Jenn Romano’s ‘Padamlagan’ uses film to remember, stitching together interviews about the Naga tragedy using photographs to reimagine that era, while weaving in a narrative about a father whose son goes missing to encapsulate that feeling and making it tangible. The blurring of reality and fiction is an interesting use of the medium and pushes Romano’s message that the victims of the tragedy must not be forgotten. But Romano’s film aesthetic and style linger, is a quiet remembering but the story she is trying to tell needs a bit more volume.
The story in the middle of the retelling revolves around a father, Doring (Ely Buendia), who seems out of sorts, not fully in the present. He lives with his in-laws (Sue Prado and Floy Tena) while his son, Ivan (Esteban Mara), grows up and distant after a stint studying in Manila. The city of Naga is a buzz due to the fluvial procession for Our Lady of Peñafrancia. Ivan is at odds with his uncle and his father, unwilling to take part in the family going-ons and earning a reputation for being a troublemaker. When the Colgante Bridge collapses and hundreds die, Ivan goes missing. Doring spends the rest of the film looking for his son and witnessing the effects of that tragedy on the lives of the people around him.
In order to create that feeling of remembrance, Romano uses a lot of still shots. Her camera, lensed by Steven Paul Evangelio, barely moves while the world enters and exits the frame. Most of the time, the film takes a long shot keeping us distant from the characters and their business. This aesthetic can leave the audience cold because we don’t really get to see the full scope of the strains of the relationship between Doring and Ivan and Ivan with the rest of his family, especially his soldier uncle.
By using a still shot, the characters have to come into place, and this creates a lingering feeling. It slows down the pace and the energy of the film. It’s actually a standard 90-minute film but it can feel much longer. Except for a few actors, most of the dialogue in the narrative are delivered in short bursts with pauses or silences in-between lines. The dialogue doesn’t flow like conversational language, so the energy of the scene never really pushes through. Floyd Tena is the most conversational of the actors, delivering his dialogue (all of which is in Bicolano) with the most ease that his scenes are always the strongest, the most natural. Everyone else seems to be going through an emotional moment. Instead of nostalgia or emphasis, it makes the film feel over-dramatic.
As the main character, Buendia gets the most close-ups (followed by Mara), but unfortunately, Buendia has such a stoicism that he fails to really bring out his character’s interior world. The most telling of this is during the fluvial parade, where Doring is paddling surrounded by other paddlers on boats. Through sound effects, we realise the bridge is collapsing and all the other characters around him are panicking, their faces awash with horror. But Buendia’s face remains the same. There’s a slight tension in the jaw, but no other emotion comes out. His paddling doesn’t even change that much and so the effect of the tragedy is slightly diminished. And this is an issue I have throughout the rest of the film with him. He’s our foil, our way of understanding the story and the immense grief that followed the collapse of the bridge, but we never really get to feel it. On Mara’s close-ups, there is a world of hurt and pain there that’s hidden just below the eyes.
The film talks about the tragedy in detail but only slightly implies its effect and connection to the declaration of Martial Law just a few days after the tragedy. There are implications of Ivan’s possible engagement with the communist party and there are one or two scenes of police and military brutality but it’s not enough for the film to truly make any link between the tragedy of Colgante in 1972 and the declaration of Martial Law and all the tragedies that happened due to that declaration. There’s a causality that the film attempts at establishing but doesn’t quite hunker down in any real detail. The Colgante Bridge tragedy is an event entirely of its own and by mentioning that Martial Law was declared just days after bears no meaning.
The weight of memory bears down on ‘Padamlagan’ that the film doesn’t find its own two feet. There’s no catharsis in this film, a bold choice, but without a fuller understanding of Doring as a character or a means to visually grasp what he’s feeling, the film’s attempt to turn the feeling tangible escapes me. It’s strongest when it acts as memory, recounting real-life stories and showing photos of the event. That was more affecting than the film.
Padamlagan is showing on the big screen. Check cinema showtimes near you and grab your tickets today.
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