Imee Marcos interview 2007

IMEE MARCOS INTERVIEW with Andrew Leavold, July 2007

Former President Marcos’ daughter Imee talks candidly about her family’s cultural vision, her role in the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines, the nature of Filipino humour, and her love of a two-foot-nine agent named Weng Weng

Andrew: Most people would agree that your family fostered and maintained a healthy local film industry…

Imee: That’s a really generous statement. I think it may be that my mother always had a very big interest in the arts, and funnily enough, reviewing my father’s speeches, even his inauguration declaration and stuff like that, he talks about “culture” with a big and a little “c” very often, almost more than he spoke about politics. It comes as a surprise to me but in a way it doesn’t, because it was government policy at that time, and this newfangled concept that there should be “cultural infrastructure” provided by the government. Hence the building of the Cultural Centre (CCP), the Film Centre, the Folk Arts and so on. That became a big part of the budget, which in many cases became very controversial within the political realm, being that we never had enough funds for basic utilities. And why were we gallivanting around and insisting that there should be anthropology and architecture, and museums and performing arts… In the end it stems from a belief in my family that the Filipino’s competitive edge is actually his artistry, his soul, his determination and greatness of performance. I think that’s what we believed – that in the end, Filipinos will be known for art, and for making art, because that is what we are. I think in the end, Filipinos are really Asia’s artists.

In the film industry, particularly in the Fifties and Sixties, there was a static and quite parochial approach to film distribution: make your money back in Manila, reap profits in the provinces. It’s a very insular vision for a country’s cinema. It changes in the Seventies when filmmakers like Ishmael Bernal and Lino Brocka were taking their films to the world. Many say the Seventies is when Filipino cinema comes of age and takes on an international perspective, if only for a while.

Yes, I think that’s absolutely correct. In many cases, as you know, the Filipino cinema is the oldest in Asia. It was part of American colonialism, and really came in with Hollywood and the rest of that, and Washington was very insistent that every fifth camera needed to be sent to Manila, hence we had a very old tradition. And yet that old tradition remained local; it only became global in the Seventies. Curiously, during the time of Martial Law! (laughs) I am not about to attempt an explanation, merely to say that even autobiographically my father felt that he owed film his presidency. There are those that explained that when the incumbent president then, the father of Mrs Arroyo today, President Macapagal, banned and issued a restraining order against the opening of a film about my father’s life called Iginuhit Ng Tadhana (“Destined By Fate”, 1965) [the full account of the film’s controversy can be found here]. It was a very melodramatic premiere with no showing at all! And many have explained that that was in fact the turning point. Certainly my father recognized the power of film. Also he was running very low in the surveys until 24 hours before election, when he conducted something called a Telethon, when he received live for almost eight hours straight on TV, all kinds of questions from callers. He had the sense that also allowed him to win in urban areas where he wasn’t immensely popular.

So my father’s handle on the media has always been that it was a platform for politics, for education, for culture. He never had a nervousness about the media that we see today. It may have something to do with the fact that he himself was extremely telegenic and quite cinematic, and spoke extremely well, and that my mother couldn’t have been prettier on camera! (laughs)

It’s true, everyone said she brought glamour to the palace, and was the perfect focus.

Yes, my mother was an icon in politics, that was almost an icon as well in film. She actually took a screen test for Sampaguita Pictures, and I was told she was very good. Of course! Is there any surprise? But she decided to marry my father eleven days after that, so that was hardly a film career for her.

Your life would have been remarkably different.

I imagine so…

Film royalty!

Yes! And she was also a singer, a very good jumping point for any Filipino performer.

With the introduction of Martial Law came a series of restrictions of what can and can’t be shown…

I’m not a real authority simply because I was very young then, so it is a real problem remembering exactly where the lines were drawn. I remember basically there were changing values at each point. I think at the very beginning there were very serious restrictions on the news for example. But in fact in film it was quite broad-ranged. There was also a great deal of sensitivity about violence. Hence the rather controversial banning of animation like Voltes Five. I remember as a child thinking that was horrific (laughs), we were really angry about that. But my father insisted, because there were a series of child-related crimes that psychologists theorized had something to do with this dreadful animation that we adored. Later on there were some arguments between Lino and my mother about the depiction of Manila and what later became known as the ‘poverty aesthetic”. My mother is a real cheerleader for “the good, the true and the beautiful”, certainly classical in its definition and Greek in its sentiment. But Lino, who became a dear friend of mine, thought that he had to show what was occurring in the slums. In fact his films did very well. And curiously there was this little dance between censorship and Martial Law, and the fundamental belief of both my parents that Art was Art, and that it should be left alone.

There were also restrictions on how much could be shown, after the bomba era?

