Movie Review: Dilim (2005) *SPOILERS AHEAD*

Yesterday, I bought a VCD of a 2005 supernatural action film called Dilim, about a manananggal superhero that uses his superhuman abilities to fight crime. The word manananggal is derived from the word “tanggal” meaning “to remove, divide or sever”; a manananggal is a type of aswang that divides itself in half, leaving its lower half behind while the winged upper half hunts for human prey. I think it is really creative to transform this traditional symbol of evil and abjection into a tortured soul fighting for the common good. This is the first action film I've seen that did not involve rebels defending slum-dwellers or cops that arrive at the crime scene when the climax is over.

Dilim is an alias given to a mysterious crusader who fights criminals and saves the innocent. The local police chief refuses to consider “Dilim” a hero; he thinks the guy is “taking the law into his own hands” and keeps the police from doing their job. He has a lovely daughter named Elisa, who has been estranged from him after the death of her mother.

Afterwards, we see a handsome young loner hanging around at a dump site for scrap metal, where he makes friends with an old man and a little boy. The black-shirt-and-jeans-clad stranger barely speaks, only answering curtly when his new friends ask him questions. We know from the opening fight scene that this is “Dilim” in his human form. In the daytime, he tries to be normal except that he is antisocial. At the dump site, we see him dragging around a sack of the dead bodies, which we know from folklore that he will eat later.

A low-budget, made for television film, a Cinema One original, Dilim draws its strength from this creative reimagining of the manananggal. But for viewers that have high standards, some aspects of the movie might turn them off. Personally, I can’t decide if I hate it or not.

My biggest but least important complaint is the special effects. If you have seen the half-baked leak of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it’s like that. It would have been great if they used simpler props and utilized camera angles and scene cuts instead of amateurish conspicuous CGI. The stunts and combative choreography are just about as bad. Wait, the choreography might be okay but they look rehearsed.

The night scenes supposedly filmed at rooftops uses CGI backgrounds too. This is a pity because the nighttime cityscape of NCR actually looks good, especially at Makati City and the coastline. The illuminated smog would have provided good lighting as well.

I appreciate the film crew for trying out CGI, but it’s not going to work if it’s only going to distract the viewer with how fake it looks. I would have gasped and exclaimed in excitement at the fight scenes, but I ended up laughing half the time.

The more important flaw of this film is that the hero is a Gary Stu. A Gary Stu is the male counterpart of a Mary Sue; a Mary Sue is a character that is underdeveloped, has no character flaws and is overly romanticized in one way or another. This is usually committed by amateur writers.

A primary complaint about a Mary Sue is that the character has an exotic name or an ordinary name with a glaringly special meaning. The title character commits both violations. He is nicknamed Dilim, because he appears in the dark alleys, at night, when his powers are in full force. To be fair, Dilim is only an alias given to him by the police. But I still think it’s a poor choice. After saving Elisa from a potential rapists and befriending her, we learn that Dilim’s real name is Eman, an increasingly popular nickname for Emmanuel, as an alternative to other nicknames like Manuel or Manny. Emmanuel is a name attributed to Jesus Christ because it is the name Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah will have. It means “God is with us.”

A second complaint about a Gary Stu is angst. This is a sensitive topic when discussing Mary Sues. Angst can work if executed well. But Eman complains about being “cursed” from start to finish. At one point, he asks the local priest, “Was I really created by your so-called God?” The angst includes a fascinatingly gruesome scene in which we see Eman crying while sewing himself where his body cuts in half. This is the best visual effect that the film shows. Some people might think it’s over the top, but I think it’s subtle because of its lack of dialogue. But if you’re a guy who can do a better job than the police in fighting crime, you’d think it’d be cool to use your demonic powers for good, right?

I also think that Eman’s tendency to be withdrawn and moody is a Gary Stu symptom. It all would have worked if the viewer is given sufficient reason BEFOREHAND to sympathize with him. But any source of sympathy is revealed only later so he can come off as “mysterious” for the most part of the film. This is really a pity because the big revelation comes only just before the climax. But because of the tension from anticipating the climax, I almost stop caring about the hero’s tragic past.

