QCinema 2017 | The Chanters: memory, culture and family

Sarah Mae is your average preteen girl - she's obsessed with pop songs, and she's a fan of the soap opera Kiss Me ❤❤ and its lead actress Danica Reyes. She has no interest in the culture of her tribe, but her grandfather Ramon is the last chanter of the Panay Bukidnon tribe. As a chanter, he has memorized the epics of the Sugidanon, the oral tradition of the Panay Bukidnon. With a visit by her favorite TV star on the horizon, Sarah Mae decides to use the chants as a way to get closer to Danica.

We've been introduced to the Panay Bukidnon before in Cinemalaya 2016's Tuos, but The Chanters is far more similar to 2015's Ari: My Life With a King in the ways it portrays the slow death of cultural heritage. This time, instead of merely connecting culture and place, The Chanters connects memory, culture and family together.

As Ramon's memories start to fade, the traditions of the Panay Bukidnon start to fade with it. But it is made even more resonant and tragic given how family members themselves 'disappear' when dementia takes them. Family, the film posits, is the fundamental unit of a culture. Without people, a culture or a tradition has no reason to exist. It's even stated near the end of the film; we are the Sugidanon. Sarah Mae's realization is reflected in the film's frames, curiously shot in a 4:3 ratio and, cleverly enough, through subtitles. Her realization and catharsis thus becomes our own in the film's final frames - a shared experience between film, filmmaker and audience.

That said, the film is pretty lighthearted, perhaps sometimes too lighthearted for its own good. While Sarah Mae's character arc flows well, there isn't much of a dramatic turn near the end to fully earn the conclusion reached in the film's final sequence. After the film's major dramatic moment, things seem to be in a hurry to finish things up.

Ultimately, however, it doesn't significantly impair the rest of the film. The Chanters is a fine film that shines despite a couple of flaws. It's an interesting portrait of fading traditions in a world in cultural flux.

Extra note: the synopsis of The Chanters in the QCinema film guide is a bit misleading; it's best to just go into this movie blind, or just disregard the last line or so from the synopsis.