Lino Brocka0

Lino Brocka’s char­ac­ters in the film Tinimbang Ka Nguni’t Kulang (1974) (You’ve been Weighed and found Wanting) , attempted to awaken the ‘com­mon’ Fillipino to take notice of the Political Oppression of that era. In one of Lino Brocka’s first major hits : Tinimbang Ka Nguni’t Kulang (1974) (You’ve been Weighed and found Wanting), Lino Brocka had finally come into his own. After form­ing his com­pany Cinemanila after the Martial Law of 1972 , Brocka attempted to develop cre­ative but socially rel­e­vant works to the Philippines and for his peo­ple (Yeatter, 2007, pg.137). Tinimbang Ka Nguni’t Kulang (T.K.N.K) was the first film he made to do just that – to bring notice to the ever-rising ten­sions felt dur­ing the Marcos ‘Filipinization Movement’. What is inter­est­ing though is how Lino Brocka attempted to do this. The films con­tent, pow­er­ful as it is, is noth­ing with­out inter­est­ing and involv­ing char­ac­ters. The fact that it was a box office hit and a pre­vail­ing notion that com­merce and art did mix (Sotto, 2000, p.38) – it proved to be a telling sign that peo­ple were lis­ten­ing. So what of Lino Brocka’s char­ac­ters and their part in the social com­men­tary he attempted to speak of? Perhaps firstly to get a bet­ter under­stand­ing – the explo­ration of Filipino soci­ety at that time is cru­cial. From 1965 to 1986 , Ferdinand Marcos came into power as the 10^th President of the Phillipines. Marcos had a vision for the Phillipines – one trans­lat­ing into ‘Bagong Lipunan’ or New Society. This new move­ment aimed to remove old colo­nial mod­els and remake the Phillipines in more ways than one by bol­ster­ing national pride through self realization.(Wikipedia, 2008, para 3) However this ini­tial aim was marred by the Martial Law of 1972 by cor­rup­tion both polit­i­cally and through the vio­la­tion of human rights. While Martial Law in itself plunged crime rates and issued some mea­sure of con­trol – it denied the Fillipino peo­ple of free speech, opin­ions and oppos­ing views to his régime. Alienation soon devel­oped between the masses and the gov­ern­ment as Fillipino peo­ple with con­trary views to this ‘New Society’ were impris­oned , tor­tured, exe­cuted and silenced through the con­trol of the press and media. What became more telling was the ever ris­ing rev­e­la­tion that the Marcos Régime had mil­lions invested in the United States and that per­haps Martial Law was a way of con­trol­ling the spread of Communism as to appear ‘in the good light’ of the Americas. This cre­ated a new soci­ety in the form of film­mak­ers in the Phillipines – mar­tial law was not just affect­ing the indus­try but the social real­iza­tion that some­thing was indeed ter­ri­bly wrong with the Marcos Régime and his ‘bet­ter tomor­row’. In Lino Brocka’s case it demanded atten­tion ; if Marcos would not lis­ten to the peo­ple than the peo­ple would have to lis­ten cin­e­mat­i­cally . In Being and Becoming: The Cinema’s of Asia, Luis H Francia says it best when he says : “…when lim­i­ta­tions are put on the spirit, when an offi­cial atmos­phere seeks to sti­fle free and cre­ative expres­sion, then the direc­tor , or any artiste ‚who bucks at the reigns of approved thought, com­mits as Lino Brocka put it to , ‘acts of civil dis­obe­di­ence’ (Francia H.L, 2002 , p. 354). This cre­ated the ‘uneasy alliance’ between the gov­ern­ment and the film indus­try, that nev­er­the­less drove film­mak­ers like Brocka to make state­ments about the oppres­sion in his films (Server , 1999, p.103). So how do these themes relate to the film and what Lino Brocka tried to do with these ele­ments? T.K.N.K at its heart is a tragedy – a tale of mis­placed love and cor­rupted indi­vid­u­als who tar­nish the human heart. It cen­ters on a love affair between a dis­turbed home­less woman Kuala and a leper called Berto liv­ing on the brim of soci­ety (Yeatter, 2007, pg.137). They are both befriended by the young Junior who at first seem adverse to them but grad­u­ally seems to develop a bond for the purity of their rela­tion­ship. His attempts to grant them social accep­tance is fur­ther marred by the towns­folk and his own rich par­ents. In T.K.N.K there are , when bro­ken down, two spe­cific sides : The Alienated and The Oppressors. While at that time the Phillipino soci­ety could not be cat­e­go­rized as such , each side in Tinimbang Ka Nguni’t Kulang tried to tell us dif­fer­ent things. There are the peo­ple and the Oppressors – the com­mon man and the Government. The Alienated , per­haps rep­re­sented by the young boy­ish inse­cu­ri­ties of the main lead Junior ( played by Christopher De Leon) is a char­ac­ter many Philippines can relate to. This is due to many scenes depicted Junior’s way of life, his social sta­tus and the way he is per­ceived by his friends and fam­ily. The gen­eral Phillipino film-going audi­ence can iden­tify with being bur­dened by a “…reli­gion that reveres suf­fer­ing” and feu­dal val­ues that “…twart their aspi­ra­tions” (Francia H.L , 2002, p. 356). While Junior is lives com­fort­ably, it is his story we jour­ney with and it is he in which the film truly speaks. On the fore­front – the Phillipino peo­ple would indeed relate