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1) Perfumed Nightmare (Mababangong Bangungot) , 1977
Direction & Screenplay: Kidlat Tahimik
Eric de Guia or Kidlat Tahimik is a jeepney driver in a small town with one bridge. He dreams to be part of a developed society, the kind that can send people to outer space. He founded the Wernher von Braun club in his town to honor his German-American rocket scientist hero.
The film documents his search for this dream, the unexpected detours, and his narrated musings on the developed world he longs for, Wernher von Braun, colonial relationships, and guess what, free will.
Moral: Kidlat Tahimik’s first attempt at filmmaking not only marked the beginning of the country’s Independent Cinema, it is also a complex pile of simple metaphors.
While the Martial Law theme of the film may not seem to exist at first look, many have studied Tahimik’s symbols pertaining to the US-monitored Marcos dictatorship and found that it indeed tackles that grim period in our history.
Epifanio San Juan, Jr’s essay in Rolando Tolentino’s Geopolitics of the Visible: Essays in Film Culture identifies these symbols as: the fairly simple shot showing the Marlboro Country billboard against a barren field and Tahimik’s intense interest in Voice of America broadcasts indicated the level of surveillance and control that the regime has embedded so deeply into the people’s everyday lives.
Perhaps Tahimik’s most important insight in Perfumed Nightmare is that it is possible to triumph over fate, to deviate from expectations, and to build another bridge to connect your old life to your new one.
2) Himala, 1982
Direction: Ishmael Bernal
Screenplay: Ricky Lee
In the small, arid town of Cupang lives Elsa, the faith healer who allegedly saw the Virgin Mary during a solar eclipse. Residents and tourists flock to her house to be healed while other Cupang townsfolk make money out of her by selling religious items outside her house.
Bad fate befalls Elsa and her friend and apostle Chayong as they get raped by two drugged young men from Manila. This incident causes Chayong to take her own life while Elsa gets pregnant.
Meanwhile, a cholera outbreak rises in Cupang, causing a few more deaths and Elsa’s house to be quarantined. Elsa's healing operations are shut down. This brings the town back to normal...until a supporter started proclaiming Elsa’s pregnancy as the new Immaculate Conception.
This is when she tells them that there are, indeed, no miracles.
Moral: “Walang himala. Hindi totoong may himala. Tayo ang gumagawa ng himala.”
Bernal underlined the significance of sariling sikap, a quality that will be cemented in Philippine History years later, through the People Power Revolution.
3) Oro, Plata, Mata, 1982
Direction: Peque Gallaga
Screenplay: Jose Javier Reyes
This 195-minute film focuses on the lives of two affluent families and their friends during World War II. Set during the onset of Japanese occupation in the country, it chronicles not only their desire for safety, but also their longing for normalcy.
And they get this sense of normalcy. Somewhat. The young men and women of the group fall in love, get a taste of jealousy, lose their purity, and ultimately come of age.
When Japan surrenders the Philippines to the US, the families try to bring things back to the way they were without acknowledging the indelible effect of the war in their lives.
Moral: The experience of turmoil may differ across classes (the so-called aristocrats, for one, will have a hacienda to attend to and will not need to steal to avoid starving), but the damages are all the same for everyone. As the movie famously says, “Ang giyerang ito… ginawang hayop tayong lahat.”
4) Batch ‘81, 1982
Direction: Mike de Leon
Screenplay: Mike de Leon, Clodualdo del Mundo, Jr., Raquel Villavicencio
Mike de Leon told a Martial Law story using the cycle of senseless violence in fraternities. His set of victims were neophytes going under a six-month initiation period. By the end of the film we see these men turn into the new oppressors when a new set of newbies apply.
The story of the Alpha Kappa Omega neophytes, and the allegory to Martial Law, was told through Sid Lucero, who, like the others with him and before him, has fallen prey to the futile exercise of power.
Moral: Batch ’81 shows how power—the lack or abundance of it—degrades one’s character to the point of ill justice, revenge or just plain futility of actions. The film reflects the people’s degraded sense of check and balance due to the regime’s abuse of power.
5) Karnal, 1983
Direction: Marilou Diaz-Abaya
Screenplay: Ricky Lee
A middle-aged woman tells the tragic story of a newly-wed couple who made the unfortunate decision of moving to the husband’s hometown. The wife, who’s (cynically) named Puring, attracts his widowed father-in-law’s carnal desires, when he realizes how much Puring reminded him of his late wife.
In an ugly twist of fate, the father-in-law acts on his desires and rapes Puring. His son ends up killing him.
Husband ends up in jail, and Puring tries to break him out of jail to escape to the city but he gets caught.
Moral: Tyranny ends with great sacrifice.
6) Sister Stella L., 1984
Direction: Mike de Leon
Screenplay: Jose F. Lacaba
Sister Stella is a nun that has been awakened to the government’s lack of support for the poor. She decides to champion this cause, much like the members of activist groups during the Marcos regime. But while fighting for the rights of the poor, Sister Stella loses her union leader and has her journalist friend tortured.
The film mirrored the experiences of many activists during the regime. They put into foreground the oppression without directly implicating Martial Law.
Moral: Sister Stella L reminded everyone of the realities of activism three years after Marcos lifted Martial Law. Showing their collective experience seemed like a call to come together and to remain vigilant.
7) Bayan ko: Kapit sa Patalim, 1985
Direction: Lino Brocka
Screenplay: Jose F. Lacaba
A couple works in the same printing press and finds out that they are expecting a child. Because of this, the husband asks for a raise from their employer. The employer agrees, on the condition that the husband signs a document waiving his right to join the workers' union. He signs the document.
After this incident, other employees form the union go on strike, and because faithful husband couldn’t join them, he was ostracized for being a traitor. The printing press ends up shutting down and, with his wife in the hospital, poor husband is pushed to enter a life of crime.
The events in the film were loosely based in true stories that happened during the start of the dictatorship. And while a lot of parts in the film were censored in its delayed release locally, Brocka was able to smuggle an uncut version to the 1985 Cannes Film Festival. He announced there that the film was banned in the Philippines.
Moral: Brocka was always vocal about his activism. Bayan Ko was just one of his tools to expose the dictatorial regime of President Marcos. And perhaps his best contribution to cinema and the country is this fearless willingness to expose the truth with whatever was going on in our society.
8) Southern Winds: Aliwan Paradise, 1994
Direction: Mike de Leon
Screenplay: Clodualdo del Mundo, Jr
Aliwan Paradise is one of the four shorts under the title Southern Winds. This 27-minute satire is set in ala Running Man(yes, Arnold!)-meets-Wowowee-meets-Filipiniana caricature, where Johnny Delgado plays the cruel host of the talent search show Aliwan Paradise. He and a group of judges are looking for a new kind of entertainment as ordered by their superior, an unknown figure who looks somewhat like Imelda Marcos.
Here the characters of Lino Brocka’s Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Julio Madiaga and Ligaya Paraiso) meet again under different, and maybe more unfortunate, instances. They also adapted stage names for the TV show (Jules Madiga and Gay Paradise), a witty, cynical twist that represents what De Leon has done to Brocka’s characters.
Like Running Man, the only real valuable thing in life in Aliwan Paradise, sadly, is survival. And like Willie Revillame (or at least what his detractors say of him), Johnny Delgado’s character exploits the poor for profit and power.
Towards the end, Jules convinces Gay that living in poverty is better than being exploited. So they decide to go back to the province, the judges are moved, and the host declares this as the new kind of entertainment that they were looking for.
Moral: We don’t need any more dictators. Nor do we need people who exploit the poor and the needy for their own gain.
