By Juan EY Arcellana

Movie Reviews
Birdshot
Directed by Mikhail Red
Paglipay
Directed by Zig Dulay

TWO FILMS featured in the recent Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino dealt with environment issues in an indirect manner, weaving conflict in the narrative thread tangentially and exposing the myth of the isolated case.

Birdshot by Mikhail Red is described as a coming-of-age thriller, and has as protagonist a young girl who in target practice in the wild shoots down an eagle. This sets off a series of events which, along with a parallel story of workers gone missing while en route to a court case in Manila, culminates in the girl’s personal epiphany.

On the other hand, Zig Dulay’s Paglipay (Crossing) is another story of seeming enlightenment, in this case a young Aeta man who rudely awakens to the fact that the kulot (curly haired) and the unat (straight haired) live in two different worlds. This unfolds against a backdrop of an encroaching mining industry in their place in Zambales years after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.

The environment is ever present in both films, not least because of the exceptional photography. Birdshot in particular could be located in a place with time out of mind, anachronisms such as the analogue dial up phone and nearly bare police station serving as counterpoint to the rustic sweep of countryside.

But what at the outset may appear as an isolated case – the shooting of the haribon by the girl (Mary Joy Apostol) – leads to sociopolitical questions relating to police corruption, labor issues, and the overall uneasy feeling that things are never what they seem.

“Kung ano-ano ang ginagawa ng pulis para lang sabihin na ginagawa nila trabaho nila” (What the police did in order to say that they were doing their jobs) is a line mouthed by one of the lead characters, which in the wake of recent events of state-inspired executions takes on new color. And when the pulis patola (John Arcilla) tells his partner (Arnold Reyes) to lay off the case of missing laborers, he asks what would the other do if he stumbles upon something best left in the dark. The enemy indeed is bigger than we can imagine.

But don’t tell that to Maya, who by the end of the film has become a young woman, she who shot the haribon and ate its meat with her father (Ku Aquino), even making a necklace out of the talon. Her father of course insists that they committed no sin, but in the ensuing tragic events the viewer is left with the question of which is more endangered, the eagle or exploited workers laying claim to their land?

No less languorous, Paglipay benefits from the infatuation of the Aeta man Atan (Gary Cabalic) with a visiting student (Anna Luna) from UP Manila working on her thesis in lahar country, particularly on the integration of the kulot with the unat in the lowlands.

Use of a drone camera gives breathtaking views of the landscape, hinting there is more at stake here than plain romantic comedy. Atan himself also comes of age by film’s end, the flower in his hand meant to be given to his crush wondrously not wilting. Back at the Aeta village, his betrothed Ani (Joan dela Cruz) waits for him to make a decision.

But it’s just him and the mountain really, and how all things are connected in the subtlest of ways. Miners hover ominously in the background, but the indigenous get to speak their language in this ToFarm film festival entry that has reaped awards at home and abroad.

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