Bariring, Lawrence Albert A.

April 2, 2014

BSDC 2010-19338

HUM 160 Y

Recreating Rizal

To foretell the destiny of a nation, it is necessary to open the book that tells of her past.
-

Jose Rizal, inscribed in Fort Santiago

Time and space are solely creation of human minds, but not reality. Humans are the only
one who can use the past to predict the future while living right now. Human are also the only
one who can grasp the depth, breadth, and the totality of the place where he lives. Reality,
however, is present in many organisms, their simplicity and all. Fishes have their reality even if it
is only for a little of the time. Horses have their own reality. Human have realities too.
Similarly, reality is not uniform to all humans. Experiences and expectations play a great part in
shaping reality.
Experience, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is the conscious events that make up an
individual life. What will count as an experience will be just those events that the individuals
knows that is happening. For a person who experience something horrible in riding an airplane
will have a very different reality with those whose living is in a flying aircraft. Therefore, one
cannot impose to another the beliefs, perspectives, and ideals one value the most. However, it
will be useful for anyone to look at an object from a different view, from a different reality.

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Alongside experience, expectations play a role in crafting our own reality. It is much
easier to believe if our expectations have been met. However, once expectations do not come
true, it is much harder to face the reality.
And if one distorts reality, questions will arise. Distorting realities based on what we
know will create new avenues to question things we assumed are real and are set in stone. It may
be good or bad depending on how you see it, but ultimately it will open new possibilities on
otherwise clich environment.
Since reality depends on how someone views it, then framing has something to do with it.
To select some aspects of perceived reality is what framing is according to Entman (1993). He
also stated that it makes those perceived realities as understandable as possible and fitted on the
context where we live in. Framing provides us convenient way in looking the world around us.
Mike de Leons Bayaning 3rd World (1999) provided a continuous narrative on how
framing was used to create the reality imagined by the creative crew. It shows how the story of
Jose Rizal can be transformed from an almost ordinary story into a bizarre presentation that
makes you think again of who really Rizal is.

Of Frames and Rizal

One of the hardest person to frame in the Philippine context was Rizal. It is hard since
there is somewhat a rule that he must be presented as what a national hero must be. But using
alternative frames, the director was able create an interesting way to elaborate on supposed
retraction of Rizal.
Framing presents the best and worst of a person. Through framing, a controversial topic
can become palatable to others. So the discussion of a controversial topic if it will be successful

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depends on how it was framed. According to Kernochan (2004), it how something is presented
influences the choices people make.
Through framing, one can seek a new way to understand things. Realistically, time must
have no control on how to frame and what should be the reality. However, mechanical time
affects an individual especially if one needs to create an understandable frame.
Lets take the movie again as an example. It used the idea of teleportation in crafting a
world where old and young generation can meet. Teleportation in the sense that they were able to
personally interview those who have long died. By using that frame, the setting used in the
movie does not seem weird or out of place. Instead, it created a viable scenario that is believable
and can be part of someones reality.
It is always safe to assume that whatever we believe in reflects what kind of path you are
taking. The film highlights things and concepts that are highly different to what we know, but
they were still able to make it palatable to us and harmoniously blend with whatever is on our
mind.

Of Past and Unknown

In this film, it presents the need to acknowledge the past for you to grasp what is
happening today and will never understand the future. By doing this, the filmmakers in the film
were able to flesh out the things that worried those most, things that makes them think harder,
things that will make it go easy.
Going back to Rizal, time and space does not need to be a hindrance in presenting him as
realistically as possible in any kind of frames that can be used. By providing a frame that shows

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a real Rizal, a Rizal that can be talked and argued with, people will really think that indeed, Rizal
is real.
Furthermore, the time and space in this film is nonlinear. Instead, it works on an
intertwined continuum much like a textile. A textile, especially those who have been created by
indigenous groups, presents a vivid depiction of their culture and traditions through the use of
threads and looms. For every thread weave using the loom, an image forms. Using that analogy,
time and space were weaved to form images that stretches from the past as to the present and
up to the future, as we know it. The nonlinearity of the film provided the arena to create
situations where the filmmakers can interact with historical figures without providing loopholes
for historical revisions and inaccuracies.
The film also plays on the timelessness of the subject, which is about Rizal. The film
does not work if measured in homogenous time. Homogenous time, as explained by Walter
Benjamin, is an empty time. Empty time in the sense that it ceased to create affinity with the
things that happened during that particular time. It is also a mechanical time. Mechanical time in
the sense that it ceased to be part of the nature, instead time cannot exist without mechanical
devices to tell you exactly the time. As stated earlier, the film works more on a nonhomogenous, non-mechanical time in which it was able to work out that whatever issues
regarding Rizal is affecting now and is still significant today. One must know that the events
portrayed is a hundred years old. And the film itself is created almost a decade and a half years
ago. Yet, it was timeless. One can still relate on the ideas as if it happened just earlier.

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Of Nature and Constructs

The physicality of the film provides the necessary tools to convey more of the things the
film needs to convey. The hard component of the film represents the technical frames. This tools
became frames because it limits the scene that being presented. Cameras and the backdrop
became frames not only because they have something to do with it but also because of the limits
where it can capture a scene (for the camera) and the ideal set for every scene (for the
background). The soft component, meanwhile, is the culture evident during Rizals time and the
film culture that serves as frame. Rizals culture frames how people during those times think and
express their ideas and what they believe is true. The filmmakers culture, on the other hand,
frames how the filmmakers conduct themselves and how they were able to present what they
want in the movie about Rizal. Also, the culture provides the distinguishing frame of the stories
from other similar ones.
The film was lay-out not by instant thinking but by the prevailing understanding of the
history surrounding Rizal. It provided a blue print mechanism to look beyond what eyes can
perceive. Function follows form and not the other way around. The message of the story became
like that because someone just want to do it; most of the times, it changes through the very shape
of where it is contained.
Whatever happened in the past is both naturally and culturally constructed. The natural
construction of the film tends to be the situation when an event takes place. The cultural
construction, meanwhile, of the film follows the predominant social perspectives and how it was
shaped by new ideas and concepts.

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Of Languages and Realities

Aside from frames, language also creates reality. Understanding what are the building
blocks or the letters used to create concepts, ideas, and words is reality. Voicing out your
aspirations and hopes is reality. The language used by the film recreated the reality they want to
portray in the film.
The kind of language used in the film is the one which recreates reality. It is the language
constructed by humans to help them to understand the way of life. It is the human language. This
language must be able to fully grasp all the necessary concepts so that it can reproduce the world
where those knowledgeable of the language lives in. This language only recreates since the
language of creation is much more complex (mathematics) to understand. Thus the language is
only a close approximation of really what happened early in this universe.
Like a language, the film is only an approximation of what happened in those years. It is
merely a recreation, a representation of the things that happened before.

Of Metafilm and Creations

As such, the film is a metafilm. Metafilm or metacinema is a film/cinema within a
film/cinema. The creative team used the art of filmmaking to make a thread on the various issues
that is describing Rizal. The team let the story flows through the discussions between the two
filmmakers.
Metafilm uses the filmmaking as the frame of the story. The use of this kind of Meta
provides a freedom to explore the different possibilities a film can do. It lets the audience
experience the story and be able to understand what it means.
Bayaning 3rd World is a film of frames and realities.

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References
Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: towards clarification of a fractured paradigm.
Journal of
Communication. 43 (4), 51-58.
Kernochan, R. Framing and Framing Theory. Retrieved in March 31, 2014 from
www.csun.edu/~rk33883/Framing%20Theory%20Lecture
%20Ubertopic.htm

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