Three Years Without God, in depth, in black and white

Three Years Without God, in depth, in black and white

(The film will have special screenings to be announced, and will be streaming in IWant TFC (The Filipino Channel))

(WARNING: Plot and dramatic high points in the story discussed in close and explicit detail)

I first saw Mario O'Hara's Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos (Three Years Without God, 1976) in the '90s in a fading magenta print, then saw it again-- partially restored to its former glory by L'Immagine Ritrovata-- in 2016. Earlier this week I finally saw it regraded to black-and-white by ABS CBN' s Film Restoration Project-- not necessarily meant to supplant the original colored copy but to stand alongside, as an experiment meant to address the fading colors by eliminating them.

I noted advantages: that the film, set in the Second World War, looks even more like an artifact of the time (black and white was cheaper and more stable, hence used more often under difficult combat conditions); that O'Hara inserted archival footage of actual fighting and, thanks to the regrading, documentary segues into drama more seamlessly.

Also submit that the more surreal and theatrical effects O'Hara wields throughout the film are only enhanced by black and white. As Luis Bunuel or Maya Deren or Teinosuke Kinugasa might tell us, dreams and nightmares snuggle closer, burrow deeper under the skin in black and white. 

Add what Orson Welles liked to say: "(F)aces in color tend to look like meat-- veal, beef, baloney." He thought color distracted the eye, that doing without helped purify the image, allowed us to focus on an actor's eyes and face. 

So (I submit) no actor's face feels more purified in black and white than producer / star Nora Aunor's. I've always asserted her style of performance was in the tradition of silent films with her expressive face and eloquent eyes; seeing her in largely wordless sequences, in glorious monochrome, confirms my suspicions.

Have always thought O'Hara had a talent for wielding shadows, a talent brought out in greater relief by the regrading. When Japanese officer Masugi (Christopher De Leon) assaults Rosario (Aunor) in the family pig pen, O'Hara's camera keeps her face in half-shadow, like an animal hiding in the dark. 

The reverse shot also catches Masugi in half-shadow but to opposite effect: the dark outlines his face against the brightlit wall emphasizing his rounded cheeks, suggesting a devil imp that wants a bit of fun-- and in fact O'Hara has him pick up a sheaf of straw to tease her with. 

Sadism is nothing new to films; what O'Hara brings to the party is an element of mischief, even humor. The cruelty of his characters have a sense of play to them. 

Then the church massacre, which demonstrates O'Hara's skill at action setpieces. A cat-and-mouse hunt between informer and guerrilla 

reveals the guerrilla in drag

ending in a bloodbath. 

Note how O'Hara plays with triangle shapes here, the aisle converging into a target gallery, the soldiers' legs planted in wide stable stances, their rifles triangulating as they fire. 

The churchgoers are held hostage, and O'Hara gives us a royal flush of faces: smooth faces, mustached faces, lined faces, cherub-cheeked faces smiling, talking, eating, hugging

A touch of Vittorio De Sica or Roberto Rossellini post-war neorealism, made convincing by the townsfolk of Majayjay, Laguna, made even more convincing-- and moving-- by the austerity of black and white. 

Then the scene at the bridge-- called the Puente del Capricho, the Spanish officials' mocking name for Franciscan Friar Victoriano del Moral's ambitious project (also nicknamed 'Tulay Pigi' (Butt Bridge), for the friar's tendency to whip the buttocks of bridgeworkers). 

Rosario stands at the span's midpoint with precious burden in arms, and though you may not realize it this is also a turning point in Rosario's life. In color the bridge is a solemn mossy-green presence; in black and white it is a massive shadow looming over the Olla River, the dark and stony riverbed below reflecting the dark and stony state of Rosario's mind. 

Cut to a medium shot of Rosario with her bundle from which you can see a tiny chubby hand waving; the shot sells you the idea that that is a live baby in her arms and she is standing atop the Puente looking down. 

Then the aftermath, where the scene unfolds as if in a silent film. When Masugi finds Rosario, she has no words to explain herself, just soft animal noises. 

