Review: Sisa, the movie

By YANNI ROXAS

“Our grief is endless.”

Spoken by a woman survivor in the film “Sisa” during the American colonization of the Philippines recalls the horrors of wars and abuse endured by countless peoples, past and present, in conquered territories or targeted invasions.

In the film, the drawing power was initially the much awaited comeback of the highly respected Hilda Koronel.  Will she do another master class in playing the lead role of Sisa, a tragic victim of Spanish oppression in Rizal’s novel who fell into madness?  Yes there was madness, but award-winning director Jun Robles Lana, chose to portray Sisa not as vulnerable or mentally broken but as a spy in the Philippine-American war.  The only kinship to Rizal’s Sisa was to use madness as a disguise for espionage.

 Koronel’s raw and exceptional talent brought into the screen the subtleties and complexities of a spy intruding and finally living in a concentration camp.  She herself identifies with the women in the camp as her own family was burned to death during the occupation. Lana used the film as an eye opener to audiences. Not only was it shown in time for the Women’s Month but the raging US-Israel war against Iran, though fought with missiles and bombs, brought  untold sufferings and brutality even in previous times when the US started holding military dominance in the world and occupying territories. Unfortunately to this day many Filipinos remain blindsided by the atrocities of American forces even in their own land, and continue to treat the US as savior or liberator.

This is such an unequivocal truth.  The dominance of foreign oppressors over the oppressed is altering the lives of people upside down, radically, until they lose control of their future. In “Sisa”, a once- peaceful village becomes a concentration camp where only women, children and old folks remain, while male kins are suspected of being insurgents. Whatever is left of families is turned into communal lives amid poverty and repression. Each day the colonizers exercise abuse of power, racism, arrogance, lies and domestic slavery, cavorting with local women as well, but with sexual assault not far behind. Even then some women could fall for the Americans who easily duped them by promises of love.

But there are other unsettling truths in this movie, especially when revolutionary heroes turn traitors. The shock was palpable as Sisa and the camp women who ultimately would have followed her into secretly aiding the insurgents (“hukbo ng bayan”) raged silently when the people’s army marched into the concentration camp to surrender — not to raid, kill or capture the top US visiting forces (“members of  the Taft Commission”) as had been planned earlier.  General Artemio, the Filipino commander played by Romnick Sarmienta, sadly and quietly admitted to Sisa that they are laying down their arms, helpless before the almighty  Americans.

Did the women accept their fate? No. Eugene Domingo, playing the second lead Delia as a suffering mother, spoke the voice of injustice and refused to surrender to the US forces. And the reason?  They had all witness the brutality of colonization as their husbands and children were killed by the colonizers before their very eyes. It was unforgivable to accept defeat, nor would they ever forget. 

As the women debated among themselves, Sisa conveyed inner turmoil.  Without saying a word, but with hands trembling and with intense pained expression, she silently led the women to serve food mixed with what apparently looks like rat poison.  While the US forces and the “insurgents” partied to celebrate the surrender, the women found solace in pouring gasoline around the corners of the dining room.  They deliberately locked the room, including themselves, so no one can escape.  As each diner was falling down, Sisa held a lamp around which the women gathered, and a quiet smile rested on her lips.

Nothing much needed to be said.  People, women and more, will find ways to serve justice in any which way they can and, whether by desperation or by intention, would rather offer one’s life to the end than suffer oppression on repeat. This female narrative is exceptional as it inspires and pays tribute to the courage and solidarity of Filipino women driven by injustice.  It also felt like a sense of catharsis filled the audience as they clapped their hands when the movie ended. (RVO)

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