Sinag Maynila 2019: Lakbayan (Opening Film)

Sinag Maynila begins its two week run in various cinemas, and Present Confusion will be covering the fest in its entirety.

The title of Sinag Maynila's opening film, Lakbayan, has three of the country's most well known filmmakers go on their own unique journeys into the Philippines' psyche. Lav Diaz, Brillante Mendoza and Kidlat Tahimik's takes are wildly divergent and heavily informed by their personal styles.

In the first segment, Hugaw (Dirt), the focus turns to a group of miners working in the rural part of the Philippines. Even within the working class, there are hierarchies; oppression compounding oppression. A trio of miners, their work completed, head back home on a perilous (and appropriate for Diaz, languid) journey. As their journey goes on, things become a whole lot more spiritual and surreal, as Diaz mixes in the supernatural with the mundane. A sudden turn complicates the end of their journey: what really happened in that final leg? Whose intentions are true and/or sincere? Are we supposed to take everything said at face value? 

Hugaw can be interpreted as a take on today's post-truth world, a sinister Rashomon-like universe where nothing is certain and everything is in doubt. It also gains added layers when one considers Clarence Tsui's take on this part of the film, comparing the youngest miner's plight to that of Andres Bonifacio, a hero whose death is also mired in false truths and disinformation. Hugaw thus not only is about the rights of miners, but also includes commentary on the subjective manipulation of history (and art) in the service of a political agenda.

Brillante Mendoza's part, Desfocado, is based on a series of true events. It is about a group of farmers from Sumilao, Bukidnon, who, in righteous indignation, walked all the way from Mindanao to Metro Manila to protest the seizure and conversion of their farmland. Their land was taken by the San Miguel corporation (though any reference to the company is absent in this film) and parts of it were eventually given back thanks in part to government intervention. The story is told through the eyes and camera of Jose (Joem Bascon), who marched along with the farmers to document their struggle.

This segment seems a lot more straightforward compared to the film that came before it, but it is also Mendoza at his most introspective. It depicts the filmmaker as documentarian, an "eye for the truth," though there seems to be a feeling of regret at not doing more. The film could be interpreted as a question that asks: is the responsibility of filmmakers merely to capture struggle as an impassive observer? Or should they be more involved in the struggle of the oppressed classes? The answer to that question, seeing how political cinema can be used for dishonest ends, is a double edged sword.

Kidlat Tahimik takes us on a literal ride with his no-so-dreary-and-quite-quirky segment, which follows his son Kabunyan as he empties the nest and travels from Baguio to Davao. Along the way, Kabu talks with fellow artists and even former actors from his father's films. Of the three films, this perhaps embodies the concept of the title "Lakbayan" the best. Kidlat Tahimik himself is no stranger to journeys in his films; his most well-known works are themselves roadtrips.

The film is Kidlat looking at a long and storied career and body of work, but also an exploration of the Philippines' painful colonial past through its artists. It touches on the various things that make us as an amalgamation of cultures so unique: our ties to nature (and in one case, nature creating art), the melding of masculine and feminine, a concept erased by the patriarchies of the West, and even the 'appropriation' and reuse of art. At the start of the film, tiles are broken up and re-purposed into something new, perhaps a reflection of how we, informed by our own unique cultural footprint, use those little bits and pieces to create something wonderful.