Disclaimer: This transcript has been lightly edited for readability. Timestamps are as recorded.

Disclaimer: This transcript has been lightly edited for readability. Timestamps are as recorded.

Sam (00:14):
Welcome back to Rosie the Reviewer. This week we’re talking about the film Oro, Plata, Mata, or Gold, Silver, Death in English, which came out in 1982. This is a Filipino film, primarily in Tagalog with some Spanish. It’s directed by Peque Gallaga, with a screenplay by Jose Javier Reyes, from a story by Peque Gallaga, Mario Taguiwalo, and Conchita Castillo.

The film depicts two wealthy Filipino families as they attempt to flee the effects of war after the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. The title comes from a Spanish Filipino superstition about architecture, wherein elements in a house, like staircases, will bring bad luck if they end in an element of three. So while you’re going up the stairs and you’re going oro, plata, mata, you don’t want it to end on mata, because that’s bad luck.

The families in the film live out these three elements: from wealth in the city, to slightly less luxury once they leave the city, to bad luck and death when they must continue to flee into the wilderness and are attacked. The film won six Gawad Urian Awards, which are the annual Philippine Film Awards, including Best Picture, and it’s available on YouTube. What did you think of this movie?

Maartje (01:21):
I thought it was good. I thought it was long. I thought it was difficult to follow at times. But it’s a slow-burn movie. It’s not action, action, action all the time. It’s interesting, it’s a very different culture from anything I’ve ever seen myself, and that’s what makes it interesting. I don’t know if I like what they try to do to one character at the very end, but we’ll talk about it when we get to it. I like the acting, the acting’s good. It’s a beautiful film visually. Everyone looks really beautiful, but also everybody kind of looks the same. The same thing we get with the white guys, I also get in this movie a little bit, where I couldn’t always tell who was who, especially because it’s also in the dark a lot. But overall it was a neat, enjoyable watching experience, if a difficult one. How about you?

Sam (02:17):
Yeah, so I’ve seen this movie twice now. I first watched it when our guest from our mythmaking episode, who’s from the Philippines, Other Sam (just Sam, but we call them Other Sam because they’re on the podcast with me), had recommended this movie. So I watched it originally right after we did that episode, and then I forgot about it basically, and now we’re actually covering it, so I watched it again.

I think the first time I watched the movie, it felt a little long to me. I thought it could have benefited from an editor. But now that I’ve watched it again and I’ve really had a chance to think about what this movie’s actually about, this focus on class and these wealth disparities and how that informs so much of what happens in the movie, I think even all of these downtime scenes in between the violence are really important, because they show us so much about who these people are and what kind of lives they live. At the beginning, when they’re living in wealth and luxury, the camera really lovingly focuses on these beautiful clothes they’re wearing and all these beautiful things they have and these gorgeous houses.

And I think it’s super interesting. As you say, we don’t necessarily know a lot about civilians in the Philippines. We did do a previous episode on So Proudly We Hail, where we talked about U.S. Army nurses in the Philippines, and we may have talked about civilians a little bit, but this gives us a real look into the lives of some people. We get to see these super wealthy people and their servants, and how this situation casts these class differences into really stark relief, in a way that them living their everyday lives didn’t necessarily do. So yeah, I enjoy this movie. I think it’s super interesting.

Maartje (03:56):
Also, there’s a war on. As you can hear us talk about what this movie’s about, it is a war movie. The war is more the catalyst for what happens to these people rather than the main event of the movie. It’s interesting, especially if you want to go listen to our episode with Other Sam. I’ll link it on the website. It will put into perspective why this movie is the way it is, I think.

Sam (04:23):
Yes. And the one thing I did want to agree with you on is that there are parts of it that aren’t lit very well at night, which is…

Maartje (04:28):
(laughs)

Sam (04:29):
Yeah. And I think even at the end, the fight scene is very monochromatic. Everything is either completely cast in shadow or it’s reds and oranges, and I find that not very helpful. It doesn’t give your eyes a lot to glom onto, I guess.

Maartje (04:43):
And everybody’s wearing a white shirt and khaki pants.

Sam (04:47):
Yes, yes, unhelpful.

Maartje (04:48):
Anyway, you have some context for me, us, everybody. So give me context.

Sam (04:54):
Yeah. As we discussed on our episode on So Proudly We Hail, the Philippines was under the control of the Americans at the time, and it was attacked by Japan just after Pearl Harbor, on December 8th, 1941. This was kind of an unfortunate time for the Philippines to be attacked, because American military presence on the islands had been diminishing since legislation was passed in 1934 to guarantee Philippine independence within ten years. The goal was that the Americans were going to hand over military defense of the Philippines to the Philippine Army. But the Philippine Army was very new. They weren’t super well trained. The Americans were supposed to give them equipment, but they were just giving them these old shitty castoffs. So nobody was very prepared to defend the islands when World War II kicked off.

The Americans were finally defeated by the Japanese and thrust out of the islands at the Battle of Corregidor in April of 1942. A Filipino guerrilla resistance movement continued to fight the Japanese throughout the war, and the Americans ultimately returned in late 1944, but the Japanese were not finally dislodged until the war ended in August of 1945.

During the occupation by Japan, the civilians were, I think as Other Sam put it, used and abused. It was a really brutal four years. They were subject to forced labor, starvation, rape, torture, and murder under the Japanese occupation. An estimated one million civilians died overall, and the islands suffered destruction of much of their infrastructure and their housing. The Battle of Manila was one of the most destructive urban battles ever fought.

