Pink Power Puff Army

Taplod

I thought Harry Potter suddenly laid the “Stupefy” spell on me. I was like in a cataleptic condition at some point in watching 1017: Sa Paglaya ng Aking Salita. The film is like making a film about a Mongoloid – I know it is politically incorrect to use such a word. Aiming to make it a bona fide, they look for another Mongoloid, an actor perhaps, to act like the other. This is totally unacceptable. Suspicions will soon arise with its concealed expositions; they should not be shocked if the authorities are disgusted.

The story revolves on the lives of two friends. Jojo (Kahlel Urdaneta) meets his long lost friend Manuel (Kristofer King) during a rally demonstration somewhere along the metropolis. And then, there is an insinuation that Jojo is secretly in love with his friend. He joins his friend in the NPA probably for his undying love that is revolting for so many years. He could only express his love through poems and suspending his promise to declare what he really wants to convey from his heart. And so the film goes like a road trip with an instrumental song from Joey Ayala’s Walang Hanggang Paalam (Never Ending Goodbye) on cue.

It seems that something should be stopped. Or else, they will certainly be mocked. We may not be in the position to tell the what’s and the not’s in filmmaking else, we could have made our own film, right? But there is a collision in the story with its backdrop. It tends to dissipate principles with a resemblance of anarchism and clog it through our throats. Films are not the proper medium to beseech a millenarian way of thinking. And besides, the entire concept of the New People’s Army will not be tackled in its entirety. Is this their way of advertising their cause to the people of our country? They want to save us from oppression, repression cruelty, corruption and the unjust? How come I was not informed? Or is it more of a propaganda to put their organization in the pedestal of merits without actually considering their liabilities.

The backdrop of the film is the NPA movement. Their causes can be traced way back to the Japan Occupation. They are called the Hukbalahap. Their way of thinking is very Maoist in nature and their founder is Jose Maria Sison. They are the left-wing communist. I still wonder why up to now they have been fighting for something that is so overdue. Obviously, they have such high regard of themselves and they think they are destined to wear the crown. I can’t help criticize this aspect in the film as they only offer a one-sided view of our society. Aren’t we in the same country who strives for the betterment of all the people? So where are they heading? There is censorship from the filmmakers themselves hiding their intent with a use of a mawkish love angle between two guys. Why can’t they use a different medium and be straightforward? Why hide in films which are used to educate and retain the values that every one of us should transmit into our souls. I am doubtful of their intentions and sorrowful that film history could explain better what I am really trying to point at.

There’s an underlying proposition that minorities are being hauled to the revolution. Like the gay marriage that is being discussed in the film. They could easily lure the idiotic students who are supposedly true believers of a purified world or to that extent. They are powerful with the use of verbal wit; you could be convinced even how irrational their definition of politics is. As long as they are not yet in command, they will maneuver the development of society to something very awful since they have lost in touch of the essence of revolution. Revolution should have a cause which should not be just a petty constitutional amendment or proclamation concerning freedom of speech. It is as if they have been contented with any administration seated in the government.

Well, the film’s message is quite metaphoric in a way not because they are hiding something. They are using the film medium as a way of indoctrinating our fellow Filipinos with something that is already tainted. But the film made a clear indication of a love story in the making between two guys which could create curiosity with its peers. But does the leftist party really want to indoctrinate gays, are they that desperate? I think filmmakers must avoid using this medium to provide their political stance. A film is a medium that should have a single voice for all of us, not one that creates fragmentation. But I am not prohibiting them as I did like some films with political undertones like Bertolucci’s The Dreamers wherein it explores free love and sexuality during a student protest in France. Even the classic film Arsenal directed by Alexander Dovzhenko is a direct representation of the political era in Uzbekistan and Russia. It is an assessment of a 1928 film with a 2003 film in terms of being political in films. Anyway, I am just taking this seriously as films will also be for the edification of the society and not just an insurrection in the community.

Charlie Koon's Rating: