I WAS at the 6th Cinemalaya 2010 film showing at the Cultural Center of the Philippines last Sunday morning to watch the closing three-in-one film (it was the opening, too) “Ganap na Babae.” I went home thinking about a sequel, full-blown, for each of the three.
Cinemalaya, no doubt, deserves to become part of the movie-going public’s consciousness. And my writing about one of the films I watched is my way of saying we should support Cinemalaya all the way.
Hubo Production’s “Ganap na Babae” was directed by three young women: Rica Arevalo, Ellen Ramos and Sarah Roxas. “Ganap” wasn’t among the winners this year, but it certainly drove home strong points, some of which may not be to my liking because they were too stereotypical and overused, but that’s okay. That’s why I kept thinking of how the sequels would unravel and reach denouement and catharsis.
Described as “a film for women made by women directors,” “Ganap” is three separate but interwoven stories about women. Ramos’ “Kapatid” is a story about two very poor sisters, Milagros (Sue Prado) and Elena (Jam Perez), who grow food in a dry and unforgiving land. Arevalo’s “Kaibigan” is about a widow named Eos (Boots Anson-Roa) who falls in love with a man young enough to be her youngest son (Rome Mallari as Rodrigo). Roxas’ “Ina” is about a prostitute/mother (Mercedes Cabral) who bares her soul on-cam to a TV journalist. The whore (she calls herself that) will state her name later.
I don’t know how the women directors and the producers agreed on the title “Ganap na Babae” which literally translates as “fully woman” or suggests a woman’s full becoming. The Eve in its English title (“Garden of Eve”) seems more apt. Eve as the archetypal woman. I don’t know about the garden.
In other words, I take issue with the title. I find it misleading. These three stories are about women in different stages or situations of “unbecoming,” if you ask me. These are women on the edge, women not quite on the verge of a breakthrough. Their stories are definitely real, no question about that; they are, in fact, too familiar for comfort.
Sisters Milagros and Elena struggle to survive in a harsh and remote environment. The widowed Elena has two young kids to raise. The film begins with Milagros coaxing the water to come out of a decrepit hand pump and then carrying the filled water cans hanging on a balancing rod on her shoulder while navigating rugged terrain. Quite a scene.
Kamote may be healthy breakfast fare but eating it day in and day out proves too much for Elena. She decides to go to Japan where she ends up with a Japanese man who is no knight in shining armor. She fights back and ends up dead. Milagros learns about her sister’s fate from her battered radio.
The newly widowed Eos learns how to operate a computer and to communicate with her daughter abroad with the help of a techie, Rodrigo, who is himself dealing with a recent heartbreak. She is north of 60, he is in his early 30s. Eos and Rodrigo hit it off well and soon eros takes over. Theirs is a May-December affair which reminds me of “The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.” Is this true love? Will they or won’t they? It does not take long for their families to find out.
The prostitute’s story is told on-cam by the prostitute herself enhanced by flashbacks of violent sex and physical battering she experiences from Thomas, her live-in partner. A foreigner, Thomas has the dollars to support the prostitute and her children sired by different men. But he is a demanding sex partner. He often sodomizes her and leaves her bruised and battered. Her children know what is going on. They want him out of their mother’s life. But like most battered women, she is dependent on the man and says she can’t imagine life without him.
Unlike “Kaibigan” where getting physical is just suggested, “Ina” shows graphic scenes of pumping and sodomizing. It is sickening but the story must stress a point, in the way that stereotypical films on prostitution do. Speaking of shock value.
“Tell me your name before the tape runs out,” the journalist asks the prostitute. The prostitute answers, “My name is…Pilipinas.”
Arrrgh. Give me a break. The Philippines as the metaphorical whore. Na naman?
I’ve done a number of stories on prostitutes and prostitution and have even slept in their quarters and I can say that their real-life stories are even more shocking than the movies. But the amazing part of their story is what they do with their lives when their bodies have become worn out (I remember the woman who had gone through seven abortions) and their teeth are falling off.
Of the three stories, the one that seems to be out of the box is “Kapatid.” Sure, the OFW-comes-home-in-a-box theme is there but Milagros, the surviving sister in the harsh rural landscape, seems to hold a lot of promise. Into her life, the long-awaited rain finally falls.
She reminds me of a documentary on a dirt-poor battered wife and mother who rose from the mud and became a junk dealer and, later, the owner of farm machines she rented out to help poor tillers of the soil. She was able to send all her children to school and her no-good a-h husband to parts unknown.
“Ganap na Babae” aims at the gut as well as the mind. But the briefness of the stories leaves more to be desired. Here’s hoping that Hubo Production’s Will Fredo supports more women’s indies down the road.
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