News:
Moonrise filmfest:
Revealing secrets under the stones
By Shirley O. Lua
Inquirer
First Posted 02:14am (Mla time) 08/20/2007
MANILA, Philippines -- The significance of a documentary film lies not in its choice of a subject matter, or in its successful gathering or recording of facts. For, as writers and artists have always known (and despaired), everything that needs to be told has been told.
Therefore, the difference is in the ability of art to approach a familiar story in a new mode, or a general theme in an original manner.
The 2007 Moonrise Film Festival, organized by the Center for Environmental Awareness and Education (CEAE), called for documentary films on environmental issues and cultural concerns. The challenge for filmmakers then was to confront an issue, specific but not necessarily unique, and deliver it in such a way that it would create an impact on the audience.
One of those who took up the challenge was “Syokoy,” directed by Ray Defante Gibraltar, scripted by John Iremil Teodoro, and photographed by Oscar M. Nava.
Dramatic hook
The film’s beginning deploys an apparently common device: a survey. It poses the questions: What is a syokoy? Do you believe in syokoy?
The first few minutes seem to be a survey of our cultural knowledge of that odd term,
buy as the film progresses the audience realizes that this is a dramatic hook, and the syokoy is a figurative representation for something more serious and profound.
The film also uses a recognizable yet reliably effective device: the portrait of the ordinary. The idyllic scenery of Guimaras island is skillfully captured, particularly that of a setting sun, framed by the rugged walls of a cliff.
The images of the ordinary soon yield to those of the horror. To echo a motif from the film, what secrets lie underneath the smooth white stones?
The film’s strength lies in its complexity and intensity. It deftly intertwines three narrative threads: a quest to define a mythical creature; a journey to perform an artistic ritual; and an operation to save the island. The result is a fascinating unfolding of a message that could not fail to produce on impact—emotional and intellectual—on the audience.
The film focuses on the aftermath of the accident of the MT Solar I tanker on Aug. 11, 2006. However, the tragedy is not in the sinking of a ship, in the loss of million-dollar worth of oil, but in what comes after—the poisoning of the sea, the devastation of nature. And an even greater tragedy follows: the disintegration of humanity.
Horrifying images
The film allows the images and characters to tell the story, without any disembodied voice-over interjecting unnecessary comments.
This is a wise move, for the film is able to provide moments of surprises and shock as the images unfurl depicting the consequences: foul odor, blackened rocks and roots, bluish-shell crabs, murky waters, tons of plastic bags, moored boats, empty nets, children wearing masks, sores on skin, makeshift crucifixes, fearful faces, broken coughs, subdued cries.
As one character says, “We lost the sense of continuity that we had.”
The film also inserts little ironies, making the tragedy even more excruciating: the pitiful efforts to scrub off the greasy clumps from the rocks; the 300-peso payment given to those who clean up the mess; a drum of pure bunker oil kept in the house to protect pillars from termites; a boat spraying the waters and turning the sea red.
The rhythmic pace of the visuals is that of heartbeat, steady but building up, and allowing moments to slow down, for the characters to grieve, for the audience to feel and be moved.
Hope and justice
The ending springs glimpses of hope, and calls for justice. A butterfly flutters in the wind as the artist (P. G. Zoluaga) completes his fish-pen ritual of respect to the spirits of the sea. A tiny mangrove sprouting green leaves receives a Buddhist gift from another artist (Kidlat Tahimik).
And an old seer warns that the half-human, half-fish creature with sharp teeth and nails will strike back to protect what it holds precious.
The recuperation of the sea-creature myth is the filmmaker’s personal mission to create and offer his own art to the world, to transcend a local dilemma into a global dimension. This is the artist’s way to heal what has been harmed, to underscore the wrong so that right can be done.
The Moonrise Film Festival runs until Aug. 21 at Robinson’s Galleria.
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