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A TOTAL
of 85,000 drawings in almost 2,000 scenes that represent
8,771 feet of film, and 400 Filipino artists in digital
and traditional animation in studios that spanned from
Makati
to Palawan, were needed to resurrect from the mist of
myth and the crags of history the story of Urduja, the
warrior princess of Pangasinan of yore. Bernardo Carpio
can wait and continue stopping the two massive slabs
from crushing against each other. Dyesebel can go on
swimming and loving as she likes. And so with Darna, she
can soar on the wings of feature films. Komiks
characters never had it so good but, for now, at the
threshold of history-making, there is another character
aiming to stop the world with her appearance. She is
going to be animated through a full-length feature film
and, with spear and songs, she is going to inhabit the
collective consciousness. Urduja, that’s how the early
writers remembered her from the legend. And now, she
will be remembered as the first figure to receive a
tribute from technologies never imagined when she was
“alive” and reigning as a warrior-princess.
It is a
story as thickly described as those of heroes and
heroines whose personal tragedies involve being born in
a space and time where there was no one to chronicle to
them. No written history can vouch for their existence
and no proof is there strong enough to convince us that
she indeed lived somewhere in Taliwisi, what is
present-day Pangasinan.
MAGNIFI CENT OBSESSION.
Antonio “Tony” P. Tuviera, the man behind the
longestrunning noontime show Eat Bulaga!, spent 10 years
of his life and millions of his fortune into bringing
the legend of Urduja to a modern audience via the
first-ever full-length animated feature film produced by
Filipinos for Filipinos.
There
are many versions about her origin. One placed her as a
daughter raised by her father to be a warrior. Urduja,
it was said, did not mind being treated almost like a
man. She loved her father that much, and that was the
only way she could survive in the period when their
kingdom was always at war with the Batyaw. As with tales
of princesses, however masculine their upbringing, they
were still women at the center of social exchange, the
precious commodity to be utilized so that a kingdom was
ensured to go on forever. She had to be married off. In
the times of war and danger, love had a central place.
Not “Urduha,”
Tito, but Urdujah—jya, as in Cambodia. At the other end
was Dr. Juan Francisco, the country’s premier Indologist.
He is known for having studied intensively the myth of
Urduja. I was talking with him to tell him that I was
about to attend the press conference for the highly
anticipated animated feature film Urduja, produced by
APT Entertainment Inc. From him, I learned other things
about this heroine. That the name meant “anyone born in
a camp.” There is, according to Dr. Francisco, a story
about her coming all the way from
Turkey! Now, that could explain perhaps the legend about her
beauty. In the land of soft features, the sharp line of
Urduja’s nose and, perhaps, her physical strength could
well be the source of the awe she inspired in others.
This, however, remains a speculation. The debate goes on
in the world of historians and academics.
Before
Mike Tuviera, the director of Urduja, Reggie Entienza,
the animation director, and Mimbi Eloriaga, the chief
animator, there was no speculation, only this highly
inspired feeling. There was no doubt also as to why they
were venturing into animation by way of a legend whose
provenance is questioned. The choice is most auspicious
and, in terms of marketing, controversial. If there was
a debate, it was on how to draw the figures, how to make
them come alive.
The
point is that people were talking about Urduja, and now
they can still talk about her. The discussion need not
begin and end with her history. Children and adults
alike are going to be surprised by this version,
terrifically post-modern as it instigates more question
than the “originals” could ever have created. In the
animation, Urduja meets up with characters coming from
different epochs—imagined, constructed or otherwise—in
our history. A man named Lim Hang is an amiable person
falling in love with Urduja. Are we seeing here a
deconstruction of Limahong, that much feared pirate who
pillaged the northern parts of Luzon in the late 1500s.
He tried to attack
Manila, historians state, but was driven back to what is now
Pangasinan. He stayed there supposedly and set up
settlements. And yet, the animation does not say Lim
Hang is Limahong.
Further
teasing a history already on the spot, Lim Hang has a
rival in the person of the brave and scheming Simakwel.
Is this the Sumakwel of the daring group of Bornean
datus celebrated in the lore of the Panay Islands? Brave
and just in the discredited Maragtas Code, Simakwel is a
jealous, scheming temperamental suitor to the
understanding and gentle valor of Lim Hang. Animation
braves history and, more than that, uses the compelling
energy of animation technologies to retell a story long
forgotten. Is there a lesson to be learned from the new
episodes in this animation? Only the animation and the
audiences can tell.
In the
meantime, the animators of Urduja are clear about one
thing: they are not rewriting history. The story is
fiction and, as the classic caveat goes, whatever
resemblances to names and places and events are formed,
they are coincidental. With 18 years of animation
experience to her credit, Eloriaga simply describes
their Urduja experience as “unbelievably fascinating.”
The process was not free of problems, but Eloriaga said
that for every roadblock, an immediate solution was
reached leading them out of the hole into a solution.
For
Reggie Entienza, the writer of the Urduja’s original
script, the solution to the trap that written history
posed came in the decision not to pattern the story of
this woman to the life that the real Urduja of
Pangasinan led. Besides, Urduja may not have been real
at all. In that gap between real and reel, fiction and
history lies also the solution called animation and the
thousand and one imagination inherent in the process.
For the
other director, Mike Tuviera, and Eloriaga, Urduja is a
celebration. At the center of the feast is the Filipino
animator long celebrated but, contrary to the popular
perception, has always occupied the tail-end of the
animation process: post production. With Urduja, the
Filipino is there at the beginning of the
conceptualization. He is right there during the
preliminary sketches, in deciding the lines and the
contour and the color. He matches the movement and
behavior to the actors lending their voice and
conviction to the characters.
The cast
of voices—speaking and singing—is by itself an animated
band, starting from Eddie Garcia giving life to our
heroine’s father, Lakanpati, to the two talking animals
Kukut, voiced by star comedian Michael V., and Tarsir,
fleshed out flamboyantly by the inimitable Allan K.
Between them are Cesar Montano as the voice of Lim Hang,
Jay Manalo for Simakwel and Johnny Delgado for Wang, a
warlord. Mayumi gets life from another old reliable,
Ruby Rodriguez, and a Japanese character, Daisuke, is
enlivened by Epi Quezon. Stirring interest is the
singer-actress, Regine Velasquez, making history as
Urduja. Already, her voice singing that plaintive ballad
about being “Babae,” a warrior in a woman’s persona, is
hitting radio and television, all poised to becoming yet
another massive hit song that would be regurgitated in
countless karaoke bars and performance clubs headlined
by gay female impersonators.
Technology, creativity and more than 10 years are what
it has taken for the idea of the first full-length
Tagalog animation to jump from the drawing board to the
screen. Those years, according to Antonio “Tony” Tuviera,
the man who has resolutely and lovingly shepherded
Urduja’s journey into modern-pop culture, the same man
from the longest-running noontime show Eat Bulaga!, have
been necessary for this first-in-Philippine-animation
industry. People around Tuviera have described his
interest in Urduja, which began actually when he got
hold of a story about Limahong, as bordering on
obsession. When one ventures into the realm of history
and legend and proceed to bring tales from that area
into the accessible and pop, you cannot be anything but
obsessed.
Interestingly, obsession is what characterizes the Pinoy
animation industry. It seems to be the most focused
enterprise, with artists noted for doing things for the
love of doing things. It is an obsession that has made
the industry a major element in the outsourcing
universe. It sits with other sectors looked up to by
planners in the country, such as software development,
medical transcription and the ubiquitous call centers.
No other than the Asian Wall Street Journal early in the
’90s declared the Philippines as one of the significant
factors in the world’s animation industry. Hollywood
lives in this country with subcontracting heavy for
companies with field offices in the Philippines: Warner
Brothers, Cartoon Network, Hanna-Barbera, Marvel,
Dreamworks and Walt Disney. The country’s animators have
been drawing for world figures that do not have
footprints in the cultural ground from which their
skills sprung. X-Men, Nemo, the Addams Family, and Buzz
Lightyear are just some of those works finding their way
to legendary popularity via the finishing touches in the
post-production warehouses in Philippine cities.
Figures
show the
Philippines
contributes some 30 percent of the animation activities
in the Asia-Pacific Region. There is nothing mythical
here.
It is no
myth, therefore, the true meaning of the birth of Urduja
through the hands of Filipino animators. Contested as
the story may be, Urduja will be once more a part of
this nation’s search for identities. When asked why
Urduja looks like Mulan and Pocahontas (blogs and online
communities are talking about the resemblance, with some
raising the issue of originality), the animators talk
about the strategy of accessibility. People are used to
the Hollywood template. Why not go animé, with the
millions of otakus (obsessive animé fans) promising
fandom? We can go on with issues but where again one
takes into account the fact that for all the praises
heaped on the skills of our animation artists, the
Philippines has remained largely a huge post-production
hub, there is so much to yell about and stomp our feet
over the coming of age of animation in the industry via
Urduja. Never mind the clouds darkening over the
veracity of the characters in this work. Never mind the
collapsing of centuries between and among the characters
so they could interact in a story occurring on one
timeline.
The
animators, Eloriaga in particular, are conscious that
there is a Master Francisco Coching or a Botong
Francisco they can challenge themselves to imitate and
draw lines from but, for the moment, they will go
Hollywood and listen to a very popular songstress sing
the song of Urduja. She lives among animators now who
will find in her the inspiration to go back to the past
and reconstruct, deconstruct and even manufacture tales
that would make people ponder about the histories of the
island, wholly told from various perspectives. If we are
looking for the route to being called world-class, this
is it. And a warrior, a woman, starts the battle for
recognition while at the wings wait Juan Osong, Mariang
Alimango, the kapre and the tikbalang ready to seduce
the next Pinoy animator to make them live again.
During
the press conference, the venue was busy with press
people coming in and out. It was as if people were
visiting a newly born baby. Indeed, it looked like that.
The first full-length Filipino animated feature film was
born that day. A bit imperfect but you don’t say that of
the first-born. You rejoice. There will be others to
come. The good news is that there is already one. n |
