Eight hours.

So tell me who in the world would ‘waste’ eight hours of his or her life in the cinema to watch a goddamn movie?

*Raises hand* I would, I would! haha.😆

We started at 12:30pm and ended at almost 9:00pm with a 15 minute break, and me having 2 CR breaks on the side.

I also ended up having migraine, six (6) hours into the movie, perhaps because of the smorgasbord of stuff I felt and thought and experienced all together that time.

But was it worth it?

Definitely.

I mean I’m not making a review of sorts, because I came to the movie house without pretty much any expectations because, well other than the fact that I’ve been living a “no expectations” life lately, I just wanted to take in everything without prejudices or whatever.

I guess the whole point of the movie being ‘that’ long is basically for us to take a pause from such a fast paced life we have now.

Full scenes without dialogues made you think of your own similar experiences of pain, loss, failure, frustration, anger, madness, deceit, regret, remorse, despair, sorrow, helplessness, and hopelessness…

like that part where Aling Hule walked and crawled in the palayan remembering her two sons,

or when Basilio just lay on the mud, hugging himself after all the futile digging and calling out to his Inay,

or that part where Padre Florentino sat by the shore holding his guitar, the waves and the winds crashing heavily on each other in the background,

or that heartbreaking and seemingly endless search of Oryang for her beloved in the thick of the forest, her wits hanging like loose rocks on the cliffs she trekked waiting for a wisp of wind to start an avalanche.

Priceless.

That’s what we miss out on now, I guess–

— taking time to stop and sit down and ponder on life that passes us by without us knowing, just because we have so many things to do at so little time we are endowed with at such a short life we have.

The marriage of stories was also kinda complicated.

Fictional characters Simoun, Basilio and Isagani together with historical names like Gregoria de Jesus and Andres Bonifacio or Ceasaria Belarmino (one I just heard of) and the Tikbalangs living alongside the Kapitan Heneral and the Prayles and the Indios and the pack of followers of Bernardio Carpio with the Birheng Maria in the hidden kwebas of the Luzon mountain ranges.

What I got from that is how the mythology of the Engkantos that the Filipinos lived with every day may have been a crucial part of the rise and the fall of the revolution. Or was it? haha.

On a personal note, I liked the movie because it was raw and in black and white, which was something incongruously glaring for the HD world we so enjoy living in.

And since I have a thing for well written stuff too, I was mainly (and really) taken by the poetry and the alliteration in the whole of the eight hours. And ohhh, that part where Isagani declares how sining is dead and whatever exchanges that followed thereafter was crazy. haha.

And honestly until now, I have confused (to the point of conflicting) feelings about the physiologically draining movie.

But I’d say, hey, it took me eight hours to get in touch with my crude humanity again. And although I’m feeling kinda sad now because of probably too much over thinking, I’m quick to snap out of it and say, ahh well, that’s life. We Indios, from heaven and hell and back and heaven and hell and back again, have always been resilient in the vicious cycle of our Filipino history.

(Very dark humored universe we have eh?)

I just really wish that we do not forget the fact that in this neurotic and slowly-psychotic-becoming world we live in – we have to be in touch with our humanity to survive.

And that means accepting how there is pain, loss, failure, frustration, anger, madness, deceit, regret, remorse, despair, sorrow, helplessness, and hopelessness…
but they all come to pass and we can rise above them.

And that life is not perfect, not on point, crude (very), really really tedious,
but is actually still worthwhile. 😉

Thank you, eight hour movie.

“Let the moon see me in a soft and tranquil light,Let the dawn send its fleeting radiance,Let the wind moan with its low murmur,And should a bird descend and rest on my cross,Let it sing its canticle of peace”                                                                       

-Rizal

And oh, Sining is not dead, Isagani. 😉

Happy Easter, Universe! 😊 🌹

P.S.
The movie was ‘A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery’
(‘Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis’) by the way. 😊