‘The Headhunter’s Daughter’ REVIEW: A profoundly personal indigenous journey with rich visual texture
‘The Headhunter’s Daughter’ REVIEW: A profoundly personal indigenous journey with rich visual texture
The Headhunter’s Daughter is an official selection for the Sundance Film Festival 2022.
‘The Headhunter’s Daughter’ provides a poetic euphony that confronts the exigencies of American colonialism and the gradual withering of indigenous cultures. It’s a personal journey that is made even more extensive by the nuanced history of its milieu.
What’s immediately impressive with Director Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan’s short film is the outstanding visual landscape that he fills his squared aspect ratio. The frosty and hazy glow imbues Baguio and La Trinidad with an ethereal presence. It’s almost as if the cold breeze escaped my computer screen and welcomed itself into my room.
At the film’s heart is the story of Lynn (played solemnly by Ammin Acha-ur), an Igorot who leaves her family behind to try her luck in the city as a country singer. She navigates through the Cordilleran highlands with nothing but her horse and guitar. The short is laden with imagery from the American frontier, and the colonial influences seep through every corner of the screen.
The music, engagingly composed by Eblahan himself, plays a role in cuing us in on the geographical divide underneath, both in the physical and the personal. The film starts with a Western country song (‘Down in the River to Pray’) adapted from an old African-American hymn and passed from generation to generation. The song’s history is coded with the abhorrent enslavement of the Africans throughout the 19th century.
As Lynn, an indigenous person, sings it, the film makes a meaningful connection between the intersections of different geographical identities and the kindred oppression of disenfranchised groups. In this case, music becomes a personal voice, a soothing and warm presence that directly counters the glacial temperature and palliates the bodies underneath thick jackets.
The soundtrack was composed by Director Eblahan alongside Ammin Cha-ur’s original song.
The western traditions present in the film also call to mind their similarities with local indigenous culture. ‘Hudhud’ chants of the Ifugao are passed down from generation to generation and provide the same comfort as country songs performed around a cordial fire. Like the African-American hymn, indigenous culture creates a deep connection to the land and familial ties that have been present for centuries.
Director Eblahan himself is caught in between Western culture and indigenous Igorot culture. Having grown up in Quezon City, moved to La Trinidad, and pursued film studies in Chicago, Eblahan’s relationship with liminality and manifold geographical identities dissipates onto the frame.
My favorite moments are the sweeping shots of Baguio that are filled to the brim with houses, condominiums, and other industrial structures that surround the vast Cordillera mountain. Through the landscape, we are introduced to the idea of the diminishing space for indigenous land wrought by increasing technological means and unfettered capitalist practices.
Even Lynn’s father (Pablo Quintos) is seen obsessing over television with one shot firmly focusing on his hand, fiddling with a remote. It’s later revealed that Lynn’s motivation to appear on stage is so that her dad would see her on television. Technology has replaced the warmth of flames and the conviviality of indigenousness.
A still from The Headhunter’s Daughter
Lynn is also asked what she plans to do with her money, but it isn’t of importance to her. What matters is that her voice is heard. She hopes that a song derived from the personal can also resonate with other people. It’s what money can’t buy. It’s a revolt against the hastily evolving structures that have left behind Lynn and her people in the process.
At night everything disappears, and we’re left to gaze at the bright stars and misty clouds. The cold dreamlike shein is disturbed when an anonymous figure discreetly steals Lynn’s horse, leaving a path of destruction that feels all too familiar for indigenous people who are frequently robbed of their land.
The scene at a cowboy bar, filled with Western elements seen in ornaments, clothes, and footwear, feels incongruent and discordant — for a good reason. The place doesn’t belong in the year 2021 (let alone in Baguio, Philippines). The symbolic inclusion of the American frontier imagery brings to mind the Native Americans who were ravaged by the so-called ‘civilized’ gunslinging saviors. They remind us of the malleability of identity, culture, and land due to the influence of those in power. It’s a deeply colonial memory that simultaneously feels omnipresent in the Cordillera region and the personal journey of Lynn.
The film speaks through its locations and grandiose shots in order to find poetry in their placement. Some scenes can feel prolonged and obscure, but they all function to create an otherworldly ambience. Lynn represents the vast history of indigenous people in the Philippines that remain tethered to their geographical and socio-cultural past while courageously tackling their precarious future. Director Eblahan has an insightful filmmaking voice that deserves to be seen and heard.
