"To
invest funds and other assets in such activities or undertakings that shall
directly and indirectly promote development of the film industry, including the
production of films and other terms and conditions as it may deem wise and
desirable;"
- Section 3 (9),
Republic Act 9167 entitled "An Act Creating the Film Development Council
of the Philippines, Defining its Powers and Functions, Appropriating Funds
Therefor, and Other Purposes"
Chito Roño's Emir, a seventy-million peso
endeavor by the Film Development Council of the Philippines, with generous funding
from the President's social funds and other government sponsorships or
partnerships, looks exactly the part. Set in the most picturesque locations in
the Philippines, from the
grandiose Banaue Rice Terraces to the rustic Paoay
Church, and Morocco, the film is mostly lovely
to look at, exactly like moving musical postcards from various touristy
destinations. The film also sounds expensive, with the several musical numbers
utilizing full orchestrations to sweeping and rousing effect. It seems that every
peso of the film's unusually hefty budget was appropriately spent.
The question
remains. Is Emir, a movie that
tackles the experiences of Filipino overseas contract workers, deserving of
such governmental support? Considering that the mandate of the Council is for
the development of the film industry and not the promotion of overseas labor or
local and international tourism, is the decision to concentrate such a budget
on one expensive production a wise one, when it would be undoubtedly more
helpful for the development of the film industry if such immense budget was
spread to many filmmakers who have films that are just waiting for a fraction
of the seventy million pesos to get made? The reasons and rationales for Emir's existence is of course are in the
arena of discretion, discretion that it is of the greatest import to celebrate
the accomplishments of overseas contract workers through a film, an expensive
musicale that is half-set in a foreign country. Decisions arising from
discretion are sadly a very difficult thing to controvert, and suspicious minds
can only entertain, well, suspicions. The film has been made, and the issue of
whether or not this decision based on the discretion of a government whose past
discretions or indiscretions have always been questioned but have never been
answered is proper is better discussed in other venues.
Partly based on
the true story of a crown prince of an Arab nation who can fluently speak both
Tagalog and Ilokano, Emir tells the
story of Amelia (Frencheska Farr), the daughter of poor farmers who travels to
Yememeni, the fictional oil-rich Arab nation that is on the verge of being
invaded by its neighbors, to be able to reverse the fortune of her family. She
is employed in the household of a sheik and is assigned to be the nanny of the
sheik's only son. True to her job, she rears the child not only to be
appreciative of Filipino culture but to treat that culture as his very own,
often interrupting his expected English or Arabic with bursts of
fluently-spoken Filipino phrases. While not tending to her ward, she either
swoons for a half-Arabic half-Filipino man (Sid Lucero) or entangles herself
with the issues of her co-workers.
Admittedly, there is something engrossing about telling the stories of these so-called modern heroes, those Filipino men and women who risk parting with their families and endangering their lives to earn enough for their families back home and whose only connection with the motherland is through these Filipino-made microphone-like contraptions that showcase Philippine vistas while displaying the lyrics to all-time favorite karaoke tunes, through song. However, Emir, even with its string of original songs, cannot muster enough sincerity to even approximate a fraction of the overseas experience. The film seems satisfied in approximating its influences, from its opening number, where hyperactive nurses, construction workers and dancers back-flip and gyrate to the incoherent rhythm of a song about the promises of overseas employment, which feels like a ghastly mix of Disney and Demy, to the lone near-lifeless Bollywood number where non-Filipino employees of the sheik suddenly enter the picture and dance to a pseudo-Arabic ditty, in token acknowledgment of their existence.
Save for O, Maliwanag na Buwan (O, Shining Moon), a high-powered duet
that resembles the raw emotionality and the unabashed lyricism of Aegis'
greatest hits, and is sung sublimely by heartbroken Amelia and Tersing (Kalila
Aguilos), who at that given point in the film were both left by their men, all
of the songs of this musicale are fleeting and unremarkable.
Had its
uninspiring musicality been its only problem, Emir could still have been a mildly entertaining diversion.
However, the film propagates a dangerous fantasy of a reality that gnaws on the
very core of what essentially is a national pride. In Hindi Ko Pinangarap (I Never
Ambitioned), the musical number where Ester (powerfully played by veteran
singer-actress Dulce), who recently resigned from her job as governess of the
house, proceeds to convince Amelia to take the job, she pronounces that the job
she reluctantly gave up is the pinnacle of their existences, irresponsibly reinforcing
a culture of highly-paid servitude as opposed to self-fulfillment. This is basically
the problem with Emir. While it is
unwise to blind ourselves to the reality that the Philippines is surviving
because it is exporting labor to richer nations, Emir never regards this
resignation to this new form of colonization (a near-accurate term especially because
this system of economy that relies solely on the fact that other nations are in
need of Filipinos' services and have the capacity to pay for Filipinos'
services result in the Philippines' being subservient to other countries'
superior wealth), as a serious problem, which it is.
As it is, Emir treats all these, from the very
real problems of these immigrant workers to the bigger picture of the country
being taken hostage by employer nations, as popcorn entertainment, equivalent
to a weekend noon-time variety show and nothing more. The fact that the
government, in all its benevolent discretion, decided to go this way in its
efforts to improve film production in the country, makes the pain, although
forcibly disguised in fancy colors and upbeat tunes, even more resounding.
(Cross-published in Lessons from the School of Inattention.)