‘WHEN I’m making my film, I’m just a storyteller expressing my own sariling dwende, said Kidlat Tahimik (KT), known as the father of Philippine Independent Film.
And so in his film, Balikbayan #1 (Memories of Overdevelopment Redux III), his sariling dwende (one’s own inner-spirit guide) sails on his ocean of memories of 35 years pushed by the winds of his imagination.
Sariling dwende is a constant in the lingo of KT when passing on his most precious tip for any artwork. Perhaps, on living life itself. It refers to one’s inner instincts, the voice of creativity and images resting inside everyone’s imagination wanting to be expressed.
Balikbayan #1 recently won the Caligari Prize under The Forum category of the 65th Berlin Film Festival held in February.
It was KT’s great passion for hailing the Filipino’s resilient spirit and rich culture that first inspired him to put on celluloid film the story of Enrique de Malacca—that it was not Magellan who first circumnavigated the earth, but his slave, Enrique. By what he calls cosmic forces, the flow kept facing detours, and between then and the Caligari prize, he finished several other films.
In his manner of storytelling, he puts the facts taken from the journals of Pigafetta, Magellan’s chronicler of the journey to the Moluccas Islands, and playfully retells the story, collaging shoots from a personal album of his family life, his travels and the long-ago sequences of interpreting Magellan’s voyage that he had shot over 30 years ago.
Taken as a whole, the film becomes several stories within a story, and, as he had done in every film he made, his family and friends were main characters in the film. In fact, if the images were to be taken outside the context of all his films, Balikbayan #1, particularly, they would look like precious gems strung together in a necklace that tells the story of his personal life.
Historical anecdotes speak of Enrique as a captured slave who Magellan bought from Malacca and whom he brought back to Europe and got acculturated with that culture.
KT in Balikbayan #1 plays with gaps on what history neglects to record, or gray areas, in the telling.
Enrique is said to have been from the island of Cebu, captured by the pirates and sold in Malacca.
But KT’s store of images is mostly of the mountains, particularly of Hapao in Ifugao, the origin of woodcarving.
KT has, in real life, built an abode in Hapao atop a high-mountain terrace that overlooks a magnificent panorama of the renowned World Heritage Rice Terraces.
So he portrays Enrique as an Ifugao man traveling with Magellan and, finally, returning home. In the beginning of the film, scenes from Hapao are shown and, in Tagalog poetry, the steps are emphasized trekking back home. “Small steps trekking endless rice terraces…it is still far, sturdy strides skyward on steep trek, each small step closer to home that waits atop the terraces welcome to heavenly abode neighbor of Kabunya, God of Skyworld…then he reaches home and places stones he has gathered from the rivers he had come from.”
So how did Enrique get to Cebu? KT creates a fantasy scene where, when Enrique hangs out his blanket to dry, the wind blows and carries the blanket with him to the shores of Cebu, where the pirates capture him.
The film is also a loving portrayal of his family. Kawayan, his artist son, plays the role of one searching for him throughout the film. Kidlat, also into the film industry, is portrayed doing a documentary on Yoyoy Villame, who is said to be the best chronicler of that part of our history with his Magellan song. Kabunyan, a mosaic artist, and his wife Malaya and their son Kalipay playing with bubbles are captured in a scene finishing a mosaic project.
In one scene, his wife Katrin lends Kawayan the book Kapwa, which she authored.
The film is a mastery of threading together one footage suggesting another, and swings back and forth in time, not just in the telling of the journey from the West to Tierra del Fuego and the battle in Mactan, but also through the 35-year period of family and city events.
In one scene, KT poetically speaks to the stones in his hut to go on in narrating the tales of his journey with Magellan.
“[Translated] tell me the story stones of the sea with yesteryear tales stories that olsified deep in pulsating stoney marrows do you have a sacred journey seemingly forgotten from past…tell me the story sea stones that played with waters, tell me the story of your ancient journey.”
Enrique is consistently portrayed as a woodcarver, as he is from Hapao.
So what does it matter what culture is portrayed. Because it is the colorful Filipino heritage and values that are primarily important in the narrative. The indigenous peoples’ commune with nature. Their oneness and understanding with their environment, how they lived by the seasons, listening to what the sun, the moon and the stars tell them. A time to plant, harvest and play, rituals and traditions are woven in the film. The vibrant scenes of tug-of-war in the river, where they let a bundle of rice straws flow on the waters, are Ifugaos’ fun way of telling the next village their harvest is done. They understand nature, be it the mountain or the sea, as how the rice terraces were built or how Enrique knew how to navigate the sea, directing Magellan the passage to the island of spices, back to his home.
The film is a chaos of footage, yet singular as a homage celebrating the local arts and culture. The film is light and full of humor.
KT creates a scene that imagines why the King of Spain even allowed Magellan to sail to the far end of the world. The king has an autistic niece, played by KT’s wife, Katrin, who has not laughed for years. When Enrique as a slave shivers in the cold palace, she tells her ladies to give him a coat and KT narrates that this must have been the first coat-and-tie. It alludes to how men native to Baguio would still go around in their G-strings and wear a coat as introduced by Americans, who taught them that nakedness was something to be ashamed of.
The princess and the slave play and create a scandal, and the King sends off Magellan with his slaves into the far seas.
Balikbayan #1 is a film to be savored through repeated viewings to latch on to its nuances. The beauty of it is one can interpret it on several layers, from the viewpoint of its director, or one’s own personal perspective, or take it from different points of one’s own awakening that the scenes may suggest.
Beneath the succinct humor of the scenes are serious reflections on the Filipino’s own heritage.
Like when Magellan arrives on the island where Lapu-Lapu conquers him, the natives try to ward him off with the unceasing sound of their bamboo instruments. Was it to portray their inner strength against the colonizers? Was it to say that their traditions would withstand the guns and canyons of the foreigners?
The film begs the question, who really was the master, was it Magellan, or was it Enrique with his strong spirit guiding Magellan on that historic travel?
On the opening of the Berlin Film Festival, Virginia Oteyza de Guia passed away. A fitting prose which she uttered while feeble in memory and body was the closing credits in the film: It’s a part of a long story. It began in the East…and continued to Europe…and on and on. Keep the story telling…. Keep it rolling…how it started. And how…it continues after… and how…on and on it goes, into the now.
Toward the end of the film, Kawayan, the artist, in searching for Enrique, finds his way to Hapao, and the poem of homecoming is repeated—“Small steps trekking endless rice terraces…it is still far sturdy sturdy, strides skyward on steep trek each small step closer to the answers….”
“The film is of journeys—of Enrique, the free slave upon Magellan’s death coming home. It can also be the story of KT who stayed in Wharton and eventually tore his MBA diploma to become a filmmaker, lived in Europe, then returned home to his rich heritage. Or it may be the story of the estranged Filipino soul beckoned to come home and embrace once more his forgotten roots.
KT’s sariling dwende explores these layers of values in this film made only possible with the freedom of narration independent filmmaking gives. Recently, KT announced that he would be returning his Gawad Balanghay as Father of Independent Film given him by Cinemalaya on its 10th anniversary on August 10 last year.
This is in protest of Cinemalaya’s scrapping the New Breed category in its selection of grants, and instead make a selection of 10 in an open competition of mixed established and new filmmakers, which he likens to putting amateur boxers and Manny Pacquiao in the same ring.
During that event, he also gave Cinemalaya his signature bamboo camera as an award lauding it for 10 years of supporting the indie-film movement. While not withdrawing the bamboo camera, he said that he is protesting the next 10 years when sariling dwendes of new filmmakers will be drowned by the new policy.
Image credits: Mau Victa