Yes. I spent a great deal of time overseas, particularly in Europe, so I didn’t quite get it. But I know that the MTRCB [Movies and Television Review and Classification Board], as it continues to be, was the board of censors. One of the ladies was Maria Kalaw Katigbak, who was also at the time in the Catholic Women’s League, so I suppose that’s self-explanatory. She was very strict about sex, and it became a bit of a game in the ECP [Experimental Cinema of the Philippines] when I headed it up later in the Eighties, when she was still the chairperson. It became a little bit of a game to try and figure out which bad words she didn’t know, so it was really wicked, and how long she would allow breast exposure and kissing scenes. It was very funny. She would actually time these things, and then we’d sneak them in… It was very naughty but fun. Sometimes I felt things were very unreasonable, so we’d have large arguments, then I’d go marching off to complain. But in the end the ECP got an exemption from censorship for certain so-called “artistic” or “culturally important” films, and we luckily got away with murder pretty much.

Those films were restricted to play within the four walls of the Film Centre?

That’s correct. That was the single venue for uncensored films. It became the single venue also for the Manila International Film Festival [MIFF], where Indian, Japanese, American and European films were shown in their entirety. Pretty much the directors’ cut.

Imee and I at the Film Summit, CCP November 2008

I believe Nagisa Oshima’s In The Realm Of The Senses (1976) was the first controversial film shown?

That’s right. It was one of the films I remember Lino Brocka watching – he used to watch six films a day during MIFF. I remember he beat Ishmael Bernal, he beat all of us. We’d get quite groggy, but Lino was a diehard. I don’t know how many times he saw In The Realm Of The Senses, maybe four or five times. He was quite fixated on this Brocka-esque melodrama.

There were other filmmakers also watching Realm, and I guess this ignites a new kind of approach to filmmaking in the Philippines…

That’s right. I think In The Realm… was significant to that degree, but I think even more importantly was the fact that people like the Indian directors were coming over, the Italians and so on. We had been brought up on a diet comprised almost entirely of American films, so this initial exposure to World Film was a real eye-opener for so many of the directors. Later on, of course, I took a major risk and made what was then the most expensive film in Philippine history, under a director who’d never been heard of before, who’d never directed any film before, and that was Peque [actually Peque Gallaga had directed one film, Binhi/“Seed”, in 1973]. Because Peque Gallaga had submitted a winning script, I said, “Let him direct.” And of course that’s Oro Plata Mata (1982), which still today is being studied for its meanings (laughs).

It’s curious – in the ECP, although it was called “alternative” cinema, I made it very clear to everyone that as Director General I wasn’t specifically interested in “art” or “artsy” or “arthouse” films. I was interested in good commercial pictures. And curiously, these good commercial pictures like Oro Plata Mata and Himala (1982) not only became extremely successful commercial films, they’ve also continued to become part of the syllabus for most of the film schools in Asia.

I always found it fascinating that Filipino filmmakers like Peque, Elwood Perez, Lino Brocka, Ishmale Bernal etc, could straddle the divide between art and commercial cinema.

I don’t think Filipinos know the difference! There are no venues for art films, we have this single indie film theatre in Robinsons which basically doesn’t fill up unless there’s gay porn showing (laughs). We really don’t know the distinctions simply because there is no venue for adult entertainment, no venue for art films, no venue even for short films. So there’s this happy mix, pretty much micro-Philippines in its cuisine, its history, its culture – it just mixes it up. We don’t really draw too many categories. And I suppose that’s the reason why actors and directors and scriptwriters will operate in so many categories quite happily.

I also find it amazing that someone like Maria Isabel Lopez, one of the most respected actresses of her generation, could also have a successful stint as a bold actress!

Yes, it’s curious. Today we see all of these developments where extremely successful commercial blockbuster directors are trying to go to Sundance to make an independent film or vice versa – unheard-of ethnic directors go to Sundance and try to make it big in Hollywood. We’re always perplexed by this effort, because we don’t know the difference! It’s ignorance, I think. And simply the lack of distribution for anything else except for commercial films.

Imee addresses a crowd in 1974

What was your background before stepping into the Director General spot in the ECP?

Actually I had a background in theatre, and I just had lots of friends in the film industry. I don’t know if that was any sort of qualification. Of course I was the distant daughter of the appointing authority, and that may have had something to do with it. I ended up as usual being some sort of compromise candidate, simply because there were so many film distributors and importers who were present in the ECP; I think a lot of the local studios requested my dad that somebody please go over and have the clout to represent local film against all the imported stuff coming out of the United States. Johnny Litton, for example, at that time – they were the biggest importers of film. And so somebody had to go and represent local film. I don’t know, maybe because I hung out with a number of them, I became the one, and I guess they figured I had my dad’s ear or something. So I came in entirely without credentials!