In the full revelation at the climax, we learn that Eman ran away from his village as a little boy after his father tells him to “run like we’re just playing tag.” The parents are distressed and you hear an angry mob approaching, apparently in search of the monster child. The fact that his father is played by the same actor in the role of Elisa’s father and that his mother “Karina” is seen in a metaphorical death scene, it could be implied that Elisa is really Eman’s sister. This makes for healthy speculation among the viewers. With that in mind, it could be assumed that when Eman tells Elisa that he loves her, it could be interpreted differently. He says, “I love you” and that’s it. It has an ambiguous feel to it that totally works.

It would have been better if we get a bigger view of Eman’s childhood in the village. But much of the backstory lives on ambiguity. Although this gives the audience a chance to think, it mostly makes the story feel hollow by the end.

But the biggest disappointments I have are the plot holes. Traditionally, the manananggal gets her powers from a magical ointment that she rubs all over her body to make the transformation possible. (She bathes in the morning to turn human again.) But we never see how Eman became a manananggal. Did a witch curse him? Is it congenital? We never know. There are potential plot points that can be bound together, like the main villain who is in league with a witch; it would have been interesting if the hag turns out to be the one who cursed Eman in the first place. But again, we never know.

In relation to that, I also have a problem with the fact that Eman doesn't sprout wings and fly until later. He is only shown to have superhuman strength and senses but he looks perfectly human. It also would have been interesting if we see him creeping into the crook's houses and sucking their blood with his threadlike tongue. WE DON'T SEE SUCH A TONGUE. The manananggal's threadlike tongue is essential to the creature just as the vampire cannot be a vampire without fangs. Oh, and remember when I said Eman drags dead bodies in his shelter? He is never shown eating them. It would have been easy! Raw meat is available in every wet market and for blood, there's chocolate with red food coloring.

And the highlight of the transformation was a disappointment. After writhing in agony for a few minutes, Eman goes after the bad guys and then, his demonic wings burst out and tear his shirt off. Done in crappy CGI, the scene made me end up laughing. Why didn't he just go out there shirtless? And I know he has sewn his midsection, but if his wings can tear his shirt off, why didn't his body get cut in half and pluck off the stitches? Shake, Rattle & Roll has done it better in 1984 and 1992!

What I loved about the film, however, is that the reimagining of the manananggal is innovative. There is an implication that the manananggal is not a symbol of evil as shown in folklore. Dilim/Eman becomes a sort of a Holy Knight toward the climax when, at the verge of his transformation, he approaches the priest, who tells him that God loves him no matter what.

Also in spite of the plot holes that are so huge that buses can fall into them, I like that the story is simple and there is minimal political commentary that you experience too much on television nowadays. The dialogue slides from archaic to colloquial from time to time, but I like that it is fluid and keeps the story at a consistent pace. The characters—even some of the good guys—have no trouble swearing and I like that a lot. Another of this movie's charms is that the plot echoes Spiderman but surprisingly doesn't push it. The urban atmosphere is not too romantic in the literary sense. The crime scenes are something that you see on the news everyday; there's a realistic touch.

The religious tone is gentle and simple. It deviates from the fundamentalist ideals of pacifism and instead uses it as an active force in fighting evil. The priest HANDLES A GUN and joins Elisa’s father in the hunt for the bad guys.

Despite all its flaws, Dilim was enjoyable for me for the most part. This is just what Philippine pop culture needs. Yes, Dilim needs a little more work in reimagining the local mythology but this is a huge step forward.

My Deepest Regret

Have you ever had a memory that haunts you to this day? I have.

First, I’d like to say that I’ve been a great admirer of world literature since high school. I’ve learned by then that good literature is not limited to “canonical” works and that even some works considered “obscene” by the conservative community is worth some literary merit. Among these are the stories of D.H. Lawrence and the poems of Sappho, a Lesbian poet. Whether or not Sappho was a lesbian is a subject of debate; she was, however, a Lesbian, a native of the island of Lesbos. And if you’re wondering, yes, that’s where we get the word “lesbian”. And believe it or not, our Bible has its own share of erotic verses, and there’s nothing dirty about it. The way I see it, sex is wonderful, it’s beautiful, and if it feels so nice, God must have made it that way.

