The Rapture of Fe

After our successful screenings at the CCP, UP, Chicago Film Fest and the Osian’s Cinefan Festival in New Delhi, “Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe” (”The Rapture of Fe”) will now be shown at select cinemas in the Philippines. So far, we have Robinson’s Galleria and Cinema Cebu.

The screening coincides with our participation in the Cairo International Film Festival as we represent the Philippines in the International Digital Competition. This marks our 3rd film festival after the Chicago International Film Festival and the recently concluded Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema in New Delhi.

The Movie and Television Review and Classification Board of the Philippines has approved without cuts the movie and gave us a rating of R18. Unfortunately, the movie poster did not survive the board and so we have to tweak it a little bit.

Please help us spread the word. We only have 1 week of screening time as all the theaters will be removing the smaller films to accommodate the release of “New Moon” next week.

If there are any organization or schools who’d like to screen our movie, please email ang.alem@gmail.com and we can discuss the possibility of bringing “…Fe” to you. It can be both an educative experience as well as a fundraising opportunity. As both the producer and the writer-director are teachers, they can discuss the contents and the art behind the movie. The Women’s Crisis Center can also talk about Violence Against Women (VAW).

Here is our movie’s trailer on YouTube:

We are so fortunate to have won the Special Jury Prize at the recently concluded Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival.

Here is the citation from the jury:

“For its meditations on the plight of Filipino women in a provocative tale that blurs the boundaries between the mundane and the mysterious, the real and the fantastic.”

The Special Jury Prize is given to “Fe” and another entry, “Colorum” for “being exemplars of the possibilities of filmmaking.”

Critically-acclaimed, box office success and now, the Special Jury prize, we are very fortunate with the triumphs of “Fe.” Thank you for embarking on this journey with us! We hope to catch you in our other screenings!

http://charliekoon.blogspot.com/2009/08/dark-fruits.html

It is fairly meritorious what Alvin Yapan has done, he took the elements of common Filipino fear and infused it into his current Cinemalaya offering, Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe, under the banner of pontifical local feminism no less. As with small-town frights, the bucolic atmosphere is first scratched by a gossip, seemingly innocuous whispers, a small bird disemboweled on the clean grass. Then it begins, under the picnic cloth of hardworking rural artisans and artificial marital civility lie a darkness that if viewed closely, is scarcely different from the desire that created it.

And how cleverly the disconcerting insinuations have been woven, which along with a few stylistic flourishes, effectively comprise the better half of the film. It almost has that Blair-Witchian factor, I never took a second thought on how disturbing a patchily woven basket of mangosteens could be. Along with some sibilant window calls stitched on a quiveringly restrained but brilliant musical score, the production has achieved a contextually nuanced film that burrows itself into a reluctantly curious consciousness. Yapan is truly a director of his time, technically proficient and with a flair for emotional urgency. Yet the film is not entirely preachy, not exactly what I would expect from something endorsed by the Women’s Crisis Center. Still it is a cautionary tale, shattering the stereotype that all abused women are bleating weaklings. Irma Adlawan’s Fe is no wilted lamb, but her helplessness provides another crude specter of societal inequity, just the type of message the foundations are gunning for. Hence it is unclear if the movie’s core lies in eliciting fear or social outrage. If you wish to scare, suck blood, if you want a rally, paint with it. One must not push to do both. The ambivalence could certainly be off-putting to the pedestrian gatherer, but what do you expect from an indie film?

Another aspect of Panggagahasa that fulfilled expectations was the title character. Rapture, rape, and the ravenous were all portrayed with an unyielding constancy that only Adlawan could deliver, the male characters only served as rocks on the opposite sides of the fulcrum. Ever since Pusang Gala Adlawan has already exhibited a noteworthy thespian range that could approximate the breath of the modern Filipina’s psyche. In this movie that frail and elusive landscape is accentuated more with excruciating quietude than screams of pain, truly a Filipina proclivity. Black-eyes veiled under stupid excuses, ignorance mistaken for womanly trust, so silent the usages of that unfunny wound. The pleasure is portrayed similarly, but the fact that it was portrayed at all is reason enough for celebration. True to his artistic predilections, Yapan is tastefully fearless in his endeavors. The rape scene was graciously no Irreversible and the longer take of Fe burying the black fruits of her trepidation yielded so much more of the intrinsic state-of-affairs of an abused individual.

Mainstream horror films could certainly learn from this movie. Presently there is a cavity that is clawing to be filled. The franchise should start realizing that in fear, less is more. Directors from Thailand understand this, so why is the catching up so belated. This is what Yapan employed which made his work quite effective that is until the ending, definitely risky and perhaps potentially disastrous almost to the point of negating the effect that the entire movie has accumulated. But the risk is a product of his generation. Weaned with magical realism his was an expected seduction, ultimately to show the object of dread only for it to share an almost avuncular caveat to the furniture-making enemy lover. It could have been worst. I thought Fe was going to get banged on the newly carved Sala piece. In the end, post-modern directors cannot help but to be ironic, whether they decry postmodernism or not. It’s charming though. Why choose your carabao-oriented husband Dante (Nonie Buencamino), or Arturo (TJ Trinidad) for that matter when you can have a real man, one who’s not really a man, who lives in a tree of undying love. Who says there’s no romance in fear?

Written by: Alex Milla (Guest Critic)

A review by Gary Deviles in yesterday’s issue of Philippine Daily Inquirer

MYTHS DEPICTING VIOlence against women and the glorification of men who perpetrate such violence abound. There are the classic Greek myths about Leda, Io, Europa, Cassandra, Philomela, and Kainis, all raped by gods and kings.

Some say these myths are indication of the triumph of patriarchy against matriarchy in early societies, and others say these are oftentimes symbolic resolutions of unresolved conflicts.

In Vim Yapan’s “Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe” (The Rapture of Fe), which won the Special Jury Prize winner in the recent 5th Cinemalaya Film Festival, myth becomes our collective trauma and fantasy as the film narrative weaves our past and present, personal victimization and political consciousness.

The story is about Fe, an overseas Filipino worker who has been retrenched as a consequence of an ailing global economy. At the onset we are already confronting the classic anxiety against the contradiction of market economy, as OFWs, in particular female OFWs, become the ultimate objects of our collective desire for mobilization and transnational fantasy of modernization and development.

Hence, the rape of Fe is the violence committed by bureaucratic inadequacy and corruption, and the injustice intrinsic ultimately in a global market economy.

Like all cases of rape, a victim suffers not once but in sustained and recurring instances. Here, Fe is also a battered wife, as her husband Dante beats her up on mere suspicion of having an illicit affair with her previous boyfriend Arturo. The story, therefore, attempts to weave the political with the personal, the allegorical rape with domestic violence.

But the story diverges from the usual allegory since the film also entwines the magical and supernatural, as one of Fe’s lovers in the end is a kapre, a local mythological creature who abducts women. This part is the crux of the film’s narrative.

Viewers tend to pathologize Fe since victims of domestic violence can become psychotic, and thus the kapre apparition can only be understood as one of her hallucinations. Such understanding of the film is a dead giveaway.

More than myth

However, myth is more than a good familiar story.

Thus, the film is not just an allegorical narrative, but also our disavowal of myths in general, our inability to accept other realities, and our refusal of the supernatural and otherworldly.

We condemn Fe mercilessly as we would revile our pre-colonial past, such that Fe’s world has nothing to do with us, irreconcilable with our so-called modern sense. We want to believe we are rational and have banished all forms of superstitions and folk beliefs.

In truth, our experience of modernization through urbanization and global economy has always been one of incongruity, in which the mysterious and the absurd exist along with our coherent experiences.

Ultimately, myths can be the last refuge of women, victims and the marginalized like Fe. This is the reason that “Panggagahasa” is not translated as the “Rape of Fe” but rather as the “Rapture of Fe,” since rapture connotes the ripening of myth itself, as it spreads and fulfills various degrees of usage, historical, collective or otherwise.

“Panggagahasa Kay Fe” will compete in Cairo Film Festival on Nov. 10-20, and be exhibited at Osian’s Cinefan Film Festival in New Delhi, Bahamas International Film Festival, and Chicago Film Festival in December.

Join us at our INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE at the Chicago International Film Festival, After Dark Program .

Here is our schedule:

October 9 (Friday) 1030PM
October 13 (Tuesday) 930PM
October 16 (Friday) 1100PM

I shall be attending all the shows to greet our kababayan and guest who will come and support our movie. Please help us spread the word.

Details are found at the Chicago Film Fest website: http://www.chicagofilmfestival.com/films_and_schedule/movie.php?show=the_rapture_of_fe

In celebration of the 150th year of the Ateneo de Manila University, the Sanggunian ng mga Mag-aaral presents Alvin Yapan’s Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe (The Rapture of Fe).

The Sanggunian celebrates the collaboration of the Ateneo alumni, faculty and students who worked for the production of Feas cast and crew. They are the following: Alvin Yapan, Alem Ang, Nonie Buencamino, Jerry Respeto, Gema Pamintuan, Morny de Guzman, Michael Son, Mariel Dionisio, Ariel Diccion, Ramil Plofino, Marco Ortiga, Gabriel Nacianceno, Carlo Chong and Meeyo Candelaria.

Catch Fe at the following dates:
Sept. 15, (Communication Arts Night)
Sept. 16, (Women and Gender Night) and
Sept. 18 (Humanities Night and Gala Night)

Show is at 6:00 pm at the Leong Hall Auditorium, Loyola Schools, Ateneo de Manila University. Different keynote addresses related will be given before the show starts.

The Sanggunian is the sole autonomus student government of the Loyola Schools. Fe is part of Fiesta Ciento Cincuenta, the student inititatives for the 500 for 150, a fund-raising project for the Ateneo scholars.

Tickets are at Php. 150.00 each. Discounts will be given who will buy in bulk. For further inquiries, please text 0926.618.4820 or visit www.ateneosanggu.com.

After our successful run at the CCP (sold out screenings) and bagging the coveted Special Jury Prize, “Fe” will be shown at the UP Film Institute on Friday, July 31 at 9PM.   For those who missed out during the Cinemalaya Festival, here is your chance to catch the movie.

Contact UP Praxis, our sponsoring org for tickets.  09064108994

from http://oggsmoggs.blogspot.com/

[EDITOR'S NOTE:  This critique is best read after watching the movie as it explains the allegory discussed in the movie.]

According to writer-director Alvin Yapan, Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe (The Rapture of Fe) is a “poetic and allegorical narrative of a woman’s will to survive in an oppressive environment. The woman here, the titular Fe (masterfully played by Irma Adlawan), is an overseas worker, repatriated by the bleak global economy, and is welcomed home by Dante (Noni Buencamino), her violent and barren husband, and Arturo (TJ Trinidad), her young lover who manages the basket factory that employs her and her husband. Amidst the abuses of her husband and the amorous declarations of her young lover, Fe would regularly receive a basket full of fruits from a mysterious suitor. Dante is unable to provide for her economically, while Arturo is unable to abandon both his paralytic father (Jerry Respeto) and the basket factory. Trapped in between two inutile men, Fe is reduced to desperation to the point of making a drastic decision to escape her asphyxating predicament.