How long did the ECP last?

Well it lasted pretty much from 1981 to 1986, until the EDSA Revolution. I’d say it was successful to a certain degree, in as much as the film development, the ratings board, that’s still there, and I was actually the author of the law that institutionalized it when I was a congressman. So that’s there, it’s been there for a while. Alternative cinema doesn’t exist any more, but so many of the directors have since become among real institutions in the Philippines scene, including crowd directors like Joel Lamangan; the general gadabout for the ECP at that point, who is one of the most prestigious directors now, Chito Rono; Peque, of course, and many others. It was great fun, it was a wonderful period, everyone was in the same building, and there was a wonderful energy, a buzz that we were doing something that would be fun, but maybe, MAYBE also significant later on.

Then of course the Bold Explosion would emerge from the ECP, and a freedom, a freshness…

We didn’t see it quite like that at the time, not having had any perspective. We just knew that we were being very busy, and trying very hard to find financing, or at least incentives in terms of tax and other rebates for many of these films that wouldn’t have been produced otherwise. Many of the films were actually beneficiaries of quite hefty tax rebates, if they were considered “A” or “B” quality films. Others were direct recipients of government loans which sadly, in the main, were not paid – producers in the Philippines are not noted for their brilliant accountants. That didn’t work out too well (smiles). I think in the future, should there be a film fund it should be operated perhaps by a bank, and not by government because too many people have a sense that they pay taxes anyway, so why should they pay for the loan? Which really isn’t the way to have a sustainable film industry! But we’ve learned those lessons now. It’s still my hope that some venture capitalist or private equity – of course in America there are all those hedge funds. I still pray for the day that they discover our scene in the Philippines where we, after all, tread the middle between the huge Western audience and this immense desire for Asian content, and the burgeoning Asian market. Let’s hope we can translate between the two.

What do you remember about the first MIFF in early 1982?

It was great fun actually. I was very sceptical to be quite honest. I always thought film festivals involved Europeans, and I didn’t think anyone would come over to Asia, despite the fact that of course we had Indian and Japanese directors. And still I think there was a stunning turnout, and suddenly the spotlight was focused on Philippine film. Even we discovered that the Philippine film industry was the second largest in the world at the time. It was a revelation to all of us; we were just scurrying about doing our business, and didn’t quite realize how big it had become. Whether it was rubbish or whether it was bomba, whether we had all these idiotic action flicks which were so popular and were being churned out, goon cinema forever, and really toilet humour – the point really was that so many films were being made. And of course that high of just under three hundred films a year has never been achieved again. I think last year only thirty eight films were premiered in theatres, with several more opening in specialized locations in universities and so on. So it’s a real meagre harvest compared to what used to be.

And of course, For Y'ur Height Only was the biggest selling film of the 1982 festival!

Weng Weng! Yes.

What was the general reaction to that?

Of course everyone passed out! We had begun to assume all kinds of artistic pretensions, and what we saw as a very low budget, low humour sort of thing, suddenly gets bought in Cannes above all of our rather self-important films from the ECP and so on. But the point I suppose was that my parents were determined to open the door to Filipino films – we may not have agreed with the final product (smiles) but we were certainly determined to open the door and showcase to the rest of the world. Of course to our amazement it was Weng Weng that got bought.

Weng Weng of course is a typical Filipino phenomenon of transforming what is horrific and frightening and prevalent in Filipino culture into something silly, humorous and ultimately manageable in human terms. So I suppose we shrank the Goon! It makes perfect sense; it’s exactly what Filipinos do. We transform our pain into ridicule. It’s something that we always do. I suppose it’s the reverse impulse of the Medievalist, where the Devil is always the most seductive woman, always the funniest, most attractive character. This is sort of the reverse. The bad guys always become laughable and somehow pathetic. So Weng Weng epitomizes all of that. Why the rest of the world got it, I will never know!

I understand your brother was quite taken with Weng Weng, and that he was a frequent guest at the Palace.

Oh yes, he sure was. Not just my brother, everyone was. He was the cutest thing! He was such a sweetie.

At one point he was given a badge and a gun.

Are you serious? I didn’t know that.

I think Ramos was a General at the time.

Yes, he was the head of the police.

He was used on infiltration missions…

That’s so funny. I was at school, I don’t remember, but I do remember that everyone loved him dearly, and thought he was the sweetest thing.

So he was a frequent visitor?

I suppose so. I did see him at several parties, and that he was introduced everywhere. And that we spoke to him and tried to understand where all that special energy was coming from. We did immediately fall in love with him like everyone else. He was adorable. He had a natural sweetness about him, that made the goon characters that surrounded him, and that he ultimately played, infinitely ridiculous. It became so funny.

