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Lifestyle

A poet, besieged, yearns for epiphany


Written and directed by Christopher Gozum Finalist, Digital Lokal competition 11th Cinemanila International Film Festival Gaston Bachelard, the French philosopher and staunch advocate of poets, said that “as soon as we become motionless, we are elsewhere; we are dreaming in a world that is immense." This is what happens when one is inside the cinema watching Anacbanua (Child of the Sun), director Christopher Gozum’s film about a poet’s journey, inside himself and his surroundings, as he longs to be one with his community and his land. The cinematic world that Gozum creates for his poet character is immense; it encompasses water, land, and people. But this world, though immense, feels personal and is also within reach. It is in fact, a bus ride away from Manila. It is a world of Gozum’s reverie and fascination, his native province of Pangasinan. Anacbanua is a movie where the director takes great pride in his native roots, such that he uses the Pangasinan language throughout, making it the first film told in the language. It explores the myths, ways, language, and community industries of the province and weaves them all together in this film that is single-minded in its goal: to celebrate the culture of Pangasinan. This is told through the story of an umaanlong (poet) who comes back to the land of his birth besieged with afflictions, both physical and spiritual, which he overcomes one by one through the help of his Musia (muse) and an Ogaw (spirit child guide).
Photo courtesy of Cinemanila
It is a quiet movie that dares to defy a traditional viewer’s expectations. For one, it is devoid of dialogues. If you like your movies with lots of dialogue, Anacbanua is not for you. But the absence of dialogues in the film doesn’t present a drawback. Instead, it gives the film a refreshing quality, a kind of newness that evades most Filipino movies, whether it’s indie or mainstream. Unlike most Filipino movies whose scriptwriters tend to abuse the use of dialogues by making the characters talk on and on, the characters in Anacbanua don’t talk at all, not to each other at least. What Gozum gives his audience is a piece of his characters’ minds, the voices of their minds, the Umaanlong (Poet) and Musia (Muse) both, in deep contemplation. The scenes in the movie, shot in black and white for the duration of the Poet’s mystical journey, are driven by poems. And because it is a movie about a poet, the language used is rich and meditative -- evoking myths, legends, and the sacred. The words that describe the poet’s journey were culled from sonnets and villanelles written in the local language by Pangasinan poets Santiago Villafania, Erwin Fernandez, and Melchor Orpilla. Gozum also used words from Calatagan jar inscriptions and the Pangasinan Oraciones, stringing them together to tell his tale of a Pangasinan poet searching for a place in which to anchor his identity and art. The resulting language, given justice by the voice actors, is haunting. One listens to the language and pays careful attention because it’s like keeping one’s ears open to the ancient oral tradition of poetry among our ancestors.
Christopher Gozum Cinemanila
In the Poet’s mystical journey, Gozum takes his audience to spaces and places across the Pangasinan landscape. What I found powerful in the movie is the way Gozum visually communicates the idea of his poet character desiring to be one with the world, both in a mystical and literal sense. As the character travels from one town in Pangasinan to another, as though surveying the land of his birth, he sits among clay jars as though wanting to become a jar himself, he positions himself on top of a layer of bricks desiring to become hardened like bricks, he peers through a burning furnace as though he wants to become fire, to burn for his art. There is a scene where the Muse murmurs spells to the wind as she makes an offering to the sacred spirit dwellers of the Agno River. It is a prelude to what leads to the poet’s epiphany in the movie, where finally he discovers ‘oneness’ with the native land. Guided by a spirit child, Gozum makes his poet character run around a farming field in circles before he falls on the ground and rolls his body, for what seems like eternity, across the field as though he wants to be planted right there in the land, wanting to bloom. To watch Anacbanua (Child of the Sun) is to listen to a poetry reading in the beautiful Pangasinan language. To watch the movie is to succumb to Gozum’s vision. After all, he is the producer, scriptwriter, sound engineer, colorist, and video editor of what seems to be a very personal film project. For the people of Pangasinan, this movie is a breakthrough, and for Philippine cinema, even more so, because Philippine cinema cannot be called Philippine in the absence of movies that explore other fascinating and important cultures and languages that make up our diverse archipelago. - GMANews.TV At the recently concluded 2009 Cinemanila International Film Festival, Anacbanua (Child of the Sun) won the Lino Grand Prize for Film and Best Director for Christopher Gozum in the Digital Lokal category.
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