Cinemalaya 2016: Pamilya Ordinaryo, Mina Walking

Pamilya Ordinaryo's sequence of scenes sees our two protagonists, Jane and Aries, go forth in search of their missing baby. Its treatment is voyeuristic, detached, especially in the scenes where our characters' actions are seen through the screen of a CCTV camera. It parallels our society's general callousness towards these individuals, seeing them as things to exploit other than genuine people, a dark mirror reflected in the mise en scene.

Throughout the movie Jane and Aries seek help from a number of individuals who look at them with the same detachment as the CCTV cameras that capture them. They are discriminated, ignored, and cast aside in favor of other, more favorable things.

Aries and Jane are excellently acted, spewing invective that is more bluster than real bravura, as they cower and submit to authorities higher up than themselves in the societal food chain. Hasmine Killip's Jane is particularly of note, exhibiting frustrating naivete balanced with a strong motherly instinct.

The shackles of the social systems that make up our society as a whole are evident in full force here, a defining characteristic of many films with social realist themes. Despite their best efforts the system is rigged against Aries and Jane, and their cause may have been doomed from the start. From a metafictional standpoint, even though the film talks about the exploitation of the poor, the filmmakers treat them as they are: vulnerable people as 'ordinary' as the rest of us.

Mina Walking is composed of tones both hopeful and pessimistic, and limns the struggle of women in war-torn Afghanistan. Its titular character is doggedly determined to survive among wolves. 

The Taliban regime wrecked the nation, and the subsequent American occupation didn't do it many favors, either. Its citizens are forced to live in poverty, getting addicted to drugs to ease the pain, engaging in small time businesses. Mina's struggle is not only her struggle, it's also the struggle of her people. It's a struggle to gain proper education in a nation that has denied women of this right for years. It's a struggle of self determination where others had previously determined her rights and self worth.

It takes place in hopeful times, where a democratic election seeks to give the people a voice for the first time in years. It has an undertone that while things change slowly, and while the status quo may be around for a while, things can change with hard word and patience.

Mina's sacrifices at the end seem to be an abandonment of dreams, but I can see it as more of a way to cut losses in hope for the future. It's a statement of independence against a system that seeks to cage her and make her live a life that is not hers. 

The production is slick, with camera work going for more of a realistic handheld style (some shots are the way they are for safety reasons more than anything else.) Performances, especially of the film's titular character, are solid. 

It's a film that makes you want to feel just a little hope. To me the film says that the world may be full of crap, but as long as you're still alive, you can make your life something worth living in.