http://businessmirror.com.ph/home/life/12210-aestheticizing-wars-concerto.html
Written by Reeling / Tito Genova Valiente / titovaliente@yahoo.com
Wednesday, 24 June 2009 18:55
WARS being epic masterpieces of annihilation and violence always get superstar treatment from historians and chroniclers. Wars are huge and the stories about them are massive landscapes without space for the tiny tales of individual victims. Then come documents and films that take on the challenge of the interstitial, the life and politics in the unseen middle. Concerto, by Paul Alexander Morales, is this kind of film.
Set in Davao during the Japanese Occupation, the film is based on the events written on the diary of Lt. Col. Anastacio Campo, Diary of the War: Memoirs of WWII.
Memories being selective and personal, this account of one of the most violent periods in our history becomes necessarily selective and personal. This situation then becomes a crucial point in appreciating this work and also having second thoughts about what the film implies.
What the film tells us is that the state can focus loudly on the main actions and on the actors representing almost the ideal types of nation-states that they entirely negate the intensely personal, hidden and private woes of those who saw the war. In Concerto, one encounters a family fleeing from the open dangers of the city—Davao—and moving into a farm. There in that landscape that is more pastoral than threatening, the members start to try to restore normalcy in their daily life.
Just a few meters from their home (or at least that’s what the film shows), is the camp of the Japanese soldiers. I do not know if this was real. I do not know also if a family would move out of the city and go to a place where the Japanese soldiers, the enemy, are a shout away. But the story does happen in a space that conflates the domain of the dangerous and the safe, the outsider and the locals.
The proximity of the family’s home to the military camp engages the two parties. The Japanese officers befriend Joselito, the son, who speaks the Japanese language, or at least is able to converse with them. What looks like a close relationship between the family and the Japanese soldiers is now a ground for familiarity. Foods are delivered to the camp and, even if the father of the family continues to ignore the Japanese soldiers, the family is given more attention by the Japanese. Then, one day, the piano from the home of the family is brought to the farm. Under a big tree, the piano sits and waits to be played on.
The night of the concerto comes. I am not diminishing the gravitas of this film’s theme but if one looks for the charm of this movie, it is in those scenes where the members of the two families—the Filipino family seeking refuge in the farm and those of the Japanese soldiers whose camp is their temporary shelter before facing harm and death at the battlefront—listen to music.
Talking about the difference between the violence in a documentary and in what he calls “fiction films,” Abe Nornes details out how the “direct representation of sacrifice violence” is found mostly in feature films, which, in turn, allow “vast control over lighting, camera movement and special effects.” The result of this control, according to Nornes, is in the ability of filmmakers to “aestheticize death.”
Concerto does not directly aestheticize death but for those whose experience of war did not allow the respite of piano-playing—in actual and in metaphorical form—the film, to borrow the words from Tsurume Shunsuke and Kogawa Tetsuo’s discussion, has lost the habit of “thinking from wounds.” One can say the film is now thinking from the heart.
War as a soft-focused memory has both good and bad consequences: the good is that it enables people to move on; the bad is that it lets go of the hurt that leads to truth. I, however, do not see these contradictions as harming the film. What the film does fill up is the gap about the personal memories people have of the last world war. Those memoirs where the lines between the enemies and friends are blurred are exciting departures for the rethinking of the value of history writ large. The monumental landscape where men and women become heroes is suspect and the events that are memorialized are open for questioning and even doubting.
There is no doubt, though, that the film Concerto touches us because in the inanities of nations fighting one another, people rise up amid the violence and violations, and become human again. True, they go into killings and lying and scheming, but in the end, what one sees is the splendor of the human spirit more powerful than the biggest war machine.
Like memory, the actors do not any more flesh out the story and their characters in it than they provide shades and—every now and then—shadow. Meryll Soriano as the eldest daughter Nina is a quiet soul in this film. Yna Asistio is heartbreaking and lovely. She is everyone’s girl who shows best the wear and tear on youth. When the war ends, she will be there but you know the years she has lost are all gone. Nonoy Froilan is the patrician father whose silence can stand both for nobility and, we dare not say it, resignation. The fact that we are lost in the nuances of those two principles outlines to us the impact of war on anyone’s ability to check reality out there.
I have said it before, and I will say it again: Shamaine Centenera is one actress who has transitioned from theater to film seamlessly. In this film, what appears to be an embracing personality simmers and suffers under the anxiety of a mother whose only aim is to protect her children. When a Japanese soldier offers her the sword as a dedication of his life to a real mother who is far away, Centenera’s quiet gesture convinces us that there is a passion in this almost embarrassing, even misplaced, militaristic melodrama, of the young fighter before a mother who is a mother first of all.
Jay Aquitania’s passion as the young man easily brings him into acts that are questionable and a patriotism that is irregular. I like the tentative character of this young man, because it is through these imperfections that one glances back through remembrance and discover the humanity and inhumanity of wars of any kind.
Concerto is just the right kind of film to remember when the celebration of Philippine-Japan Friendship Month in July begins. It is a friendship, after all, that is forged in the memories of peace and war, and then peace again.
"Concerto" is an Official Selection of Politics on Film at its inaugural festival on May 7 - 10, 2009 in Washington, DC USA
“Concerto” will be shown on Saturday, May 9th, at 7:30 PM at the George Washington University Amphitheater. This university is located in the center of Washington.
