When I first saw this film, I quickly thought to myself, “Wow. It’s almost like Dekada ’70 except without the martial law part.” I soon found out that the reason this is so is because the two films were written by the same person- Lualhati Bautista. Bata, bata Paano ka ginawa also shows what life is like for women who do not fall into society’s “normal” standards.
This film can be used as a social criticism on how Filipino people and society react to circumstances that they do not see in their everyday life, more specifically shown in the film as the occurrences of children having multiple parents.
In the film, Lea is shown being married to Ding while having two children- Ojie and Maya. However we soon find out that Maya is their only child. Lea had Ojie with her first husband, Raffy. Ojie knows this fact which strains his relationship to Ding, thinking that sometimes he doesn’t treat him as a son. Ojie asks his mom what his dad is like and later on gets the chance to meet him. However Raffy already has a pregnant second wife named Eleanor. And to add to this mix of characters is Lea’s co-worker Johnny, who she has a crush on.
Maya seems to portray the quality of innocence in the film. She says things as she sees it. She is the character who first told us about her family’s seemingly bizarre situation to a number of party guests, to the anguish of her father. On this scene we saw how common folks react so interestedly to a situation they normally don’t hear about, like how a woman has more than one husband for example.
There is also another character in the film which reflects society’s views on Lea’s marital situation. Principal Zalameda seems to portray the old traditional view of old-timers. There is that one scene where she questions Lea why her children have different surnames when they should only have one. Basically she is insinuating that Lea should have only one husband. This view is very closed minded and does not seem to be adaptable to today’s society where separation between married couples are more common than that in the past. Principal Zalameda symbolizes the view of the past generations that are still trying to hold on to ancient values in a modern world.
Ding’s character is a mama’s boy. It shows how Filipino men are attached to their mothers. It is a critique on how Filipino men are always comparing their partners to that of their mom’s when they do tasks such as cooking, cleaning, or doing the laundry. However I think that it is not Ding’s fault this is so. It’s not his fault to grow up on a society that puts their mothers on a pedestal in which they compare other females to. It is probably due to the three hundred years of Spanish rule that this came into being.
Lea’s character on the other hand is one that we rarely see in films. Although she is a woman of the modern world who is not contented with just staying inside the house, she is also a very open woman when it comes to her sexuality. She openly admitted that she watches pornographic videos. And whereas in the other films no reference to sex is stated, Lea actually describes her disappointments in her sex life. She describes how when she and her husband consummate their love, it’s just a physical act that does not reach her at an emotional level. Perhaps that is why in the ending scene when she made love to Raffy for the last time, she is shown crying. She probably reached that emotional state she’s been trying to reach ever since she got married.
Overall this is a good film. There a lot of funny bits but still has enough content to relate to the audience on a personal level.
No comments:
Post a Comment