The Great Wall

In this film, we take a look at Andres (Perry Dizon), an art scholar who’s been putting off his sabbatical forever but plans on using it to write a book. However, instead of focusing on studying, he spends the well-deserved leave coming to terms with a case of alcoholic amnesia. the Great Wall against mythical creatures. It combines epic battles, striking visuals, and a blend of Eastern and Western storytelling. A ghostly woman in an emerald green dress seems to appear before him right after he gets sick. He is cared for by Christine (Dolly de Leon), his cousin, who used to live with her late husband the founder of a religious group that worships the same female figure Andres supposedly saw.

The chilling lady was named Salome (Ram Botero) by the band who presented herself as a priestess a little above the time when the Spanish colonizers were taking over the village of Tamontaka. The selection of Tamontaka as the setting is an interesting piece of nugget. Geographically, the village was one of the last spots in the archipelago that Spain made an effort to subjugate during their period at the end of the 1800’s where an experimental settlement of Jesuit missionaries was attempted then abandoned.

In this regard, the Tamontaka village was never a stranger to state machinations, land advocacy struggles, and cultural encroaching. These contexts serve as allusions that are hinted at and interspersed around the film, but is easily lost in Salome’s narrative, where she is primarily presented with a veil of mystique while some amount of history is sought to be embedded in the narrative. Christine however whilst having a conversation with Andres, advises him of how this context is even weirder in the progressive sense: Salome, a man who lived as a woman and was at first recognized as such in her village and later turned into its head and colonized fusion had been called a woman. Here Botero is intriguing as the mysterious priestess since she performs this role where her very existence, postures and gazes in the frames in which she appears give ample room for interpretation of the meanings that are will be constructed.

When looking at Andres the engagement with colonialism as an undertone sometimes sinks.

In his works, Mangansakan portrays Andres as a character who is bold and unapologetic. He bears an attitude that is visceral, medieval as evident from ignoring everything to the point of helplessness, for him academic focus is the ultimate end. Andres deludes himself with the now and never gets over with his arrogance and conceit, owing to the physical and mental paralysis which always envelops him. It is only near the end when he meets Salome’s ethereal spirit that he as well as she comes to her senses and sinks into amends her arrogance to reconciled relations.

Christine’s arrogance is in stark contrast to Andres. While, Andres heads into one expecting Christine to meet her there, Christine is a haughty woman who dawdles the transition with midday rituals while peer reviewing Andres’s khaki, Christine watching over Tamontaka like a castle’s lord surveying his lands. The conversation over tea between Andres and Christine which included their lives over the distance sea huts in Tamontaka were always laced with irony, particularly over events as such. Particularly with talk of conserving ‘art’, for the rest are facing extinction as geographic boundaries carve out their existence.

The reality of ‘Salome,’ encompassing its profound yet riveting conclusion, is exposed only by integrating this paradox.

What is an academic good for, in any case, when they are in their health and when they have privilege? Is it sufficient to just have conversations, debates, and discussions on history? What is the use of art criticism? What follows after we place art into context? The film does the hard work of defining the problem that afflicts the academic only from a subjective perspective and then cancels it in order to force Andres with the stake of actually grappling with history. His epiphany comes out not even close to the end when he asks what was it for a long time to recover, if he cannot do anything in order to help.

To spare a man’s professional blemishes to bring forth the enormity of a message is a different brand of directorial skill, and this is what Mangansakan does quite masterfully. He avoids the rituals of an industry too centrally concerned with window dressing as polishing a film that is too technical for its own good as he does. In an epoch when even the so-called independent film strives for a semblance more than for content ‘Salome’ sails a different course. Its permeating and eerie layers transcend the narrative of the leading lady’s life and the historical trauma of colonial subjugation. Imagine Salome, who is a defiant woman against both local and foreign rulers, her presence in this film perplexes its characters and its viewers as well, they are required to remember the past and not just in thoughts.

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