For some reason overseas audiences also fall in love with him.; It’s not just a Filipino phenomenon – the rest of the world gets it.

For some bizarre reason! Right.

Santo Nino shrine in Weng Weng's brother's home

You know his parents believed he was Santo Nino?

Yes, I think there was a little bit of that. We have this fascination with the Christ child, and there was a little bit of that, I think not only with his parents but with everyone else. There continues to be a strong schtick in many of our stand-up comedians, saying that the Filipinos have no superhero, and that in fact our superhero is the Santo Nino. Because almost every Filipino household has one, and that the globe and the sceptre and the crown transforms, as well as the cape, into superhero magic. I think there was a sense that this translated into films starring Weng Weng in some extremely irreverent and hysterical way. It’s been decried time and time again that we have no Superman or GI Joe or Batman and so on, but instead we have the Santo Nino, and all the children identify with him, grown up with the Santo Nino, in the same way a whole generation grew up with Weng Weng!

Let’s talk about the Philippines’ obsession with parody and its strange relationship with Western culture, where they poke fun at it and revere it at the same time. For almost forty or fifty years, parody seems to be the Filipino way of making the dominant culture uniquely theirs.

I think it’s an Asian thing to a certain degree, because perhaps in the West only happy moments, only triumphs and victory and successes are actually celebrated, whereas in Asia we tend to remember everything, we want it recalled, to become part of our consciousness. Even tragedy, even crisis, and really dreadful things must be recorded. It’s part of our art as well. You see really ugly things; illness and death are almost always in Asian art, and it’s recorded as carefully as beauty and perfection. In the Filipino case we of course need to go one step further, perhaps because our lives are quite melodramatic, simply because of all the calamities, manmade and foisted by nature, because poverty is so rampant and crime continues to hold sway. Perhaps because of all these things we need to deal with life on a daily basis, and our survival mechanism is parody, and humour is our coping mechanism. That’s probably why we do this. We need to transform these disasters, these calamities, these absolutely horrific things into funny stuff. Otherwise we couldn’t go on from day to day.

If you look at Hollywood as a steamroller flattening the cultural landscape of the Philippines, then the way to deal with that is to take Western cinema’s icons and flip them.

Our idea is that we’ve had too many imperialists; there have just been too many colonials. We’ve been conquered by so many big powers. And you obviously can’t fight them, because just when you’re about to win a revolution, here comes another one! So the point is, in order to deal with this is to make fun of it, so that it becomes subversive, and that parody is in fact the ultimate rebellion. Is that it? (laughs) It’s curious – the Filipinos are not ironic. We have no sense of cynicism or sarcasm, I think because humour needs to be a very pointed, bladed weapon against colonialism, against this huge juggernaut that we never have a hope of beating anyway. I suppose that’s why we’re so good at all these dreadful, silly mobile text jokes. I mean they’re endless, and now they have animation and graphics and colour and sounds. Some of them are nothing short of artwork. But they’re all part of the effort to make life manageable, life that’s usually tragic and disastrous.

It’s now a cliché that the Philippines was ruled by Spain for four hundred years, by America for fifty years, and by Hollywood ever since.

Yes, clichés are dreadful things but they have large germs of truth in them, and silly as that one is, many of our South East Asians say that we belong in Latin America, and that we have this South American sensibility that is bizarre here in Asia. Because we have this flair for melodrama, this rampant exhibitionism that is SO un-Asian.

It’s a Catholic country for one thing, where it shouldn’t really exist.

Manila Film Centre

Yes, there are no other Christian countries in Asia except Eastern Timor, which only just was born, and South Korea, which is threatening to turn evangelical every minute. Bur basically the straight-up Catholic country really is the Philippines, and all that wonderful guilt makes for great cinema! (laughs)

There’s also the twin poles – of repressed passion and sensuality, and of that fiery Latino passion – and the constant tension between the two, is very much like Latin America or Spain.

I think Italy more than Spain in a curious way, Italy also being supremely disrespectful of Catholicism. Even if they have the Pope, they never had the Inquisition of the Fifteenth Century like Spain did. It may have something to do with the fact that the largest population of Filipinos in Europe is in Italy – we’re the Asian Italians!

Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

I think it’s time for great Filipino film. I don’t know where it’s going to come from, but I’m actively waiting. I stopped running for office – I don’t want to be in politics anymore and I’d like to make a few films. Whether they’re animation features or interactive as they are these days in digital, even with our analogue brains, I’d like to be there. There’s a huge energy now with the interactive and new media, and strangely they are rare but celebrated Filipinos are in that landscape as well. I see burgeoning there somewhere.

