A dialectic tension between immediate generations is at work in this portmanteau film composed of three stories. Three unrelated stories that demonstrate
different yet predictable outcomes, underscoring director Lino Brocka’s
predilection for neat, schematic endings. Working with three different
scenarists, Brocka directs all three segments, taking on this project
after the success of his much-praised masterwork, Tinimbang Ka Ngunit
Kulang, which was released earlier in the same year.
In
Mga Hugis ng Pag-asa, Noni (played sympathetically by Jay Ilagan)
undergoes the arduous pains of rehabilitation in a center for drug
reformers. While it touches on Noni’s familial and filial problems and his
subsequent descent into drug use, the film spotlights the almost inhuman, almost
dubious methods the center utilizes to turn troubled lives around. There
is adequate cursing and screaming – and, to a certain extent, release— to
recall the unconventional techniques of Arthur Janov and the scenes of
sadistic rehabilitation in A Clockwork Orange.
The
second entry in this triptych is Hello, Soldier, a compassionate tale
that depicts the lives of a mother and a daughter in the slums of Manila
and the return of the former’s American soldier lover. It’s 1963, 17
years after they last parted ways at the end of the Second World War,
and his return is meant to formalize his adoption of their daughter,
Gina (Hilda Koronel). She is a willing would-be adoptee, dreaming of all
things American—her bedroom walls covered with pinned Americana— and
being lifted out of a life of poverty. On the day of his visit, with his
American wife, Lucia, Gina’s mother, chooses to get drunk for the first
time. The obvious and strident overtones of colonialist legacy – and the specters of
neo-colonialism—are in evidence here, most especially in Lucia’s
drunken anti-American tirade (a great bravura performance by Anita
Linda).
In
the final episode of this omnibus, Bukas, Madilim, Bukas, the limits of
self-sacrifice are tested by matriarchal tyranny in an old Spanish
family. Atang, (played with just the right measure of stricture by Mary
Walter), the seemingly crippled matriarch, controls her household with
an iron fist. Her despotic control of her household sees her daughter,
Rosenda (played superbly with conflicted nuance by Lolita Rodriguez),
devoting her life to nursing her mother. No househelp, let alone any
outsider, is welcome unless the old woman approves it. Enter Miguelito
(Mario O’Hara), the gardener, a seemingly guileless youth from the
province who befriends Rosenda and awakens her sexuality. This narrative
reverses the filial dynamics in Karoly Makk’s Szerelem (Love) and hints
at noirish elements of intrigue and seduction.
reviewed: May 18, 2009
reviewed: May 18, 2009
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