Prior to uploading this Fields of Vision article, originally published in National Midweek, an interesting twist occurred: for the first time since I started graduate studies, I had the now-rare luxury to go over any film that interested me, since for the first time since I started teaching, I was able to arrange a half-sabbatical for myself. I decided to re-view (with the option to review) the possible entries in the Filipino film canon, and was startled by how many fine films were taken for granted during the 1980s, simply because too many others were already being celebrated even in other lands; I also wrote elsewhere that cultural critics during the first half of that decade felt obliged to tamp down their enthusiasm, since the call of the times was to denounce the Marcos dictatorship, which had cast its lot, for better or worse, with the local industry. My contemporary colleagues confirmed this discovery of an embarrassment of cinematic wealth, so I sought to rectify the earlier write-up by adding some titles I’d rediscovered, winding up with about a quarter new entries, as well as identifying all the films’ directors. Finally, with the availability of works on streaming services, I also managed to provide the characters’ names rather than the actors who portrayed them. To jump to specific years, please click here for: 1980; 1981; 1982; 1983; 1984; 1985; 1986; 1987; 1988; or 1989.
Three teachers are simultaneously handling the basic introductory film course at the national university for academic year 1990-91, and one inspired afternoon we all got together to coordinate our syllabi and agree on certain activities. One of these was the preparation of two sets of film clips, one on foreign films and another on local ones. I remarked that I was preparing a similar listing of Filipino film highlights to prove that, regardless of the few ups and greater downs it underwent, film as a medium still contained the country’s most consistent artistic achievements. My list was slightly different from what we were preparing – we were concentrating on what I had earlier called the second Golden Age of the latter Marcos era, 1976-86, while I was drawing largely from the scope of my then-forthcoming first anthology of reviews and criticism, namely the ’80s.
11011Surprisingly, although we had some differences when it came to deciding what scenes from what foreign titles to include, we were almost entirely in agreement regarding the Filipino films. Herewith are the scenes I listed for myself, with two urgent clarifications: first, I pinpointed each one in the context of remembering the entire film; and second, several of these films contained more than just one memorable moment – hence the notion of scene listings or film clips is still essentially a compromise. I first tried to classify some of these (a lot of them were endings in their original works), but later I realized that the principle of time could best be employed in indulging in the persistence of memory. Mostly I searched for moments that were satisfying in the emotional rather than in the plastic cinematic senses, and arranged these chronologically according to year of release, with titles within the same year arranged alphabetically.
Elvira regretfully walks out on her married lover Daniel, then watches from a distance as he looks for her and gives up in Eddie Romero’s Aguila.
11011Reluctant to confront the reality of her enslavement to small-time film idol Gardo, Bona accedes to her neighbors’ invitation to drink and winds up momentarily forgetting her insurmountable sorrows in Lino Brocka’s Bona.
11011Monica, just recovered from trauma-induced catatonia after killing her male oppressors, promises to name her baby after Cynthia as a means of forgiving her promiscuous and unscrupulous best friend in Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s Brutal.
11011Dressed for a sunbathing session, April’s conversation with boyfriend Jake leads to dissatisfaction with his hesitation to commit to their relationship in Danny Zialcita’s Ikaw at ang Gabi.
11011Bogus nuns, led by their Mother Superior, start with a religious hymn that breaks out into a disco number in Mike De Leon’s Kakabakaba Ka Ba?
11011Ellen confronts her sister, Grace, for whom her abusive husband Ernesto still holds a flame, in Laurice Guillen’s Kasal?
11011Lesbian drug pusher Kano discusses true love with gay couturier Manay at the sauna parlor where blind masseuse Bea, the former’s girlfriend, works in Ishmael Bernal’s Manila by Night.
11011Forced against his will, Flavio brands a young boy for Lizardo’s slave army in Ronwaldo Reyes’s Ang Panday.
11011Totoy, upon realizing that the upper-class lifestyle he wanted demanded compromises he could not afford, watches his dance-instructor parents enjoying themselves and decides to obey his father’s admonition to take over the family profession in Celso Ad. Castillo’s Totoy Boogie.
11011Timid nymphets Celina, Cecilia, and Corazon finally find the courage to gang up on their oppressors’ henchman in Joey Gosiengfiao’s Underage.
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Guillermo Santos, anxious about the fate of his missing son, discovers the infant on Smokey Mountain, dead on a mountain of garbage, and breaks down in Mike Relon Makiling’s Ako ang Hari.
