Cinema's venerable roots, part 2

Films from the silent period, even if they didn't have the benefit of the aural and verbal sounds, were nevertheless able to elicit a variety of emotional responses from the audience, thanks in large part to the narrative talent of the filmmaker, the performance skills of the actors and actresses, and the harmony of the accompanying musical score. Making a silent film was certainly no small feat, for therein lied the task of telling a story through pure imagery. Such was the kind of experience that we had in the first set of films that we saw at the 8th International Silent Film Festival. 

Let's now go through the other set of silent films:

• "A Diary of Chuji's Travels" by Daisuke Itō (1927, 105 mins, Japan)

Watching this Japanese silent film was a strange experience. First, we didn't really have any idea as to how cohesive and consistent the version of the film that we were seeing was, for it was a very condensed version of a film that was in fact intended as a trilogy, ala-Kieslowski's "Color" trilogy or -Wajda's "War" trilogy perhaps. Much of the film's other reels has already been irretrievably lost. With this in mind, we're not exactly sure if the film's title is apt to the current version, for it's highly certain that there's a great deal of missing entries in this "diary". It would probably be more fitting if this particular version has been called "Chuji, the Outlaw" or "Chuji in Hiding" or "Chuji's Disguise". It's because what was presented in the film could only be one "specific" episode in the entire trilogy.  Another thing is the duo that provided the musical accompaniment for the film, Kaapin. As specifically noted by the Japanese cultural officer of the Japan Foundation Office who introduced the film, their kind of music has, among other things, a "shamanistic" flavor to it. An interesting stuff, something that is relatively new to my ears, it's only that the quality of the music performed appeared to not exactly "correlate" with the film's mood and genre. "A Diary of Chuji's Travels" is an early specimen of the samurai genre that brims with thrill, intrigue and tension as it primarily deals with an outlaw samurai in hiding. It has a dynamic aura to it, so to speak. Yet, the music provided was the kind that could put you under a spell or in a hypnotic state - or more crudely, lull you to sleep. Which is not really the kind of mood that we want to have when we are deep into appreciating a samurai film! Nevertheless, the over-all effect of watching "A Diary of Chuji's Travels" was eerie and mysterious, the kind of experience provided by last year's Japanese entry, "The Policeman" (incidentally, my favorite!). Though this time around, the effect may have nothing to do with the film per se, but with its current archival condition and the type of musical accompaniment. 

• "Curro Vargas" by José Buchs (1923, 100 mins, Spain)

Just like last year's Spanish entry, "El Abuelo" (also made by the same director), "Curro Vargas" is the kind of film that the Filipinos can very much relate to, as it has all the familiar plot lines of what we have come to know as the melodrama. This should really be no wonder as, historically speaking, Spain has had a big influence on our culture. A young man (the titular character) was orphaned and has been left in ruins by a greedy and scheming creditor;a kindly priest becomes his foster father;he falls in love with the creditor's daughter, who was made to marry another man by her father;the town in which they live (Andalucia) has all the never-do-good rumor-mongers who will do whatever they can to see the man's downfall;the young man plans his revenge by making himself rich in another country so that upon his return he can finally have the woman he loves at whatever cost. The director tells the story (which was based on a zarzuela which, in turn, was lifted from a true-life-based novel) in a pretty engaging and brisk manner, with just all the proper doses of drama, comedy and suspense. And most probably, one of the earliest WTF moments in cinema could be found in this film, something over which we may really scratch our heads in amusement and disbelief. We all know that Luis Buñuel intended the "craziness" of his silent short "Un Chien Andalou" to be really so, but that one in "Curro Vargas" (which actually comprised a pivotal turn in the film) we can't be sure if that was "unintentional" on the filmmaker's part. We left the cinema with that particular scene stuck in our heads! 

• "Riddles of My Homecoming" (Ang Tigmo sa Aking Pagpauli) by Arnel Mardoquio (2013, 80 mins, Philippines)

I have written about this film before in relation to last year's Cinema One Originals (in which it was one of the best entries). I decided to see the film again as I wanted to experience it with a live musical accompaniment as compared with Gauss Obenza's original built-in score (which was "killed off" during the screening). The band who performed, Kalayo, gave such a powerful ethno-musical rendition that it brought "Riddles of My Homecoming" to a certain new height, a film which, in itself, is already a powerful one. Aside from being a riddle-filled poem, the music made the film as something of a fever dream as well. More than a silent film in the traditional sense, Mardoquio's masterpiece is a respectful nod to that particular golden era in cinema, with the incorporation of some of Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky's best avant-garde works. And more than a visual and aural spectacle, the film is an opaque and startling puzzle that probes the questions of violence and strife that have plagued the director's land of birth for decades. A complex mystery of the film is that the violence, death and destruction depicted here could very well be a conglomeration of a violence committed on a grand scale (societal conflicts, etc) or an evocation of a human violation on a personal level (abuse, murder, etc). Tellingly, violence becomes a symbol for itself. 

(Arnel Mardoquio's "Riddles of My Homecoming":More than an homage to the golden age of silent movies.)