That’s his utopia, bright and green as opposed to the grey and drab shadowy exteriors of Manila.

Diaz’s aesthetics is pitch-perfect. Slow to the point of stubbornness, yet it’s never dull. He knows when to cut at the right time; Diaz won’t cease to prolong a scene until he is satisfied that the emotions, the pain are succinctly conveyed. When Hesus kills all his comrades, Diaz doesn’t cut at the moment the last comrade is shot death. Instead, he lingers to show Hesus wallowing with self-doubt and guilt inflicted by the massacre.

Diaz also shows an adept sense of humor. Col. Simon waits for Hesus to wake up from his coma; Lamangan (brilliant, brilliant thespian) walks around, plays Hesus’ music, and prances to the rhythm of the music, before reading to him his poem. Overly extended, the dead pan humor breathes diversion (although, not at all distracting) to Diaz’s straightforward intentions.

The numerous action scenes (probably put to placate Lily Monteverde, the film’s producer) are coherently directed (there’s strategy in the action; none of the illogical and badly conceived shoot-outs that are typical to Filipino action films). There’s a meticulous concern for the mechanics of the action sequences --- the shadows of the dimly lit corridors, corners and wide spaces become invitations to danger. It’s refreshing to finally watch a smartly directed action film.

Hesus Rebolusyonaryo was made from a measly few millions and was expected to make profit. It failed miserably in the box office (notwithstanding the presence of Fernandez and Rose, all bankable actors) and closed after a couple of days from its opening (films usually would last a week before being replaced). That’s the sad fate of this nation; that when finally, an intelligent and homegrown science fiction is released, Filipinos opt to march in zombie-like fashion to the latest Hollywood extravaganza. Talk about fascism in cinema.

Ogg's Movie Thoughts, Lessons from the School of Inattention, July 29, 2007

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

XX. Poems for Benjamin Agusan

By Lav Diaz

English translations by Paula Maria Diaz, with Bayani de Leon

Poems from Kagadanan sa Banwaan ning mga Engkanto (Death in the Land of Encantos)


Alimuom

Dagli ang pagbuhos at dagli ang pagtila
Dagli ang pagdating at dagli ang paglayo
Alimuom na sumibol sa pangako ng umaga
Nawala bago magtanghaling tapat sa labis na paninibugho
Sa mga anghel ng mundo at ng langit at ng purgatoryo at ng demonyo
Ginalugad mo ang kahabaan ng ilog ng mga tatsulok na di mabuo-buo
Sa kamalayang hindi mapakali sa mga agos at alon at likong nagbabago-bago
Sisa ka ng disyerto at Tasyo kang namimilosopo sa unibersong nagsisinto-sinto
Sa mga lima-singkong kaisipang pinamana at ibinuhos ng luma at kontemporaryong panahon.
Paslit ka pa nang narating nila ang buwan
Bata ka pa nang may tumubong bundok sa lawa ng bayan
Nakikita mo araw-araw ang langit at lupa, ang langit at impiyerno
Wala nang sulok ang mundo, wala nang masusulingan ang tao
Lulubog-lilitaw at sanlaksang alingawngaw
May dugo sa bintana ng dalagang nawala
Inaabot ang bituin sa tuktok ng mangga
Paslit ka pa nang mahulog ang bisita
Bata ka pa nang may pinagpapatay sila
May awit na mahiwaga, nagpipilit sa alaala
May naaaninag kang mukha, dating pag-aalala
Ang dating putikan ay ginawa nang kalsada
Minaso ang bundok at ginawang graba
Saka inilibing nila ang mahal mong kababata.
Tumutol ka man ay umuugod ka na
Nalagas na ang iyong lakas, nawala na ang sigla
Ang hawak mong panahon ay isa na lamang hawla
Lipas na ang sarsuela, wala nang natutuwa
Pilit mong pinalalaya ang itinatagong sumpa
Sa daungan ng mga isda, doon ka tumutula
Naroon ang metapora, naroon ang hiwaga
Sa himlayan ng mga sugapa, doon ka kumakanta
Kasayaw mo ang baylarena, hawak mo ang baywang niya
Sa laot ng gabi kapag papauuwi ka na
Bumubulong ang hangin, nakatingin ang mga bituin
Kumakaway ang kahoy, may kung anong panaghoy
Tumitigil ang daloy, daan ay hindi matukoy
Titigil ka sa tabi, iihi sandali
Init ay kakawala, salimuot mula sa lupa
Huhugot ka ng buntunghininga
Wala na talaga
Alam mong ika'y nagkasala
Alam mong nabibilang na ang araw mo sa lupa.
Walang dakila
Walang bayani
Walang kriminal
Walang santo
Walang kawawa
Walang himala
Walang timawa
Walang mariwasa
Walang kaluluwa
Walang alaala
Wala nang alaala
Wala
Walang kumakawala.