And the more specific context for this movie: there was a significant gap between rich and poor in the 1920s and 1930s in the Philippines. Wealthy landowners, resulting from the Spanish and then the American occupation, benefited from the growing amount of rice and sugar being produced on the islands, while the poor suffered most from price fluctuations and a growing reliance on the land due to unemployment brought on by the Great Depression. So that’s the context we find ourselves in here at the beginning of World War Two.

Maartje (06:51):
With that, let’s get into the plot.

Maartje (07:02):
Before we get into the plot, I have some news for you. Our friends Lisa and Kristen, who made the Beb and Bob Collateral Damage Podcast, are up for an award. They are up to win a Lovie Award. The Lovies are the European equivalent to the Webbies, and they celebrate any type of internet creation, from digital marketing to podcasts and more. They are up for an award in the podcast category, and the award they’re up for is Best Individual Episode. They are up against one other podcast, so they have a real shot at winning. And it is a People’s Choice award, so your vote and ours can actually make a difference in whether they win or not.

Maartje (07:49):
In their episode, they tell a really unique personal story of World War II, and as you know, we’re pretty big fans of those.

Maartje (07:57):
So I would like to encourage you to help them out and give them your vote. You can do so at lovieawards.com by clicking on Vote Now, going to the Podcast category, and then finding Best Individual Episode. You do have to sign up to complete your vote, but it’s a really easy process and it would really help these two lovely independent creators to win an award that they really deserve. Thank you for your time, and I will now take you back to our regularly scheduled episode.

Maartje (08:38):
There is a very, very long opening quote, and if you try to read it on the screen, I want to wish you good luck, because it goes by very fast. I was like, hold up, wait a second, too fast. I shall read it for you, so bear with me, please.

“The lights went out all over Europe, and the young sought sweetness and light in pictures of Deanna Durbin, a bright symbol of the era, and the young Susan Magalona, whose beauty had become a national topic. At the Crystal Arcade, the mezzanine still rang with the cries of gold, gold, gold. The holocaust had been kindled, but the victims were unaware, and the nation swung confidently into the nineteen-forties. The decade of disaster fell into three unequal parts: the two years before the war, the period of the Japanese occupation, and the liberation era. No decade in our history was more eventful than this one. So fast now seems the difference between what we have become and what we were before disaster struck that, in the Philippine vernacular, the term ‘peacetime’ means exclusively all the years before December 8th, 1941. There has been no ‘peacetime’ since then.”

And this is a quote by Nick Joaquin, who was an author in the Philippines, quite famous.

Sam (09:59):
Yes. And when we talked to Other Sam about this, they were talking about how there aren’t a huge number of World War Two Filipino movies, because they were occupied by the Spanish for four hundred years, and then they were occupied by the Americans for a few decades, and then after the war Filipino politics kind of imploded in many ways. There was a dictatorship under Marcos for a little while. So this four-year period under the Japanese, while horrible, was just one little blip in a long period of Filipino suffering. So yeah, definitely a quote that puts that in context a little bit for us.

Maartje (10:33):
Yeah, Sam also said in our episode that martial law lasted for about twenty years. So what is three years, really?

Sam (10:42):
Yes, yeah, exactly.

So we find ourselves on the island of Negros, which is an island in the central Philippines, south of Manila. The Philippines is kind of an archipelago, so there are lots of different islands, lots of different specific cultures, even different languages spoken in the Philippines. And it’s mid-December 1941. A group of wealthy Filipinos have gathered to celebrate the birthday of teenage Maggie, played by Sandy Andolong, in full opulence and luxury. It’s a beautiful party. There’s music playing. There’s a ton of food. Everyone is having a good time. A group of men, including Maggie’s grandfather, Don Claudio Ojeda, played by Manny Ojeda, have an unserious discussion about the Japanese invasion. Some of the men are talking about, well, maybe we should prepare, and some of them are like, no, the Japanese are going to be kicked out by the Americans, it’ll be no problem. Though there are men in uniform about.

Young Miguel Lorenzo, played by Joel Torre, is prohibited by his mother, Inday Lorenzo, played by Fides Cuyugan-Asensio, from joining the army. In an act of impetuousness, Miguel kisses his sweetheart, Maggie’s sister Trining, played by Cherie Gil, in the garden. The night sours when news arrives that a civilian ferry, the SS Corregidor, has been sunk by a mine, with the loss of life affecting many party guests and bringing the war to their doorstep.

Maartje (12:03):
This party, man. I’ve never seen a party like this. The dresses are freaking beautiful. I was like, someone’s getting married, but it’s just a birthday party. But yes, it’s very lavish. I was like, this is going to be a pretty movie. And it will stay pretty even when disaster strikes, but still, disaster is pretty disastrous later on.

Sam (12:24):
Yes. And what we’ll see, I think, more as the movie goes on is that this kind of event, this kind of treatment that these people receive, doesn’t exist in a vacuum. A ton of work goes on behind the scenes to make all of this possible. As the movie progresses, we will see more of what the servants are having to do, this really difficult labor in order to make these lives possible. When you think back on this party, you’re like, wow, this probably took weeks and weeks for the servants to put together, and of course the people who are getting the credit are the wealthy people who threw the party.

Maartje (12:55):
Yes, and they also talk about their slaves. Let’s say it like it is, really, in a very glib way. They talk about the gardener at some point during this party, and you’re like, this is going to end badly. You can already tell.