I remember learning the value of happiness in Philosophy and how that applies to ethics. Apparently, we human beings do things to make ourselves happy, right? We buy stuff because the happiness that certain objects—books, CDs, iPods, cellphones, laptops, or elaborate home theater systems—satisfy us. But according to St. Thomas Aquinas’s writings, which are derived from Aristotle, the ultimate happiness is achieved from Union with God and our good deeds on earth eventually lead us there. In that ultimate happiness, we would want nothing else. The way I understand it, sex is an imitation of that Union. Get it? Union?—sex?—pure joy?

But I am not going to argue about the value of sex; being inexperienced in the matter, I feel it is not my place to discuss it in depth. Instead, I am going to discuss the value of erotic literature—religious erotic literature. And I’m not talking about King Solomon’s surprisingly graphic Song of Songs.

When I was 16, a high school senior, a visiting professor arrived in the school to give an anti-pornography lecture. I had absolutely no interest in pornography at the time. And having almost absolutely no knowledge about sex (except having learned only as recently as the previous year how it was actually done), I wasn’t able to evaluate all the visiting professor’s ranting properly. In the six years that followed, I learned that she was a self-righteous fundamentalist who doesn’t know what she’s talking about and has never even seen actual pornography. She thinks online games that bear images of scantily clad, unrealistically big-breasted warrior women are examples. If she knew what she was talking about at all, she would have brought up fetishes like rape fantasies and such, and pornographic films that cater to such fetishes.

I say this because near the end of her lecture, she summoned audience participation and asked us to give examples of pornography. This memory makes me cry. The second person to give an example was a 15-year-old boy who gave the Kama Sutra as an example. And the idiot professor, unwittingly proving that she is an inept lecturer, didn’t know what the Kama Sutra was. The equally stupid boy explained that the Kama Sutra is a manual of sex positions. The professor was scandalized, and exclaimed that she had never tried out different sex positions. Alas, a majority of us didn’t know any better either.

Although I had already known at the time that the Kama Sutra is one of the most important pieces of Hindu literature, I had no idea how to explain that sex has its spiritual value. I kept quiet, more out of shock that the Kama Sutra is seen by these morons as pornographic. My deepest regret is that I didn’t bother to at least raise my voice and fist in protest.

For those who don’t know anything about Hinduism, let me explain their spirituality. Similar to the Five Pillars of Islam, the Hindus have what they call the Four Main Goals of Life or Purusarthas. Those are dharma, artha, kama and moksha, essential values that a person must fulfill in life as he goes through the four ashramas or stages of life, namely Brahmacharya (student or scholar), Grihastha (householder), Vaanprastha (hermit), and Sanyaasa (ascetic).

Kama refers to one’s pursuit of happiness by means of sensual pleasure. Although their highest spiritual goal is beyond this world, Hindus understand that it’s also important to make their earthly lives enjoyable. It makes life more meaningful. Sex is regarded as the height of all earthly pleasure. So Hindus take care to make sexual intimacy special.

That’s where the Kama Sutra is involved. Sex positions are not the only contents of the book, although they comprise the bulk of it. The book also contains advice for touching, kissing and relationships with concubines and courtesans. I’ve heard (or read) that the Kama Sutra is essential for a Hindu bride, indicating that this book is considered the key to a successful marriage.

The emphasis on sex positions has its own spiritual value. Given that each position is named after a body of nature (like a flower, a tree, or a celestial object) brings the human person back to his origin in nature. So sharing that with a beloved brings intimacy to a whole new level, doesn’t it? And I’m aware that this might not apply, but given that sex is an imitation of the Ultimate Happiness (i.e. Union with God), would it also echo the Hindu belief that each soul is to someday unite with Brahma?

It is important to understand that although the Christian doctrines tend to be rigid, it’s wise to avoid looking at other religions as subordinate. Hinduism values sex differently from the way Christianity does. For Christians, it’s a bit of a taboo topic, but not for the Hindus. For them, it’s so wonderful that it is meant to be upheld, a treasure to be cherished. There is nothing obscene about that. So when they read the Kama Sutra and practice its contents, it is not to indulge their lust, the way people subscribe to porn sites just to see naked people getting busy; on the contrary, it is to enjoy life while it last, and at the same time conforming to their spiritual obligations.

