A period piece on love & death

Film review: Cinemalaya’s Amor Y Muerte and Ekstra

MANILA, Philippines - As directed by Ces Evangelista, after a 12-year film work hiatus that saw him more involved with the world of print and magazines, Amor Y Muerte is one of the entries in the ongoing Cinemalaya 2013. A rarity these days, it’s a period piece set in the 16th century, following the lives of indios and their Spanish colonizers. It’s about passion, sex, religion, sex, hypocrisy and more sex; and the inevitable clash that occurs when ruler and subjugated intermarry, and how the fallout from that happening goes far deeper than we can anticipate.

It’s always tricky to do a period piece, as unless one has the budget and production values we often see when films of this type are done in the West, you ply a thin line between maintaining credibility and setting your costume and set designs up for ridicule. To the film’s credit, a lot of effort is done in these departments, and the fact that the film’s story is set in the province, allows us leeway in recreating the era’s landscape. Thankfully, Manila and Intramuros as the seat of Spanish colonial power is only referred to, and the indie budget allows us to be taken along this 16th-century ride.

Althea Vega plays Amor, a barrio lass and daughter of a village leader, who marries the local Spanish bigwig, played by Markki Stroem. It sets up the title quite nicely, as it can refer both as love and death, and as Amor, our leading lady, and her brush with mortality. The movie starts off with an exposition (and exploration) of Amor’s libido, and how it has the whole community lying awake late at night, to the consternation of the local Spanish friar. Plans are then set in motion to turn Amor into a “proper” Spanish wife, something we see clearly is frustrating her, chafing her free-spirited nature.

It’s at this point that the screenplay does its best to hold a mirror up to the cracks in the relationship, and in a larger scale, the cracks that run deep between the Spanish colonizers on one hand, and the ruled on the other. When Amor’s suppressed libido looks for satisfaction while her husband is away, we know it’s only a matter of time before all hell will break loose and we revert to cuckolded husband seeking bloody revenge.

When that comes, the shift is rather sudden. But what the film has in spades are beautifully choreographed and edited scenes of lovemaking. There are consistent shafts of humor as the lines are delivered, and I would call it our director’s instructions, how he interpreted the story/screenplay.

If there is a weakness to the film, I would point to the unraveling of the story itself. There are times we wish the pacing was quicker, or more dramatic scenes would shoot up and surprise us. Or maybe the love scenes are so energized and vivid that all else pales. The theme is not a new one, and it’s interesting to see how its screenplay would attack it, as written from the point of view of the subjugated, the colonized.