Sam (13:12):
Yeah. And about the SS Corregidor, this was a civilian ferry, as I said. Many people were desperate to leave Manila at this time. This was December 17th, 1941, so the Japanese had been bombing Manila and they were making progress inland, and a lot of people really wanted to get out. There may have been as many as fifteen hundred passengers aboard the SS Corregidor. Technically the ship was supposed to carry a lot fewer than that, but there was a tendency for these ferries to become overfull, since the captain could make a little bit more money. In this particular instance, a lot of people were climbing aboard even though they were not on the manifest. They were bribing the captain to get on, et cetera, et cetera. So this ship was very overcrowded. The captain sailed early, and we don’t really know why, but he failed to notify the army or seek clearance to pass through the mined channel.

A gunboat tried to intercept the ferry; it was ignored. The US Army at Corregidor spotted the vessel, but Colonel Bunker, who was in charge and who could have changed the mines in the channel to safe mode so they wouldn’t explode, didn’t do that. And again, we don’t really know why. And the ship struck a mine, of course, tragically, and fewer than 300 people were rescued from the water. So a lot of people died. Captain Calvo went down with the ship, and Colonel Bunker died as a POW in Japan, so we don’t really know the reasoning on either side, but it’s this massive, senseless tragedy. And of course for the people at this party, even though a war has been happening, it really has not impacted them until people that they actually know have been killed.

Maartje (14:42):
So this was an American mine that they sank on.

Sam (14:45):
It is, yeah.

Maartje (14:46):
Because that wasn’t entirely clear, I think, from the movie. So that’s shocking to me.

Sam (14:51):
Yeah.

Maartje (14:52):
I kind of assumed it would have been, but now thinking about it, why would it have been Japanese? It would have made no sense. So yeah. Wow.

Don Claudio’s daughter-in-law, who is also Maggie and Trining’s mother, her name is Nena, and she’s played by Liza Lorena, receives a letter from Inday inviting the family to stay with them at the relative safety of their rural plantation as the war draws closer. The family transplants their lifestyle to the plantation, and here they engage in frivolity, playing endless rounds of mahjong and relying very heavily on their servants, such as their foreman Melchor, played by Abbo dela Cruz, and his wife Estrella, played by Mely Mallari.

Also, mahjong as a symbol of their wealth is really funny to me.

Sam (15:41):
I know. There’s a character later who’s talking about how they all owe each other thousands of pesos, and it’s okay, you can pay me when the war is over, et cetera. It’s very funny. It’s kind of an anchor for these women, where they sit around the table and it’s an excuse to gossip and all that.

Maartje (15:55):
And it’s the one reminder they have at all times of their old life. I think it’s really interesting to use that as a traditional wealthy people’s game to play, but then also they take it with them wherever they go. I thought it was really smart.

Sam (16:13):
It is. And I also think, if you think about it too, mahjong is a Chinese game. So a lot of these wealthy landowner types would have some Spanish ancestry, but their culture also would have drawn from other Asian cultures that influenced them over the centuries. So even though they are sprinkling some Spanish into their speech and they’re doing things that in some cases have American influence, they also have these other cultural influences coming in. It’s really interesting to me, who obviously has never been to the Philippines and doesn’t know a lot about the culture.

Maartje (16:47):
One more thing I wanted to say about this scene is actually the kids in it. I struggled to determine the age they were, and I think they were a bit younger than I thought they were, because later on I think Miguel says he’s only sixteen. I was like, well, he looks twenty-three, so help me.

Sam (17:10):
Yeah, I think I had the impression that they were maybe sixteen-ish, because it seems to be fine with the parents that the girls are courting guys a little bit, but at the same time the parents are very much sheltering them and still telling them what to do to a large degree. So I felt like older teenager was where I was landing.

Maartje (17:32):
Yes. And I do like Maggie and Trining a lot as sisters. They are very different from each other, and I think that’s really smart, to make them so different.

Sam (17:43):
Yeah, that is really a strength of this movie. All of the female characters are very different. They’re all very well developed. They all tell us something a little bit different about the society they come from. I really enjoy that.

Maartje (17:56):
Yeah.

Sam (17:56):
News reaches the families that Corregidor and the Americans have surrendered to the Japanese, so they are leaving the Philippines at the mercy of the Japanese. Two more friends arrive to stay with them, fleeing the cities. They are Jo Russell, played by Mitch Valdez. She’s a doctor, she’s very pragmatic and modern-thinking, and she’s married to an American. And Viring Ravillo, played by Lorli Villanueva, she’s a very superstitious gossip. She always wears all of her jewelry. She can be an extremely irritating character at times, but she’s also a really fascinating insight into the kind of culture they live in. The women are all intensely religious, but they’re also often hypocritical. They like to gossip. So now we have these four women together, and they’re the main adults here at the villa.

Maartje (18:43):
Viring, I can’t with this lady. She just annoys me so much.

Sam (18:47):
I know. Every time she did that loud, shrill, peeling laugh about things that weren’t really funny, I was like, my god, they did such a good job of making this woman the kind of aristocrat you love to hate.

Maartje (19:00):
Yes. She’s such an older-auntie kind of character too, but not the fun auntie. Huh?

Sam (19:07):
No, you can tell that everyone else rolls their eyes at her a little bit behind her back.