11011Totay chases lecherous executive Leon with a bolo knife, threatening to castrate him; after he jumps out the window and is immobilized by an injury, she tells him to wait for her so she could finish him off in Junn P. Cabreira’s Cover Girls.
11011Milagros, a victim of incest who’s disallowed by Diosdado Carandang, her father-lover, from leaving the family with her husband, dreams of being a bride in a house full of running water in Mike De Leon’s Kisapmata.
11011After suffering abuse and manipulation (including a near-fatal abortion procedure) in the hands of her manager and producer Mers Madsen, Karina Daluz decides to take matters into her own hands by dictating her terms in Lino Brocka’s Kontrobersyal.
11011Rural migrant Berto arrives at Rizal Park for the first time and meets an entire range of offbeat characters, some of whom had appeared in previous Ishmael Bernal films, in the same director’s Pabling.
11011Knocked unconscious by an otherworldly monster, Flavio is surprised to discover that he was saved by winged people who brought him to their mountain village in Ronwaldo Reyes’s Pagbabalik ng Panday.
11011Pepe Medrano shares a tender moment with his bride Marita Abad on their wedding night, both blissfully unaware of the politically catalyzed violence that will soon rip their town and family apart in Romy Suzara’s Pepeng Shotgun.
11011Annoyed at how her colleagues hold their former mama-san Amang in such high regard, Luisa reminds her and them of how traumatically she had been introduced to a life of prostitution in Mel Chionglo’s Playgirl.
11011Macario decides to kill his unfaithful wife Salome and himself after realizing that their shared guilt in murdering one of her lovers will forever haunt them in Laurice Guillen’s Salome.
11011Having learned of the existence of hidden treasure, army deserter Satur invades the peaceful island maintained by three sisters for their late father in Celso Ad. Castillo’s Uhaw na Dagat.
After investing so much in her prize cock that friends and family abandon her, but unaware that her rivals poisoned it, Annie discovers that it can’t win a major derby and mourns its death in front of onlookers in Pablo Santiago’s Annie Sabungera.
11011Jenny’s supreme confidence in her desirability overrides the comic limitations of her provincial accent and fake sophistication as she proceeds to seduce late-blooming virgin Pacoy Ledesma in Mike De Leon’s Batch ’81.
11011After favored son Ellis mourns his dead mother during her burial, his brother and now blood-feud enemy Lorens shows up and weeps over his loss of a family, and also over the fact that he nevertheless maintained filial affection for the mother who rejected him in Lino Brocka’s Cain at Abel.
11011While conducting research in his hometown for his anthropology thesis, Teddy learns about a tale that will explain why his ancestors died prematurely, about a mythical forest king who slapped his promiscuous nymph daughter and turned her scattered gemstones into fireflies in Maryo J. de los Reyes’s Diosa.
11011Mang Ilyong realizes that Auring, who had enchanted the town’s eligible bachelor, is the ghost of his sweetheart who had perished at the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II in Butch Perez’s Haplos.
11011Brutalized sex worker Nimia, who returned to her hometown to set up a whorehouse to avail of the tourists lured by her childhood friend’s popularity as faith healer, captivates a group of curious local boys by stripping and performing magic tricks with her body and dancing with them in Ishmael Bernal’s Himala.
11011Flash Gonzaga manfully apologizes to his best friend Speed Max, who accepts it with just enough pride intact in Lino Brocka’s In This Corner.
11011Totoy reconciles with rebellious son Dennis in Ishmael Bernal’s Ito Ba ang Ating mga Anak?
11011Four female friends – unrequited lover Joey, talentless but determined singer Kathy, gay husband’s ex-wife Sylvia, and overburdened wife Maritess – kill time at their university building’s steps in Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s Moral.
11011Two clans of the sugar gentry flee from invading Japanese soldiers who have burned their cane fields in Peque Gallaga’s Oro, Plata, Mata.
11011David, frustrated with his gay relationship with a lumpen macho, casts a longing glance at Chuck Reyes while the latter drunkenly confesses his disappointment with the former’s best friend, Clarissa, in Lino Brocka’s Palipat-Lipat, Papalit-Palit.
11011Having fled to San Bartolome to hide from the wrath of a landowning family after her son Pepe killed their American caretaker, Nanding realizes that he longs to look after the people he left behind and bids him a mournful farewell in Pablo Santiago’s Pepeng Kaliwete.
