Magnifigreat

I saw the trailers and posters of "Magnifico" posted all around when it was still showing nationwide butnthat was a long time ago. I even thought that Lorna Tolentino was the main subject and that her character was the one who does fgreat things. I thought that this is just like another Filipino movie that experiments on new special effects devices and a story that lacks its main essence.

At class I saw the movie and I can say that it is one of the best pieces that the local cinema industry came up with. According to the discussions at class I knew that coming up with a good story considers a writer of having to create somthing phenomenal with only the thingsn that writers possess. Those things can probably be the writers, interests, experiences or lessons learned from school. The story of "Magnifico" revlves around a low budgeted production, but with manipulationof the director, the main characters portrayal of their role made the environment of the story not affect the essence of the story. The great part is that beside from having a simple production, the director was able to come up with something remarkable that made all of the conflicts on the story flow together in one mode that makes undeniably one of the best peices that the local industry has to offer. Unlike other big budgeted action movies in the Phlippines with all the stunt crash settings and stunt performances, Magnifico was able to prove that makig stories is much more of the essence and not the elements.

The Smaller and Smaller circles keeps Getting Better

Since I was a kid, probably since kindergarten;the astonishment towards books and how they manipulate a whole new dimension of worlds(I am not schizophrenic) seems to be the only thing boggles and lights up my imagination aside from Power Rangers and cool villains. When I hit 3rd grade, it was then I got into reading a lot of short novels ranging from reality, fantasy to suspense.From then on,I am an all time fan of short novels.

Those stories I got into were written by foriegn authors and not single one of it were of my own countrymen.Its a very good thing that phillit class has made digg into a few of Filipino literature. These two stories werer namely Getting Better and Smaller and Smaller circles.These two stories have are focused on the different aspects of troubles that inflicts people until today whether it be psychological, emotional or sociological.

Getting Better was the first literary work that Ive read that happens to fall on the category of Chicklit. Alhtough it was the first, it was a grand opening for me into the world of Chicklit(I am not saying that its better than thrillers and suspense). When I started fmlbing along its pages, its seems as if I am reading through a popular comic book.But instead of containing mischievous pranks and twisted short stories for kids, it has the break-up of relationships and the unusaul recipe of adult matters. As the story tackles about the modern and delicate process of going through a break-up, it unfolds a whole new dimension of humorous tragedies. And whats good is that it ended up in a rather unusual plot where the characters are contented with ther situation. It seemeds to be like a comic book for me probably because, of how immensely detailed each portaion of the story was.

The second story of Smaller and Smaller circles is decades away from being a wrok of Chicklit. But in a way it has also triggered my interests due to the horrible plot of a murder case and highly unusual people thattries to solve it. At the start of the story it seems as if Stephen King wrote a murder thriller but as the story went on, the ingredients for the delighfully twisted ending seemed to be thrown away of the chopping plate. Every vital information that leads towards the readers realting themselves into solving the puzzle of the crime werer given away like flyers. It had a good, plot and a very interersting flow until somewhere in the middle of the story.

I can conclude that the main trench of a bestselling story is jumbling thorugh the pieces of the story that makes readers push through until the ending. I can approve that Getting Better is a phenomenon in local Chicklit, but I cannot say that Smaller and Smaller circles is ineffective in keeping the readers guessing intil the end. Though I havent written any from of story yet, I think that both has done a great task in having great plots and so leading them into the topics of discussions at schools.

Why did she do that?

The story of "Generations" by Ninotchka Rosca, for me was undeniably one of the best short stories our Filipino writers came up with. Exemplifying the simplicity and innocence of the ravaged ordinary youth that are disrupted by the gigantic existence of opression on our society.
Although it wasn't sort of a fantasy story, it featured the primary elements Iv'e been looking for in a story such as "what if" situations, suspense and protagonists against violence; while depicting public opression that is existing in the country.

Although our writer, in my own opinion can be considered as one of the exemplary contemporary writers there is. She also used fantastical elements that made it easier for me to relate into the story. All in all, she is a major factory of great stories.

Aside from these huge number of comments towards her work, I think that Rosca missed one important thing in her story; that is making the girl (who was the potential protagonist) a sort of disrupted villain. The canon writers before through their works of "My Father goes to court","Bread of Salt" and "The Corral" all reflected the good traits of Filipinos that makes us globally outstanding. But Rosca, has seemed to place the girl in a very bad situation. She was type who was sent by the family to beauty contests and hopefully makes inte the major tv networks. She has the capacity to place herself and the whole family into a better situation. She was the promising daughter of a humble family who became a notorious criminal.

One horrible incident turned her from a rose into a cauliflower. Her messed up father screwed up(probably a lot of times before already) and so in an attempt to save her dad she got herself used and she eventually ended up smashing her father to death. In the first place, she shouldn't have had herself harassed and turned up very miserably. She got rid of her life and so she screwed up badly. The ending of the story was like an empty honeycomb for the family.

This reflects how much the common citizens are deprived of getting the right amount of justice and how it seriously damages the structure of our community that leaves a mark for decades to come. The writer could have used her manipulative writing into reflecting the better traits of our nation.

North Korea vs. Wonderland

Now I came up with that kind of title just to impart that this blog entry talks about reality(North Korea) and the awesome fantasy(Wonderland).