The shame is plain on her face, the tenderness on Masugi's. The chords of Minda Azarcon's simple piano melody plays in the background. 

Aunor is amazing of course but this I submit is also Christopher de Leon's finest moment, in the film and in his career.

Then Rosario standing before the crosses of her parents. Not a talky scene, just Rosario and Masugi before an overcast sky, the hues (if memory serves) bleached almost to the point of monochrome-- with this regraded copy, all pretense of color has been put aside to focus on Rosario's numb face, the shot revealed as the bleakest in a bleak film. 

The picture as a whole looks fine but really comes to life in the shadows. The scene of Rosario and Masugi hiding in the nipa hut (Masugi trying to tell Rosario in so many words that he can't protect her any more, and that they must part) was gorgeous in color; in black and white there's a severe beauty to the image that recalls Mizoguchi, his camera pulled back a discreet distance just because the onscreen emotions are so strong. Note O'Hara's use of light and dark-- Nora's dark skin in white shift, against Christopher's light skin in dark shadow, the contrast heightened in monochrome. 

In these later passages biblical and other allegories come to fore. This shot suggests not just Joseph, Mary, and child fleeing Herod, but refugee families fleeing war. Again, the black and white forging a stronger visual link between documentary and dramatized. 

The guerrilla attack-- the shadows so deep the guerrillas emerge as if from a black pool, aiming rifles at the screen.

One guerrilla (Edwin O'Hara, Mario's brother) points a .45 Colt, and the director angles the camera frame so that the weapon looks about the size of a cannon. 

Three guerrillas against a dark background-- all the more dramatic in black and white-- line up in a row, as if in a firing squad. 

I mentioned the playful cruelty in O'Hara's films-- recall Masugi and his handful of straw. The guerrillas show they can play that game too, perhaps even better than the Japanese; you might say they learned from the best.

Case in point: Rosario with child, huddled in the cogon-- in black and white the shadows are deeper more comforting, a thick velvet blanket to hide madonna and child. Not bulrushes, but one can't help but think of the child Moses, adrift in the wild. 

Rosario looking out from the surrounding grass, discovers the guerrilla's parting prank

A parody of an iconic Catholic image. 

In the '70s, blood in Filipino films tended to be a distracting pink; in black and white there's nothing to detract from the moment, the image-- against a background of deepest shadow-- is like a slap to the face, plain and simple with no chance to flinch. 

O'Hara's reply to the guerrillas: not a parody (Minda Azarcon's solemn music suggests otherwise) but an evocation of the Pieta. And if you've seen the statue up close you'd know it's Carrera marble of the purest white, and that this image is just that much closer to the Michelangelo masterpiece. 

O'Hara shoots Rosario from behind the burning pyre, the flames flickering round her body-- as if she herself stood in hell. Again the flickering black and white heightening the drama of the moment. 

And the denoument, with Rosario's former lover Crispin (Bembol Roco) asking the priest (playwright Orlando Nadres) "These past three years-- is there no god?" 

The priest points out the blind man and his palsied brother, and I'm reminded of why O'Hara cast Melvin Flores: "Because he had beautiful eyes." "You had a blind man for his beautiful eyes?" "Of course!" And of course Flores' eyes in the severity of black and white shine all the brighter, remind me of Nazario Gerardi's in Roberto Rossellini's The Flowers of St. Francis, also in black and white; possibly O'Hara saw the film. I might even say Flores bears a striking resemblance to Gerardi, tho the former's eyes seem larger (but I maybe be biased)... 

Following the priest's hollow platitudes is O'Hara's own wordless reply to Crispin, in my book the finest shot in the film, perhaps all of Philippine cinema: the blind man carrying his paralyzed brother past the gigantic float of Christ.

And again such theatrical gestures -- or rather gestures made with a theatrical flair-- work better, I submit, in black and white, the pair of diminutive figures padding down the aisle in stark contrast to the grand procession tottering and swaying in the opposite direction, the one having little to say to the other.

Finally, a shot of Flores' eyes huge and sightless in black and white. I can think of worse ways to close a film.   

(First published in Businessworld 12.10.24)