BALIKBAYAN BOX
Philippines, 2007, 113 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Ramon Mez de Guzman.
A balikbayan box is used by Philippinos living outside their country to send home goods to their families. This theme of migration is in the background of this slice of life in the Philippine provinces. A woman returns laden from Japan. Another woman wants to go to work in Hong Kong but can’t afford the placement fee. And, at the end, the box has some sad symbolism.
This film is an observation of village life, focusing on three boys. They play together. They work together. They watch action Tagalog films in a hut, paying their money to an old woman who takes their coins and sits them on benches to watch a world that is so different from theirs.
The film is quite long and the camera wanders over the village, the water, the plantations, the homes, so that we feel we have been there. Some of the characters come alive, especially the boys as well as the father who poaches vegetables from an estate while the armed guard is sleeping or drinking.
The drama heightens at the end and we are left with a mixture of impressions of a simple life, provincial poverty, ambitions and tragic casual violence.
1.The impact of the film? A slice of life in the Philippine provinces? The focus on children? Adults? Ordinariness, poverty, the potential for violence?
2.The cinematic style, video production? The intimacy of the sequences, the closeness to the characters?
3.The Philippine provinces, the terrain, the water, the land, the crops? The towns? The mixture of poverty and affluence? The estate and the armed guards?
4.The focus on the three children, the opening with the two boys looking at the fish? The older boy and his answers? Their moving together? The youngest boy following? The ages of the three boys? The detail of their lives, at home, meals, getting food?
5.The boys and their going to watch the DVDs? The old lady at the BetaMax? house? Taking their money, the children watching the violent Tagalog films? Their enjoyment? Her counting the money, eating the nuts? Her husband, his travelling around with the poster for the Filipino film as well as The Terminator? His coming home, the relationship between the two? The ultimate build-up to her hiding the money, the boys coming back, trying to steal the money, the older money and his assault on the old lady, her death? The old man and his casual attitude towards her death? The boy and his bleeding, his trying to hide – but his callous attitude towards the old woman?
6.The estate, the armed guard, sleeping, the father getting in under the fence, having the little boy watch, the stealing of the vegetables, taking them to the market, the sales, able to buy food for his family? The detail of the family, the mother, her concern, the father and his drinking, the love of the son – and his going with the other boys?
7.The armed guard, his sleeping, drinking? His antagonism towards the poachers? His finally confronting the boy, shooting him? His taking the boy, changing his clothes, putting the boy in the box, going to the river, putting the box on the boat?
8.The women at the river, washing, the possibilities of migrating to Hong Kong for work? Seeing the woman come back from Japan with so much luggage? The difficulties of down-payments? The rich woman, her control, her office? Her servants? Her helping the young woman and the prospect of her going to Hong Kong – and the final scene of their watching the box on the boat going down the river?
9.The playfulness of the young children? Yet the potential for violence?
10.The absence of the church, the piety of the old lady as she prayed at her shrine?
11.Social justice in the area, the film and the observation of life, politics, ignorance?
12.The title, the Balikbayan boxes, people sending packages home to their family from other countries? And the irony of the dead young boy in the Balikbayan box?