Maartje (19:12):
And I think she knows. I think she just doesn’t care.

Sam (19:15):
Yes.

Maartje (19:15):
The young people in this movie feel very smothered by their parents, and they find whatever moments they can to get away. Maggie and Miguel, who likes to stargaze, have a moment on the roof together, and she explains to him that she hasn’t received any letters from her soldier boyfriend, Ramon. Meanwhile, Nena and Inday, who are both widows, discuss how they had found themselves trapped by their marriages. The adults discuss the possibility of having to flee further into the mountains should the Japanese get closer. And I just want to say, the unbotheredness with which they discuss having to flee to the mountains reeks of privilege to me. They’re just like, well, I have this tree house in the jungle and we can just go there and it’ll be fine.

Sam (20:03):
Yeah, because to them, though the servants will have to work that much harder to provide them with the quality of life to which they have become accustomed, they’re not going to notice, you know?

Maartje (20:15):
No, right. They think they’re unfriggin’ touchable too, all the time.

Sam (20:20):
Yeah, these are definitely intensely spoiled people. The other thing that I enjoy in this movie is that it explores and interrogates masculinity versus femininity in a lot of ways. We get this conversation between Nena and Inday where they’re talking about how the rest of your life is going to hinge on what kind of man your family approves for you to marry. In some ways the deaths of their husbands liberated them, and in some ways it made their lives that much harder. And of course, the character of Miguel, the whole movie is being razzed because he’s viewed as a wimp because he’s not in the army, and Trining doesn’t find him masculine enough. She doesn’t think he’s brave and courageous and all the things a man should be. So this movie has a lot of messaging around that, and I thought that was really interesting, especially on my second watch. I was noticing it a lot more.

Maartje (21:13):
Which is also what I’m sort of angry about, what I alluded to in the introduction, is that I don’t like where they take Miguel at the end. I have thoughts.

Sam (21:23):
Excellent. Can’t wait.

Maggie and Trining’s nanny, a woman called Nanny Tating, played by Mary Walter, disappears one night. In the distance our protagonists can see fire and vehicles approaching. Everyone panics. They, of course, assume this is the Japanese. Inday is inconsolable when she believes that Miguel is lost, though really he’s just on an extremely awkward double date with one of the family servants, Estrella’s son Lucio, played by Agustin Gatia. The family pack their things and prepare to flee to a mountain retreat.

Maartje (21:52):
There was so much screaming in this scene. I was like, Jesus, calm down.

Sam (21:57):
I know. Don Claudio comes in at one point and he’s like, everyone needs to chill the fuck out, and I was like, I’m grateful to you, because man, there was a lot of yelling.

Maartje (22:06):
You can also tell that these girls specifically have been raised by their nanny, who they love very much, and they’re very upset about not finding her anywhere. We don’t actually know what happens to her, right? We see her walk into a field and then we skip to the evening part. So I’m like, what did happen to her? I don’t think we ever do find out. We can assume…

Sam (22:29):
No, she’s gone to look for Miguel, I think, and she just doesn’t come back. And for someone who’s such an integral part of the family, they don’t really spend a lot of time looking for her.

Maartje (22:40):
No.

Sam (22:41):
It’s kind of like, yeah, you’re a part of the family until it’s not convenient for us. And the girls do mourn her loss, and they talk about her later in the movie. And I think her loss too is also very symbolic for them in terms of, yeah, it’s time to grow up now. You don’t have this person who was willing to cradle you and sing to you and treat you like a child.

Maartje (22:58):
Right. I think it’s really interesting that Trining gets upset at some point and she goes to Tating rather than her mother for comfort. And I think that’s very telling.

Sam (23:08):
Yes. Also, we need to talk about the double date, because it just really made me laugh. So Miguel and Lucio had this conversation where Lucio’s like, so have you ever slept with a woman? And Miguel is like, no, I’ve just kissed one. And Lucio’s like, well, I have. And he proceeds to tell Miguel that he has slept with Jo, Dr. Jo, the woman who’s staying with them. So Lucio’s like, don’t worry, I’ll get you a girl and I’ll get a girl and we’ll come out here to this… I think they’re in the shoe-shaped tree house. So we’ll come out here…

Maartje (23:39):
Yes.

Sam (23:40):
…to the shoe with our girls and whatever. And so Lucio and his girl are going at it inside the shoe, and this other poor servant girl is sitting with Miguel outside and he’s pointing out all these different constellations. You could just tell by the look on this girl’s face that she’s like, I thought we were coming out here to smash.

Maartje (23:58):
Huh.

Sam (23:59):
What the fuck is going on? Who is this boring ass man?

Maartje (24:02):
Why doesn’t he want to kiss me or do anything? I love Miguel. I feel like I need to save Miguel from what this movie is about to do to him.

Sam (24:11):
I also wanted to talk about, in this part, I think it’s Inday who has all of these religious statues of Jesus and the saints and everything like that. And they’re all packing up, and they can only bring things that are important, right? Because they’re going into the mountains and they’re transporting everything on wagons and water buffalo and whatever. So she can’t bring all of her religious statues. So she calls in the servant Estrella and she’s like, I need you to put all these statues in a bag, and then I need you to bury them, and then I need you to apologize to them. It really kind of tickled me. It was very funny to me how she’s speaking to the statues and she’s like, well, I can’t bring all of you. And meanwhile she does bring this enormous painting of Jesus with her.

Maartje (24:52):
Which survives everything they’re about to go through.

