Marilou Diaz-Abaya on art, life and death

MANILA, Philippines - Death, to most people, is a scary subject.

Thus, they avoid the subject like a plague and turn to more “pleasant” subjects.

Film director Marilou Diaz-Abaya who has just wrapped her latest film called Ikaw Ang Pag-ibig is a refreshing exception. She has been fighting breast cancer for several years and emerged an unscathed survivor.

The discovery of the fatal disease — those countless sessions of chemotherapy and some bouts with remission — has rendered her even more stronger than she was before.

Now she can look at the subject of death straight in the face and treat it as part of life’s inevitable cycle.

Like it or not, she has a ringside view of death as a survivor.

How does she now regard death after going through life-threatening phase for sometime?

She begins by quoting a zen saying, “The joy of raindrop is to enter the ocean.”

Points out Abaya: “This zen saying reflects how I regard death. Another anonymous author tells of a salt doll who longed to experience the sea which she had never seen. She travels far and wide before finally reaching the shore. She is awed by the vast, majestic body of water before her. She falls in love with it. She yearns to embrace it, but at first hesitates. So she lets her feet touch the water. She is instantly refreshed. Then as she submerges deeper into the seawater, she finds herself dissolving, bit by bit, until she is totally immersed and united with the sea itself. On her last breath, she exclaims, ‘How lovely is your dwelling place, oh Lord!’ We live once. We die once. And we live again forever.”

A passionate music lover that she is, it is just understandable that Abaya would associate death with some masterpieces of the masters. One of her favorites is Mozart’s Requiem which to ordinary music lover is almost synonymous with funeral scenes.

Says Abaya: “Mozart’s Requiem, as do all his sacred music, always pulls me away from earth and transports me to a heavenly experience. In that part called the Introitus, I associate the few notes played on a bassoon (accompanied by the string section and followed by the rest of the winds) as Mozart himself mourning his own death even before he actually expires. There is a subsequent build up with the brasses; and then the chorale storms heaven with an urgent plea, joining in the glorious Communion of Saints who beg for Mozart and for all his fellow mortals: Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ets.  (Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine on them.) The Requiem does not at all sound like a funeral march. Rather, it is, at least for me, a fervent prayer for eternal life. “

The film director notes that the story behind the Mozart’s Requiem is as unearthly as the music itself. A stranger commissions Mozart to write a Requiem. Mozart composes it even as he himself falls ill and prepares to die. The composer tells his wife Constanze that he is writing the Requiem for his own funeral. He dies before completing the score. Nevertheless, the stranger re-appears to collect the work.

Elaborates Abaya: “Death, no matter how many times we may have witnessed it in others, remains a stranger to us until our own time comes. Before the hour of death, we have no certainty when, where, or much less, how we are going to die. Nor do we know for sure what lies beyond. But we can choose to believe and therefore understand.”

The film director cites the Jesuit theologian Teilhard de Chardin who once said: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. Rather, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

Abaya said that Chardin may as well have been referring to Mozart — the prodigy, the genius, the celestial musician afflicted by common demons and material poverty. “But surely, Chardin was also referring to all of us still living in exile on earth.”

In opera, Abaya’s favorite death scene is the last act of Verdi’s La Traviata.

It is also the favorite of her close friend, Ishmael Bernal who has moved on.

Points out Abaya: “Verdi’s opera which literally means The Woman Gone Astray, or perhaps more figuratively, The Fallen Woman, is my all-time favorite. In that opera, lovers are reunited in death. For Violetta and Alfredo, Gran Dio! morir si giovane — “O, God! to die so young” is not a cry of despair, nor is it the end. After singing the duet, Violetta suddenly revives!, exclaiming that the pain and discomfort has left her. A moment later, she dies in Alfredo’s arms. We are worth who we love, how we love, and what we sacrifice for love. Love assures the worthiness of death.

On film, the Nicholson-Freeman starrer, Bucket List, was for her very refreshing on many levels. “First, its humor and irony actually dignified, rather than trivialized, the human fear of death. Second, I was attracted by the how of dying, rather than the when or where. Third, I liked its presentation of the fact that when we go, we can bring nothing with us. We can only leave behind the stories of our lives, which, hopefully, would comfort and nourish those who will mourn our passing. Fourthly, as a breast cancer survivor, I was intimately affected by the movie. Truly, laughter is a good medicine, much better than chemotherapy!”

The director’s own Bucket List (partial according to her) includes scuba diving in the Red Sea; revisiting Lourdes and Jerusalem, making a long overdue 30-day silent Ignatian Retreat, then writing her memoir.

She adds: “Every year, I handwrite my living will. Among my wishes is that when my time nears and when my heart stops, I do not wish to be resuscitated. I want a short wake for prayers highlighted by music by Mozart, Beethoven and Manoling Fransisco, S.J. My interment should be above ground and no flowers; I would prefer donations for priestly vocations.”

For now, she always reflects on her earthly existence. “I was out everywhere for many years. Filmmaking took me all over the world studying, producing, lecturing, exhibiting, competing, ovating, bowing. Five booklets of my passports, sixty pages each, stapled together into one fat book, bear most of my comings and goings in the past decades. Scattered all over my library are hundreds of brochures, leaflets, posters, citations, trophies, favorable reviews, scathing criticisms, speeches, countless airline tickets, hotel receipts, airport taxes and mileage reports. I leaf through these pages now and smile wryly as I visualize all the places I’ve been to in search of something worth finding. Ironically, it is only now when my travels are closer to home, to Batangas, Pampanga, Camarines Sur, and Zamboanga, where I serve and organize media apostolates, that I finally sense my ultimate Destination, the only one worth going to. And I realize that it isn’t about somewhere. Rather, it’s about SomeOne.”

A seasoned scuba diver, Abaya said she would be above water on All Soul’s Day and will surely not miss the holy mass. “I shall remember all my beloved relatives and friends who have passed on. I may not have been able to thank them enough, while they were alive, for being part of my life, so I will thank God instead. Then I shall go underwater, in the coral reefs, with all the living creatures inhabiting a Divine gallery, to celebrate Art and Life.”