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The Master
on Film Thoroughly Modern Victorio Edades
(By Constantino C. Tejero)
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INTERESTING ARTICLES |
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The life of Victorio
Edades might not be as dramatic as the life of Van
Gogh, Frida Kahlo or Pollock, but it was no less
epochal-to the Philippine art world, at least.
The man is, in fact, considered the Father of
Philippine Modern Art. And it was this spirit of
revolution that served as impetus to drive Nick
Deocampo into filming the docudrama "Edades."
The film has had its world premiere on Feb. 15
during the 11th Pelikula at Lipunan at SM Megamall
in Mandaluyong City, and was next shown at SM Iloilo
last week.
It is now touring the country from north to south
during the provincial legs of the festival, in SM
Baguio (March 2-6), SM Cebu (March 19-20), SM Davao
(April 23-24), as well as in Zamboanga and
Pangasinan.
The film's opening sequence is a prologue of still
shots introducing the 13 Moderns, the artists who
revolutionized 20th-century Philippine art. These
were the first-generation modernists, who grouped in
1938: the first triumvirate of Edades, Galo B.
Ocampo and Carlos Francisco; then Diosdado Lorenzo,
Jos??? Pardo, Demetrio Diego, Ricarte Purugganan,
Vicente Manansala, H.R. Ocampo, Bonifacio Cristobal,
Cesar Legaspi, Arsenio Capili and Anita Magsaysay.
The enigmatic opening scene shows a white-covered
bed on a seashore in the twilight, with an old man
in a stately walk, and a boy flying a kite across
the seascape. Goldenly lit, the shot captures the
artist as dreamer and master.
Dramatic highlights
The film then traces Edades' life and times, from
his birth in 1895 and childhood in Barrio Bolosan,
Dagupan, Pangasinan, through high school in Lingayen;
his lonely years as an architecture and fine arts
student at University of Washington in Seattle;
summer work in Alaska's salmon canneries; his return
to Manila with American wife Jean and only child
Joan; the rejection of his first exhibit; the
rejection of his teaching application at University
of the Philippines; his founding of the University
of Santo Tomas Departments of Architecture and Fine
Arts in the 1930s; the fierce debate with the
conservatives represented by sculptor Guillermo
Tolentino and genre painter Fernando Amorsolo; brief
sojourns in Paris and Rome; the war years and
Liberation; his imprisonment as a Japanese
collaborator, followed by years of deprivation; the
rediscovery of his art and the patronage of First
Lady Imelda Marcos in the '70s; until his retirement
in Davao and death in 1985.
Dramatic highlights include the day he first
encountered modern European art in the traveling
exhibit of the Armory show in 1922, and the
rejection by both public and critics of his historic
exhibit in the Philippine Columbian Club in 1928.
These scenes are reenacted with almost wide-eyed
suspense.
Deocampo's technique is a happy blend of
reenactment, actual footage (shot in amateur super-8
film), archival footage, photographs, animation,
interviews, video and digital effects. The
unconventional technique reflects the iconoclastic
spirit that imbues the art and life of the subject.
The film was produced by the National Commission for
Culture and the Arts, specifically the Committee on
Galleries supported by Galleria Duemila's Silvana
Diaz, Gallery Genesis' Araceli Salas, and Liongoren
Gallery's Norma Liongoren. Subtitled "Victorio C.
Edades and Modernism in Philippine Art," it is out
to clarify certain points of nationhood.
The docudrama is meant to address "three levels of
history: Edades' personal history; the country's
political history, paralleling the growth of
Filipino identity in art; and the evolution of art
history, as modernism struggled to supplant
classicism."
Edades was proclaimed National Artist for Painting
in 1976, for "changing the direction of Philippine
painting decisively, ending the parochial isolation
of Philippine art and placing it in the mainstream
of international culture."
The dramatization of his biography is contextualized
and, in the process, explained by interviews with
art historians and critics Alice Guillermo and
Patrick Flores, artists Jaime de Guzman and Danny
Dalena (Edades' former students in UST), and gallery
owner Odette Alcantara.
Thus, for the lay person and the common viewer, the
growth and development of Philippine modernism in
art has been clarified by the film, in no small ways
aided by the script of Lydia Rivera Ingle, the lucid
narration of Boots Anson Roa, and a profuse
photomontage of artworks.
What's admirable about Deocampo's filmmaking is
that, the film doesn't turn off the viewer with
sheer academicism at all. Average moviegoers go to
have some fun, and that they get, plus a generous
serving of intellectual and spiritual nourishment.
The boy Victorio is played by Von Ryan Quinto, Mon
Confiado plays the artist as a young man, while
printmaker Pandy Aviado (another Edades student)
plays the postwar artist. Aviado acts like a Zen
master.
The most convincing performance is rendered,
understandably, by Confiado, as he is the only
professional actor of the three. He gives some
intensity to the role, particularly during moments
of internal struggle.
The editing by Emmanuel Dadivas is effective, as is
the painterly cinematography by Yam Laranas.
A masterstroke is the section on the debate between
the conservatives and the moderns, done in frenetic
animation with hilarious word balloons to the
rendition of "Three Little Maids from School," that
flirty song trio from "The Mikado."
The musical scoring of Noel Cabangon is at its most
haunting in the opening scene, the closing scene,
and the penultimate scene (when the conferment of
National Artist is being read by a voice-over, as
blood-red rose petals drift slowly across the
screen).
This is an important film-a must-see not only for
artists, art students, cineastes and art lovers, but
also for ordinary moviegoers so they'd get an
inkling of this extraordinary life and take pride in
being Filipino: how a brown boy from the barrio went
out to the world and helped in putting his country
on the map of the art world.
*From Inquirer News Service; Posted: 11:25 PM
(Manila Time) | Feb. 29, 2004
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