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‘THERE
were more than 300 bodies under our set and their
relatives left them there, buried probably for good. At
night, from location we go back to our lodging house in
Legazpi City on a big van and it seemed we were
jam-packed inside. To think there were only Lav (Diaz),
a soundman, a designer, a script girl, a production
assistant and us three actors. ’Di kaya join din sila
sa amin sa city?”
I
received this rather cryptic SMS from neighbor and beer
buddy Perry Dizon, a veteran actor for stage, film and
television. He was in Albay province at the time, part
of the cast of Lav Diaz’s latest nine-hour film
Kagadanan sa Banwaan Ning Mga Engkanto (Death in
the Land of Encantos).
The
location was barangay
Padang,
Legazpi City, also known as ground zero of the human
tragedy wrought by Supertyphoon Reming in November 2006.
I
replied telling him to just pray for the victims, even
if I was aware that he hadn’t done anything like that
for the longest time. They were in the middle of
shooting the film that was reportedly haunted by ghosts
of the typhoon victims.
“Minimal
lang ang budget. Allowance lang talaga. At
first, I thought it was a documentary for an NGO. Go
lang ako ng go. Kawang-gawa lang,” added Dizon.
Death...is
the story of a fictional well-known Filipino poet,
Benjamin Agusan (played sobresaliente by Roeder Camañag),
who has studied and lived in Russia for seven years. He
returns to his birthplace that has been destroyed by a
supertyphoon to bury his parents, loved ones and all the
beautiful memories of his childhood. He tries to heal
himself by confronting his past and the present traumas
head-on.
The film
was shot in black-and-white and has Diaz’s trademark
real-time shots, which has been described as the closest
experience that an interested viewer could get from a
refreshing, life-affirming meditation.
Even
though they were booked in a hotel, there were nights
when they stayed in the house of Bicolano abstract
painter and newspaper cartoonist Dante Perez in Legazpi
City. Perez has always been Diaz’s good friend and plays
host to the director and his staff whenever he’s
shooting in the Bicol region. Call it luck but when
Ronnie Lazaro couldn’t make it for his role as an old
man because of scheduling conflicts, Perez was asked by
Diaz to fill in.
“Lav was
hearing voices,” Perez told this writer in another
encounter. “He said the voices were asking for help, as
if they were still alive struggling in the rain and
flood.”
Perez
added there was a time when Diaz was taking a bath in
his hotel room and he heard those loud cries. Still with
soap on his body, he ran out of the bathroom and told
what he heard to the actors and crew.
More
vivid was what Camañag experienced. On location, he
would cry without reason. He would tell the other actors
that he was hearing loud voices, hundreds of them,
crying and asking, “Why only now? We waited for you. We
waited for so long. You failed us.”
Then
there were times when he would suddenly go blank and
forget his lines because he was seeing white images from
a distance, like white horses rushing toward him.
“It’s
like that final battle scene in The Lord of the
Rings: Return of the King, when Aragorn is being
accompanied by souls of dead soldiers. That’s how Roeder
told it to me when he came back to his senses and was
finally able to speak,” Dizon recounted to this writer.
The only
ladies on the set were Angeli Bayani, also an
accomplished tri-media actress who plays lover to
Benjamin Agusan; and Sophia Aves, an 18-year-old
Bicolano actress who essays the role of a ghost haunting
Agusan. They, too, had their own horrifying experiences.
Dizon
said that they prayed really hard—including the
agnostics and atheists in the group—whenever these
apparitions or voices would “attack” them. Of course,
the shooting had to go on, ghosts or no ghosts.
Like in
Diaz’s previous films, the postproduction wrinkles were
ironed out just a couple of days before the
Venice
screening. Good thing the computer didn’t crash this
time.
Death...had
its world premiere on September 8 as the closing film at
the oldest film festival in the world, immediately
preceding an event honoring director Bernardo Bertolucci
with a Golden Lion.
“Everywhere we went, starting from Day One, whenever we
got lost we’d just tell anyone with a festival ID that
we’re from the nine-hour film from the Philippines, and
they would treat us with respect and admiration.
Imagine, even days before we arrived, Death...had
been the talk of the town,” said Dizon.
It
seemed the encantos were there to give them good
luck, as the movie collected not a few good notices. For
Dizon and Camañag, being part of the festival was
rewarding enough. After all, they’ve rubbed
shoulders—or, better yet, asked for
photo-op-autographs—with the likes of Brian de Palma,
Bertollucci, Ang Lee, Zhang Yimou, Tony Leung and Heath
Ledger, among others.
Also in
September, it was in competition at the Artistic
Innovation Award (Visions) in the Toronto International
Film Festival. Sadly in Diaz’s home country, only the
encantos have seen Death...as the living audience
still await its local run. |