Pity I learned all of this too late. I can never forgive that stupid woman for misleading a room full of impressionable minds, and I find it hard to forgive myself for letting her do it. Pornography serves only to serve people’s lust; the Kama Sutra does not. End of discussion.

Where's My Happy Ending?

This has been long overdue, so now that I'm still in the mood for this after recently posting a Leah Clearwater-central fic under my account http://www.fanfiction.net/~aeshnalacrymosa, I'm getting on with it.

In a previous entry in which I discussed my preferred outcome in Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, I mentioned Leah Clearwater quite a few times. Alongside Jacob Black, Leah Clearwater is my favorite character because of all the female characters, she is the one who exudes confidence and courage throughout her existence in the series. I also love the fact that she actually has the guts to berate Bella for all the bullshit she puts Jacob Black through, and whether you like it or not, Leah Clearwater always happens to be in the right.

Leah Clearwater first appears in New Moon in a perfectly insignificant scene wherein her family has dinner with Jacob's. Leah Clearwater is described to be beautiful; like the Cullens, that's the only kind of description about her that you would get from Bella Swan, who is so shallow that all she ever notices are looks. But by the next two books, I saw instead a strong woman who manages to be brave through troubles greater than Bella ever experiences. Bella only goes through one breakup and snaps and doesn't recover for months whereas Leah loses her boyfriend to her cousin, and a few months later, she loses her dad too, and Leah still keeps a straight face.

It's true that her manner of grieving put off her brothers. I suppose I would also be annoyed if somebody in the group somehow couldn't keep her problems to herself. But how could you blame a 19-year-old girl who first loses her boyfriend to her cousin for no apparent reason and then loses her father, who, if fan speculations are to be believed, died from a heart attack when she and her brother transformed into wolves for the first time. If that wasn't enough, becoming lycanthropes instantly gives them both duties that had nothing to do with them, duties that thrust them into a world of violence, pitting them against vampires that Leah is afraid of. And what's more, she now belongs to a brotherhood of men-wolves with constant telepathic contact with each other, meaning that she can hear her ex-boyfriend thinking about her cousin. That's really painful beyond measure, and it's really unfair and unjust how everybody in the "wolf pack" now cast Leah as the bad guy for being "grouchy" and a "harpy" because she doesn't approve of this norm.

Apparently, Leah's ex-boyfriend Sam imprinted on her cousin Emily, meaning that Emily is Sam's destined life partner and Leah is not. It's more than simply predestined love, Jacob explains in Eclipse; Sam happens to be "physically compatible" with Emily, meaning that she is "the best candidate for passing down the werewolf gene." But you might ask, if Leah is already a werewolf like Sam, why isn't she the one? It is revealed in Breaking Dawn that since Leah's first "phasing", she has stopped menstruating, rendering her unable to have children of her own.

That must be a great blow for a 19-year-old girl preparing for adulthood. It's even more painful that judging from her manner and voice during her conversations with Jacob Black in Breaking Dawn, Leah appears to be somewhat ambitious, which is a big deal coming from a young woman from a Native American reservation, which, let's just say, is normally not the best breeding ground for the world's most influential people. According to a blog by a Native American woman who has read the Twilight series, "the rez" is usually plagued with extreme poverty laced with disease, famine and substance abuse. Having promised herself to "have a job outside La Push, attend community college and take yoga classes for the sake of my well-being," Leah must be a mighty ambitious woman indeed. So how would you feel, having big dreams like that and yet getting stuck with a bunch of selfish morons who all think you're a bitch because you're heartbroken, not to mention that you have to work with them because you have a job to kill monsters who are likely to kill you first?

So maybe punishing them all by continually bringing up internal scandals and being snappish and sarcastic all the time is a bit mean. I don't quite blame the others for being angry at her all the time, but they could at least show a bit of kindness to a mourning person instead of behaving like they wouldn't feel the same if they were in her shoes. What pisses me off worst of all was that by the end of Eclipse, Jacob (and I suppose, so does the rest of the pack) preferred to defend Sam for leaving Leah, saying that "it's not Sam's fault Leah turned into this harpy. ... Sam loved Leah."

How much did Sam love Leah? The first time that was brought up, I imagined that although the "magical" union between him and Emily was unbreakable, his feelings for Leah never changed. I would have been able to accept that. But in Breaking Dawn, I learned that this "fact" was superficial at best and was not true at all.

When Bella was found to be pregnant with Edward's demon spawn, Sam decided on leading an unprovoked attack against the Cullens, but because of Jacob's feelings for Bella, he refuses to obey and then, by virtue of being the son of the chief of the tribe, Jacob manages to break away from Sam's authority and becomes his own boss; when Seth and Leah Clearwater later follow him, he becomes their boss, their Alpha. Soon afterwards, Sam sends Jared as a messenger for him, ordering him also to call Leah Lee-Lee (Sam's pet name for Leah when they were together) and "get down on one knee if I have to." If Sam really loves Leah, he would think she would be worth the effort of going all the way across the county and beg on his knees to make her come back. But no, Sam's too good for that. He didn't bother; he sent someone else who must have preferred to not be involved.

The subsequent events made me fall in love with Jacob Black all over again.

Because of what I perceived to be the absence of external influence, Jacob's mind becomes clear and he is finally able to understand Leah: "I knew what it was like for Leah, having to see that all the time, hearing it in Sam's head. ... I would never blame her again." This was right after Edward first hears Renesmee's thoughts in Bella's belly, and the two of them coo over the unborn child as though Jacob wasn't right there in the room trying to comfort Bella, who was ailing from the difficult pregnancy.

I hated and loved that scene at the same time; it was the only scene in the entire series filled with poignant emotion that wasn't insufferably melodramatic. But I felt Jacob's pain there, while he watched Edward and Bella being happy, making it clear for him that he didn't belong in that picture. His heart torn, Jacob flees the scene and desperately finds someone to imprint on, just so he wouldn't have to deal with the heartbreak.

Heartbreak was what Jacob and Leah bonded over. By the end of the series, they considered each other as cherished friends, but not before an event that occurs while Jacob was away, grieving.

Jacob returns to the Cullen house to be greeted by a seething Edward, who informs Jacob that Leah had just berated Bella for hurting Jacob. Edward "loves" Bella, so I would understand how angry he would get, but the way he went about it was irrational, to say the least. He cannot read Bella's mind, but he thinks he understands how painful it is for Bella to make Jacob stay and care for her, whereas he can read Leah's mind like an open book but he fails to comprehend the meaning and emotion behind her harsh words for his wife. Jacob turned out to be more mature than the 101-year-old vampire; Jacob only appreciated Leah more for having "vehemently championed" him, because as far as he was concerned, Leah's behavior was far more justified than Bella's.

If you wonder why I think this is the case, let me explain. If you love someone, and I mean really care for someone from the bottom of your heart, from the core of your soul, would you subject him to unending anguish by making him watch you being happy with somebody else you obviously love more? Hell, no! You would spare him the pain and let him go and be happy by himself or with someone unattached. But no, Bella doesn't do that: she has too much fun playing with Jacob's feelings, feeding him affection and asking him to give her some, as if to make him feel like he still has a chance with her while she's already married and carrying her husband's child. If that's not an inconsiderate bitch, I don't know what is.

Oh, but Leah sees Bella for what she is. And Leah isn't afraid to point that out. Her mental contact with Jacob made her empathetic with him, urging her to barge into the Cullen house in human form (perhaps stark-naked!), making her vulnerable to the vampires' attacks, just to tell the bitch what kind of a heartless whore she is.

At that point, I expected that Leah and Jacob would eventually hook up. This is effectively evidenced by their earlier conversation in which they agree against imprinting and desire "falling in love on my own." The chemistry was perfect, despite the occasional bickering. But no, this is not what happens; instead, Jacob becomes a pedophile by imprinting on Bella's newborn baby.

