Separating realism from fantasy

MANILA, Philippines – Film review: Ang Panggagahasa Kay Fe. Since its institution in 2004, the Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival has been the launch pad of many young Filipino “indie” filmmakers. Director Alvin Yapan is no stranger to the independent film circuit. His film Rolyo was named the Best Short Film at the 2007 Cinemalaya and won him an Urian the following year. It also competed at the Paris Film Festival last year.

Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe (The Rapture of Fe) is his first full-length film, and it bids fair to be noticed at this year’s Cinemalaya. It is, after all, a bold attempt at yoking together the fantastic and the real, in the process commenting on domestic violence and globalization.

Coming back to Porac, Pampanga after years working as a domestic helper in Singapore, Fe (Irma Adlawan) finds herself as financially insecure as she was and as unhappily married. She is continually abused by her husband Dante (Nonie Buencamino), who, she finds out later, has been having an affair with a co-worker. One day, Fe finds a basket of black fruits on the steps to her house. When she tells Dante about it, he accuses her of infidelity.

Dante’s abusive behavior rekindles her passion for the young Arturo (T.J. Trinidad), a suitor she passed up for Dante. But Arturo proves feckless, unable to break away from his ailing father and the declining family trade (the manufacture of rattan furniture). Fe seems doomed to unhappiness. But as the mysterious baskets of fruits keep coming, Fe realizes that escape — and even rapture — might be possible, after all.

Yapan, a teacher at the Ateneo de Manila, says that the movie was a response to the bastardization of Philippine folklore in TV and the movies. In this movie, he blows away mists of mis-education. The kapre is often pictured as a hairy tobacco-smoking monster that chokes its victims. “But tobacco was introduced into the islands only after the Spanish conquest,” explains Yapan, “so the kapre of popular imagination could be a reinvention by the Christian colonizers of what might have been the native diwata, which were not necessarily evil. In fact, the word kapre comes from kafir, Arabic for ‘infidel’.” The movie restores some dignity to the much-maligned creature of Philippine mythology, making it look like an ancient chieftain. Instead of being covered in wiry hair, the kapre has tattoos, patterned after the drawings in the Boxer Codex.

As its title promises, the film brings to the fore the violence done to women. Where it differs from clichéd presentations, however, is that it situates the problem in a context broader than just the family. Yapan explains that the Filipino woman is “at the mercy of global forces.” The downward spiral of the local economy forced many Filipino women to work as domestics abroad, only for many of them to get “retrenched” later because of the global financial meltdown. Fe is one of those women. The film thus raises the question, what constitutes panggagahasa? Fe is raped many times over — literally, by her husband and metaphorically, by the indifferent forces of globalization which rob her of a chance at self-fulfillment. The movie is careful not to oversimplify, for the men are shown also to be constrained by patriarchal expectations and by global capitalism gone awry. Arturo’s paraplegic father is a symbol of their condition.

Whether the movie succeeds in disabusing people of misconceptions about at least one aspect of Philippine folklore and whether its social analysis will fly among the informed are matters that are open to debate. Whatever conclusions viewers reach, the film at least provokes them to ask the questions. And like the other entries in this year’s festival, Panggagahasa illustrates how independent filmmaking, despite crippling financial and technical limitations, can be truly independent, a veering away from soft porn masquerading as art or from tasteless Pablum that dumbs down audiences.

Panggagahasa has a number of things going for it. The story concept in itself challenges viewers to re-map the boundaries separating realism from fantasy. Adlawan, a favorite among independent filmmakers, plays the part of Fe with admirable sensitivity. Buencamino, seasoned theater actor, is as assured before the camera as he is under the spotlight. Trinidad manages to make audiences see pass his matinee-idol good looks. The music, all produced on the two-stringed native instrument called the tambuleleng, adds significantly to atmosphere of certain scenes.

Ang Panggagahasa ni Fe faces competition from the nine other entries in the feature-length category: 24K by Ana Agabin, Astig by G. B. Sampedro, Colorum by Jon Steffan Ballesteros, Dinig Sana Kita by Mike E. Sandejas, Engkwentro by Pepe Diokno, Last Supper No. 3 by Veronica Velasco and Jinky Laurel, Mangatyanan by Jerrold Tarog, Nerseri by Vic Acedillo Jr., and Sanglaan by Milo Sogueco. Come the awarding ceremonies on July 26, the public will know which of these will have pleased the jurors most. All of them promise to be worth viewing.

The Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival is ongoing until July 26 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. For schedule and ticket information, readers may call the Cultural Center at 832-1125.