their own sta­tus to him – how­ever– an under­ly­ing cur­rent of dis­sat­is­fac­tion and con­fu­sion impairs his life. While his par­ents bicker every­day and his friends seek the lat­est child­ish endeavor, Junior is at heart a lost boy. It is his jour­ney through the film that we see ‘oppres­sion’ and the dark side of the human heart. In essence, Lino Brocka indeed tried to relate Junior to the com­mon Fillipino while show­ing us Oppression that can be related to the ‘unfeel­ing’ nature of that era. One can­not deny sim­i­lar­i­ties between an Oppressive Government and the strange , almost military-que uni­forms of the ‘Christian Association’ depicted in the film. The towns local asso­ci­a­tion, a group of ladies sup­pos­edly ded­i­cated to the renewal of the town , seem vil­lains of sort. Their lack of inter­est in the alien­ated crazy slum woman Kuala (played by Lolita Rodriguez) while preg­nant , seems to raise more ques­tions. If they are act­ing in the eyes of God – why is a man suf­fer­ing of Leprosy the only man that truly loves her? Another inter­est­ing obser­va­tion is the role of the ‘Oppressor’ or power hun­gry indi­vid­ual. Who plays this role in the film? Junior is the son of two wealthy par­ents – that being Lilia Dizon and Eddie Garcia’s char­ac­ter Cesar. Cesar is noth­ing else that what he is por­trayed as – a rouge, wom­an­izer and a man obsessed with testos­terone fueled endeav­ors which seem to assert his own lack of par­ent­ing skills. Indeed at the begin­ning of the film were intro­duced to Cesar and the then unknown Kuala. Cesar , is seen forc­ing Kuala into a abor­tion by almost evil means – reduced to a hor­ri­fy­ing dis­play of human intent. Later we real­ize that the rea­son Kuala has become unsta­ble is because of that very act – cor­rupted in the most fun­da­men­tal way pos­si­ble : forced human abor­tion. Cesar seems in all man­ner of speak­ing a trans­la­tion of Ferdinand Marcos him­self – a vil­lain liv­ing amongst the peo­ple and caus­ing suf­fer­ing and unhap­pi­ness wher­ever he seems to be. Cesar’s mar­riage is in chaos as well and yet he lives in a golden laden man­sion — obsessed with impress­ing oth­ers in mon­e­tary terms. He at times is also seen as the ‘ring leader’ of the local soci­ety – a soci­ety that mocks, insults and at times humil­i­ates the ‘alien­ated’ like Berto and Kuala. There is a very inter­est­ing scene where Berto, wan­der­ing the city after a preg­nant Kuala is taken by the local Christian Association . He seems to find, for a moment, peace in the town. Then from the cor­ner of his eye a group of locals offer him a free meal. Little does he know that it is his own pet dog – another love cor­rupted by man. Some peo­ple may argue that all of these mean­ings are too deep – too imbed­ded in the tale to mean much. I am not say­ing Lino Brocka down­right adapted these char­ac­ters from a polit­i­cal con­text – but rather from hon­est obser­va­tion. Lino Brocka, dur­ing his time as a Mormon Missionary , sought to this tech­nique when ana­lyz­ing the human con­di­tion of a group of Lepers. He found their brav­ery and opti­mistic lifestyle refresh­ing and enlight­en­ing and even­tu­ally , in my opin­ion , took this unique tool to his cin­e­matic endeav­ors. His films are social com­men­taries , more often than not , deeply rooted in the plights and strug­gles of peo­ple and friends Lino Brocka observed dur­ing his time alive. The char­ac­ters are true reflec­tions of a greater social iden­tity – in this case the atroc­i­ties of the ‘New Society’. All these ques­tions seem to lead to the evitable chal­lenge that speaks about Brocka’s stance against the Marcos régime : “When the vic­tims refuse their roles , what becomes of the oppres­sors?” (Francia H.L, 2002, p.357). He chal­lenged the local man to pon­der this ques­tion in hopes that, they would act before it is too late. Just like the end­ing of T.N.K we are left con­tem­plat­ing as we see inno­cence shat­tered. Berto , after find­ing his love , is shot dead try­ing to pro­tect her from a dirty mob. Junior is seen car­ry­ing the new born child – Berto dead and seem­ingly Kuala as well from child­birth. He walks slowly into the gath­er­ing mob – a haunt­ing melody accom­pa­ny­ing his walk to Berto’s body where he lays the baby down. Corruption of man? Perhaps. A cor­rup­tion of pol­i­tics. Maybe. Or per­haps what Lino Brocka merely intended to do , was to show the Phillipino peo­ple of that era that the human spirit can­not be denied , even when the Oppressors hold all the power , all the guns and all the bul­lets. Written by Kane Wheatley-Holder

References: Francia H, Luis., (2002). “Being and Becoming: The Cinema of Asia” , New Delhi: MacMillan India Limited. Sever, Lee , (1999). “Asian Pop Cinema : Bombay to Tokyo” , San Francisco : Chronical Books. Sotto, Agustin , (2000). “Film in South East Asia: Views from the Region”, SEAPAVAA and VIETNAM FILM INSITITUTE . Wikipedia – Ferdinand Marcos. (21 July 2008). Wikimedia Foundation Inc . Retrieved 18 July , 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Marcos. Yeatter L. Bryan , (2007). “Cinema of the Phillipines”, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers.