"Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis" as a heart of darkness

An ubiquitous motif in "Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis" (2016, Philippines), Lav Diaz's massive exploration of Filipino history, fiction and myth, is the mountain-jungle. It's through the mountain-jungle that Gregoria de Jesus, along with Cesaria Belarmino, Aling Huli and Mang Karyo, go in search of her missing husband (presumably already dead), the Katipunan supremo Andres Bonifacio. Likewise, it's along such terrain that the ilustrado Simon and the intellectual Isagani make their trek while escaping from the hounding Spanish officers, with the former suffering from a fatal gunshot wound (inflicted, ironically, by a fellow countryman, Basilio). 

For most of the time, we see these characters (both historical and fictional) trudging with steadfast mission, yet seemingly aimlessly, through these borders, going in and out of every possible routes, corners and steeps, in the hope of finally reaching their destination or attaining their goal. It seems like these souls, lost, confused, desperate and agitated, are at the complete mercy of the perilous and mysterious jungle. Indeed, the long and laborious sections in the jungle are among the film's most evocative aspects. It isn't just there as a mere setting or backdrop. It serves something essential which is illustrative of how Diaz views our nation's connection with the past, struggle through the present and march towards the future. 

Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness and Francis Ford Coppola's film "Apocalypse Now" use the jungle as a template for man's journey into the dark depths of his soul. The further he goes through the journey, the further he gets deep into the darkness of his soul. By the very nature of the jungle itself, it could bring out the worst in man, sometimes even of the kind that fully surprises him, something he never thought would ever happen in his life. The place might just stand for his encounter with the Freudian id. 

Thus said, amid the myriad interpretations that can be made of "Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis", is the film essentially a map of the heart of darkness, a trek into the jungle of subconsciousness? How does this thought relate to the director's over-all exploration of our history? 

We'll try to illustrate each of the situations of Gregoria and her party and of Simon and Isagani in the mountains, but before that I think it's important if we mention first how the structure of the film possibly works. There was a mention of how Diaz actually structured the 8-hour film like a novel, thus the events unfold like chapters, deliberately, patiently and rigorously. How the director frames every scene - static, in medium or long shots - aided by Larry Manda's expressionistic black-and-white cinematography where lights and shadows interplay and white forest smokes come out from the corner and hover over the characters, is like we are reading a book, in a steady fashion and with the events gradually forming in our minds or imagination. Reading a book is never really a passive activity, for we supply our own thoughts (judgment, hypothesis, imagination) to the material at hand. There is a three-way dynamics among the author, the characters and events in the book, and the reader. 

Therefore, this particular interpretation we have of the film is not something to be regarded with finality. Rather, it is something that we actively formed while in the process of and even after watching the film - or "reading the book", for that matter. This interpretation can be outrightly refuted or significantly change along the way. That's the dynamics of film appreciation. 

Upon learning that her husband Andres and his brother Procopio have been taken away by Aguinaldo's men, Gregoria (Hazel Orencio) goes to search for them in Mount Buntis. She is joined by Aling Huli (Susan Africa), a kindly woman but herself a grieving mother who lost her two sons in the Silang massacre;Cesaria (Alessandra da Rossi), a has-been mistress of the Captain-General (Bart Guingona) and a guilt-stricken collaborator, who was the main reason the massacre in Silang occurred;and Mang Karyo (Joel Saracho), a sickly neighbor of Huli who believes that he is fighting for the revolutionaries' cause by simply tagging along Gregoria's search. In that sense, this is a rag-tag army embarking on a road-trip, with a quest for something that may really be futile in nature, ala-Beckett's characters waiting for Godot. The dense forest seemingly leads to nowhere, the persons whom they manage to meet and ask along the way give them none-too-positive answers and they are even being challenged and teased by a trio of mysterious and spooky tikbalangs (Bernardo Bernardo, Cherie Gil, Angel Aquino). Their journey and quest took 30 days and along this sojourn, uncomfortable secrets are revealed, heated confrontations ensue, suicides are contemplated, religious mania and deaths happen and, sadly enough, one brave woman (and who knows, the others too) finally loses her grip on sanity and reality, as befits any fallen woman in history and literature. 

Thus comprises Gregoria's journey into the heart of darkness. On a broader canvas, is our nation's course in history very much steeped in tragedy and misery that we are perpetually bound to repeat its failings and mistakes, no different from the Freudian view that whatever it is that happened during a person's infancy or childhood (trauma, violation, etc) will significantly determine the subsequent course of his life in adulthood? 

Upon fleeing from the Spanish officials who are already fully aware of Simon's (Piolo Pascual) anarchist agenda, he and Isagani (John Lloyd Cruz) go through the same mountain-jungle, along with two boatmen, with the aim of reaching the seaside hut of the intellectual's uncle, the kindly Padre Florentino (Mengie Cobarrubias) , where an important confession and supposedly the film's coda are about to take place. Throughout the two men's journey, the aim of revenge is being flared up every now and then, sinister plans are hatched and carried out, murders happen, doubts and anxieties creep in, encounter with mortality becomes ever more closer, and art, freedom and the state of the nation are ruefully debated and contemplated. By the end of it all, the idea of a bloody and fiery road to change and freedom gives way to a diplomatic and dignified call for reforms, as signified by the long-shot sight of Padre Florentino throwing from the edge of a cliff Simon's mysterious "tool" of anarchy. After which, we see the hut (where Simon just died) being fiercely consumed by fire, as if to say any thought or act of revolution is now ultimately quelled in favor of a diplomatic reformation, with the young Isagani supposedly as the starting-point, embodying the youth-as-the-nation's-hope concept of the priest - or of Rizal. 

Thus comprises Simon's and Isagani's journey into the heart of darkness. In effect, this is how Diaz "ends" El Filibusterismo, where the reformist Rizal actually entertained the thought of staging a revolution, by way of Simon, for our nation to attain change and emancipation from the colonizers. On a broader canvas, however chaotic, miserable and sorrowful our history is, if we are only to set aside for once any personal agenda (those selfish grievances, hatreds, jealousies, vendettas, etc) for the greater good, then we may perhaps finally attain a better and just, not necessarily a utopian, nation, however laborious the road to such may be. 

For by the end of the day, it may not be really the foreign intruders who are our greatest enemies, but our own fellow countrymen. 

Simon, Isagani and Gregoria go deep into the dark unknown in Lav Diaz's "Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis"