“Tinimbang Judged Today” (by Noel Vera)

CRITIC AFTER DARK: A REVIEW OF PHILIPPINE CINEMA

“Tinimbang Judged Today”
By Noel Vera (www.bigozine2.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html)

TINIMBANG KA NGUNIT KULANG (You Were Weighed and Found Wanting, 1974) was in many ways a seminal work in contemporary Philippine cinema. It was one of the rare quality films of the ‘70s to enjoy commercial success. It announced Lino Brocka, previously known as a skilful commercial director, as a major Filipino artist.Few realized the significance of this bright new voice, that it would be the first of many --- Mike de Leon, with Itim (Black, 1976); Mario O’Hara with Mortal (1975); Brocka again, with Maynila sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Neon, 1975), to name a few. Contemporary and putative rival Ishmael Bernal had actually debuted two years earlier with the masterfully assured Pagdating sa Dulo(At the Top, 1972), but that film, despite its excellence, made little impact on the industry. Tinimbang was like a rock flung through a plate-glass window; the film was a herald call, officially the first in what was to be called the ‘70s Golden Age of Philippine Cinema.

The film’s true power comes not from its foreground story but from its marginalia, from its deadpan observation of the absurdity of everyday small-town life, and from its excellent if flawed sketches of Milagros and Cesar. Its power comes most of all from Kuala and Berto, the town’s most miserable inhabitants, and the intense yet simply told story of love found at the bottom of this world. Cesar feels unfinished and Junior feels downright thin (the flaw may be in the filmmaker’s approach than in the performaces); Kuala and Berto are fully realized characters (does it help that O’Hara, who plays Berto, wrote the screenplay based on Brocka’s outline?). They are Brocka’s version of Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not) with Kuala as Sisa --- remember that Noli is about yet another dull young man who wakes up to reality, while in the novel’s margins dance the unforgettable figure of a madwoman in search of her child…

Lolita Rodriguez, who plays Kuala, captures the smallest, wince-inducing detail about homeless lunatics, from scabied scalp to urine-stained thighs. O’Hara plays Berto as a man made utterly alone by his leprosy, perhaps not a little mad himself --- when he first notices Kuala, it is with the predatory hunger of someone deprived of sex for a long, long time. Rodriguez and O’Hara make the relationship that blossoms between them effortless, yet utterly real --- Rodriguez as Kuala responding to Berto’s attentions hungrily, even greedily (the way a child would); O’Hara as Berto suddenly finding himself functioning as guardian and father as well as lover. The lovers are the most successful evocation of love in any of Brocka’s films, I think, and far the most moving.