Gamu-Gamo sa East Avenue Paggalugad sa mga Tanawin ng Kalikasan
With a story and screplay by Marina Feleo-Gonzales. It stars Nora Aunor, Jay Ilagan, Gloria Sevilla, and Perla Bautista. Set near Clark Air Base in Pampanga, the film depicts the lives of two families affected by the American military presce in the Philippines.
Premiering at the 2nd Metro Manila Film Festival, the film won Best Story for Feleo-Gonzales. In 2018, the film was digitally restored by the ABS-CBN Film Restoration Project with a subsequt theatrical premiere at the Cinema One Originals festival of that year.
Tanawin Ng Kalikasan title=Ang Mga Gamu Gamo Sa Dilim style=width:100%;text-align:center; onerror=this.onerror=null;this.src='https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSvxLzkBU4EWhbxEesseiSPc-MVEaYINL7MN3f3bypedW0-v6ne-q5JMCSsjOKZA5L-PzA&usqp=CAU'; />
It was the first important film to address the subject of the American military presce in the Philippines during the Bases era.
Christopher “thop” Nazareno Ina Tay
Set in 1969, the film tells the intertwined stories of a couple and their families, both of a lower-middle-class background, living near Clark Air Base in Pampanga.
Corazon de la Cruz is a nurse who plans to go to the United States as a trainee. She hopes to one day get a gre card that would allow her to stay in the United States, gain immigrant status, and evtually bring her family there so they can lead a better life. Corazon's mother, Chedg, and younger brother, Carlito, courage her. However, her grandfather, Inkong Mciong is critical of her plans, saying that it is a betrayal of their country.
Meanwhile, Bonifacio Santos intds to join the United States Navy so that he can follow his girlfrid, Corazon, to the United States. His mother, Yolanda, a worker in the American Base commissary, attempts to help however she can.
Naquem.: September 2014
The young couple's dreams begin to break down after Yolanda is wrongfully accused of theft, strip-searched, and humiliated by a Filipino merchandise officer working at the Base. Bonifacio convinces his mother to file charges of slander by deed against the officer, and their lawyer files a letter of protest against the American base commander. In response, the merchandise officer, accompanied by two American service personnel, raid Yolanda's store and confiscate all of her merchandise. The goods are evtually returned, but a case against the Base personnel for conducting the illegal raid cannot prosper due to a lack of jurisdiction. A disillusioned Bonifacio no longer wishes to join the US navy.
On the night of Corazon's farewell party, Carlito is shot dead by a serviceman while flying a red, blue, and white kite near the Base. A group of American officers attd the funeral and offer a donation to the de la Cruz family, adding that the serviceman had thought Carlito was a wild boar. An outraged Corazon yells back at them, Ang kapatid ko ay hindi baboy! (My brother is not a pig!) During the funeral procession, Inkong's memory of World War II is triggered and the film cuts to historical footage of the Bataan Death March.
The de la Cruz family file a criminal case against the American serviceman. During the hearing, the lawyer represting the American base notifies the court that there is lack of jurisdiction as the corporal responsible for Carlito's death had returned to the United States upon the termination of his tour of duty. The judge dismisses the case. Walking down the steps of the courthouse, the base lawyer attempts to give Corazon an velope filled with dollars from the corporal, reiterating that he thought her brother was a wild boar. Corazon shows the lawyer a photo of her brother and pushes the velope back to him.
GapÔ By Lualhati Bautista
A motorcycle accidt occurs outside the courthouse. Corazon's lawyer pushes through the crowd exclaiming that there is a nurse. The motorcycle driver's helmet is removed and it is revealed to be a white man. The film closes with a shot of Corazon looking down at the victim.
Story and screplay writer Marina Feleo-Gonzales became interested in the political topic in 1971 after seeing a studt protest in Rizal Park. The studts were running from police who were breaking up the protest, and some studt protestors asked Feleo-Gonzales to pretd to be their mother as a form of protection from the police. Producer Digna Santiago and director Lupita Aquino-Kashiwahara were interested in working together on a political film addressing the American military presce in the Philippines. Feleo-Gonzales had previously worked with Aquino-Kashiwahara on the 1975 historical drama Lakambini at Supremo, about Andres Bonifacio and his wife Gregoria de Jesus, which was produced by Armida Siguion-Reyna.
The shooting of Corazon de la Cruz's younger brother Carlito was inspired by the 1964 shooting near Clark Air Base of Filipino teager Rogelio Balagtas by off-duty American stry Larry Cole.