11011Emil meekly cleans up the plates broken in a fit of exasperation by his live-in mistress Marilou in Ishmael Bernal’s Relasyon.
11011Art realizes that his kept man Egoy has fallen in love with Sora; after meeting his rival and realizing that Art will be in good hands, he lets go of his claim in Maryo J. de los Reyes’s Schoolgirls.
11011Illegitimate daughter Nora attempts one final conciliation with her legitimate half-sister Divina; unsuccessful, she decides to abandon the family abode in Eddie Garcia’s Sinasamba Kita.
11011Tough-minded lesbian lawyer Sylvia forgets her aversion to romantic commitment when she sees alluring showgirl Isabel shimmying in front of her in Danny L. Zialcita’s T-Bird at Ako.
Starlet Boying and Jess, his gay manager, unconsciously demonstrate to Rene, who’s estranged from Ellen, how true lovers quarrel and then reconcile in Ishmael Bernal’s Broken Marriage.
11011Stranded foreign exotic dancer Dolores teaches conservative lass Gregoria Madlanglayon how to seduce a man by flirting with her ardent admirer Joey in Jehu Sebastian’s Hayop sa Ganda.
11011Detective Salazar relates to his son Paolo his fulfillment in retiring as an honest though poor policeman in Lino Brocka’s Hot Property.
11011Despite being pregnant from her current relationship, Becky retreats to her coastal hometown after being threatened by another woman with claims to her boyfriend Armand, where she can assume a new identity in order to return to the city, in Laurice Guillen’s Init sa Magdamag.
11011Destructively domineering father Gusting Esquivel chides his dead wife Elena on her grave for abandoning him in this life in Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s Karnal.
11011Rebel leader Pedro, after deciding to await his firstborn as his wife undergoes labor among Aeta tribespeople, enjoys the quiet rural dawn prior to making his last stand in Celso Ad. Castillo’s Pedro Tunasan.
11011Long-suffering mother Amanda finally decides to turn against her criminally abusive son Rigor, in favor of her adopted daughter Marta, in Carlo J. Caparas’s Pieta.
11011When her grieving mother Lorrie Rodrigo blames the death of her husband on adoptive son Joel, Shayne finds herself torn between the emotional demands of her mother and the needs of her brother in Maryo J. de los Reyes’s Saan Darating ang Umaga?
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Brothers Dave and Donald show Jake the video they surreptitiously took of him while he made out with a mysterious maiden and are flabbergasted to discover that no one was with him in Tata Esteban’s Alapaap.
11011Ilocana Biday and Visayan Idang maintain hypocritical geniality as next-door neighbors while plotting to outdo each other in terms of material success and involving their husbands and children in the process in Maryo J. de los Reyes’s Anak ni Waray vs. Anak ni Biday.
11011Defense lawyer Jorge loses his equanimity in court after his client and former girlfriend Baby decides to incriminate herself by telling the truth in Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s Baby Tsina.
11011Arnel, Tonton, Adie, Toffee, and Gilbert engage in hijinks and partake of 1980s New Wave pop culture as they explore the world of adolescent masculinity in Maryo J. de los Reyes’s Bagets.
11011Former student activist Luz verges on a hysterical breakdown as she cradles the slain body of Turing, her worker-husband driven by poverty to commit crime for her sake, in Lino Brocka’s Bayan Ko: Kapit sa Patalim.
11011As his wife slowly goes to pieces from the encroachments of poverty, Udong learns how his friends killed the illegal recruiter who betrayed them and got arrested for it in Gil Portes’s Bukas … May Pangarap.
11011Juliet escapes from prison by seducing her security escort and then handcuffing him to a bed in a mausoleum in Mario O’Hara’s Bulaklak sa City Jail.
11011After repeatedly being treated abusively for growing up in poverty, Rebecca swears revenge on her biological father’s family in Emmanuel H. Borlaza’s Bukas Luluhod ang mga Tala.
11011Unaware that his older sister Yolly suspects his involvement in gangland violence, Efren submits to her care and counsel in Mario O’Hara’s Condemned.
11011Clarissa Rosales enumerates to her elder sister Nancy the several frustrations in slum life as her justification for aspiring to higher social standing in Maryo J. de los Reyes’s Kaya Kong Abutin ang Langit.
11011Gold-digging manipulator Pablo Acuesta attempts to seduce lonely widow Minda, whose loneliness blinds her to his coarseness and greed, by plying her with liquor in Laurice Guillen’s Kung Mahawi Man ang Ulap.