Sam (24:56):
Of course.

Maartje (24:57):
Hmm.

Sam (24:57):
What would you do without a painting of white Jesus to gather around every night?

Maartje (25:01):
I don’t know. The whole praying, they pray about five times in this movie, and I made a point of noticing every single time they pray all together. And I think it’s funny, because they pray and then after they’re done praying, something horrible happens to them every single time.

Sam (25:19):
I know, it’s always these people who live in the lap of luxury and spare no thought for anyone else who consider themselves to be good Christians.

Maartje (25:27):
Yes. And then the scene right after, we see them leave, and there’s this really beautiful and haunting image of them passing before burning things, buildings I’m guessing. You only see the silhouettes, mostly of the servants actually, and their livestock. It’s this really symbolic image, to me at least, of their life going up in flames.

Sam (25:55):
Yes, this is the ending of the plata part of the movie, right? This is…

Maartje (25:59):
Yeah.

Sam (25:59):
…the part where they were still fairly luxurious, but maybe not as good as the city. And this part also kind of reminded me of Gone with the Wind. I mean, the whole movie reminds me a little bit of Gone with the Wind, but this part with all the burning especially.

Maartje (26:11):
Yes.

I feel like I have seen Gone with the Wind. I used to have it on DVD, but I think I’ve watched it only once, a long time ago, because it’s so long, and at the time it was one of those classic movies that I couldn’t really appreciate yet. So I don’t really remember, but I’m sure I saw the comparisons on the internet to this movie as well. It makes me want to watch that again, to be honest.

The mansion house is much more rustic than their previous accommodation, but initially it’s pretty tranquil. The families continue to entertain themselves, whether by swimming in a waterfall-y bit, playing more mahjong, or discussing very banal topics like their jewelry and their debt to each other, while the servants continue to work hard.

Unexpectedly, some guerrilla rebels who are known to Doña Inday show up needing help. They’re all wounded. Jo uses her doctor skills to help them, and the men take a few digs at Miguel for not joining the army or their fighting. When they leave, they leave one of them behind to help protect the family. This is Hermes Mercurio, played by Ronnie Lazaro, and he’s got a big either birthmark or scar on his face.

Sam (27:31):
Yeah. And despite that, get ready for some of this movie to be so poorly lit that you will not know if you’re looking at Hermes or Miguel. R.I.P.

Maartje (27:38):
I know. One of them is the sweet, innocent one and the other one is the rugged guerrilla rebel.

Sam (27:45):
Yes. Also, I think my favorite part about this bit of the movie is that when the rebels show up, they’re being led by Don Claudio’s accountant, who we met in an earlier scene of the movie, actually right at the beginning. He had come to Don Claudio’s house during the party and he was like, listen, we should start gathering stuff to move your family to the mountains, and Don Claudio was like, well, maybe not yet. So then we see him again, he pops back up, his name is Placido, I believe. He’s just leading this guerrilla group, looking very rugged and masculine, and you’re like, okay, I see you, Mr. Accountant.

Maartje (28:18):
Is he the same guy that ends up dancing with Nena at the very end?

Sam (28:24):
You know what? I didn’t notice, but very possible. You know what, good for Nena.

Maartje (28:27):
I think so.

Sam (28:28):
Good for Nena, okay? Good for her.

Maartje (28:30):
Yes. And I don’t know if you noticed this, but in some of the scenes we’re looking into the room that we’re sitting in, but we’re looking at it through these wooden planks of the cabin, and it makes it look like they’re in prison.

Sam (28:46):
You’re right.

Maartje (28:47):
It’s another one of those really visual clues to what part of the movie we’re in.

Sam (28:54):
Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good one, for sure.

Maartje (28:56):
To them it’s just a little summer retreat that they’re on. They’re just like, we’re just out here in the jungle and there’s fresh air and we like it.

Sam (29:04):
Yes. Although in many ways they all feel imprisoned by various aspects of their lives.

Maartje (29:11):
Yes.

Sam (29:12):
Trining, for example, this girl’s going through it, man. She’s having some mental health stuff going on. Everyone expects her to be with Miguel and everyone expects her to behave like a young lady, but she’s hiding in the wilderness from the Japanese and she doesn’t know what’s going to happen to her, and she just wants to go home, and she’s not an adult yet. She doesn’t necessarily have all the emotional tools to deal with this. So in many ways these social expectations also imprison them. Yeah, interesting. I’m glad you noticed that.

Maartje (29:44):
Yes. Yeah, tell me more about Trining in the next scene, please.

Sam (29:48):
So Trining sleeps with Hermes, and can you blame her? He’s very attractive and rugged. And when Maggie catches her, Trining is unrepentant. She’s basically like, look, I can still be in love with Miguel and sleep with other people. It’s just sex. She’s frightened all the time. All she wants to do is get out of there and survive, and so everything else feels less important.

Trining is one of those characters that I think, if you just watched it and weren’t paying that much attention, you could find her behavior a little irritating. But I think she’s so fascinating in terms of what the expectations are for these women and what she ultimately decides to do.

Viring, our lady who wears her jewelry all the time, discovers that some of that jewelry has been stolen, and she immediately accuses Melchor the foreman. Melchor has already been grousing about how the family treat him. He’s gone to the market earlier that day and he’s drinking with his buddies and he’s like, fuck those people. And angrily he defends his right to the jewelry. He’s like, I’ve done so much work for you, that is what I am owed at the very least. And he leaves, but he’s threatening to come back, and you know it’s not going to be good if he does come back.