Filipinos have always been incredibly talented comic artists.

I think that’s correct. Also in the music scene there will always be Filipinos. Filipinos are especially gifted. With all the earthquakes and the typhoons and the tornados, God made it up with all that music (laughs).

That’s the payoff?

That’s the real payoff. We’re funny and we can sing (laughs again). Everything else goes to Hell.

But without a trace of cynicism?

No cynical edge at all. My father used to call it the “cheap cynicism of the West”. It’s actually really frowned upon. It’s so not on in the Philippines, people don’t like you being sarcastic. I’m English educated and I’m told off all the time for being sarcastic, for being dark, for losing hope. It’s wrongful and even threatening to Filipinos - to lose hope, to be cynical and to say that things will ultimately not work and fail. They need to know that things will be better. It’s a very upbeat, Pollyanna sort of thing, even when there’s no evidence that should be the case.

So Nietzsche and Sartre never made much impact?

No, no mark at all! It’s a determined, learned cheerfulness.

DARNA #16: Darna Ang Pagbabalik/"Darna The Return" (1994)

1994 - Darna Ang Pagbabalik/“Darna The Return” (Viva Family Entertainment)

[Release date 9th June 1994]

Directors/Writers Peque Gallaga, Lore Reyes Executive Producer Vic del Rosario Jr Associate Producer Teddy del Rosario Managing Producer Ricky del Rosario Musical Director Archie Castillo Supervising Producer Fred Samantela Art Direction Juliet Nanola Fetalve Editor Danny Gloria Visual Effects Monching Reyes Crew and Equipment Coordinator Oli Laperal Jr Production Manager Pong de Leon First Assistant Director Jerome Pobocan Second Assistant Director/Casting Director Jerry Lopez Sineneng Stunt Director Boy Salvador Prosthetics Supervisor Benny Batoctoy

Cast Anjanette Abayari (Darna/Narda), Edu Manzano (Max), Cherie Gil (Valentine), Pilita Corrales (Valentina), Rustom Padilla (Pol), Bong Alvarez (Magnum), Lester Llansang (Ding), Eva Ramos (L300 Noisy Mother), Pen Medina (Barangay Captain), Jemanine Campanilla (Pia), Romy Romulo (Valentine’s Driver), Jun Achaval/Dwight Gaston (Pilots), Jinky Laurel (Bank Teller), Chiquixeres Burgos (Governor), Bong Regala (Army Lieutenant), Noel Carpio (Police Sargeant), Mel Kimura/Justine Dee/Elsa de Venecia/Marissa de Guzman/Demi Alvarez (Valentine’s Assistants), Lilia Cuntapay (Old Valentina), Eugene Enriquez (Welder), Michelle Rufo (Eazy)

From the Official Mars Ravelo’s Darna website:

Gallaga’s Darna: Ang Pagbabalik (1994) was technically polished and Anjanette Abayari looked sensational in the revealing Darna costume; yet as a Darna movie (and a Gallaga film), it wasn’t memorable.

Fearless Anjanette essayed the role of Darna almost perfectly, without using a stunt double. For the fourth time aging reptilian, Valentina returns with Valentine and Magnum, her kids. Their mission is to get Narda's magical stone so Valentina can have her youth back. Her son made Narda fall in love with him so they can easily get what they want.

A volcanic eruption in the country side forces a number of families to abandon their homes in Talisay and seek refuge in Manila. Young country girl Narda leads a secret double life as the crime figthing Darna and can trasforms back and forth between this two personas by yelling out either "Narda" or "Darna". While trying to find her grandmother and little brother Ding, Narda is viciously struck upside the head and her magical stone that furnishes her power is stolen. The culprit is Valentine Adan, a tele evangelist who claims that only she can protect the city from an advancing lahar ( volcanic mud flow) and will save those who have pledge their undying devotion to her. Valentine’s dark intentions become more and more aparent and Narda discovers that the woman is actually the daughter of Valentina, Darna's arch enemy. Ding is able to recover the magical stone allowing his sister to transform back into Darna and in the ensuing chaos the aged Valentina is injured and reveals her true form. Like her mother Valentine is actually a gorgon concealing the snakes on her head beneath a bathing cap like hat (turban) before the inevitable face off with Valentine, Darna gains a new ally when she helps police lieutenant Max Ablan ( Edu Manzano) foil a bank robber and later, a kidnapping perpetrated mob boss Magnum (Bong Alvarez). The crime lord manages to escape in both instances, and is actually playing a key role in Valentines plans. She also has another clandestine operative, who is charged with making sure that Darna is helpless to protect Manila from the rapidly approaching lahar.

