‘Karnal’ REVIEW: The Devil of the Province
‘Karnal’ REVIEW: The Devil of the Province
Narcing (Philip Salvador) returns to his ancestral home and confronts his brazen and stern father (Vic Silayan) after three years.
Karnal stands out in Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s trilogy as a particularly unique one. Instead of living in the turbulence of Martial Law like its two other films (Moral and Brutal), the film chooses to operate in the confines of the rural Philippine countryside, specifically during the 1930s when the country’s populace was slowly absorbing progressive Western values from the soul of imperial America. It’s a deliberate choice heavily inspired by the works of Fernando Amorsolo, the national painter whom Abaya and her production designer, Fiel Zabat, spent intense research on to get the look and feel of the movie. The final output is a ruthless subjugation of the Philippine countryside, a film bringing life to an Amorsolo painting in all the wicked ways one can’t imagine.
Charito Solis plays a nameless narrator. She appears throughout the movie to narrate and describe in detail the events that took place in the distant rural province.
Narcing (Philip Salvador) and Puring (Cecille Castillo) are a married couple who run working-class jobs in Manila. After Narcing experiences several failures as a blue-collar worker, he retreats home to his birthplace of Mulawin with the hope of obtaining his inheritance from his strict and control-obsessed father. His choice to return to a place he originally escaped from initiates a series of dire consequences for him, his wife and his immediate family consisting of his father and sister. All these details and the events that follow are told in detail by a nameless narrator (Charito Solis).
The film’s eventual ascent into a brand of sinful chaos takes a gentle and slow turn, as the film carefully unrolls the townsfolk of Mulawin to the audience. It is a revelation that juggles itself alongside the film’s two central narratives: Puring’s refusal to be locked in a community with extremely traditional values, and Narcing’s intricate ordeal with Puring, his father, Gusting (Vic Silayan), and the community. It takes a lot of skill to weave these together into a tapestry that also includes a heavy dose of chismis (gossip) and gender roles, but Karnal wields its complex narratives well without missing most of its story beats.
Puring (Cecille Castillo) carries her newborn child across a burning field.
Important to all this complexity is the way Puring’s “independent woman” is held down by the traditional aspects of the rural countryside. In the same way a classical Amorsolo painting indirectly erases and nullifies any trace of the locale’s disturbing realities, Puring’s penchant for a freer, liberated self comes clashing with the quick arm of gossip and patriarchal submission. It’s gossip that pushes her to more powerless positions; it’s a possessive husband that locks her in the ancestral home, and it’s a community jealous of her urban attitudes that generates the situations which would lead her to a traumatic conclusion. It is here that the liberal Filipina is subsequently boxed into a picture frame that she finds difficulty escaping from. Compared to Moral though, the film’s focus on women does take a slight backseat in order to explore the general nature of corruption that pervades the rural Filipino psyche.
Narcing’s story, while intersecting in many areas with Puring’s, enters the fray to display interactions with the townsfolk which reveal different layers on the insecure Filipino provincial. He wants to succeed in Manila; he wants to give birth to many children; he wants to overcome his dominant father figure, all these lay the foundation for an equally complex ordeal which Narcing is forced to navigate, and the film gives it the same breathing room to prosper and find solace in.
Gusting (Vic Silayan) is the father of Narcing. His disdainful look displays all one needs to know about his character: a disturbed, disappointed, and cruel father figure.
Without delving into spoiler territory, these personal struggles reinforce each other in an unusually complex manner. It’s in how Narcing and Gusting display their duality of animalistic and stern characteristics to Puring that the film deconstructs the patriarchal system prevalent in the Philippines. Their lustful desires and overbearing judgments of their wives are ingredients that are only amplified by the uncanny nature provided by the classical art direction. It’s in how the surreal aura of Mulawin envelops its characters in the air of mysticism, an aspect built thanks to the film’s mix of religious and mythical beliefs which dominate the community. These come part and parcel with a string of excellent performances across the board from Philip Salvador’s insecure Narcing to Vic Silayan’s Kisapmata-esque devout Catholic, yet ravishingly sinful breadwinner. It’s these performances that provide the necessary sway to persuading the audience of every layer of this wicked piece.
The production design of Karnal does a lot of work to immerse the audience in this film’s quiet insanity. Much has been said already about the film’s traditional infusions of the rural scenery through the set design, but even the cinematography and visual construction find their places in the same areas worth praising. The film has a consistent arm in alluring the audience into this world by providing them scenes straight out of a painting, slowly debasing and decolorizing it as the film unfurls its hellish wings and blood-soaked tears to the audience. Ryan Cayabyab’s music, though somewhat excessively melodramatic in some places, elevates Mulawin’s threatening character a few levels higher. The film’s editing correctly assembles these together, as the pacing that is constructed by it properly guides the audience through the madness.
Even if the film does find some of its pieces underdeveloped, it doesn’t diminish the exhilarating nature of this movie. It can be argued that the film’s communitarian elements aren’t as fleshed out as it should’ve been, but its importance lies in being accessory to the subversion of the old Filipino scenery. Sometimes, there are pieces to the film that can be off-putting thanks to the editing’s constant use of white-outs, especially in one section of the film. However, these faults shouldn’t be discouraging enough to examine the sociopolitical and personal nature which the film develops. More than the gradual climb into a bloody second half; more than the upending of its classical inspirations, here is a final piece in the trilogy that succeeds in displaying its beauty while showing the cracks on the wall. You will never look at an Amorsolo painting in the same way.
Karnal can be accessed on KTX and iWant for 99 pesos.