From the festival:
We received over 100 entries from American and foreign filmmakers, and focused on high quality, thoughtful work that reflected our desire to showcase superior work connected to our “political” theme. Your film met this criteria and we are pleased that we will be able to give it exposure to a broader audience.
from their site:
Why Politics on Film?
Film is the most prolific form of storytelling of our time. It is a medium that can draw people to watch, listen and learn about topics that might never compel them to pick up a book or a magazine. Our nation’s politics, policy struggles and stories are frequently the basis and inspiration for movies. Surprisingly, although many film festivals focus on very narrow policy/political themes like the Environmental Film Festival or the Conservative Film Festival there is no festival devoted to showcasing film dealing with political subject matter more broadly. And there is no greater place to house such a festival than the nation’s capital.
What is a “political” film?
Politics on Film takes a broad perspective on what constitutes a “political” film. Our definition for qualifying entries is:
Politics on Film screens Washington premieres of films dealing with either political or issue/policy-oriented subject matter irrespective of genre, which could encompass drama, thriller/suspense, comedy/satire or biography/historical. Any film focused on or set around government – federal, state or local; government agencies; political campaigns and elections; public policy or social issues such as (but not limited to) health care, taxation, welfare, education, agricultural policy, energy supply and policy, trade, human rights or foreign aid programs; defense, war or foreign affairs; advocacy or civic movements; either contemporary or historical in nature will be considered.
Mission Statement
Politics on Film is a project of the Washington Political Film Foundation and is made possible by an alliance with the Bipartisan Policy Center. It is an annual, bipartisan film festival based in Washington DC dedicated to providing a platform for films that tell stories of America’s politics and policies. The festival celebrates the power of film to educate and motivate, as well as entertain. The Festival also celebrates the historic and ongoing legacy of films about American government and democracy, as well as related stories and themes from an international perspective.
A year after our location shooting at Casa San Miguel in Zambalez, I was able to return for the 1st Pundaquit Film Festival.
Our host and co-producer Coke Bolipata and Festival Director Ruelo Luzendo put together an interesting mix of films, all of which have a connection to this artist’s center in Zambalez, beginning with Sari Dalena’s seminal 16mm film, “White Funeral” which featured dancers Myra Beltran and a young Nina Hayuma Habulan, in a lahar landscape shot also by our Concerto DOP, Regiben Romana.
As center piece of the festival, the young audience mostly of students in the area, had the rare opportunity to watch Concerto and Boses, the two Cinemalaya films co-produced by Casa San Miguel, in the actual location where they were shot.
I missed the festival opening where the other filmmakers were present and instead was able to attend the last day of the festival. The kids had a fun time seeing Julian Duque, the child prodigy featured in Boses and Coke himself around the grounds after the screenings.
I mentioned that they had the opportunity to figure out where Concerto was shot and some gamely explored our location after the screening.
Returning to Casa San Miguel I remembered all the trials and miracles of our protracted 10 day shoot last year.
Truly a magical air of creativity abounds in Casa San Miguel. :)
Concerto’s production team is honored to be nominated in 9 categories for the upcoming Golden Screen Awards including BEST FILM (Drama) and BEST ACTOR for JAY AQUITANIA!
Good luck to all the Concerto production team and congratulations to all the nominees. Indeed it has been another historic year for Pinoy Indie films.
The complete set of nominees can be found here:
http://www.pep.ph/guide/3687/6th-Golden-Screen-Awards-will-take-place-on-April-30
We also recently learned that at the upcoming STAR awards, CONCERTO also received 2 nominations including NEW MOVIE ACTRESS OF THE YEAR for YNA ASISTIO and for BEST SOUND.
The complete set of nominees can be found here:
http://www.pep.ph/news/21290/Baler-leads-with-13-nominations-in-25th-Star-Awards-for-Movies/1/1
Many thanks to the hardworking and committed members of the Philippine movie press.
Happy Easter and congratulations and good luck to all the nominees.
I always remember my maternal grandfather, Dr. Jose Yap, during the Lenten season. In CONCERTO the character inspired by him is played by Fourth Lee.
Lolo Joe was a successful family doctor. He had a practice right outside their home in Davao on the corner of Sta. Anna Ave and Damaso Suazo. (There is a restaurant there now.)
When my parents separated in the late 70’s we moved from Manila to Davao. This was during Martial Law and with my Dad’s defection to the left, my mom deemed it safer to be with her family.
My Lolo Joe was always a gruff, strict presence and sitting at the end of the dining table you could feel that everyone was attuned to his moods.
At some point he took to taking my sister Susan and I to school, but I remember that we hardly shared a single conversation with him.
One summer, when my mom was away in America, we finally had a conversation.
I asked him why it was called Good Friday that day when it was in fact always so glum and sad, Jesus they say was dead.
He couldn’t answer me right away, but he was intrigued. He had a collection of encyclopedias he loved to consult and even underlined, so studious was he. He went away to consult them and came back triumphantly with an answer.
He told me that it was Good because the Lord had sacrificed himself this day. And that we celebrated that. It seems Jesus didn’t die every Holy Week after all.
Aside from imparting to me the heart of the Gospel, he also encouraged me in my critical thinking, way before I went to UP.
He said “this boy asked me the right question!”
In my house today i keep his framed drawing of Jose Rizal, his idol, that always used to be in his clinic.
He passed away while I was in UP, but I remember him every Good Friday.
Paul Alexander Morales (Concerto) and co-awardee Tara Illenberger (Brutus)
Kidlat explains the frame.
