QCinema 2020: Genus, Pan (Lahi, Hayop)

Note: spoilers. 

Aristotle once wrote that what separates us from the animals is our ability to reason, in that our being rational is our defining quality, our final cause. In Lav Diaz's Genus, Pan, that idea is turned on its head, exploring all the different ways where that isn't necessarily true, either due to our ability to reason against reason, or our proclivity towards emotionality and chaos.

Genus, Pan is an expansion of Diaz's original short film Hugaw (2019), part of the omnibus film Lakbayan (2019). In my original review of that film, I read the film as a meditation on truth. This film expands on that in terms of both themes and scope: truth in the context of mythohistory (that is, history within myth) and systems of control, as well as how hierarchies and systems of control are corrupted by our irrationality and base desires.

The film starts out by following three mine workers who are returning home after undertaking dangerous work: Baldo (Nanding Josef), Paulo (Bart Guingona), and Andres (Don Melvin Boongaling). They traverse through the forest, exchanging stories and arguing. Not all three make it through, and we are left to question why. 

If we consider Clarence Tsui's reading of the short film as a retelling of the plight of revolutionary hero Andres Bonifacio, it also makes sense in this expanded version. The film's protagonist, Andres, shares the frustrations of his namesake; people close to him, including family, have been savaged by those in positions of power. The difference is, in this retelling, the Spanish have been replaced by other foreign powers alluded to in the dialogue: Chinese, Japanese and other foreign powers (as well as their Filipino collaborators) who use the island and its peoples for their own material gain. 

Diaz's fascination with history, myth and mythmaking continues here, as he explores the many different ways the population of Hugaw are controlled by both: the spread of a malicious rumor keeps prying eyes out of Hugaw, while characters create myths of their own to serve their own aims. Inggo (Joel Saracho) does this very thing in order to take revenge on Andres; and even Andres himself embellishes his story at first in order to cover his own tracks. It resonates with the past, given how certain historical events have been reframed or hidden (consider how Andres Bonifacio's own tragic end was obscured by the Americans until it was unearthed by Teodoro Agoncillo.) It resonates with contemporary events, especially given how our media is controlled and twisted through fear, creation of distrust in the fourth estate and in the proliferation of fake news.

And, we return to Aristotle's words and how Diaz uses that idea of man and animal to depict man's inhumanity towards man. Our animal side is seen in how we establish hierarchies, whether by choice or nature. For example, in the mines, the corporations control the bosses and supervisors, who control and exploit the workers. Even within smaller groups, this pecking order exists: Baldo, Paulo and Andres have established their own levels of control and power, with Andres at the bottom. Quite similarly, in the Philippine revolution, Bonifacio's group represented the masses, only to be controlled, co-opted and snuffed out by the elites under Aguinaldo's command. 

And both protagonist and presumed namesake meet their end not at the hand of foreign powers, but at the hand of their fellow countrymen, all because of a desire for control, for self-gain, and maybe even because the hierarchy (the way things are) commands it. There will always be predator and prey. Someone always has to be the first to partake in the day's kill. Either way, it leads to chaos, death and savagery. That mindset is felt ever more strongly today, and while Diaz doesn't make any direct attacks, there is a simmering sense of discontent in this film that he holds back, unlike his other recent films, such as Ang Panahon ng Halimaw (2018), that could barely keep it in.

It is when one looks to the past, acknowledges past mistakes (including one's own), and works to disable the systems that place us in strictly defined strata that we can transcend our animal nature. But unfortunately for Andres, such epiphanies come too late. Perhaps, it is not too late for us.