The movie documents the last 72 hours of the Marcos family in Malacañang during the People Power revolt of 1986, as told from the Marcos’ viewpoint, with Imee Marcos as consultant Creative Producer and Yap as screenwriter. Interestingly, the role of the three maids in the movie is pivotal in retelling the story. The maids Lucy (Elizabeth Oropesa), Santa (Karla Estrada) and Biday (Beverly Salviejo) provide the lighter and comedic moments of the film while strategically giving it a plebeian flavour. These combined viewpoints are neatly structured in compact film chapters, a style that allows it to jump from one highlighted incident to another.
The background of Yap is in theatre, which is pretty evident in this film from the theatricality of many scenes. More than just being theatrical, the acting becomes a bit hysterical and melodramatic at certain points. True to form, the film opens with a long 16-minute take, with no cuts, as the camera revolves around the family and their maids while news of the insurgency and the revolution loom. The audience is treated to a theatre experience with minimal music, as if literally watching a play. Alas, the challenge of this method is to get both the creative and technical elements right in one take. So, did Yap choose the right take? Whether yes or no, this is just one of the many cinematic styles employed by the director throughout the film. Among this experimental mix of techniques, probably the movie’s most substantive element is the historical news footage which comprises part of the bookend chapters.
The choice of actors to portray the roles of Imee (Cristine Reyes), Bong Bong (Diego Loyzaga) and Irene (Ella Cruz) is quite atypical, as they are physically remote in appearance and demeanour from the actual characters. They also hardly talk in English in the film, conversing in more accessible Tagalog, a creative license employed by Yap to cast aside realism in favour of practical audience acceptance considerations.
Imee comes out most robust of the three, from the start of the revolt to their departure from the palace. Yet despite being in control, her breakdown moment with her father, President Ferdinand Marcos (Cesar Montano), while on dialysis treatment, is really a bit extreme with the hysterics and paranoia. This scene could have benefitted more from a Brocka-esque style of subtle internalised emotions. In the same vein, Irene’s teleserye-acting crying plea to her father becomes too histrionic and heavy-handed in treatment, thereby losing its poignancy. If anything, less is always more.
Not all is lost, as the film’s two most memorable scenes are with Bong Bong and his parents. That vulnerable moment between Bong Bong’s inadequacies and the torment of his father is a moment not only surfacing in the history books but is now immortalised by reasonably executed performances. The real-life father and son captured the emotions with just the right level of frustration and anger. Overall, Montano, as the ailing president, gives the strongest performance among the cast. The other unforgettable scene is with Bong Bong and his mother, First Lady Imelda Marcos (Ruffa Gutierrez), as she breaks down in tears about never being able to return to the palace, skittishly acted by both, ending with the camera cheekily focusing on one of her itemised shoes with code IRM 2022. Intriguingly, this scene is the most exposure we get from Imelda as she is mainly in the background, with just a few light emotive moments playfully performed by Gutierrez.
The last chapters of the film suddenly change in tone and style from the family drama of the previous chapters. The situation is getting desperate, with the food supply in the palace dwindling, captured in a snippy scene of irony where the family is left only with caviar and crackers for breakfast. As the head maid, Lucy, stirringly performed by Oropesa, announces to the rest of the household their uncertain future, the audience is reoriented as to who are the oppressors and victims in this film. A crucial line in the movie is when President Marcos resents not being accepted by the country’s elite because they are just simple provincial folk. This is the conundrum of feeling like an outsider while ruling from the inside for nearly two decades. And then, just like that, the dread arrives when these faceless members of the People Power revolution break into the palace grounds. And rightly so, they are portrayed as a faceless unruly mob who start vandalising and burning the presidential portrait paintings, destroying and looting what they could find. These final scenes show a sense of doom and need for survival as the Marcoses flee the palace, with the dialogue and musical score becoming more agitprop patriotic, touching on hints of Bayan Ko-ish melody in the faint background.
Probably the film’s most contentious scene is the ending cameo of a villainously portrayed President Cory Aquino (Giselle Sanchez) asking the Americans on the phone if Marcos is dying, then gleefully proceeds to play mahjong with the nuns, smug in her victory. The scene speaks for itself as to the writer’s treatment of the former president and leader of the People Power revolution.
For all its strengths and shortcomings, MAID IN MALACAÑANG is a film that provokes the truth and history of the People Power revolution. Perhaps a comparison film is the 2004 movie DOWNFALL on the last few days of Hitler. The only difference is that DOWNFALL is very well done, while MAID IN MALACAÑANG has its flaws. The artistic license applied to the film muddies its waters of believability. A critical scene in the movie is the refusal of President Marcos to make the revolt a bloody one, and with that decision, the Marcoses did not have blood on their hands with this turning point in Philippine democracy. Whether the Marcoses be judged as oppressors or victims, or whether this film is factual or just loosely based on facts, in the end, pretty much solely depends on the audience’s viewpoint more than what the film intends to make.
Taiwan Film Festival is back in 2020 with this virtual edition streaming online from July 9 to 30, 2020. Check out the various feature films on offer including three eye-catching documentaries and three brilliant films from the master Hsiao Ya-Chuan.
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A great review on a nonsensical film.
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