Reflections on Philippine Cinema Volume 1

I am a Filipino. I could say that gain but it wouldn't really make much sense as that word wouldn't have a singular basis for its meaning. The easiest association though is one who is from the Philippines yet in some other context that definition remains vague like the Nouvelle Vague movement in film making spearheaded by Francois Truffaut. It is not like other words that could be confined like a teacher which is one who instructs. The idea behind a Filipino remains ambiguous.

It really doesn't make sense for me to claim and hold up to being a Filipino. I may be passionate about a motherland but it is a motherland that was a creation of a stranger. It was never really mine as until now, the filth of those self serving Westerners continue to vandalize the minutae of
everyday living in this god damned land. On the other hand, I may say I am a Filipino yet my tongue speaks of a language that salutes another civilization. I am divided. Now, even things that are produced in the creative market are all derived from the worst stranger of all which I will mention next.

My country has embraced this place called "Etats-Unis." I choose to remain estranged to that place while all the others of my race pursue them and treat this nation like an heirloom and their people as gods. To me they are nothing to be proud of and worth of my praise. I rub shoulders everyday with people who say that the magic is with them. Hollywood, Frito-Lay, Hersheys, Calvin Klein, McDonalds and many other figures that spell Americaine. At one instance, I recall an instance wherein a friend approached and me and told me that movies should be for entertainment alone- nothing for the mind to ponder on. I guess this is institutionalized film making- conventional and capitalist in nature. Many people I know watch films because of the star system, the blockbuster system, and many other systems Hollywood has inflicted upon us like plague. I choose not to be a part of this phenomenon. I prefer the Nouvelle Vague, Bollywood, Lollywood, or World Cinema. It is sadenning that these institutionalizers have captured the heart of the many with no-brainer film making. Peter Jackson, Clint Eastwood, Ang Lee, etc. How about Ingmar Bergman, Micheangelo Antonioni, Sergio Castellito, Guiseppe Tornatore, Francois Truffaut, Babak Payami, Wong Kar Wai, Zhang Yimou...has any one even braved or desired to look for their contributions to the art of cinema?

Furthering now the audience divide, it is a mere 10 percent of my kind and the rest 90, go for the conventional. Audience matters here because the film industry here has grasped the capitalist nature of the West. In a family reunion, I remember sitting on one corner and sipping wine out of boredom as my uncles and cousins talk and pretend to know film. I do not talk as if I am a film expert but to know the heart of film making, one has to go beyond Hollywood. Such experience is like that of the prisoner who was set free in Plato's allegory of the Cave.

I just gave them a look as if I had dope. I couldn't help but be annoyed because they think that the holistic film viewing experience is synonymous to the following:
> Peter Jacksons's Lord of the Rings
> Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby
> The Academy Awards
> Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
> Teen flicks (american pie, eurotrip)
> Superhero franchises (Daredevil, Spiderman, Batman, etc.)
> anything Quentin Tarantino
> a movie that stars a powerhouse cast like a movie I know that stars Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Keanu Reeves
> I'm too annoyed to say more