Rituals of Remaindered Life in the Films of Kidlat Tahimik
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City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2019 Rituals of Remaindered Life in the Films of Kidlat Tahimik Alison R. Boldero The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3004 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] RITUALS OF REMAINDERED LIFE IN THE FILMS OF KIDLAT TAHIMIK by ALISON R. BOLDERO A master’s thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Liberal Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, The City University of New York 2019 © 2019 ALISON R. BOLDERO All Rights Reserved ii Rituals of Remaindered Life in the Films of Kidlat Tahimik by Alison R. Boldero This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Liberal Studies in satisfaction of the thesis requirement for the degree of Master of Arts. Date Karen R. Miller Thesis Advisor Date Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis Executive Officer THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii Abstract Rituals of Remaindered Life in the Films of Kidlat Tahimik by Alison R. Boldero Advisor: Karen R. Miller Kidlat Tahimik, who achieved international renown during the Marcos regime for his film Perfumed Nightmare (Mababangong Bangungot, 1976), is relatively unknown outside of international film circles. Considered a pioneer of Third Cinema in the Philippines, a radical film movement from Latin America that has since inspired similar movements globally, Tahimik challenged cultural hegemony in a postcolonial, post-World War II Philippines through the production of imperfect films. This paper looks to three of Tahimik's films - Perfumed Nightmare, Turumba (1983), and Why is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow? (Bakit Dilaw Ang Kulay ng Bahaghari, 1994) - for an alternative Filipino narrative as the current president Rodrigo Duterte seeks to overpower an already weak Philippine democracy using shades of the country's traumatic nationalist mythology under the guise of law and order. Using anthropological concepts of body and space in collaboration with film analysis and theory, this paper investigates Tahimik's concern for the rituals and traditions of an other Philippines remaindered by globalization, military occupation, and political upheaval so that we might also confront the same as a form of resistance. iv Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................................ iv Table of Contents .............................................................................................................................................. v List of Figures .................................................................................................................................................. vi Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 1 (Dis)order from Chaos.................................................................................................................................. 3 Locating Ritual in Embodied Space .............................................................................................................. 7 Chapter 1: Bamboo Dreams of Space Travel in Perfumed Nightmare ........................................................... 11 Go West, Young Man .................................................................................................................................. 13 Rocket Ships from Bamboo ......................................................................................................................... 17 Chapter 2: Devotional Labor in Turumba ....................................................................................................... 24 “The Madonna is Waiting” ........................................................................................................................ 30 Chapter 3: (Dis)placed Attachment in Why is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow? ....................................... 36 Filipino (Dis)placement of Third Cinema .................................................................................................. 41 Ambivalence after Revolution ..................................................................................................................... 46 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................................... 50 Works Cited .................................................................................................................................................... 51 v List of Figures Fig. 1 Still from Tahimik, Perfumed Nightmare (0:11:24) ............................................................................. 12 Fig. 2 Still from Tahimik, Perfumed Nightmare (0:03:45) ............................................................................. 13 Fig. 3 Still from Tahimik, Perfumed Nightmare (1:16:51). ............................................................................ 21 Fig. 4 Still from Tahimik, Turumba (1:24:10) ................................................................................................ 33 Fig. 5 Still from Tahimik, Turumba (1:24:25) ................................................................................................ 33 Fig. 6 Still from Tahimik, Turumba (1:24:41) ................................................................................................ 33 Fig. 7 Still from Tahimik, Why is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow? (0:00:51) .......................................... 37 Fig. 8 Still from Tahimik, Why is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow? (0:47:05) .......................................... 44 Fig. 9 Still from Tahimik, Why is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow? (1:24:19) .......................................... 49 vi Introduction Kidlat Tahimik’s work was recommended to me by Aily Nash, a classmate of mine at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), who helped organize a retrospective tour of his work when he visited the United States (U.S.) in 2012 (Nash 74). In an interview with Tahimik featured in Speaking Directly: Oral Histories of the Moving Image, Nash frames her conversation around his trust in the cosmos. She describes how he began making films, his creative relationships with other filmmakers, and his script-less storytelling style. From Tahimik’s answers and in an addendum he sent Nash that she includes in her interview, trusting the cosmos means “weaving the cosmic narrative” in collaboration with the natural world (84). In his search to portray his most authentic story, Tahimik places full confidence in “cosmic detours” or, in other words, the creative deviations that occur organically after a project’s conception during his filmmaking process due to unexpected circumstances. In “Cups-of-Gas Filmmaking vs. Full Tank-cum-Credit Card Fillmaking,” an essay by Tahimik that he presented at “The Challenge of the Third World” conference hosted by Duke University in September of 1986, he indicates that much of his filmmaking is left up to chance and believes that his “lack of resources can become a blessing because [his] time frame escapes this deadline obsession, and allows [him] to discover motifs” (83). By choosing not to profit from Perfumed Nightmare’s success after his film debuted at the Berlin Film Festival in 1977 and won the Prix de la Critique Internationale and both of the Catholic and Ecumenical Jury prizes (Sison, “Perfumed Nightmare” 182), Tahimik establishes his dedication to a script-less filmmaking style that resists commercial movie production, a decision that is “partly a necessity dictated by Third World realities and partly a choice to avoid the formulas dictated by bankrollers” who finance film industries like Hollywood (Tahimik 82). Although he acknowledges that the proximity of American consumer culture in the Philippines makes it an unavoidable influence, he resists the 1 mentality that time is money and turns the necessity of needing an open-ended production schedule due to a lack of resources in the Third World into an artistic discipline, requiring patience and a keener eye: Perhaps because film is the most expensive, most technologically dependent art form, there is a need for some form of discipline. One has to discipline oneself to save up for the next cup of gas, to buy a roll of film. One has to have the discipline to have enough light to enter the filmshutter, or to focus to register a good image. (Tahimik 82) Tahimik learned how to use his iconic 16mm Bolex camera when he found himself at a commune for artists during the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany (Nash 77), and he filmed Perfumed Nightmare on a US$10,000 budget “at a time when the average cost of a Filipino film was US$100,000” (Dixon and Zonn 297). While formulaic blockbuster movies with big budgets are meant to draw bigger audiences in order to yield the biggest profits, Tahimik accepts his craft’s financial burdens and instead regards each unexpected circumstance as objet trouvé, a phrase borrowed from Marcel Duchamp’s readymade art meaning “found