‘Padamlágan’ REVIEW: Shining a (Night) Light on a Tragic Piece of History
‘Padamlágan’ REVIEW: Shining a (Night) Light on a Tragic Piece of History
Ely Buendia as Doring in Padamlágan (Night Light) | Still courtesy of Cinemalaya
On September 16, 1972, the Colgante Bridge in Naga City collapsed under the weight of hundreds of devotees swarming together for the fluvial procession of the Peñafrancia Festival. A total of 138 fatalities arose from what would be known as the Colgante Bridge Tragedy, with a good number of devotees and onlookers still missing to this day. A reason why this might not ring a bell to many Filipinos outside of Bicol is partly because just days after this tragedy, another dark chapter would occur in our collective history: the declaration of Martial Law within the Philippines.
Padamlágan, or Night Light in Bicolano, does not shy away from the implications of this epochal proximity. In fact, barring the promotional material and the statements of the production team behind the film, the narrative within the film itself is set to simmer mode from start to finish, bubbling over with an unease that is unequivocally aware that beyond the tragedy and its aftermath informing the tone and bent of the film, the rot of the rest of our country is what will inevitably take center stage when disasters of this nature occur.
The film follows Doring (played by Eraserheads frontman Ely Buendia), a mild-mannered father to a strong-willed son called Ivan, who inexplicably disappears in the aftermath of the fatal bridge collapse. This vanishing sparks a desperate search that takes Doring — and the viewer —- down a Kafkaesque, seemingly futile journey through the gaps and cracks of broken Philippine bureaucracy. Punctuating the fictional story, filling the cracks in between, are real accounts of the tragedy presented on screen with archival pictures, news clippings, and interview recordings from affected persons or families of victims.
The victims of the 1972 Colgante Bridge Tragedy are laid to rest | Still courtesy of Cinemalaya
The flow of the film, weaving in fiction and out sobering reality, is crafted masterfully by Jenn Romano, who marks this film as her feature directorial debut. The pacing would wobble under a less assured hand as a result of periodic interruptions of the fictional story, but under Romano, the emotional core of the film is all the more exacerbated by context that is not only informative, but moving and heartbreaking in nature. This well-rounded approach the film takes serves its impact greatly and entrenches it firmly within a tangible, remembered history.
Steven Paul Evangelio’s crisp, sure cinematography elevates the images on display; vivid light washes over every frame, recalling a feeling that cannot comfortably be called nostalgia, but which definitely evokes a period past. There is no difference in quality between close-ups of pained faces and wide shots of conversations we see as outsiders looking in — whatever the capacity we see the action onscreen, every frame we see is a thing of beauty.
The film also prides itself on a distinct aspect: its all-Bicolano cast. Besides Buendia, Sue Prado, Floyd Tena, Esteban Mara, Frank Peñones, Mildred Anne Estela, and Ivan Gioceff Papa occupy the 1970s-era Naga the film recreates. No one emerges out of place, not even Buendia himself, who gives a unique performance of restraint that contrasts the fire of Mara’s iteration of the rebellious son Ivan and the macho insistence Tena’s enforcer brother-in-law Zaldy. It is admittedly difficult to gauge how much of his performance is intentional, but in this instance, the perceived limits imposed on Buendia’s interpretation work. From the start, Doring is painted as moving differently than the rest of the characters, informed by a meeker, less expressive demeanor.
Sue Prado as Nora in Padamlágan | Still courtesy of Cinemalaya
However, these aspects ring secondary to the main conceit of the film — not necessarily the disaster at its core, but the aftermath. In a workaround displaying creativity and resourcefulness amidst a limited budget, the bridge collapse itself is not shown onscreen; rather, it is the sound design (masterfully done by Lamberto Casas, Jr.) that protracts the impact of the tragedy, with a mixture of screams, splashes, and crumpling of wood soundtracking Doring’s troubled face. As evidenced by the sporadic cuts to archival images and narrations recounting the tragedy, as well as where the path the narrative takes, the main focus of the film is not spectacle, but the permeative effects of unprecedented disaster, echoing through families, generations, and the history of a place.
The film also chooses to dwell not just on the psychological effects of the tragedy, but also the subsequent uncovering of a country wracked by systemic incompetence and corruption. The film does not run long enough to reach the declaration of Martial Law itself, but murmurs of the government’s spurning of its constituents are seen in the neglect of the local government unit (LGU) towards victims of the tragedy, the loss of important records, and the lack of answers provided to Doring by the authorities on efforts for the search of his son Ivan. A more insidious theory is even brought up in the film — that Ivan, a youth activist who moved back to the province from the city, was deliberately disappeared under cover of the tragedy.
In this context, Doring’s search becomes not just the undertaking of an individual, a heartbroken father looking for his son, but a microcosmic action mirroring the undertaking of a nation that would soon look for family and friends that would become desaparesidos. With this, Padamlágan reflects on the real tragedy, one where a country’s unprecedented disasters are overshadowed by deliberate, manmade ones.
That being said, the film is not without its stumbles. The one that sticks out the most upon reflection is the length of its runtime, a mere 75 minutes (or 80, depending on the source) to encompass all that it hopes to say. This is what lends to its perceived slightness, a narrative that flows smoothly through its first two acts, then hurries into an ending that would be more hopeful, cathartic, and rife with resolve with a longer build-up. In a time where efficiency and overcompactness is prioritized in all forms of media and entertainment, it is a balm to find a film that has the audacity to indulge, to take up more space and wholeheartedly believe that its story must be told in the most thorough way possible. There is a hearth of material at the heart of Padamlágan, and unfortunately, not all of it is broached. A more explosive climax would have also been favored to contrast the sobriety and solemnity of the rest of the film, but in that case, perhaps that would be asking for a completely different story than what the filmmakers may have intended.
However, despite the potential the film did not completely make use of, it is still one of the more criminally underlooked entries from this year’s edition of Cinemalaya. It evokes a bygone time that seeks to be remembered, a crucial marker of a near-forgotten slice of regional history, and a unique perspective on a tumultuous period of time many Filipino artists and filmmakers are still trying to grapple with.
‘Padamlágan’ is one of the selected full-length feature films for the 21st edition of the Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival.