11011Violet and birthday celebrator Mila Cruz, Filipina nurses working in America, cry together from too much laughter and homesickness in Gil Portes’s ’Merika.
11011Pinang pacifies her squabbling neighborhood friends by advising them to touch an amount of money whose sheer bulk they had never seen before in their lives in Abbo Q. de la Cruz’s Misteryo sa Tuwa.
11011Dina (in a still photo) enumerates the deaths of great men after her own meaningless killing in Mel Chionglo’s Sinner or Saint.
11011Naïve nun Stella Legaspi, mentored by her namesake Stella Bautista, nervously takes her place in a picket line for the first time in Mike De Leon’s Sister Stella L.
11011Just like her two younger sisters, conservative barrio lass Ikang sings Maria Grever’s “Tipitipitín” (a.k.a. “Ladrón de amores”) after losing their virginity to stammering stranger Isaac in Celso Ad. Castillo’s Virgin People.
11011Single mother Nimfa, realizing that English will not be enough for corporate-climbing in Makati, works on her Spanish in Ishmael Bernal’s Working Girls.
Renée meets Adora, a woman she befriended on a plane ride, when the latter’s boyfriend lands a job in the firm owned by Renée’s father; finding herself attracted to the new recruit, Renée decides to hire Adora as her personal secretary, the better to control her, in Leroy Salvador’s Beloved.
11011Barrio boys bravely line up for the traditional unanesthetized circumcision ritual in Tikoy Aguiluz’s Boatman.
11011Frustrated from having to service too many demanding women, gigolo Sammy vents his exasperation with their limited cooking abilities by enumerating, to his elderly lover Toyang, a wide variety of edible fish species in Ishmael Bernal’s Gamitin Mo Ako.
11011Exasperated banker Mr. Montero recites a litany of local middle-class annoyances he’ll be leaving behind when he migrates to the US in Ishmael Bernal’s Hinugot sa Langit.
11011Oppressed mother Auring and her son Mike discover each other’s identity after years of separation in Lino Brocka’s Miguelito: Batang Rebelde.
11011Daria emerges as house favorite, in the face of her mother Ester’s disapproval, in her very first dance performance in Celso Ad. Castillo’s Paradise Inn.
11011An unnamed security guard, aware of his wife’s infidelity to him, cries like a child to her prior to carrying out bloody vengeance in Peque Gallaga’s Scorpio Nights.
11011After her citified friend Selda convinces her that her objection to worldly desires is unnecessary and unhealthy, Tonya begins discovering her body’s sensual potential in Elwood Perez’s Silip.
11011A ghostly band of adventurers sing “Atin Cu Pung Singsing” as they sail down the Pampanga River in Peque Gallaga’s Virgin Forest.
Forced into gladiatorial hand-to-hand combat by sleazy-rich yuppies, Aldon Labrador defeats the reigning champion (working-class like him) but refuses to kill him in Mario O’Hara’s Bagong Hari.
11011Obsessive paranoid Eddie (who changed his name from Lito), tormented by the memory of a girl he killed and another he has kidnapped, goes into a hallucinatory nightmare in Mike De Leon’s Bilanggo sa Dilim.
11011Single parent Malou tries her best to cheer up her kids upon their arrival at their rundown new residence in Celso Ad. Castillo’s Ang Daigdig Ay Isang Butil na Luha.
11011Left to contend with her mother’s drive to prove that the abandonment of her husband will not crush her, Diana confesses her resentment to her older sister in Mel Chionglo’s Nasaan Ka Nang Kailangan Kita.
11011Ariel eavesdrops on Elsa and Niña’s intimate moment and feels compelled to seduce the latter in Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s Sensual.
11011Letty, the only one among two couples who has fallen in love with the person she married, breaks down upon confirming her husband and best friend’s affair in William Pascual’s Takaw Tukso.
11011Married couple Irene and Crispin match the former’s best friend, fugitive Fidel, with the latter’s schoolteacher chum, Rosa, during a picnic in Peque Gallaga’s Unfaithful Wife.
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Although Miguel and Ador are childhood chums, the former’s interest in the latter’s wife starts to strain their camaraderie but reaches a breaking point when Miguel’s wife Cindy treats Ador as an object she deserves to own, in Abbo Q. dela Cruz’s Hubad na Pangarap.
Gay soldier Gringa eulogizes his straight doppelgänger, a fallen rebel leader, in Mike Relon Makiling’s Kumander Gringa.