Gumagapang ka sa dagat ng mga alaala na ayaw lumaya sa piitan ng iyong pag-iisa.
Ibinabalik ka sa mga hiningang humulagpos sa sinapupunan pa man
Inihahatid ka sa hardin na naluoy bago pa man yumabong
Iniluluklok ka sa panahong nagtaglagas bago nagtagsibol
Inihihimlay ka sa mundo ng sigwa, unibersong hindi mapayapa
Wala
Wala nang papawi sa pait ng iyong bawat paglingon
Wala nang paparam sa lalim ng lungkot ng bawat imaheng dumadapo sa iyong balintataw.

Alimuom

Relenting as suddenly as it pours
Departing as suddenly as it arrives
Rancid air burgeoning from morning's promise
Dispersed before noon out of keen jealousy
At the angels of earth and heaven and purgatory and the devil
You roamed the far-reaching river of triangles unable to complete themselves
In a consciousness made restless by torrents and waves and ever shifting curves
You're Sisa of the desert and Tasyo spinning philosophy in a universe playing half-wit
To five-cent minds bequeathed and poured over by eras old and new
You were a tyke when they reached the moon
You were a kid when a mountain grew from the town lake
Daily you see land and sky, heaven and hell
No corner left in the world, no haven for everyone
A hundred thousand echoes will sink and rise
Behold the blood on the window of a vanished maiden
Angling for the star atop a mango tree
You were a tyke when the chapel fell
You were a kid when murders proliferated
A mysterious song persists in memory
A face from the past being glimpsed
A once muddy place turned into a street
The mountain pounded and crushed into gravel
Before burying your childhood friend
You protested in vain, but you're hobbled
Your strength sapped, your vigor lost
Time in your hands is merely a cage
Zarzuela out of vogue, amusing no one
You seek to release the hidden curse
You recite poetry down the shoals where the fishes are
Alas a metaphor, alas a mystery
You sing in the abode of addicts
You dance with a ballerina, grasping her by the waist
On your way home in the deep of night
The wind whispers, the stars look down
The branches shake, some wailing in the air
The currents cease, the road not discernible
You will stop by the wayside and piss momentarily
And heat will be released, swirl upward from the soil
You will heave a sigh
Nothing is left
You know you have sinned
You know your days on earth are numbered
No one's honorable
No one a hero
No one a criminal
No one a saint
No one miserable
No miracle
No one poor
No one rich
No soul
No memory
No more
No more memory
None
No escape

You grovel in the ocean of memories refusing to flee from the prison
of your solitude
Returning you to breaths that expire while in the womb
Ferrying you to a garden that withers before it blooms
Placing you in a season that becomes autumn before springtime
Laying you down in a world of tempests, a universe that cannot be pacified
None
None can assuage the bitterness of your every turn
None can take away the profound grief of every saintly image that falls on
the center of your eye.

--

Bahay ng Rosas

May haplit ng pagyuko ng mga puno ng taglagas
Sa tudla ng aking tingin sa kalawakan ng langit
Kumirot sa aking tadyang ang paghulagpos ng buto
Hudyat ng pagsisimula ng mga oyayi't dalit.

Aawit tayo sa gabing yakap ka ng niyebeng kristal
Kahimanawaring lambungan ng himig ang iyong hapis
Hahagkan ko ang pisngi mong sa kalauna'y lalamig
Naghahanda na ako sa panahon ng pananangis.

Magtatanim ako ng sanlaksang rosas, at parang ng rosas
Puro rosas at pawang mapupulang rosas lamang sa lahat nang sulok at dako
At namumulang rosas lamang sa lahat nang panahon ng ating panahon
Ng ating paghahanda, paghihintay, at pag-aasam
Sa pagdating ng mga paru-paro
Sa pag-ani ng mga bubuyog
Sa paghapon ng mga gagamba
Sa pagdalaw ng mga ibon
Sa pagsulyap ng mga nagdaraan
Sa pagdatal ng iyong kamatayan.