The movie showed some improvements in special effects. I am trying to be fair about giving my comments but, Peque Gallaga and his co-director used numerous slow motions that I thought is not relevant in some scenes. The flying scenes are accomplished with atrocious blue screen rear projection and cel animation, while the bladder and morphing FX utilized for the monsters are equally quaint. Althought it occationally delivers the serial-style thrills one expects from this genre, the screenplay is episodic and the proceeding are too slacky paced. They should also have revised the storyline like how Narda lost her memory and acted silly in almost half of the movie. It was a waste of time and negatives. I almost fell asleep waiting for Darna to show up again.

Cherrie Gil was great as Valentine. The only problem is her snake wig looks so fake they were not moving at all. And what's up with Valentine's allies? Why do they keep leaving their necklaces at the scene of the crime? It was not explained in the movie. If Valentine only wants Narda's magical stone she could had easily killed her when she had the chance. In the early part of the movie one of Valentine's followers hit Narda on the head that caused her memory loss and stole the magical stone. And when Valentine's car accidentally hit Narda and they came face to face, why didn't she recognize her? These are just some of the loop holes of the movie that I thought would have been easily spotted. I know that our local film makers can make such a great version of the next Darna, they just have to review the script carefully and give her more fight scenes and powerful enemies. And stop making Darna deflecting bullets because she is not vulnurable to any man made weapons. There also was a scene where Valentine hit Darna with a TV antenna and actually made her bleed. It does not make sense at all. Darna The Return, showed potential on making decent special effects. And one more thing - STOP changing Darna's costume we almost didn't recognized her.

Jared Auner’s review from his Worldweird Cinema blog:

DARNA ANG PAGBABALIK aka DARNA THE RETURN is a wacky Filipino superhero film from the early 1990s. It's filled with cheap special effects, poorly choreographed fights, decent enough looking latex creatures, blunt hack-job editing and only serviceable cinematography and acting. It's also completely fascinating and totally entertaining. Darna is kind of a Filipino Wonder Woman rip with a dash of Captain Marvel (you know: "Shazam!") and this is the second and final(?) film in the series. I haven't seen the first, but here's what I can make out about the series from this film.

Darna is Narda, a young, pretty and rather *ahem* busty young girl who when she swallows a magic pearl (I'm not making that up I swear!) and yells "Darna!" becomes, well yes, Darna, a flying , eye-laser-beam shooting, bikini-wearing superheroine out to defend poor Filipinos from bizarre supernatural villains, corrupt industrialists and rampant natural disasters. It's the rampant natural disasters that are featured prominently in this feature. Narda/ Darna's village is destroyed by a flood which displaces her family to the slums of Manila. Even worse, during the disaster Darna loses her Magic Pearl! It's been stolen by Valentina (or something), Darna's medusa-headed archfoe who needs the pearl to keep her medusa-headed mother alive (or something). She also happens to be attempting to take over the Philipines by sending out subliminal messages through the television, which is slowly winning the populace over to her weird, new age-y cult thing. Narda's mother falls for it.

Eventually Narda gets her pearl back, falls in love with two men, one a cop with a secret and the other her cousin (!?!) and it all ends with some wonderfully inexpensive special effects, silly fights (the ultimate showdown reminded me of a BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER episode at about 1/3 the production cost)and some sentimental exposition. It's all pretty weird and well, y'know, foreign. But it keeps up a terrific pace, with a constant barrage of cheesy fantasy and fighting. The inept film-making, acting and (on the DVD I viewed anyway) really horrible subtitling only enhances the bizarre spectacle of the whole thing. Go forth and find it, now!

On the Set of Virgin Forest (1985)

ON THE SET OF PEQUE GALLAGA'S VIRGIN FOREST by Uro Q. Dela Cruz (from his blog)

Finally found an envelope inserted in the pages of an old coffee table book at home. Inside the envelopes are negatives from 1985. They were pictures I took during the shoot of “Virgin Forest” in Atimonan, Quezon. Peque Gallaga directed the film, I wrote the screenplay and the great Mang Carding Balthazar was the cinematographer.

Here is an article I wrote when Peque received his Gawad CCP 2 years ago:

I first heard the name Gallaga after watching a scene where this mestizo character that I have not seen before in all my years watching Pilipino movies was gunned down in Mario O’Hara’s Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos. I thought, he is probably from the same theatre community where actors like Burgoses, Rochas, came from. I did not see him again in other films after that. I learned that he was doing production design for Ishmael Bernal for whom I was developing several scripts. But we never met, until he came to the office where I was working to offer me a chance to be an alternate to one of the actors in Oro Plata Mata, his winning ECP entry, for which he was casting at the time. My brother Abbo had been cast a week ago and I wondered why he was asking me –furthermore, I had not appeared in any movie before and I had no intention to be an actor. He convinced me to have a costume fitting at his house. Production designer Don Escudero chose a soldier’s uniform for me and put a tag on it with my name. I started to have stage fright. The actor who was originally chosen to play the role was having difficulty deciding whether to accept the role until the last moment, exactly on the night before everybody involved in the movie was to fly to Bacolod.