I shall be skipping some of the details at this point, but the important part is that by the end of Breaking Dawn, everyone gets a happy ending, except Leah. Sam gets Emily and never gets punished for having hurt Leah; Paul gets Jacob's sister Rachel and is never punished for being incredibly rude to the Black family by hogging all their food; Quil gets Emily's 2-year-old niece Claire; Jared gets his classmate Kim; and Seth is happy enough being friends with the Cullens. Hey, even the humans get paired up!

Leah only has a big dream, which is good. However, due to the demands of the responsibilities of being the pack's Beta, it doesn't seem likely that this ambition is coming true any time soon. It doesn't help that there is also no promise or hint that Leah would become normal again, that she might be able to have babies after all. I really feel that there is a great injustice here. If anybody deserves to be happy, it's Leah. NOT SAM, NOT EMILY, NOT PAUL, AND ESPECIALLY NOT BELLA! The poor girl has had enough troubles already, can't she have a break? I think it's really cruel that Leah would be treated like that. It's not any worse than what had been done to Jacob, who gets a leftover for the hell of it.

I don't care if Stephenie Meyer said she'd love to write a story on Leah Clearwater's point of view. She has no love for her characters at all. Bella is her avatar and Edward is the OH-SO-PERFECT PRINCE CHARMING and Renesmee is THE WORLD'S MOST UNIQUE BABY, and THAT'S ALL SHE EVER CARES ABOUT!

Another Epiphany: Enjoying the Backstreet Boys Again

Since becoming a self-proclaimed rock fan in the last eight years, my rediscovery of rock music (especially from the 90’s) led me to think that it’s shameful to like rock music but have a history of having my entire bulletin board covered in Backstreet Boys posters. In my teens particularly, my fixation with Linkin Park, and later also Avril Lavigne and Evanescence, somehow taught me a pessimistic/naturalistic worldview, and I thought that Backstreet Boy songs were essentially meaningless. I was certainly disillusioned when boy band contemporaries Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera (whose music videos I tried to dance along with at the age of 12) turned out to be “frauds”—Britney having already lost her virginity at age 14 and nothing more than a sex symbol; and Christina downplaying her own superior singing talent for using sex appeal with her fake boobs. It doesn’t help that in recent years, I’ve also become disillusioned with nü metal, which is now viewed by the wide internet community to be “emo”, because unlike 90’s rock and roll, which incorporated heartfelt poetry with inventive electronic sounds (complex guitar riffs; in Nine Inch Nails’ case, industrial music), nü metal is repetitive, passing off verses brimming with petty and shallow teen angst as songs when plastered onto rhythms that sound the same with nearly every band in the same category.

Now finding myself suddenly squirming in delight again from videos of Nick Carter on YouTube (music videos, interviews AND his vlogs) as well as viewing the Backstreet Boys videos I loved when I was younger, I felt somehow rejuvenated. Even when I found myself cringing in embarrassment over the choreography and hand gestures, I felt—happy.

I acknowledge that I might actually be regressing right now, but something tells me that my desire to conform (ironically, to nonconformist music) is not worth becoming ashamed of 90’s mainstream teenybopper, bubblegum pop music because that was the kind of music I loved and grew up with. It’s a bit embarrassing for me, but in a playful way; I’m not necessarily ashamed to admit it anymore. Yes, I used to scream every time “I Want It That Way” and “Shape of My Heart” was played on MTV. But so did a lot of people—millions of girls worldwide. And having other fans as obsessed as me is beside the point; loving this music made me happy. It doesn’t matter whether they were mainstream or not; to listen to music that makes me happy, no matter what anyone says, is what counts.

Review of The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner *SPOILERS AHEAD*

I’ve just read The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella online, and I was surprised to find it about twenty times more palatable than any of the four books in the Twilight “Saga”. Owing largely to its length, I finished it in one day—approximately 6 hours—minus about two hours in between that I spent eating and surfing the internet. It’s not at all better written than any of the books in the “Saga”; Meyer still committed “thesaurus rape” quite a few times, but not as much this time because by using Bree Tanner’s voice, she didn’t have to use ridiculously big words to attempt to sound intelligent like she did with Bella. Bree Tanner was only palatable because it’s more concise than usual (which I previously thought Meyer could never accomplish); although I would say that Bree Tanner could have been even shorter if Meyer could write any better.