House of Roses

There is a muffled blow when the autumn trees bow
At my viewpoint of the vastness of heavens
My ribs felt the twinge of writhing bones
Forewarning to the start of lullabies and love songs.

We shall sing on the night when ice crystals embrace thee
Hoping that the melody may veil thy grief
I shall kiss the cheeks that at once turn icy
Already preparing for the season of lamenting.

I shall plant thousand of roses, and fields of roses
Pure roses and seemingly red roses solely on every corner and space
And reddening roses only for all seasons of our seasons
To our preparation, anticipation, and expectation
Of the arrival of butterflies,
the harvest of the bees
the nightly retirement of spiders,
the pilgrimage of birds,
a glimpse of passers-by
and the advent of thy death.

--

In memoriam

Magdamag sa kawalan
Binasa ko na lahat nang aklat at tula
Hinalukay ang mga litrato
Niyakap lahat nang unan
Kinantot ko ang nagkakalyo kong kamay
Isinuot lahat nang salamin—baka may makita ako
Hinipan ang silindro—baka may marinig ako
Tinipa ang gitara—baka may makapa ako
At waring narinig ko ang tinig mo
Mula sa pantiyon ng mga lumayo
Mula sa sementeryo ng mga naglaho
At kinukutya mo ako sa iyong pagtalikod
At tumawa ka at nakitawa sa mga katulad mong mahina
At walang mga paa
May ilog ng lason sa iniwan mong higaan natin
Naroon pa rin ang mga pating na lumapa sa aking kalanguan
Hinihigop ako ng kumunoy sa bawat dantay ng aking likod
Sa mga tinik ng iyong pakikipaglaro sa aking pagpipikitmata
At pagbubulag-bulagan
Sa sahig nakatihaya ang mga sinsilyo at barya
Ng iba't ibang bayang aking narating
Nagniniig tayo sa piling nila tuwing ako'y dumarating
Mainit at maalab ang pagitan ng iyong mga hita
Habang nakalublob ako sa pangungulila at pagwawalang-bahala
Lumulusong ako at paulit-ulit tayo
Winawasak ang bawat isa sa bawat hampas at paglabas
Minamahal ang bawat isa
Hindi mahal ang bawat isa
Bukas ang bintana at sarado ang pintuan
Patay ang ilaw at walang hanging pumapasok sa ating kapusukan
Masarap maglumunoy sa mundo ng kamunduhan
Habang ginigisa tayo sa pag-alpas ng aking tamod at ng iyong tubig
Papahiran kita ng mantika at ibebedyo na nakabukaka
Magmamakaawa ka sa pagbukas ng langit at lupa
Umiiyak ka sa pagsabog ng lahat-lahat mo
Magpapasalamat ka sa pagbuhos ng lahat-lahat mo
Babayo at babayo ako patungo sa kaibuturan mo
Aapuhap ang aking mga kamay sa kung saan-saan mo
May mga daliri ng alupihan at tanikala ng alimango
Sa bawat salungatan ng ating ungol at hiyawan at pagsusumamo
Binubuwal natin ang mga pader at bantayog ng uniberso
Ng panahon nating sa isang iglap ay magiging siphayo.
Pakakasal tayo sa bawat Marso Uno, Mayo Uno at Hunyo Uno
At sa harap ng malalayang puno at malayang mundo
Mag-iisang-dibdib tayo sa harap ng palayang naghihintay
(sa hunyangong ermitanyo)
Ng mga himig ng maya at pag-ibig
Hawak-kamay tayong haharap sa bundok at bulkan at hihingi
Ng tubig ng pag-ibig
Ng dalit ng pag-ibig
Tatahimik ang lungsod at lansangan sa ating mga tawag
Malulunod sa karagatan ang mga ilog ng ating dugo
Isang pangarap ang nawala sa buhos ng unos
Sa dagan at dagundong ng mga batong dumausdos
Umalimpuyo ang kalangitan sa katanghalian
At tumakas ang pag-asa sa ating mga palad
Umapaw ang baha sa luha ng binubuo nating aklat
Ni hindi ako nakapagpaalam sa isang pangako
Di ko na rin nakita ang nakatago mong anino
Napakalawak ng iniwan mong diskurso
Sa aking katinuan at katalinuhan ng mundo
Naging mangmang ang mga insekto at henyo
Ng tinatawag nilang sikolohiya ng pag-ibig at emosyon ng babae.
Nasaan si Sigmund Freud sa pag-apaw ng panaginip at kalibugan mo?
Gayung gumugol din ako ng panahon sa pilosopiya at siyensya?
Ayokong hawakang muli muna ang nasa pagitan ng aking mga hita
Habang natitiis ko pa ang sakunang inabot ng ating mundo
Habang nababata ko pa ang sakunang dinaranas ng bayan ko
Hindi ko na yata kailangan sina Socrates at HesuKristo
Sa panahon ng pagsasakripisyong ganito
Wala nang pretensyoso at gago sa panahong nagsasalpukan ang galit at lungkot
Wala nang loko-loko at tarantado sa panahong inililibing nang buhay ang mundo
Wala nang bobo at matalino sa panahong naglalaho na ang bayan ko
Wala nang santo at salamangkero sa pakikipagtalo ko kay Satanas
Putang-ina nilang lahat na nagkumpromiso ng sining ko!
Mga hayup silang lahat na nagkanulo sa sining ko!
Aahon si Tasyo sa anumang hampas ng bato sa kanyang bungo!
At sa wakas ay nabago ang anyo ng kuwarto
May mga bagong aklat at kuwaderno
May bagong gitara at bagong silindro
Punit-punit na ang mga litrato
At itinapon ko sa basura ng ating kahangalan
Siyam na metal ang itinali sa dibdib ng Adan
May inihahandang pelikula sa gitna ng sangandaan
May pagbabago, may mga bagong tao, may mga bagong tatao
May mga bagong mukha
May mga bagong likha
May bagong musa
May bagong pinto
May bagong kuwarto
May bagong lalaruin ang hintuturo
May bagong pagitan na papasukin ko
May bagong diskurso
May bagong alimpuyo
May bagong pag-ibig at panibugho.