As they flew to the jungles of Bacolod, I was left in Manila with nothing but an hecho derecho measurement, courtesy of Don Escudero.

I tried to forget about the whole incident.

And then, in December 1982, the movie was premiered at the Film Center.

From the moment the first bar of Oro Plata Mata’s theme music was heard at the opening sequence until it faded at the end of act one, almost everybody watching its gala premiere 21 years ago was convinced that they were a part of a historic event. That first act alone hinted that it was the end of Philippine cinema as we knew it. It was almost perfect in its blend of cinematic elements –the balance of cinematography, music and sound --brave dramatization of scenes, fresh delineation of characters, irreverent handling of serious issues, and unblinking presentation of choreographed violence never before seen in Pilipino movies. A few critics and film makers who were seated next to me were turned off by the violence and thought that they were the weakest points of the movie. They seemed to have forgotten that they were watching a movie about war. Younger viewers liked it very much and even hinted that maybe, a new age, a renaissance of local cinema was at hand.

Unfortunately, the film spearheaded no such movement. But it started building a body of work from one who will prove to be the most innovative, idiosyncratic, and intelligent Filipino filmmakers. After just one film, he earned the honor to use the tagline “A Peque Gallaga Film”.

I met him again because somehow, he got a copy of one of the scripts I was developing and he offered to option it as his next project. But I promised it earlier to another director. He seemed disappointed.

I saw him next a year later, while Abbo de la Cruz was shooting Misteryo sa Tuwa (another ECP winner) in Mount Banahaw. I was helping out as crowd director and Peque was playing the part of a dead plane crash victim. During lulls in the shooting, we talked and began to know each other. He loved to play games and rode a bicycle around the narrow streets of Lucban. At first, it was hard to reconcile the idea that this person just made one of the greatest films in recent years, and he was playing practical jokes on the set.

Three months after Misteryo wrapped, I found myself working on the script of one third of the first Shake Rattle and Roll series. Meanwhile, Peque was pitching a project to Lily Monteverde, and there was still no word about it. At that time, all the major movie directors were doing sex oriented movies for special screenings at the Film Center. As expected, our proposed project was of the same mold.

Shake Rattle and Roll which was available in the meantime turned out to be relatively an easy shoot. We finished it in just a week. Being a newcomer and an “outsider” to Peque’s closely knit staff (all Oro Plata Mata veterans), I did not have the chance to learn how he really worked. I knew that I was only invited to be with them on location so that I can be consulted on the script when needed.

After the release of Shake Rattle and Roll, Peque called to announce that Regal Films was interested in our turn-of-the-century project.

It was during the making of Virgin Forest, that I learned about the serious side of Peque Gallaga. When he talked about the script, he was all business. Early at that stage, he would talk about how the scoring should be, what filters to use on the lenses –he called the cinematographer to ask his opinion, took a note of that, scheduled the test shoot of Sarsi Emmanuel, arranges for the acting workshop of Pen Medina, new comer Abel Jurado and the stuntmen who would play the Macabebe soldiers. He asked me to prepare scenes to be worked out with the actors during the workshop. (At that time, making actors undergo acting workshops is unheard of. Peque believed that actors must approach a project prepared. In other productions, directors were expected to bully unprepared actors to bring out their best! ) Peque went over period photographs with Don Escudero to finalize production and costume design. These were compared with photographs from the location hunting. And amidst all these, he was preparing for a meeting with Mother Lily in the evening. It was common belief that Oro Plata Mata turned out to be a good movie because ECP gave Peque everything he needed. People looking in thought Oro Plata Mata was good only because it was expensive. With this next project, he would be dealing with Mother Lily, a real producer. Virgin Forest was to be Peque’s first “pelikulang Tagalog”. The producer’s requirement was basic: it had to star Sarsi Emmanuel and Miguel Rodriguez. And even if it was about the capture of Emilio Aguinaldo, its title must be “Virgin Forest”.

Mother Lily finally gave the go signal.

In the next few days, the staff and crew invaded Atimonan beach. Two villages had to be built, one at the edge of a forest, and another near a creek. Several camp sites to be identified within the forest itself. A launch would have to be rigged to look like the ones plying the Tayabas shoreline at the turn of the century.

