Nowhere Fast

Three weeks ago, on Sunday, August 20, I attended the premiere of the restored “Giliw Ko” (1939) organized by the ABS-CBN Film Restoration in cooperation with the Metropolitan Theater, National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), Narra by Wildsound Studios, and LVN Pictures. Giliw Ko is about Guia (Mila del Sol), a country girl, who sings Tagalog songs yet idolizes American fashion she sees on copies of foreign magazines. She is the trusted ward of haciendero Don Alvaro and wife Doña Lucia and is coveted by every young bachelor in their town for her beauty and voice, but she only has eyes for Jose (Fernando Poe). When Antonio, the heir of the hacienda, visits from Manila, Guia finds herself infatuated for his looks and stature. Antonio (Ely Ramos) is a musician and bandleader with his own radio program in Manila. She naively falls for Antonio, yet Antonio is engaged to his socialite fiancée Rosie (Mona Lisa). He only sees her as a singer for the American songs in his band’s repertoire.  Eventually, she becomes disillusioned with her one-sided love, and returns to the province, once singing Tagalog music. She also returns to the arms of her sweetheart Jose.

I am lucky to have attended the premiere of the scanned and enhanced “Giliw Ko” at the restored Metropolitan Theater, 84 years after its premiere in the same theater. Aside from the distinguished guests from the film industry, the audience was a mixed bag of youth and adults who were receptive and engaged with the film’s humor, drama, and music. It’s great to see a modern audience enjoy a film made before we were all born. It’s light, escapist entertainment that fits perfectly with the LVN ethos, full of beautiful people singing and dancing in lush scenery and art direction.

Made in 1939, I saw this film as an artifact of the Commonwealth era, a testament to the progress of the Philippines under American colonial hands. It is an idyllic portrait of the Philippines under the haciendero (landed gentry) class. The haciendero Don Alvaro (Precioso Palma) is a benevolent, enlightened feudal master dressed in the latest American fashion. Takyo (Ben Rubio), the foreman, is a little ruthless and petty with his power, and he abuses his master’s good graces by building a house with the hacienda’s workforce without his knowledge. He was fired when a maid revealed his treachery and disobedience to Don Alvaro. The peasants are depicted as simple, well-meaning servants, singing Tagalog songs and aspiring for simple lives. Jose is a simple, honest ranch-hand who provides for his blind father and does his work diligently. He doesn’t aspire to much, only to provide for his father and marry his sweetheart Guia. When he was promoted to foreman after Takyo’s firing, he was visibly uncomfortable with his new uniform and stature different from his native clothes and simple work. It is a crossroads of American soft power and Filipino identity, romanticizing feudalism and undermining the Filipino peasantry.

The romance at the center of “Giliw Ko” is still tied to feudalism. Guia aspires for the love of Antonio; Jose aspires for the love of Guia. Don Alvaro even calls Guia naive for even thinking of marrying his heir. When Guia discusses marriage, she notes that she has to ask permission from Don Alvaro and Doña Lucia. Once her confusion gets resolved and she marries Jose, all their problems are suddenly nuisance. The film ends with a fancy musical sequence with Antonio, Rosie, Guia, and Jose singing and dancing, and a bamboo orchestra playing in the background.

At least “Giliw Ko” was entertaining with its Filipino humor. I cannot believe that these characters talk like us. Their dialogue is not out of touch with our modern language.  It is more of a challenge now to connect the modern audience with older cinema because the barrier of black-and-white films still exists as a deterrent from further engagement. Yet with this screening, it is endearing to see the audience be engaged with these characters as if they’re alive right now. We laugh at their predicaments, get kilig at their push-and-pull banter. It helps that Mila del Sol is a magnetic presence alongside charming hunk Fernando Poe and beautiful Mona Lisa (as Fleur de Lis) seen here before her career renaissance in Lino Brocka’s Insiang. You can feel that Guia and Jose are truly lovers by the way Mila del Sol and Fernando Poe look at each other with earnestness in their gaze and performance.

Giliw Ko is one of the five full Filipino films that survived from before World War II, but it was in such terrible shape that the scanning and enhancing process was a painstaking process. “Most of the film elements were in bad shape. That’s why we had to repeatedly rescan some scenes frame by frame. The audio restoration was also a challenge, as the quality in parts had degraded to the point of being muffled, unintelligible, and grating. The scanning and enhancement were completed at ABS-CBN Film Archives while the audio was done at Narra by Wildsound Studios,” shared Leo Katigbak, head of ABS-CBN Film Restoration and Archives. In 1998, Australia’s National Film and Sound Archive restored a copy as a gift for the Philippine Centennial celebrations. ABS-CBN Sagip Pelikula’s restoration is a separate and new effort.

I’m grateful to experience this film in a free screening. I always love going to the movies, but I hate the cost of movie tickets. So, I make sure I get to attend free screenings of older Filipino movies. I give my gratitude to ABS-CBN’s Sagip Pelikula, LVN, NCCA, FDCP and the MET for organizing this screening. I’m glad to see another surviving Filipino film from the 1930s. Watching this at the same Metropolitan Theater where it premiered 84 years ago made me feel that I am part of a rich cinematic history. We have already lost much of our heritage to neglect that when efforts like this appear, I make sure to support and actively take part in preserving what’s left. Don’t let chances like this pass you by.