This all started from a suggestion by amateur film archivist / historian / enthusiast / restorer Jojo de Vera-- 'amateur' only in the sense that he's not paid for what he passionately works for and believes in and has a vast store of knowledge and expertise about that I often call upon for advice.
Jojo asked if I was interested in seeing Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos (Three Years Without God) without color; I said yes. When I saw it I was impressed, and suggested the idea to Leo Katigbak, head of the ABS CBN Film Restoration Project; they had a digital copy of the 2016 L'Immagine Ritrovata restoration of the film, which they regraded to black-and-white and screened this Dec. 20 at the University of the Philippines Film Center.
And the results--
Here's where I hesitate. When I first saw the film, in its only surviving print, during a Pelikula at Lipunan (Film and Society) screening in the '90s, it had already faded, cinematographer Conrado Baltazar's images almost dissolving into a series of hot pinks and deep reds. L'Immagine Ritrovato helped restore details but what was a stylized soup of bright warm colors turned into a greenish palette, not the film I saw in the 90s, which admittedly is not the film audiences saw back in '76.
So if I say what I saw-- and mind you what I saw was one man's efforts on home-bought equipment, hardly the work of a laboratory of professionals (I hope to see ABS CBN's copy sometime soon)-- was a bold reimagining of a familiar classic, I'm possibly exaggerating, or reacting to the memory of a memory of something that has already been altered by the passage of time from when it was first projected almost fifty years ago.
I don't know-- not an expert; least of all am I an expert on video and digital imagery, the technical terms and processes and whatnot connoisseurs can sprinkle like so much seaweed toppings over their steaming bowl of rice. I can only report what I saw and felt.
If anything is enhanced in this black and white version it's the film's pastness-- Vincente Bonus' production design does miracles with a small budget (O'Hara credits him for much of the film's period accuracy) but can only do so much, and in monochrome the film feels more securely located in World War 2, in the Asia of the early '40s, than ever (remember that most World War 2 dramas and documentaries actually shot during World War 2 (or soon after) are in black and white, which is cheaper and easier to store and use, especially under combat conditions). Some of the images, especially those of the townfolk, recall the postwar films of Roberto Rossellini.
Also remember that black and white adds a dreamlike quality to a film, especially when offering surreal imagery, especially when O'Hara veers into unabashed theatricality-- the moment when, in Majayjay Church, the camera zooms into the plaster saints' faces, or when the townspeople circle poor Rosario (Nora Aunor), a nursery rhyme echo of an earlier shot of schoolchildren forming a playground circle. Suggested: the townspeople are children all grown up playing yet another game, for fun, for their pleasure, only they're not smiling.
And then that unforgettable image of Rosario cradling Masugi (Christopher de Leon) in a breathtaking reenactment of the Pieta-- and remember Michelangelo's masterpiece is executed in monochrome marble.
Some elements don't integrate as easily-- O'Hara (in collaboration with veteran editors Ike and Efren Jarlego-- yes that Jarlego) doesn't always cut in the classic Hollywood manner of shot/reaction shot, lingering to help less sophisticated audiences catch up with the story; he inserts traumatic flashbacks, uses distorting lenses, has a crisp no-nonsense editing rhythm, especially in the few action sequences (the church massacre comes to mind). The editing feels more at odds with the period imagery now, where before they worked with a single sensibility in control.
Perhaps the moment that benefits most from this change is the bridge scene, the pivot on which Rosario's narrative trajectory turns. Rosario climbs the bridge, her precious burden in her arms, and you glimpse the babe's arm waving from out of the blanket-- then O'Hara's camera pans down down down and all you see is the deep inky dark of the bridge's massive bulk (the Puente del Capricho, a hundred and twenty five year old stone bridge that looms over the Olya's barely visible riverbed) mirroring the deep inky dark of Rosario's mind. The sound of gurgling water lends a sense of rising panic, like a boat rushing to dash itself on rocks; you can't quite see what's going on, but you know she's somewhere high up, and those rocks look like a hard bed to sleep in.
There are the images, there's the story of love and war-- both military and emotional-- and then there's Nora's glorious face, finally realized in black and white. I've always asserted that Nora's style of acting is not unlike that of a silent film actress; she has a crisp delivery, a lovely versatile voice, but the glory of her performance is her face, the way she expresses herself wordlessly, with eyes to rival Falconetti's. And now she's this much closer to starring in a silent film, with Minda Azarcon's grim guitar chords and thrilling pipe organ and a Greek-tragedy chorus chanting in the background. It's quite an experience.
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