Maartje (30:56):
No. Just one note on Trining: I did find her sort of annoying. But at the same time, like you, I am an adult and I also understand that this girl’s in a horrible situation. But also, she could have just broken up with Miguel. I don’t think he would have minded if she had. I don’t think he cared that much. But either way, yes, Melchor. You can tell this is going to end badly, and I’m wondering what the movie is trying to say here with him. Because he’s right, right? They do treat him poorly and they don’t pay him enough. But at the same time the movie turns him into the ultimate bad guy. So I’m like, which side are you on, movie?

Sam (31:40):
Yeah. And I think in some ways, what ends up happening to these people is less about him specifically and more that this is the product of greed and avarice and pride. This is what happens when you treat other people a certain way. This is what happens when there’s four hundred years of unfairness and oppression by the wealthy. They still live in a very feudal society, and this is kind of the inevitable reaction to that at a certain point.

Maartje (32:12):
And it’s really interesting that in the first scene, the party scene, they’re having a conversation. I don’t remember who’s having it, but they’re saying you can’t trust this man to be your foreman because they’re known to be untrustworthy, and I’m like, they’re just setting it up right from the start. Right there.

Sam (32:30):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. They’re talking about how, well, you can’t trust a Filipino as a foreman, you should hire a foreigner, kind of thing.

Maartje (32:38):
It’s just so racist.

Sam (32:39):
Yeah.

Maartje (32:40):
A wounded Japanese soldier ends up stumbling into the river where they’re having a little swim, they being the women. He approaches Maggie and Trining for help because he’s wounded, and he’s not very threatening. He’s sort of scary-looking and he’s drenched in blood and all that. And Miguel has a gun on him, and they call for him to shoot the Japanese guy, but he won’t. And it’s Hermes actually who comes to the rescue instead. Destroyed by his lack of action, Miguel decides to ask Hermes to show him how to shoot, because he’s like, shit, I don’t know how to shoot a man. I’m now not manly enough for this movie.

Sam (33:19):
Yes, and this is the only Japanese soldier we see in the movie. He is, I think, deliberately portrayed as non-threatening. He reaches out beseechingly to these girls for help. He’s not threatening them or anything like that. They just perceive him as threatening. It throws into stark relief who or what is the real enemy here for these people throughout this movie.

Maartje (33:40):
Yes. And also right before that happens, Trining is effectively trying to drown herself, and it’s her sister who has to keep her from drowning herself. Part of it’s her being dramatic, but also she is really not having a good time with her life currently. So it’s rough.

Sam (34:01):
Yeah, I think if we all think back to the way that globally our mental health was thrown askew by the global pandemic.

Maartje (34:09):
Yes.

Sam (34:10):
Then maybe we have some sense of what this poor teenage girl is going through, as she is forced to go live in the woods away from everything that she knows.

Maartje (34:17):
And also, if you’re sixteen you think the world is ending. Whenever something minor happens to you, you think it’s world-ending.

Sam (34:24):
Yeah. Exactly. You have difficulty with long-term perception, and you’re like, everything is very, very important. And it’s like, no, not everything is very, very important.

Maartje (34:36):
No.

Sam (34:36):
So Miguel and Hermes, two young men who might be able to protect everyone, are thus away from the house when Melchor returns with a gang of bandits to steal from his former employers. They kill many of the servants, including Lucio and Estrella, which is particularly notable, I think, because Estrella is actually Melchor’s wife and Lucio is her son. And the bandits also rape Inday, and normally I am not into that being depicted in movies, but I think the way they film it here is watchable. They cut off Viring’s fingers to get at her rings. It’s all very brutal and violent. Melchor invites Trining to go with the bandits when they leave, and she unexpectedly agrees.

Maartje (35:19):
Yes, she agrees, but does she agree, or is she more like, I don’t want to go but I’m going, otherwise I might get raped?

Sam (35:27):
I mean, she had just said to Maggie that she doesn’t want to be here anymore. She wants to go home. And I think she just finds the situation unbearable. So she views going with these men as maybe a possibility to escape from this stifling atmosphere she’s in with her family, from these expectations that are being thrust upon her. Maybe she sees the possibility of a little bit of adventure in it. But either way, she just needs to get out of there, and I think a lot of things feed into this decision. Even early in the movie, when she is kissed by Miguel in the garden, she complains to Maggie about it after. She’s like, he forced me, I didn’t really want to kiss him, and Maggie’s like, that’s just what men are like. So she has all these expectations of what male behavior should be, what masculinity should be. She’s unhappy with Miguel because he doesn’t display those traits of masculinity. Later on, in a way, she views these bandits as her opportunity to go with these men that she views as kind of rugged and exciting. So yeah, I think a few things feed into that decision.

Maartje (36:29):
Yeah. There’s another moment in the same scene. The scene is difficult to experience because it’s noisy and everyone is screaming and crying, and they make Nena play mahjong with them. That’s another really symbolic thing, where it’s this reminder of who they used to be and they’re now soiling that for her forever. It feels like revenge on their part a little bit, like, play your stupid game with us.

But this scene is clever. I think it’s a really well-done scene for what it’s portraying, and a lot of it is implied. I’m really glad that most of it is implied. However, there’s no absence of blood in this movie. They show a lot of blood.