11011Successful executive Rosita Monteverde declares her intention to maintain her grip at all cost on hesitant lover Ernie Balboa in Lino Brocka’s Maging Akin Ka Lamang.
11011Before an audience of otherworldly creatures and earthlings, Paham states his preference for staying in the supernatural world to residing in Cubao in Peque Gallaga & Lore Reyes’s Once Upon a Time.
11011Ruby gives vent to her emotions as her husband Raffy moves in with his mistress Doris in Mel Chionglo’s Paano Kung Wala Ka Na.
11011Estella, dressed in black along with her mother- and sister-in-law, prepares to attend the funeral of Val, an intellectually disabled man whom she was forced to marry for convenience by her manipulative boyfriend, but with whom she eventually fell in love in Eddie Garcia’s Saan Nagtatago and Pag-ibig?
11011Although Carol witnessed how her less-privileged best friend Marietta coveted and nearly stole her hubby Alex away from her, she listens to her pal’s explanation and accepts her apology in Emmanuel H. Borlaza’s Stolen Moments.
11011After her family discovers her trade, Bel attempts suicide but has to defer it several times to attend to the needs of her late prostitute-friend’s baby in Mario O’Hara’s Tatlong Ina, Isang Anak.
11011After her father’s mistress badmouths her mother, Melanie reports their conversation and has the satisfaction of watching her mother beat up the other woman in Artemio Marquez’s The Untold Story of Melanie Marquez.
Tough-as-nails Nancy teaches a demure Remedios how to become an effective bus conductor in Mel Chionglo’s Babaing Hampaslupa.
11011Presidential aspirant Corazon Aquino and her supporters celebrate the departure of a dictator in Robert Markowitz’s A Dangerous Life.
11011Although her upper-crust boyfriend Edmond insists that he and Malou can overcome their class differences, she finally feels obliged to spell out to him why their positions are irreconcilable in Maryo J. de los Reyes’s Dinampot Ka Lang sa Putik.
11011Bank teller Josie, flush with the exhilaration of freedom from big-city concerns, runs through a clearing in the wilderness in the dead of night as her bewildered boyfriend Angel Asuncion follows in Chito Roño’s Itanong Mo sa Buwan.
11011After Erwin confides his apprehension to his sister Rosalinda regarding her safety in the hands of her sadist husband Adrian, she winds up comforting her brother in Maryo J. de los Reyes’s Kapag Napagod ang Puso.
11011After years of avoidance, working-class couple Cynthia and Rafael Villanueva strive for civility with their upper-class counterparts and former swapped partners Rebecca and Amado Martinez in Carlos Siguion-Reyna’s Misis Mo, Misis Ko.
11011Klaus, a German who hires sex worker Diana to straighten out his dissolute son Peter, realizes how much he has to sort out when Peter gets wind of Diana’s profession and Diana discovers that her procurer is the man who killed her sister in Bobby A. Suarez’s Red Roses for a Call Girl.
11011A matriarch everyone calls lola (granny) explains to her brood of grandchildren how deforestation forces creatures of the woodlands to dwell among humans in Peque Gallaga & Lore Reyes’s Tiyanak.
11011Bargirl Sally, realizing that her boyfriend Carding needs money, decides to give him her earnings in exchange for a night of intimacy with him in Pepe Marcos’s Tubusin Mo ng Dugo.
Upon discovering that her husband and the ambitious politician who stole him betrayed her, Salve casts her lot with the gangster who saved her in Lino Brocka’s Babangon Ako’t Dudurugin Kita.
Magnolia de la Cruz admits her generation-spanning love, twisted by class conflicts, for Anselmo in Elwood Perez’s Bilangin ang Bituin sa Langit.
11011Tatang Mundo, charismatic leader of a band of right-wing fanatics, basks in his belief that God is on his side as his own family suffers in Peque Gallaga & Lore Reyes’s Isang Araw Walang Diyos.
11011Exotic dancers Noel and Pol, the former discovering his sister in a brothel and the latter anxious to comfort him, resort to homosexual tenderness in Lino Brocka’s Macho Dancer.
11011Former rebel priest and government apologist Jimmy Cordero grieves silently for his illegitimate son murdered by right-wing vigilantes in Lino Brocka’s Orapronobis.
11011Cancer victim Juliet Espiritu pays tribute to a beautiful morning before death claims her in Ishmael Bernal’s Pahiram ng Isang Umaga.
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