Nagpadala ako ng sulat sa isang kaibigan
Sinabi kong hindi ako darating sa usapan
`Patawad' sabi ko
Hindi ko pa matanggap ang kalungkutan ko
Pinipilit ko pang tanggaping sa pagkawala niyang ito
Ay hindi ko na siya hahanaping muli.

In memoriam

All night long in emptiness
I've read all the books and poems
Dug up the pictures
Cuddled all the pillows
Screwed my own calloused hands
Worn all the spectacles that I might see something
Blown on my harmonica that I might hear something
Plucked my guitar that I might touch something
And it seemed I heard your voice
From the graveyard of those who have fled
From the burial ground of those who have vanished
And you were mocking me as you turned back
And you laughed and snickered with weaklings like you
And those without feet
There's a river of venom on our bed that you abandoned
Where the sharks that consumed my stupor still lie
Where a quicksand will suck me in every time my back rests
On the thorns of your wagering over the shutting of my eyes
And my playing blind
Change and coins are scattered all over the floor
Of many countries I've been to
We rendezvous with them every time I come
The insides of your thighs will be burning hot
While I'm steeped in loneliness and indifference
I will be treading downward and we will keep doing this
Destroying each other at every thrust and release
Loving each other
Not loving each other
The window is open and the door is locked
The light is off and no air drifts into our passion
How sweet to wade in the world of carnality
While we get stewed in the rush of my semen and your juice
I will rub oil on you and angle your legs apart
You will beg at the opening of heaven and earth
Weep over the explosion of all in you
You will wax grateful for the outflow of all in you
I will pound and pound going into your depths
Grope around in all of you
There will be centipede fingers and crab chains
In every clashing of our moans and screaming and pleading
We are tearing down the walls and monuments of the universe
Of our time that will melt abruptly into disillusion
We will wed on every first day of March, May, and June
And before the unbound trees and the liberated world
We will join in marriage before rice fields waiting
(for hermit chameleons)
For the songs of the sparrow and love
With clasped hands we will face toward the mountain and volcano and will ask
For the water of your love
For the psalm of your love
The city and its streets will fall silent at our behest
The rivers of our blood will plunge into the ocean
One dream lost in the torrential storm
And in the heaviness and rumbling of the sliding stones
At midday whirlwinds rage in the heavens
And hope loosens from our hold
A flood of tears overflows across the books that we are making
I have not even bidden farewell to a promise
Nor have I glimpsed your hidden shadow
You have left behind a vast discourse
On my sanity and the Earth's intelligence
Grown witless are insects and masters
Of what they call psychology of love and female emotion
Where's Sigmund Freud during the brimming of your dream and lust?
Although I've also spent time in philosophy and science
I'm not inclined to probe the hollows of my thighs
As long as I can endure the terrible fate that has befallen our world
As long as I can bear the misfortune that's burdening my country
It seems I don't need Socrates and Jesus Christ
In this time of sacrifice
No more pretenders and morons when anger and grief collide
No more lunatics and rascals when the world is being buried alive
No more half-wits and smartasses when my country is fading
No more saints and magi in my altercations with Satan
To hell with them all who have cheapened my art!
All of them animals who have betrayed my art!
Tasyo shall rise with every rock that raps his skull!
And at last the look of the room has changed
There are new books and notebooks
There are new guitars and harmonicas
Pictures torn into pieces
That I tossed into the bin of our insanity
Adam had nine metals stitched to his ribs
A movie is being filmed by the crossroads
There are changes, new people, new characters.
New faces
New creations
New muse
New door
New room
New hobby for index fingers
New alleys that I can enter
New discourse
New vortex
New love and jealousy

