Lessons from history

(Editor’s Note: Until end of January 2007, My Favorite Movie will feature only movies shown during a Metro Manila Film Festival from any year. Contributions must not exceed two and a half pages, short bond paper, double-spaced. We don’t return rejected articles. Published ones will be paid accordingly. E-mail your pieces at [email protected].)

The author teaches film appreciation and video production at the Center for Performing and Digital Arts of the University of Makati. He was editor-in-chief of the Philippine Collegian, official weekly student publication of the University of the Philippines. His short film Lababo (Kitchen-Sink, drama) was recently screened in competition at the Eighth International Panorama of Independent Film and Video in Athens, Greece.

After Bata, Bata, Pa’no Ka Ginawa? gained commercial and critical success, it is evident that Star Cinema again banked on the movie’s winning formula by bringing back the triumvirate of director Chito Roño, writer Lualhati Bautista and Vilma Santos in another touching political drama based on another award-winning novel.

In Dekada ’70, it seems Roño, Bautista and Star Cinema have listened to critics of their earlier collaboration and they all improved in handling another serious and more ambitious undertaking. The cinematic version completely caught me off-guard and I must admit it has managed to be faithful to one of the academe’s most assigned and most read Filipino novel. Ever since I read the novel, I immediately developed a special liking for it.

Coming from a family of five boys and one girl, with our mother working as a public school teacher and our father being the dominant figure at home, I could easily relate to the dynamics of the family relationships the story’s main characters are into.

The film revolves around the story of a full-time housewife Amanda Bartolome (Santos), her engineer-husband Julian Sr. (Christopher de Leon), and their five sons – Julian Jr./Jules (Piolo Pascual), Isagani/Gani (Carlos Agassi), Emmanuel/Em (Marvin Agustin), Jason (Danilo Barrios) and Benjamin/Bingo (John Wayne Sace) – amid a turbulent decade characterized by political repression and economic turmoil. The couple, despite living in the most hateful period in Philippine history, raise their children calmly within their means and to the best of their abilities as different trials come their way.

For starters, the movie brings to life images of the colorful yet infamous past. As mature audiences wax nostalgic over psychedelic prints, neon colors, platform shoes, bell-bottomed jeans, shaggy hair and other facets of the hippie lifestyle, they are also treated to scenes of protest rallies and student demonstrations usually dispersed by the Metrocom, then the recognized police force in the metropolis. Production designer Manny Morfe tries to be as careful with details as possible, bringing into the set old Coca-Cola soft drink bottles, vinyl records, the old-fashioned jukebox, heavy phone sets with the rotating dialer and "short shorts," among others.

Santos, as usual, delivers a fine performance reminiscent of her role in Bata, Bata... although her character here is not as fiery and aggressive as the previous one. Amanda is a woman searching for her true identity and struggling to find out her place in "a man’s world," as Julian Sr. often reminds her. De Leon, on the other hand, reminds me of his similar role in Eskapo although Geny Lopez actually exists in real life while Julian Sr. is just a product of Bautista’s imagination, yet it might resemble someone she met or even knew in her life.

Pascual is a revelation as their eldest son who was drawn into student activism by the infamous dictatorship. He fits the role of Jules and he has managed to come up with another credible performance in his career. His clandestine meeting with Amanda before his capture is perhaps one of the most poignant scenes in the movie.

Agassi, the second son, is plausible as the playboy Gani whose ambition is to become a part of the US Navy, a clear departure from his nationalist brother. The role does not require much from the actor after Gani fulfilled his dream and later went abroad.

Agustin, while eliciting innocent jeers from some viewers for his unusual hairdo, still stays afloat as the writer in the family. From a mere author of love stories, Em eventually became a dedicated campus journalist before turning into a playwright for a cultural group.

Barrios, on the other hand, is a big puzzle as Jason, the fourth son who is the only one with an American-sounding name according to the novel. While his character is portrayed humorously in several scenes, his transformation from an effeminate boy to another typical teenager in love like Gani is somewhat confusing. Nevertheless, his role is also a minor one as compared to Jules, thus saving him from further scrutiny.

Sace’s character as Bingo is not as challenging as Carlo Aquino’s or Jiro Manio’s earlier roles that won them Best Child Performers but he was still given an "additional" scene (not included in the novel) just to see him cry, with less satisfactory results.

Ana Capri appears in a significant role as Mara, Jules’ wife who is also a member of the NPA. While she and Evelyn are instrumental in pointing out to Amanda her role as a woman in the society, I must point out that her unkempt hair all throughout the movie is totally uncalled for.

Dekada ‘70 stands out from the annual holiday cinematic treats we have been used to seeing, not only for its originality but also for its audacity and daring. The interrelationships among the characters’ lives and the events happening around them underline the role we have to play in molding the society we want to live in. Indeed, the movie is significant in learning about the past, understanding the present and anticipating the future.