Reality, in my own and personal point of view are the things that I encounter and meet everyday. Since I was a kid........everything that I like and sort of get interested with such as gigantic hungry things(check out these things) to earthly black holes are most likely to influence the life I live....from how I percieve what I do to what happens to my life. I am not saying that I'm schizophrenic but it appears that every person was given the ability to come up with such fictional concepts like fantasy and personally relate themselves with these kinds of fiction. For example, Thomas Edison; he invented and so realized certain things that were "out of this world" during his time................another example is that of Magellan's travels....his Mother and Father and perhaps his family thought that there were no other lands than that of Europe and everyone on earth believed that the world was flat and it was like throwing himself to nowhere when he sailed to look for the spice islands and therefore proving that the world is round.......................and now the last example of people who made fantasies real is Marx who stuck up at home for a very long time and composed his principles of communism, a state of government far different from the kind of governement that governs him and his people.......today more than six nations have adopted and completely dedicated thier government's principlies from the ideologies he wrote.

I'm not telling people to make lands like wonderland and do not go to school and explore the world. I'm just portraying that the fantasy and reality in each and everyones personal lives is co-existing with each other and so affects a persons performance in life. Fantasy and Reality are two elements that when applied in somebody's mentality can affect them one one way or the other.....much more of like the cellphone and the sim card a cellphone is nothing but another junk no greater than a calulator if it does'nt have a sim card activated on it. A sim card on the other hand is like a candy wrapper if not used with the cellphone.

When I come up with fictional thoughts when im at the middle of something(which is the only time I have fictional thoughts), I feel a little bit of being not human but not also an animal.........it's like I'm a robotic person, somebody who's been alive far before than the time of our national heroes. I never liked the feeling of being alienated because since I was a kid i tried so much of being a common citizen and suddenly I turn myself into a cyborg. Alienation is a kind of time when we somehow relate to ourselves and further coming with more identities to describe our very selves.

Before and After

At class we tackle a lot of Philippine Literature. Philippine Literature in english started when the Americans thought us so, and with it goes the type of literature we call the canon literary works and today we have the contemporary works.

The canon literary works very much portray the traditional way the Filipino writers come up with their stories. The society or the environment of the main character is the where the world of the story revolves at, therefore whtever happens to the character affects the whole society and the "environment he/she is in". The canon writers reflect all the political and social matters that occur during their time; such as the traditional courtship, family heirarchies and sharing boundaries with their neighbors. The typical climax of the stories relay the unusual process of changing and sometimes breaking the common norms of the society before. The ending shows the unusual events that can shock even modern people in terms of personal matters. It is much centered on the reaction of a society before when certain controversies and events happen to them.

The contemporary writers are revolving the stories in the characters ego. It shows how certain characters go through controversial matters that deeply involve one's personality. O course, as the works were done this modern day, technology and a whole lot of gadgets has soemthing to do in linking major events of the story. From what we've discussed from Games and Documents, the life of the story rotates within the characters ownselves. the writers also have ceratin elements of "what if" and "supernatural elements". This gives the stories more factors in which the readers can relate to. Defnitely it portrays the the specific matters that happens to the characters personality that has something to do with every readers personal matters.

THE ALPHA FEMALE

Nearly almost 7 decades or perhaps a century ago, our society; the typical Philippine family heirarchy were dominated by Fathers, the masculine gender. And as the same thing goes with the family, the local government units and organizations around the globe used to be ruled and influenced by men. Of course....as tradition dictates;this scenario from our community has been the usual for almost the start of man's civilization. The women, used to have the next position to the men. They were tasked to do all household chores and were somewhat the "law enforcers" of what the male prefers the family to be.

The modern times and the seem to have evolved in such a way that engulfs women's equal and wonderful capabiltities that make them equal with the males. A whole lot different from what it used to be before,women are already managing global corporations, leading countries and ruling families.Women today are very aware of the great characteristics they posses that can place them even on top of the society. Certain women who were left by thier husbands continue their parenting even better when they used to have a husband an dtheir children seem to be under very good care. Progressing countries were governed by women president and huge women owned companies are doing very good in the world market. Certain families, as the basic unit of a society were governed by both father and mother in coming up with decisions for the welfare of the family. Due to this current testimonies of women's capabilites they are alerdy playing a major role from politics, showbiz, family heirarchy and corporate management and they are still abel to support thier own families like they usually do before.

The Two Themes

This time around at class, we discussed about Mr. Franz Arcellana's literary works such as Divide by Two and The Mats seem to have alink to each other in terms of the theme used from both stories.

Divide by Two tackles about how Filipinos occupy and respond tto their neighbors teritorry............and for me this story best suits the theme personal land because we Filipinos in a way have an innate and deep sense of what we are doing and the culture and tarditions that we perform everyday....and with it goes along the venue or place were we do these activities. Those characters from Divide by Two portray the common actuations of Filipinos when interacting with their neighbors who affects their living.

The Mats, very much like the previous story has the sense of typical Filipinos reacting to their personal belongings. I think the theme belonging best suits this story beacuse the story also says that each children who were given mats by their father (custom made and labeled with their names by their personality) cherished and "pinahalagahan' those things given by their father. When somethings are tasked to be under our care, Filipinos usually mark it and label to signify to whom it belongs to.

The two stories, though both told in a different manner, has the same concept of the term belong..........and I think each and every story told by these "Canon Authors" from class represents a kind of their signature in each story that tells and portrays how these era of colonization and produced national literature in a foreign language affected them personally. the only factor to better distinguish their influence in the story is through identifying the themes.