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Marilou Diaz-Abaya was to privilege born. It’s the greatest paradox of art and artist that, when he made his first film, it was about the class we assume he wasn’t most familiar with. It is in the world of ordinary men and women chained to fate and unbridled lust. But there is power in that early insistence, because in that first film Abaya entered theaters, along with famous and iconic actors at least Susan Roces and Eddie Garcia.
In many narratives, Marilou Diaz-Abaya recounts how her parents Conrado and Felicitas Diaz raised them, as children, surrounded by art. All the siblings went through high -class means: piano lessons and exclusive schools. In Marilou’s case, it was Assumption Convent for her BA, and Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles for her post-graduate studies. He will get masters in Film and Television. He then traveled to London for further film studies under the London International Film School program. These trainings and background set him apart from other directors. In a country where filmmakers learned by making and working, Abaya studied cinema — in the classroom and in books, in another country where conditions were most perfect.
When he finally made his first films, his works never assumed the gloss and stilted tone of the academic. He doesn’t have “angas”And he had no angst.
His first film was Chains and it is not experimental, contrary to the sharp academic and special background of the filmmaker.
It was 1980. Marilou was already married to Manolo who, in a few years, would be her cinematographer, her technical man.
For her first film, Marilou Diaz-Abaya will look at Filipino comics. Pablo Gomez wrote this dark romance, called Chains. The press releases were attracted and entertained by the extra attention to the details presented by the director.
This filmmaker knows his medium: the camera is boundless. Susan Roces, Romeo Vasquez, Eddie Garcia and Rita Gomez imitated the film, which was made under the aegis of Cine Filipinas, a production outfit that garnered huge support from Abaya’s parents. He makes a huge entrance through a common medium, which made his introduction an attempt to be mass-based.
Word soon reached Jesse Ejercito about Diaz-Abaya, producer of Crown Seven, the ingredient behind many films about women. These films celebrate and take advantage of female fascination. Under this production, Diaz-Abaya made a film called Brutal. 1980. Martial law still rules the country. The grip is slowly loosening on the actors but the state control is still apparent. Movies in the mainstream make great box office performances.
Diaz-Abaya has not yet been called a feminist filmmaker. The media and the fans know this woman who makes the film who knows the technology as well as the art of film.
If we mark Diaz-Abaya’s feminism — the ideology and aesthetics — by Brutalthen he reversed the process of empowering women: he first showed the weakness of men and the evil that resulted from the power that men thought was their endowment.
Brutal is a story of a woman who killed her husband and two other friends. Monica, the wife, was arrested at the crime scene. Monica’s lawyer approached a female journalist because she wanted someone to feel the crime and empathize with her client. There is another female character in the film, who exposes the naive Monica in verbal ways. This is preceded by many characters in the world of Diaz-Abaya where men and women and places have flaws and mistakes. It’s a gray that encourages audiences to fight the stories he tells on screen.
Brutal was ahead of its time. While the general audience saw a film with women abused because they became so free and meaningless, critics and cinemas felt that there were running implications to many of the scenes in the film. The conclusion expresses a bond with women, the brotherhood that must fight brotherhood with chauvinist men.
Tadao Sato, the well -known Japanese critic, visited Manila in 1981 and saw Brutal. It was invited to the Tokyo International Film Festival. Thus began Diaz-Abaya’s friendship with Sato.
Brutal will be appointed in multiple categories under various major award-giving bodies that year. It won Best Director for Diaz-Abaya at the Metro Manila Film Festival.
Diaz-Abaya is the director Moral in 1982. Where in Brutalthe director showed his politics, Moral allowed us to see an actor who does not judge his characters. All women again, the film depicts different characters of female identities. Moral guardians at the time showed their anger as they reviewed the film as a model for our new women, forgetting that these women express not what they are but what they relate to. men in societies. The free spirit and liberation of women hid societies and systems that remained oppressive. The audience then chose the gossip rather than the realization.
Moral will get nominations and awards for its actors and filmmakers.
Karnal arrived in 1983. A dark, gothic story, the film will showcase Diaz-Abaya’s skill in narration and technique in a visually appealing retelling of a past that haunts a family. The story is about a young man who brought his bride to his hometown. The bride evoked a strange memory of the deceased wife of the family patriarch. Violence creeps into this son’s return as the father begins to lust after his daughter -in -law. The woman in the midst of this crime and life of lust finds solace in a deaf man, a testimony again to Diaz-Abaya who condemns the man when he has a natural ability to speak and elevates his companionship when he is convicted of silence.
With screenplay from Ricky Lee (Brutal at Moral is also by Ricky Lee, who was declared a National Artist in conjunction with Marilou Diaz-Abaya), he sculpted and carved from the wounded gaze of a landowner in a brilliant play of metaphors about bodies and property. its owner. The kinship and authority as we know them is overthrown by the filmmaker in a film that stretches the violence of his earlier films to gore and greatness.
Vic Silayan is terrifying as a father. Charito Solis as narrator and narrator delivers a tour-de-force performance in a tragedy of superb structure. Karnal will continue to garner numerous nominations and wins from festivals and award-giving bodies that year. Karnal was submitted as an entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 57th Academy Awards.
In 1983, Marilou Diaz-Abaya joined Concerned Artists of the Philippines, finding kinship with the group founded by Lino Brocka. He joined rallies against the dictatorship and the strong censorship that prevailed at the time.
Next week, this profile will continue with National Artist Marilou Diaz-Abaya.
