Gutierrez
Mangansakan II's Limbunan happens during the entire month
where Ayesah (Jea Lyca Cinco), betrothed to a man she has never met, is
confined within her bridal chambers, as Maguindanaoan tradition would dictate.
The film's languorous pacing alludes to the glacial and oftentimes torturous
passage of time, where Ayesah, inevitably volunteered to sacrifice individual
pleasures as a matter of culture, struggles emotionally in the process. The
bridal chamber, as opposed to the open spaces outside as seen from the point of
view of Ayesah's curious little sister (Jamie Inte), is a curtailing setting.
The lone window that gives Ayesah a partial glimpse of the outside world opens
to reveal the vastness of unknowable possibilities torn by the conveniences of
tradition.
It is a very quiet film. Talk, although very
frequent, is deliberate. Silence is an enforced practice, especially among
women. Speech, like almost everything in the film, is treated with ceremonial
reverence. If and when these women, by virtue of their humanity, break the veil
of quietude and propriety, it is both scandalous and refreshing, as when the
silence of the night is punctured by child's play or brash talk of sex and
loveless marriages invade the sanctity of the bridal chamber. The film takes
its time, patiently breezing through what could be torturous days of Ayesah waiting
for either fate to take its course or the courage to change her fate. The dramatic
moments that sparsely accentuate the waiting only enunciate the emotional
imprisonment.
Mangansakan
makes it clear that while Ayesah is at the center of the narrative, she is not
the only woman that was restricted or silenced by tradition. Her aunt (Tetchie
Agbayani), tasked to take care of Ayesah as she is prepared to be a bride, has
her very own anecdote of sacrifice in the name of family and tradition. Limbunan is a collage of women silenced,
Ayesah, her aunt, her mother who has to share her husband with a Christian
woman, her little sister whose own youth combats her curiosity, by traditions
defined by patriarchal standards. Ayesah confides to her aunt about the
possibility of escape, of marrying a Christian trader; her aunt frankly distinguishes
marriage opportunities by gender, emphasizing the sad but undeniable reality
that men and women are not equal in the eyes of their culture.
In a sense,
Mangansakan tells the story of the land and its people via the pains of the women.
The film's beautiful final shot, where Ayesah, along with all the women in the
family, accompany her from the chamber to the wedding, is not so much an ambiguous
end to a story that pits the self with society as it is portrait of women, relaxed,
resigned yet resilient in the midst of minimizing their selves in the context
of society. The ending triumphs precisely because it is a gentle portrait of
quiet acceptance, unfazed by any inner turmoil.
Despite touching
these themes of repression and denial of self-actualization via the requirements
of cultural identity and for all the seeming obsolescence of these restrictive
traditions in a present age where democracy is preferred, freedoms are valued
and gender equality is emphasized, Mangansakan admirably takes a non-judgmental
stance. In fact, he grants the ritual and all the reasons and rationalities for
its continued existence due respect and reverence. Moreover, he meticulously
recreates a setting where cultural details, from the patterns in the cloths to
the singing duels prior to the wedding proper, are preserved. Limbunan, in all its stylized
storytelling and its undeniable splendor, is most importantly, a very personal ode
to his often misunderstood and misrepresented cultural roots.
(Cross-published on Lessons from the School of Inattention.)