I sent a letter to a friend
Where I said I won't make it to our appointment
`Forgive me' I implored
I haven't come to grips with my sorrow
Still forcing myself to deal with her absence
And I've no desire to find her again.

--

Paalam (Haiku)

Balot ang lungsod
Ng puting alapaap
Malayong musa.

Haplos ng ambon
Anino mong nagdaan
Naaaninag.

Hampas ng ulan
Lihim na kalungkutan
Pananambitan.

Taghoy sa gabi
Dahon kang naglalayag
Sa panaginip.

Rosas sa pader
Gumagapang na lungsod
Nangungulila.

Patlang sa buwan
Nakaguhit mong anyo
Sa kalawakan.

Dalit ng hangin
Pangamba ng taglamig
Isang paglisan.

Gintong panahon
Hiram na kapalaran
Pamamaalam.

Paalam.

Farewell(Haiku)

The city wrapped
In immaculate clouds
Muse from afar.

Soothed by a drizzle
Your fleeting shadow
Now discerned.

Pelting of rain
Sorrow concealed
A plaint.

Lament in the night
You're a leaf cruising
On a dream.

Rose on a wall
City supine in its gait
Feeling alone.

A gap on the moon
Your semblance inscribed
On the vastness above.

Ushered by the wind
Fear of cold's grip
A turning away.

Golden season
Borrowed fate
Bidding farewell.

Farewell.


--

Sampung Istasyon Patungong Impiyerno

Ang marubdob niyang pag-iipon ng mga butil sa garapon noon
Upang mapunan lamang ang paglayo ng kanyang amang at inang
Gaya nang namumuong siphayo sa kanyang puso ngayon
Isang pagtatangka na maaari pa niyang baguhin ang kanyang anyo
Subalit ang buntot niya'y patuloy na tumutubo
At nagkakabalahibo ang sungay niya
At tumatalas sa bawat baghigpit ng pulupot ng ahas
Sa kanyang katinuang gago
Hindi na siya makakabalik sa batuhang dalampasigan
Malayo na ang mundo ng kanyang kamusmusan
Inuuod na ang uniberso ng mga ninunong nalimutan
Bilog na ang mga tao sa lahat nang bakuran
Wala nang ulo ang mga asong nauulol sa kanilang kalanguan
Lunod ang sementeryong paglilibingan ng buong bayan.

Ten Stations to Hell

The heartfelt gathering of grains in a jar back then
Solely to replace the departure of his father and mother
Like the gloom that is now forming in his heart
An attempt that he might still be able to change his form
However, his tail continues to grow
His fur emerges
His horns become sharper the tighter the snake squeezes its coil
On his deranged vision
He can never return to the rocky seaside
The land of his innocence is now far away
Maggots reign the universe of forefathers long forgotten
Every person has become round behind every fence
Mad dogs have lost theirs heads in their drunkenness
The cemetery where the whole country will be buried is already drowning.


Notes:

Tasyo is the philosopher character in Philippine hero Jose Rizal's novel Noli Me Tangere

Sisa is the mad woman/mother in Noli Me Tangere

Alimuom is the heat that comes off the ground after a rainfall.



From KINO! magazine, No. 2/3, Slovenia

http://www.e-kino.si/2008/no-2-3/blazinice/poems-for-benjamin-agusan