WHEN a man has lived in his birthplace for so long, especially for a thirty-something director Dante Nico Garcia, chances are he would create a fi lm that would aspire to greatness based on his experiences as a young boy in the island of Cuyo, off Palawan. In Ploning, Garcia populated his movie not only with the essential beauty of this tiny island-town, but also its livelihood, its feasts and its prominent and common Cuyonons.
Garcia had lived in Cuyo until he was a young adult. He left his beloved island-town to take up fi lm and theater arts at the University of the Philippines suffused with remembrances of his rustic birthplace. This year, he went back to his native town and created Ploning, which is now the offi cial Philippine entry to the Best Foreign Language Film Category of the 81st Academy Awards.
There is something remarkably touching about this fi lm. To be sure, Cuyo is a beautiful, little place that’s been blessed with beautiful ocean fronts and caressed with cool breezes. But it is not a unique place, as many more similar islands in the Visayas region possess the same natural endowments. It is unique, however, in that it has retained the use of its native dialect Cuyonon, and Garcia, a dyed-in-wool nationalist, had made sure that Cuyonon was spoken in Ploning.
I had my reservations about the movie despite the buzz created by its consideration by the Academy. But after I watched a special screening at a CBS theater on Wednesday, all of my doubts were swept away, and I found myself slightly teary-eyed and clapping at the end of the film. It is very rare for me to watch movies made in the Philippines, and the last two great Filipino fi lms that I have seen were the multi-awarded Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros and Insiang. I have come to realize that they have matured, not only in terms of excellent scripts, but also in technical improvements.
The scripts are down-to-earth and the language is less poetic and unnatural. These recent movies have achieved a quantum leap in techniques.
Ploning is one of these recent productions that speak to you in a lingo that you understand and can relate with, not to say that Ploning’s script is middling. As a matter of fact, it is surprisingly deep and complex and requires one’s attention in order to understand its twists and turns.
Judy Ann Santos is an excellent choice to play the role of Ploning, a 30-year-old spinster who refuses to get married, hopefully waiting for her beau to come back from far-off Manila. Her quiet demeanor adds to her mystery and depth of love that people in Cuyo can’t seem to understand.
One day, an illegal Taiwanese fi shing boat docks at Cuyo. It carried a young fi sherman, Muo Sei (Bodjong Fernandez). He was looking for something or someone named Ploning and has 24-hours to fi nd her. In his search, Muo Sei found out that Ploning was Cuyo’s town belle for the year 1982. She is the daughter of patriarch Susing, played by Tony Mabesa, and part of a circle of women friends that includes Intang (Gina Pareno), Nieves (Ces Quesada), Alma (Meryl Soriano), and half-paralyzed Juaning (Eugene Domingo), and Celeste (Tessie Tomas).
Ploning director Garcia interlaced the scenes with Cuyo’s attractions (the Ati-Atihan feast, the many natural endowments) and livelihoods (sea salt-production, cashew nut brittles-making and fishing), and he seamlessly incorporated these elements without parts of Ploning looking like tourism advertising clips. He showed tragic scenes without making them overly dramatic and obvious, as in the death and the funeral of the patriarch Susing. Garcia had shown restraint and a deeply incisive director’s eye and written and directed a movie that truly evokes a piece of Filipino life. He imbued Ploning with a deeply complex plot that challenges the viewer to pay attention or he would lose the film’s message and content.
Ploning deserves to be fully supported by Filipinos and Filipino-Americans. Having an opportunity to get accepted as one of the 67 Foreign Language entries in the 81st Oscar Awards was no mean feat. Getting included in the final five entries to be screened by the Academy is even tougher and costly. But if Ploning achieves that goal, the Philippine movie industry would have one foot in the door.
( Published on December 13, 2008 in Asian Journal Los Angeles p. B1 )
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