Day x of quarantine.
The outside world is not safe. Every space that can be stepped foot on is a death march waiting to happen, a genocide at the hands of the assassins lurking in the streets, one tangible and another the exact opposite. People are inside their houses, looking for ways to feed the growing hungers of their stomachs and souls, hoping for a ray of light or two to come everyone’s way and relieve us of our miseries. We turn to art for sanity, as humans have been inclined to rely on such since the beginning of time, finding solace in the comforts of a multi-faceted range of distinguishable activities that tap into the infinite imagination in the hopes of achieving either of but are not limited to the following end results: catharsis or escapism. Mostly the latter. The world as it stands now is full of toxic waste, literally and figuratively, and there is nothing wrong with a little escapism to keep the tiniest slivers of peace we have left in our back pockets. And somewhere along the lines of art lies the pictures in motion, a fascinating audiovisual medium that repurposes the human experiences from scratch, combining elements from other art forms like literature, painting, photography and what have you, in the hopes of creating something transformative and transgressional.
Speaking of transgressional, the local film industry has left no stone unturned in digging deep into the digital melting pot. Over the years, we have seen filmmakers in our country innovate in both form and substance as they share their stories to the world. Look at Jet Leyco, who has delivered outputs beyond expectations, from Ex Press (2011), an imaginative revue of Philippine history and politics presented through sights and sounds that paradoxically make and not make sense at the same time, to For My Alien Friend (2019), a sonic universe that dares tell the story of his life and those around him, communicating through a language as though understandable only by an Alien. Images captured in film have never been limited in the conventions set by the pioneers, for even they have been experimenting such in the hopes of leaving an impact. Abstract, concrete, tangible, intagible… all are but labels to limit the expanse of cinema, a concept that have been defined by many philosophers like Delleuze but continues to change through progress. Perhaps the real challenge in this lockdown has never been the production of content, which can be made even with the limitations we all have, but in opening the realm of the senses so that the established notions can be broken in order to create anew.
The barrier was first broken through the unconstrained efforts of the Lockdown Cinema Club, led by Carl Chavez. Through the humane intent to help out displaced film workers to get through the erroneous quarantine, the efforts to distribute volumes of shorts and full-lengths to the public, despite opening the possibility of piracy, the greatest enemy of the financial aspect of cinema, have produced laudable results, the most laudable being that the project has garnered donations of more than ₱3,000,000. One of the other efforts Lockdown Cinema Club has ventured to is live script reading via Facebook Live. Live script reading is not new to the film industry; yet somehow, it has opened the eyes of many to reliving the magic of films they have loved in the past, like Antoinette Jadaone’s That Thing Called Tadhana (2014), which saw the return of its two anchors, Angelica Panganiban and JM De Guzman, as they navigate through their lines and bring forth nostalgia to those who have come to love the story between Mace and Anthony, and Jade Castro’s Zombadings 1: Patayin sa Shokot si Remington (2011), which made use of a fresh set of thespians giving new life to the script. What made the latter script reading stand out is how each actor made use of props and lights to garner a more “cinematic” appeal, strongly supported by live scoring from Teresa Barrozo. The performers were locked up inside the confines of their screens, but they have managed to somehow break the outer shell and create an arresting presentation with what they have on their arsenal.
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As if that was not interesting enough, John Lloyd Cruz and Bea Alonzo, who took the whole nation by storm as one of the original tandems in the Filipino romance scene via One More Chance, took to Instagram Live in what Present Confusion’s John Tawasil called “some sort of metafictional performance art piece.” In the hands of Dan Villegas (Changing Partners, Always Be My Maybe, How to Be Yours) and Antoinette Jadaone (Never Not Love You, That Thing Called Tadhana, Love You to the Stars and Back), anything can be turned into something romantic, possibly even if their work starred a plant and a pot. Love Team is the first of quite possibly many more outings from this tandem of directors, through their series of outings they referred to as The Unconfined Cinema. In an Instagram post by Villegas, he mentioned that The Unconfined Cinema was founded “on the idea of exploring what else cinema could be, freeing our stories to be told outside of the traditional spaces and conceptual boundaries set by the last century of the medium.” And while many weren’t big on what Love Team stands for, the most gargantuan complaint being that the reality it presents is later on taken back for “art’s” sake, its existence brings forth a future that, although far from perfect, dares defy and subvert what we all have gotten used to.
But what really caught everyone off-guard is a humble creation from one of our local masters, interweaving the past and the present, the reality and the fiction, the history and the truth, as a reminder of how our lives at this very moment are no different from the time when technology has not yet flourished the land. In Lav Diaz’s Himala: Isang Diyalektika ng Ating Panahon, the Filipino people is, once again, at a standstill. We are reminded of our current situation, global pandemic and all, and how the words of Elsa reflect this downtrodden nation of ours, where people turn to miracles for ecstasy, for solemnity, for equanimity. The limits were suddenly debunked and thrown away into the void, for the human imagination was never truly bound by anything. We are the ones who set limits for ourselves, and we are the ones who will remove them. Just like the people edited and captured in Diaz’s short. Just like Elsa, Nimia, Sepa and everyone in Cupang who has believed in miracles and curses, in angels and demons. Diaz could have chosen to interpret the words of Ishmael Bernal the same way his co-directors have during Gabi ng Himala. He could have just instructed an actor to face a camera, look at it as though imbibing the sense of power Glenn Close once said about cinema, that being “the power of two eyes looking into two eyes,” and recited the words forged by Ricky Lee. He could have asked all of his actors–Agot Isidro, Noel Sto. Domingo, Hazel Orencio, Shaina Magdayao etc.–to repeat what has already been done. But no. He went beyond that. He used the actors’ setting, their actual living conditions, their current states of mind, and helped us meditate on the misericordia caused by the government and the aforementioned assassins ravaging our roads.
In conclusion, the film industry continues to thrive, despite what it has and what it can do. And it is up to the trailblazers at work to continue and keep the faith, in the hopes of breaking the chains of tradition and convention. The only way to go for our national cinema is forward, into the unknown, hopefully for the better. The lockdown exists, but it must not serve as a hindrance for us to achieve what we aim to leave to our fellow men. Day by day, we continue to live in what has been referred to by many as “the new normal.” In the context of cinema, has it ever truly been normal? Especially when norms and standards have continuously been shattered and broken by those who continue to dance with progress and development? When all of this is over, do we all simply go back to our regular lives and pretend that this “new normal,” born out of the creativity and passion of our artists in the time of coronavirus, never existed? Or do we move forward with the learnings brought about by the past and the present to propel us to yet another uncertain future? Where exactly are we and where do we stand? Such are the questions that will continue to exist in the heads of many once these assassins can no longer murder us and cause fear to manifest. One thing remains sure: we will all rise to the challenge, with our resilience and bravery, and let the winds take us to seas far and wide. And they will be ours.
So it goes.
