Cinema

Biyaya ng Lupa The movie showed how Filipino Families lived in the past. The main charaters, Jose and Maria, got married and started a life together, having four children. They were extremely conservative in how they ran their family; with the couple talking about how they shouldn’t fight too much because it would cause the downfall of their marriage. I like the movie because it shows how old Filipino films were at that time. It also showed how beautiful Rosa Rosal (playing Maria) was when she was young. It shows how persevering Filipinos are even in hard times. Jose and Maria’s lanzones trees were sabotaged but they still continued to grow their trees in hopes of bearing the fruits of their perseverance. When Bruno entered the picture, it interested me how people in the community believed easily in gossip about Bruno’s killing of his wife. Because of the gossip, people avoided him due to fear for their lives. Bruno then becomes resentful of the talk and turns into a person portrayed in the gossip. It is funny and true at the same time – true in the sense that it happens everywhere. The movie also showed how Manila was viewed at that time by the townsfolk. The scene where a young man wearing a suit, bragging about his city experiences was funny to me. Why would someone wear a suit in the middle of a hot day? Jose’s son, Arturo, witnesses this and decides to go to the city in order to live a good life away from the chores forced upon him by his mother. Arturo was feeling enslaved in his own family; Miguel who was deaf and mute was exempted from household chores. Arturo felt this was unfair and hence, wanted to go away to live a better life. What I did not like about the movie was that it was too melodramatic, like most Filipino movies. The drama scenes were too much for me (though the execution was funny, with overacting crying scenes by Maria and her children). I did not like it because drama can be shown in more subtle ways which are more effective and