drama

Filipiñana Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

If you’re looking for a film with land exploitation, the Filipino elite, and golf courses caught in the crosshairs of its sniper rifle, you’ve come to the right place. Filipiñana doesn’t shout. It silently stalks its prey in every carefully constructed frame, slowly revealing the insidious nature of the privatized paradises that are quietly conquering a country and its people. It’s a remarkable debut film from Rafael Manuel, who marks himself as a powerful one to watch.

From: Philippines, Asia
Watch: JustWatch, IMDb
Next: A Touch of Sin, Ascension, The French Dispatch

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Filipiñana – The Breakdown

If you’ve seen Manila on screen or been in person, you’ll find nothing unfamiliar in the opening of Filipiñana. The first shot of a bus driver navigating busy streets tinted with warm colors evokes the heat and vibrant life of the city. The friendly tourist leader’s voice speaking to a silent crowd of Chinese tourists also highlights one of the country’s biggest industry’s: tourism. However, the familiarity of the opening is set against the political nature of the next two shots.

1. A shot of Filipinos lining up for clean drinking water.
2. A shot of a lush green golf course being showered by a cascade of water.

This juxtaposition is the jumping point into the privatized, fabricated paradises of the Filipino golf courses; luxuries reserved for the elite and served by the working class. This carefully constructed, slightly zany film, is a criticism of the globalized capitalist land-complex that swallows up indigenous land and crafts it into exclusive resorts.

The director, Rafael Manuel, follows two female protagonists from different social standings in this film. Isabel is a worker that has recently arrived from the Ilocos region in the north-west. It’s a region where palm trees and lush environments are expected; a landscape that the elite have artificially recreated in golf courses. As a new hire, Isabel is still learning the subservience her job demands, and Manuel doesn’t shy away from showing it. In one shot, she is sexualized by being framed between a golfer’s legs, carefully placing his golf balls on the tee in close proximity to the danger of his swing. It highlights how exposed she and her colleagues are to danger and sexual exploitation. While Isabel is initially drawn to the president through a sense of shared heritage (the president in Filipiñana is a close copy of real President BongBong Marcos, who is also from Ilocos), her journey is one of growing awareness from ignorance to recognition of her own exploitation.

In contrast, Clarita, a niece of a golf company CEO, is simply visiting family in the Philippines from her base in New York. She’s initially aware of the class differences between her life in the U.S. and those living in the Philippines, but that awareness gets stifled by the status quo as she settles into the fake hospitality afforded to her as a privileged guest. While the uncanny valley nature of the luxurious golf course awakens something in Isabel, it dulls Clarita’s mind instead, welcoming her into the comfort of the Filipino elite.

Isabel and Clarita’s respective journeys to enlightenment and dulled awareness are guided by an invisible protagonist: the heat. The sun’s rays paralyze the characters throughout the film. It’s a constant presence, since the entire film is shot in piercing daylight. The heat influences everything in the film, from the slow languid camera pans and long, patient shots, to the slow-moving characters and the sparse, unhurried dialogue. The stifling heat also becomes a visual metaphor for the characters’ inaction; their unwillingness to challenge either their own exploitation or the status quo. Interestingly, the only character that appears to be immune to the inhibiting effect of the heat is the golfing, singing, dancing President. It’s as if he’s an inverse vampire that thrives in the daylight and still manages to suck the life out of everyone else. Seen in this light, it’s a neat criticism of a President that has consistently expanded the ability of foreign investors to control Filipino land.

Conclusion

Filipiñana operates with measured power, firing subtle shots at the Filipino elite who built the exploitative, global-capitalist land complex, and at the people who go along with it. Every frame in this film is as carefully constructed as a Wes Anderson film to support this. In Filipiñana, Rafael Manuel lights his career with a bang, marking himself as a major talent to keep track of in the future.