Bongao, Tawi Tawi - a town
at the edge of nowhere. It is the southern backdoor of a country inept of
providing employment to a good number of its population. And human nature
allows the hungry soul to seek greener pastures. In the far flung island of
Tawi Tawi (this includes the Turtle Islands just 20 kilometers north of Sabah)
are irresolute people who wish to impetuously seek fortunes in the Malaysian
territory. After all, an empty stomach would lead to a land perceived as
bountiful.
Jahid (Aljimar Hajijol), an
illiterate Badjao father of 9-year-old Daying (Arnalyn Ismael), is taking his daughter across the tempestuous,
albeit illegal sea border to find his missing wife. Problem is, they don’t have
enough to cover the fare of P2,500 per person. Fortunately, illegal trafficker
Hernand (John Arcilla) gets
desperate enough to take them in when a couple of Hernand’s recruits from
Basilan back out at the last minute. Mercedes (Ma. Isabel Lopez), an oft-returning hooker, joins the admiring group,
occasionally flashing her lucrative “gifts”
– the contentious fruits of her 8-year gruntwork. This has so bedazzled the
gullible young Lydia (Ross-Ann Daklis)
who dreams of a plethora of wealth. Each one dreams a life away from the
incessant barrage of tactical violence and abject poverty that delineate the
region. On a balmy evening, Hernan takes his “customers” on a leaky outrigger boat to the tumultuous shores of
Malaysia.
While on board the banca, they passengers hear each other’s stories and
dream of better lives en route the turbulent waters, seemingly oblivious to the
precariousness of their impending arrival to an unwelcoming terrain. At a
refueling station, young and naïve Lydia gets a dose of her future when she
gets raped by a man Hernand owes money to. What awaits our fortune seekers on the dark and treacherous shores of Sabah?
Director Sheron Dayoc tells
his stories straight and without much narrative ruse that even the music employed
to coat the story never overwhelms. In fact, "Halaw" (Ways of the Sea) is almost documentary in form.
There is a lesson to be learned here: when there is a story worth telling, you
don’t need any other diverting gimmicks like loud foreboding music, expensive
special effects, distracting side stories, gratuitous sex, etc. You don’t even
require melodramatic contrivances (indisputable in Star Cinema dramas about
migration like “Milan”, “In My Life”, “Love Me Again”, “Caregiver”,
“Dubai”) to engage your viewers or
impart a didactic dispatch. You only necessitate a valid story, the knack of
telling them (artistically, of course), a decent cast and a more than competent
cinematographer (after all, cinema is a visual medium – and you should not tell
your stories on a blurry, dizzying, nebulous canvas).
John Arcilla appears in one
of his career’s best performances. Bereft of his vocal crutches and, more
significantly, cloaked in comfortable scenario, Arcilla imbues his character
with enough pathos to be encompassingly desperate, sympathetic, compelling and
scary (the scene where he tries to convince the young teachers to pursue the
trip was particularly spine-tingling because you knew there was nothing that
awaits the girls in Sabah). More than anything, this is a successful ensemble
work, carefully and impressively admixing veteran and amateur actors. You
hardly feel awkward moments intermittently found in independent films such as
this. Moreover, the amateurish proclivity of regional cinema is hardly
noticeable here. One of its advantages is its brisk story telling – the film
clocks at 78 minutes – and really underlines the fact that you don’t need an
indulgent 2 hours to tell a good story!
“Halaw” is Malaysian Bahasa
for “driven away” or its Tagalog
translation, “Itinaboy”. The film won
its well deserved award at the Berlin
Film Festival in 2011; several awards at the Cinemalaya in Manila and other
international festivals. It is thus such a pleasure to finally catch this film
(May 21, 2012) at the recent Asia As Our
Society Film Festival at the Shang Cineplex. “Halaw” (released in 2010) seems low brow and unfamiliar. Not a lot
of people is aware it even exists, regardless of its winning awards here and
abroad. Isn’t that simply undeserved?
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| Ma. Isabel Lopez plays Mercedes who's been around and has been doing the journey for 8 years. |
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| Arnalyn Ismael is 9 year old Daying. The Badjao child is braving the Sulu Seas to find her mother in Sabah. |
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| John Arcilla plays Hernand , the illegal trafficker. He won Cinemalaya's Best Actor in 2010. |
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| Beauty, dearth and danger in Bongao, Tawi Tawi. |
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| At the southern tip of the Philippine archipelago is Tawi Tawi which includes the Turtle Islands, 20 kilometers from Sabah. |
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| "Halaw (Ways of the Sea)" is relatively popular in the international festival circuit, but almost unheard of in the Philippines. |
