‘Tsinay’ cinematics

The modern Chinese-Filipina is almost an anachronism. In the outside world, she is headstrong and savvy, equipped with a liberal westernized education and a good sense of business. In the comfort of her own home, she is subservient and docile, confronted by the lingering patriarchal values of her first and second-generation Chinese relatives.

These are the facts behind closed doors, where the burden of representation weighs most heavily on the Tsinay. Sans the presence of a son she is expected to pick up the slack, and in the shadow of one she is relegated to the back seat, no matter the position she occupies in the birth order of children. There is no willful malice in this kind of thinking, no love lost because the child is a girl. It is, rather, a deep-seated product of traditional Confucian belief, one which local pop culture has romanticized in movies like the Mano Po franchise; or exoticized in TV series like My Binondo Girl.

In her directorial debut, young UP Film grad Relyn A. Tan reclaims the mythical construction of the Tsinay from popular media, and injects it with grace, depth, and nuance. Her short film, Para Kay Ama (For Grandmother), is the only Philippine entry shortlisted in this year’s 15th International Women’s Film Festival, to be held in Seoul, South Korea, from May 24 to 30. Of the 373 works submitted from various Asian countries such as Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Myanmar, and Korea, only 19 finalists were chosen, Tan’s debut film included.

Para Kay Ama tells the story of Hannah, a Chinese-Filipina, as she deals with the recent passing of her businessman father and the confusion of meeting her pure Chinese half-brother for the first time. Para Kay Ama was shot in high resolution, using warm tones as its dominant color scheme, with hints of blue and white. This gave the images an almost grainy, sepia-like effect that complemented the somber mood of the story. And indeed, the film beautifully captures the internal tension of a Chinese-Filipino family grappling with their cultural duality, while at the same time focusing on the pain of self-acceptance which the Tsinay protagonist goes through. Hannah finds herself the object of her uncle’s careless remarks about her capacity to lead her father’s business — remarks which stem from the fact that she can neither speak nor understand Chinese, and the fact that though Hannah is firstborn, she remains a girl. The narrative presents its viewers with this seeming injustice, and yet quietly redirects everyone’s attention to the root of Uncle Peter’s derision in the first place — Hannah’s father did leave her everything in his will, after all.

Here lies the nuance of the film. In its equal fleshing out of two different sides to the Tsinoy sensibility — Uncle Peter as a purveyor of traditional values and Hannah’s dead father as his foil — Para Kay Ama neatly covers its bases, and ensures that, at the very least, its treatment of the Chinese-Filipino is a fair one.

Submitted as her undergraduate thesis in the summer of 2012, Tan shares that she drew inspiration from her grandmother, a strong-willed Filipina who married a Chinese businessman in the ‘50s. “When she died in 2009, I felt that I did not know enough about her, and so I was always looking for a chance to research about her life. Aside from that, I wanted to create a film that would also reflect my roots. I dedicated the short film to her and my father.” (Ama is Fukien for “grandmother,” which in Filipino also means “father.”)

The simple story and straightforward narrative is a testament to Tan’s own outlook, her belief in the responsibility of aspiring filmmakers to be understandable, if not simple. The fact that her film is informed by a critical framework of feminist theory and social realism can hardly be felt, though it teems under the surface; so subtle is Tan’s handling of her female protagonist and the control she exerts over her characters’ dialogue and expressions. This, again, reflects Tan’s credo: to offer films that exude depth and meaning, and to which an audience can relate to, presented in the simple language of a common humanity.

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Tan’s thesis was awarded an Honorable Mention for Narrative Film in UP, and was screened publicly last December in the Cinema One Originals Short Film exhibition. Aside from its inclusion in the 15th International Women’s Film Festival, Para Kay Ama won Best Short Narrative, Best Screenplay, and Best Production Design in the recently concluded 14th Ateneo Video Open Film Competition, and is currently a finalist in the Cinemalaya 2013 Short Film Competition. For more information, visit the film’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ParaKayAma.