Sam (37:13):
Yeah. There’s even a part where these bandits shoot a little boy, but it’s just so obviously fake. It’s almost like the blood appears on his head before you see the gunshot, so you’re like, yeah, I’m able to not view this violence. It’s kind of over the top.

Maartje (37:26):
Yes. It did make me very sad to see Lucio and Estrella die that way, though.

Sam (37:33):
I also think one of the things that trips Trining over into deciding to go with the bandits is that the adults don’t want her to.

Maartje (37:41):
Yes.

Sam (37:41):
The women are very much like, don’t take her, don’t go, and she has a little moment where she’s like, yeah, I’m going to go even though you don’t want me to.

Maartje (37:47):
Yes.

Hermes goes after the bandits to find out where they’ve taken Trining. The experience of all this draws Maggie and Miguel closer together, which you could see coming a mile away, as he tries to help his family members recover from their trauma. And I think this is actually really sweet. He opens the windows and the doors, and he hangs the portrait of Jesus straight again, and he’s like, come on, guys, and he makes them play mahjong. He’s trying to piece together all these pieces of the life that they had before, and I think it’s quite sweet. Life is much more difficult at the house without any food, because they’ve taken all of it, or servants to prepare for them. When Hermes returns, Miguel gets ready to go with him to fetch Trining, though Maggie doesn’t want him to risk it. She’s like, I know she’s my sister, but I don’t want you to die, don’t do it.

Sam (38:38):
Right. And Miguel feels like he has to. At this point his masculinity is really on the line.

Maartje (38:43):
Yes, I do like that he says it’s not for my family, it’s not for you, it’s not even for Trining, it’s for me. I do like that. But at the same time I don’t like that the movie felt a need to have him turn into this Rambo kind of guy for him to be viewed as muscular at the end of the movie.

Sam (39:03):
Yeah. Once he starts killing, he just can’t seem to stop himself from killing.

Maartje (39:07):
Mm-hmm.

Sam (39:08):
And I think that is almost saying something negative about it, right? He’s trying so hard to be masculine that he gets turned into a killer, and ultimately, whether you’re suffering violence or whether you’re being forced to perpetrate violence, it changes who they are as people. It doesn’t necessarily make him better that he has devolved into this.

Maartje (39:26):
We’ve talked about this before numerous times on the podcast, actually: that they make killing so difficult for him. It’s not this thing that he doesn’t have to think about. It’s something he has to move toward and be ready for, and the first time he does it, it’s difficult. And then, like you said, it becomes this almost inevitable thing where he can’t get himself away from it again. I think it’s well done. I just wish it wouldn’t have been necessary for him to go through it.

Sam (39:57):
Yeah. Hermes and Miguel reach the bandit stronghold. There’s a whole bunch of these people, and they’re in, I think, an abandoned hospital, and they have women there with them. Some of them appear to want to be there, but this could be a trauma response, fawning over someone who’s hurting you so maybe they won’t hurt you more. And the bandits are joking about raping women and stuff. These people are bad men.

Hermes is able to infiltrate inside and get Trining, but she freaks out and the noise raises the alarm, so the bandits know that they’re there. Hermes and Miguel start on a Rambo-style killing spree. They’re running through this building, shooting guys. And again, it’s kind of over the top. People get shot and fly through the air.

Maartje (40:42):
(laughs)

Sam (40:44):
There’s a lot of grunting. Ultimately they take out all of the bandits. Miguel kills Melchor himself. Melchor points the gun at him, but Miguel’s able to get a shot off first. A young girl played by Kuh Ledesma, who’s been abused by the bandits, is so overwhelmed by all the violence that she begs Miguel to kill her, and he does, and that’s kind of a big moment for him.

Maartje (41:03):
I thought she was a ghost, because we see her throughout the movie after they escape to the country. But yes, she’s this haunting figure in a pretty dress that’s in tatters, and she comes and she goes. We don’t really see where she comes from or where she goes afterwards. Like, we see her at the waterfall, and it’s Hermes who runs into her before. I thought she was a ghost at first, but obviously she’s a real person of flesh and blood, but she is meant to represent something other than human, I think.

Sam (41:38):
Yeah, she’s kind of symbolic. She’s a representation of a folkloric figure called a diwata. That’s how she’s credited in the movie. And her death wraps up the mata, or bad luck and death, portion of the film, representing how far these wealthy protagonists have fallen, what they have lost forever. In Miguel’s case, obviously, it’s the innocence of him as a young man that is gone.

Maartje (42:00):
The end of the war arrives, and this is also the end of the movie. Maggie and Miguel are to marry soon. Maggie introduces Trining to one of Ramon’s soldier friends, and they fought together, I suppose. The mood is more subdued than at the beginning of the film, despite the war’s end, and no one has fully recovered from their experiences. There’s a line that Trining has, and it’s aimed at Miguel, where she says, “They’re animals. They’ve no consideration for my feelings.” Which, yes, girl, but also, no, girl.

Sam (42:32):
Yeah, she says, “We’re all animals.” That’s what we’ve all become. You see Don Claudio and he doesn’t recognize his own family members. He’s just shattered by what has happened to everybody. And even though Maggie and Miguel are together, it’s kind of like, they’ve made the best out of a bad situation, but they’re all permanently altered in negative ways.

Maartje (42:51):
He even says “Who are you?” to Miguel, I think, so not very good. Poor Don Claudio.

And that’s the end of the movie. It kind of ends on a happy but sad note.

