The Great Restoration: Oro, Plata, Mata

Like the Filipino architectural omen corresponding to Gold, Silver and Death, the Peque Gallaga directed and Jose Javier Reyes written Oro, Plata, Mata (1982) takes a triple dimensional story. The film depicted a filial exodus around the gold, silver and death.

Oro                                                                       

       

     At this dimension the setting is at the city where harmony exists. It was an imagery mainly drawn from a usual elite society. The place was filled with merriment, as if bad luck takes no space for the characters’ time. But the golden time is broken when a ship sinks at Corregidor, Bataan.

Plata

          

  Gold becomes demoted to silver when they retreated to a hacienda. The stellar of the urban life is converted to a more rustic comfort. At this moment, even the elite’s options become limited. They are reduced to foreign circumstances which were not present in the city.     

Mata

       

     As the Japanese stretched powers over the country, the Lorenzo and Odeja clans resort to plain bucolic house in the mountains for refuge. For both clans descending from a high economic stature, such living is a bad luck. It appears to be more of a curse as they are cloistered in a dystopian society. They turn to be a self sustaining manor but it was reversed when some of their servants plotted against them. Conflicts further surfaced. Characters transformed into more unknown and unexpected psyches.

            This Oro-Plata-Mata pattern appears to be cyclical in nature since the ending depicted a restored setting. But the restoration doesn’t parallel the former Oro state. The characters apparently preserved a postwar stigma which is psychologically inevitable.

            Though the story is rooted in the Japanese occupation, the war that reached the characters is a fragmented placebo effect. It was Filipino versus Filipino. Where does the conflict breakout? Their social classes. Some of the servants became bandits by force of circumstance and epiphany. These bandits became defiant to their masters to an extent of overcoming them. The elite family at this moment becomes crippled lamely depending on their bare hands. Hands which were meant to play mahjong and other recreations, not household work. This film becomes a caveat for the ruling class that their posts are reversible in any point of time.

            War is a social equalizer. The top and bottom are scattered in different posts. The Shakespearean notion that love is transcendental seems to fade out in the plot. Love in this dystopian living is an unavailable commodity. The initial love pairs are tossed to different partners.

            A classmate of mine posed a question, “What if we lived during that time?” Fathoming that I have no guts to survive in such conditions, I replied a blank face. The question until now consumes me. To witness actual bloodbath is something traumatic what more if I were the one being bathed in blood. For me the film I not an isolated case, it is a rampant occurrence happening not only in the Philippines. Anne Frank’s diary would tell a European struggle at World War 2. CS Lewis’s Narnia documented the children’s retreat to the British countrysides. Auschwitz witnessed the inhumane part of man during this epoch. World War Two is something that leaves an etch to everyman’s thought. This is too punitive that until now it becomes the content of granny stories.

            Star Cinema should further widen the avenue of restoring the classic Filipino movies. This is a divisive tool to build a more multifaceted culture among the youth. I commend them for initiating a ‘could be’ Oro-period on our local classics. It is my fervent wish that Philippines would be introduced to more creative movies not only capable of making the audience laugh but arousing them think and act.