Peque ran a tight ship. With his staff, he made sure that a judicious schedule is formulated. Everything else is bound to that. It was almost like religion. Every department made sure that no delay occurred in the delivery of every requirement. The training they learned from Oro was applied here once again.

Two days before actual shoot, we sat in a hut in Atimonan beach and he made me read each line of dialogue from the script. He wanted to make sure that he understood them the way I did. And in the next few days, I would see the Peque Gallaga ritual that set him apart from the other directors I have worked with before.

Under the huge trees or at the edge of a brook in Quezon Memorial Park, a protected forest, Peque would sit in his director!s chair and meticulously break down the scene to be shot that day. In his tiny hand writing, he would make a shot list, each entry was preceded with a symbol signifying camera angle and general orientation. Lines of dialogue were cut into fragments that fit into his planned edited version of the scene. And he was set to go.

The actors arrived in the set prepared. Scenes were rehearsed. And then, the fun began. He was most active right before the cameras rolled --making final checks on the costumes, looking out for colors that don’t seem to belong, creatively disarranging things that seemed too ordered, adding an item that looked interesting and intriguing, giving his actors suggestions, reminding them of a moment discovered during the workshop. It all went well that first day. And at the end of the day, I caught him humming an Ilonggo ditty. On other days, it would be a Tom Waits song.

Also, after that first day, I banished my initial image of Peque Gallaga the mad genius whom I initially imagined to be a painter frenetically throwing gobs of paint on a canvas until something that pleases him came out. Peque distrusted artistic accidents. But he welcomed surprises especially from actors who, inspired by the moment, managed to bring out something beyond what was asked of them as in the massacre scene at Aguinaldos’s camp --a marching band drummer reacted by throwing his drum, after an American soldier fired a gun at him.

During the whole shooting of Virgin Forest, he would always be humming a song on the way back to the base camp.

After watching the finished film for the first time, Peque told me that Mother Lily could not believe that that was the movie she produced.

Aside from Virgin Forest and 1/3 of Shake Rattle and Roll, I wrote 3 more movies for Peque Gallaga -- Scorpio Nights, Unfaithful Wife and Once Upon a Time.

He kept his dedicated staff and crew that whole time. And making movies with that community of what we fondly called “the cultural sakadas” was almost not work. I suspected that what kept it going was actually beyond creative passion, it was like a curse which you had to feed and live with.

After about three years of movie making, the tagline “A Peque Gallaga Film could easily be (as it has always been) mistaken to mean movies with torrid love scenes, violence, rough language and gruesome creatures. But only people who set out looking for them made these mistakes. For his real followers, the tagline meant an experience not easily found in other films.

Peque treated all his films with equal care and attention. He made sure that the audience was not cheated and insulted. A horror movie went through the same preparations as did his action dramas. The performances were kept authentic and honest. Care was equally given to technical requirements and art direction. The phrase “pwede na ‘yan” was banned in Peque’s movie set.

Television lured me away from the movies.

I met Peque after more than 10 years since writing Once Upon a Time. Over the years, a few of Peque’s films had been invited to be shown at international film festivals, from San Francisco, Tokyo, Shanghai, France and Canada. In 1995 during a special retrospective of Scorpio Nights in Toronto, Canada, the late David Overbey who was a festival programmer challenged Peque Gallaga to do a Scorpio Nights for the 90’s. I found myself writing Diliryo and working with Gallaga again.

Like a movie gunfighter, he carved a notch on the arm rest of the director’s chair after he finished a movie. Now, it is easy to look at it as a private reminder of personal achievement. But if making film is a curse bestowed on him at the start of his career, the notches can also be seen as a prisoner’s reminder of his time inside a jail he does not wish to get out of.

A lot of people (all cursed) who worked with Peque Gallaga either as Assistant Director, Production Designer, and Scriptwriter have become film directors themselves. They may have learned a thing or two from Peque, the way he admitted learning from Ishmael Bernal (“not how to direct, but how to be a director”), but that is inevitable because Peque is a good teacher. He does not keep what he knows to himself, and always acknowledges lessons he has learned from you and things he has discovered with you during the process of making a film. He always calls to ask your consent whenever he feels that something you have talked about a long time ago could be used in a project he is working on. Decency like this is rare in an industry famous for all sorts of aberration.

I only write scripts for three directors, each of them my personal choice. Peque Gallaga is on top of that list. Even if I had been directing my own movies, for Peque Gallaga, I will always be honored to be his scriptwriter.

It is unfortunate and sad that the Filipino film industry cannot sustain the continuing creative energy of filmmakers like Peque Gallaga who, I believe, still has a number of films waiting to be broken down into a list of camera set-ups and entered by hand into his clipboard. And I am sure there is still enough space for several notches on the armrest of his director’s chair.