Mood Slay: An Attempt
Nora Aunor suggested her real-life brother, Eddie Villamayor, for the role of her on-scre brother. Both producer Digna Santiago and director Lupita Aquino-Kashiwahara agreed, the latter saying the casting gave authticity to the searing sces of grief, pain and loss.
Wh the film was made in the 1970s, US military bases were a dominant presce in the Philippines and, in many cases, Filipinos were treated as second-class citizs in our own country. So the film was important in exposing these abuses. Some have called the film anti-American; I viewed it as pro-Filipino.
The film has be described by film historian Jose Capino as belonging to the cinema of decolonization along with Lino Brocka's PX and Augusto Buavtura's Sa Kuko ng Agila, all explicitly addressing the issue of the American military presce in the Philippines during the Bases era, as the 1970s saw growing political and legal debates over Philippine sovereignty and the American bases. In the film, Philippine sovereignty is both literally and metaphorically compromised.
European Tabloid Vol. 22 Issue 1 By White & Blue
In particular, towards the d of the film, Corazon de la Cruz struggles to perform the traditional tinikling dance during her farewell party, and the sce is juxtaposed with her brother flying a red, blue, and white kite (the colors of both the American and the Philippine flag) over Crow Valley near Clark Air Base. At the point where Corazon errs in the tinikling, her leg caught betwe the bamboo poles, the film cuts to Carlito falling after being shot by an American officer. According to Capino, the film marks the impossibility–at least during its historical momt–of parity betwe ex-colonizer and ex-colonized. Carlito dies wh his family is busy celebrating Corazon's departure for the United States, so the juxtaposition of the tinikling and kite sces forms a rather pedantic image of cultural conflict.
There is a parallelism betwe Carlito and the spit-roasted pig served at the farewell party of Corazon, foreshadowed in the film wh Carlito and Inkong watch the pig's slaughter before the party. The defse giv by the American personnel is that the shooter mistook Carlito for a wild boar. In response, Corazon asserts the film's famous line: Ang kapatid ko ay hindi baboy! (My brother is not a pig!)
In 2018, the film was digitally restored and remastered by the ABS-CBN Film Restoration Project. The restoration was done at the Kantana Film Institute.
Minsa'y Isang Gamu Gamo
I’m very pleased that the film has be restored so it can be viewed again, especially by the currt geration which wasn’t around to experice the evts portrayed in the film. It is part of their history, too. Although it’s a dramatic movie, many of the sces are based on real stories, real incidts, real tragedies.
The restored version premiered on October 16, 2018, at Cinema Ctario in Quezon City as part of the Cinema One Originals festival.
The film received mixed reviews. Nicanor Tiongson, writing for The Philippine Daily Express, praised Nora Aunor's performance and concluded by stating, flaws notwithstanding, the film stands as one of the best in 1976 Filipino Film Festival and in the year 1976 as well not only because the story and screplay, and most of all, the point of view of the movie are unequivocally and passionately Filipino.
Lyon Street Steps 🔆
In 2022, following the recognition of Nora Aunor as a National Artist of the Philippines, Filipino film critic-archivist Jojo Devera wrote that Minsa'y Isang Gamu-Gamo features what still remains Aunor's most complex film performance and that her moving treatmt of the material is some of the finest scre time she has ever occupied.
In 1980, wh traveling to the United States, story and screplay writer Marina Feleo-Gonzales was interrogated by immigration officers over the film.
In 1991, the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) staged an adaptation of the film. The stage play also starred Nora Aunor, reprising her role, in her first appearance on stage. The adaptation was writt by Rodolfo Vera and directed by Soxy Tapacio. It premiered at the Raha Sulayman Theater in Fort Santiago. The source material was chos as that year Philippine sators moved to vote against rewing the Military Bases Agreemt, effectively removing the presce of the United States military in the country for the time being.Happy Mothers' Day Mommy Betty! PAOAY CHURCH mukha bang masarap? Good Morning #Pagupud #vigan 2023 #Vigan NEW Starbucks Card Alert! #SafariCard #StarbucksCard #StarbuckscardPh #sbcardph #starbucksph Good morning Cavite! malamig ka pa rin. NEW CARD ALERT! #sbph #sbcards #sbcardph #newcard #Starbuckscard #starbucks #starbuckscardphilippines Happy 72nd Bday Mommy Betty! :) NAKIKITA ko na sarili ko sa hinaharap. #pnr New year, new card :) Happy Yarn! #Starbuckscard #starbucksph YOU'RE my better half :) StarbucksCard #starbucksph YEAR of the Rabbit 2023
