QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM TALLINN

This is Jun Robles Lana’s fifth effort at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (all of which have been covered by us). The highly prolific 53-year-old director has demonstrated that he is extremely versatile. His films include drama (Kalel, 15, 2019), gangster (Big Night, 2021), LGBT+ (About Us Not About Us, 2022) and other genres. This time he has treaded on historical drama territory.

The story takes place in 1899, at the Americans (which would last nearly five decades) began their rule in the Philippines. We learn that their invasion claimed 100,000s of lives (a genocide, a title card informs us), with many more held in concentration camps (known as “reconcentrados”). Next we meet a dishevelled woman with very sad and sharp eyes (Hilda Koronel). She claims that she not to know her own name. She approaches a small community of female servants working for the Americans on a makeshift colonial outpost in the dry countryside. At first, the occupiers want to shoot her. The women beg them to spare the life of the stranger, and name her “Sisa” (after a character in a book by José Rizal, a famous Filipino writer).. She quickly blends in. Her quiet fury suggests that she conceals a tragic secret.

The allegiance of some of the female characters is ambiguous. The young and beautiful Leonor has an affair with American Commander Harrison. The other women try to convince her that the male does not reciprocate her feelings (after all, why would an oppressor care for someone from a land other than theirs, particularly one that they deem dirty and primitive). Thirteen-year-old Nena is smitten with the American tower guard Smith, in a paedophilic relationship that could have very serious repercussions for everyone.

Miss Warren, an American woman always dressed to the nines, sets out to change the perception that these women have of their occupiers. She wants to organise a ball for the Filipinas, complete with music, abundant food and drinks. The fact that she moves around on a litter carried by four Filipinos, however, does not inspire much trust. That many of these woman lost their husbands and children in the hands of Miss Warren’s fellow country people does not help either. The Americans here are painted as buffoonish and artificially friendly. The male Filipino rebels are not role models of dignity, either. Spies are abound, and they are prepared to sacrifice their independence in exchange of certain privileges. It is on the female characters that Lana places all the genuine hope of self-determination. Particularly Sisa. She is always at simmering point, seeking the right opportunity to charge.

In one of the film’s most interesting conversations, the Americans reveal their disdain for the Filipinos because they never learnt Spanish (“despite 300 years of colonisation”, it is argued). With such disregard for Western culture (which the Americans interpret as intellectual inferiority), how will they ever learn English – that is one of the questions that they revealingly pose. Ironically, English is now one of the official languages of the Philippines, and the nation has the sixth largest English-speaking population in the world. Perhaps the American colonisers were indeed more effective than their Spanish forerunners?

While the geopolitical, historical and gender commentary is enlightening, various cinematic issues compromise the integrity of Sisa. This is not a film with “high production values” (an industry euphemism for “a lot of money”). Lana creates films on a shoestring budget and deserves credit for that. In the case of a historical drama proposing some credibility (there are no elements of comedy here), this becomes a little problematic. Instead of authenticity, what we get is an unwarranted sense of shabbiness. The mise-en-scene is austere at best. The settings are very frugal. Hair and the make-up (particularly Sisa’s) are notably bad. With a duration of nearly two hours, Sisa overstays its welcome. It fails to rivet viewers throughout. A powerful ending partly compensates for the protracted viewing. Often, this film fails to reach the same heights as Lana’s previous features.

Sisa just premiered in the Official Competition of the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.