Sam (43:02):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And as we kind of said at the beginning, when we were talking about context, World War Two was so, so destructive in the Philippines and it impacted the lives of so many civilians, and even though this was a wealthy family, their wealth couldn’t shield them from it.

Maartje (43:17):
I just think it’s so interesting that the director and the screenwriter decided to make it about these two classes really, the servants and the wealthy, set against this background of World War Two that drives the whole thing to a head. It’s an interesting commentary on that life, for sure. Because these people aren’t necessarily unlikable people. They are just so used to what they have, and it’s so brought to them by these people who don’t get paid enough or treated well, and they just take it all for granted, and then it gets taken away and they realize that they don’t know anything else other than the wealth they’ve known.

Sam (44:02):
Yeah, for sure. They have to start taking life seriously for the first time.

Maartje (44:07):
Yes. Out of all of the women, I think Nena is the quietest of them all. But she’s no different in that she’s not any kinder to their staff, she just doesn’t speak up. She takes it all for granted. And I don’t…

Sam (44:22):
Yeah.

Maartje (44:23):
I don’t remember if the servants do stay with them when they have the choice to come with Melchor when he leaves, but then they end up later dying because the bandits kill them. Which is so rough.

Sam (44:35):
Yeah.

Maartje (44:35):
Yeah. Many thoughts, but not any specific ones for me at the end of this episode. We have to rate this movie, but before we do, I’d like to remind you that you can follow us wherever you get your podcasts and rate us five stars, or you can send this episode to your friend.

Sam (45:01):
Every time you send this episode to a friend, you get a blessing from White Jesus.

Maartje (45:05):
Excellent. Now we have to rate this movie, and I feel like it either has to be something with mahjong or White Jesus again.

Sam (45:13):
Okay. How many mahjong victories out of ten would you rate this movie?

Maartje (45:18):
I would rate this movie seven point eight mahjong victories out of ten. I thought it was really good, but it was really long and it is really poorly lit at some points. But I like the way it’s framed as a narrative and I like the imagery and I like the acting, so I like a lot of it a lot. So it’s a fairly high rating, and it just loses a little bit on account of it being so long and so poorly lit. How about you?

Sam (45:45):
I’m going to give it eight mahjong victories out of ten. I think, especially after seeing this movie twice, I was able to dissect some of these really fascinating themes a little bit better. I liked the artistic elements of the movie, as we said at the beginning, split into these three segments that this family goes through. Some very symbolic things happening. We see these scenes of luxury and opulence and frivolity interspersed with startling violence. And all of these characters are very well fleshed out. They all have these really delicious motivations that inspire them to act in certain ways. There’s some commentary on masculinity, there’s commentary on class, and I think it was really interesting to use World War II as a backdrop for all of that. So yeah, I enjoyed this movie. I think it’s a classic of Philippine cinema for a reason.

Maartje (46:37):
I feel like we as a Western civilization should watch more movies like this, because I’m going to guess and say that about eighty-five to ninety percent of our listeners have not heard of this movie. So do watch it. It’s a very big recommendation, and since you can just watch it on YouTube, you’ve got no excuse not to. So please do.

Sam (47:00):
Yes. It’s really cool when we get the opportunity to delve into social elements of places that we don’t necessarily know a lot about, that we have a sort of Western blindness to.

Maartje (47:11):
Exactly. Are you reading anything?

Sam (47:14):
Yes. I am reading A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. This is a very well-known book. It gets taught on a lot of college campuses in the US. It’s about the history of the United States, but from the perspective of people who don’t always get considered, so a lot of Indigenous Americans, Black Americans, women, and it has a lot of super interesting commentary on why history is told as it is. And I think we talk about that a lot on this podcast. So yeah, I’m really enjoying it. I am learning a lot.

Maartje (47:49):
That sounds really interesting. In the past week I finished both Memories of Anne Frank, for an upcoming episode, so stay tuned for that one, and a book called I Who Have Never Known Men, which is a weird one. It’s fairly short, and I don’t think I could have stuck with it if it had been a long book. It’s this dystopian thing about a girl who’s never known men, because there are no men, and there’s not anyone else either. So it’s this really isolating story about what it means to be a woman or a human, and to have agency, and all that sort of fun philosophical stuff. So it’s a good read, but it also left me feeling a little bit hopeless, so I’m reading something different now.

I think I mentioned it before, because I started it ages ago and then kind of put it aside, but I’m reading The Correspondent, which is the story of a woman who’s losing her sight, so she’s writing to all these people that she knows, and it’s a book told entirely through correspondence. So it’s either newspaper articles or emails or letters, and it’s an interesting way to frame a narrative. I just think you can only do it once, so it better be good.

Sam (49:11):
Yeah, that sounds interesting.

Maartje (49:12):
It is nice, but you know, I’m about a third of the way in, so I can’t say definitively if it’s just the novelty of reading only correspondence or if it’s actually a good story. Who knows? We’ll see. Anything else to impart on our listeners?

Sam (49:29):
No, not for me.

Maartje (49:30):
Not for me either. So I would like to thank you for listening to yet another episode of Rosie. You can follow us wherever you get your podcasts and rate us five stars. You can follow us on Instagram at rosiethereviewerpodcast, or you can visit our website, rosiethereviewer.com, for more information and also the rating of this movie. And we’ll see you next week.

Sam (49:53):
Bye.

Maartje (49:53):
Bye!