I had been expecting the story to begin with the titular character being turned into a vampire; instead, we find Bree complaining about her companions who are “stupid” and rash and inexperienced.

At first, I thought we were going to have a Bella clone, but I was proven wrong later. We subsequently find out that Bree was appointed to be with these other new vampires by Riley, the leader of what we already know from Eclipse to be an even larger coven than just Bree and these few vampires. But Bree breaks away from this group to hang out with another vampire—a rather charming Hispanic boy named Diego, who later reveals that they do not combust in the sun as Bree had previously thought. After this encounter, Bree develops feelings for Diego. To my surprise, Meyer actually succeeded to be a bit more subtle about this than she did with Bella and Edward. Bree seems cautious about it; she becomes willing to call these feeling “romantic”, especially when Diego kisses her lips without warning, but she doesn’t suffocate the narrative with it because she’s more interested in observing what’s going on around her.

Among these observations were of a “college age” boy named Freaky Fred, who has “repelling” powers. I didn’t understand this at first, but I sort of understood later that his gift was similar to Bella Swan’s in Breaking Dawn. It’s like he can conjure a shield around himself, like Bella, but whoever gets close to it becomes “nauseated” and so compelled to keep distance. An offshoot of this ability is that by using this shield, he can make himself “invisible”, which I understood to be “undetectable” by other vampires rather than strictly “invisible”. Near the end, Fred becomes fond of Bree and urges her to run away to Canada with him and avoid the final battle with the Cullens, who they only know as the “yellow-eyes”. Bree agrees, but she tells Fred that she’ll catch up when she finds Diego, who Riley said was with Victoria, whose name was never revealed to the young vampires. Fred goes ahead to Canada while using his ability to go undetected by Riley and promises to wait for Bree and Diego for 24 hours while Bree looks for Diego at the edge of the battlefield only to find her large coven dwindling and dying.

You all probably know by now what happens in Eclipse, so it turns me off that the plot—Diego and Bree’s earlier motivation to find out Riley’s purpose for creating vampires so many and then Bree’s plan to run away after she realizes that Riley had been lying to them about burning in the sun and then hiding from them his and Victoria’s conniving with the “dark-cloaks” (the Volturi)—would be utterly pointless. That being said, it’s no doubt that this entire novella is pointless in itself. Bree does win my heart when she becomes determined to see through these tasks and then bravely faces death when she fails. But the fact that her courage and resolve accomplishes nothing really turns me off. I normally don’t mind tragic endings, but having no resolution is a big letdown.

Maria Clara the Mary Sue

María Clara has long been identified as the ideal Filipina, and at first glance, it’s not hard to see why. Gentle and meek, María Clara would never hurt a fly; the closest she came at it was when she was hitting Crisostomo Ibarra with a fan, but that was a playful encounter. Devoutly religious like her father Capitan Tiago, she looks to the Holy Virgin as her mother, having lost her biological mother Doña Pia from childbirth. María Clara might as well be an avatar of Mother Mary herself; any scene including her would not be complete without description of how beautiful and chaste she is. “Everything about her breathed virginity, purity, innocence,” as she is described shortly before the end of Chapter 40.

But I beg to differ.

José Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere is better known for its legacy of provoking the Philippine Revolution than for its literary merit. Considering that Noli was Rizal’s first novel, it’s not that much of a surprise. (It’s nowhere near bad but it certainly has its faults.) Rizal’s poetry is better than his prose, I would say. His earliest ventures into literature was into poetry rather than prose, so I’m not going to take it out on Rizal for writing such a miserable excuse for a love interest as he had not much practice for prose apart from his journalistic undertakings in La Solidaridad. (I might be wrong, of course.) Noli Me Tangere borrows heavily from Victor Hugo’s style, as both Hugo’s and Rizal’s works incorporate criticism of social issues within the plot. Rizal’s text is mercifully fast-paced, but certain long-winded descriptions tend to slow it down. Such lines include anything with María Clara in it.

The idea that María Clara is the symbol of the ideal Filipina might have been a misinterpretation. Forty-four chapters into the novel, I simply do not see a reason why. María Clara is a completely static character and contributes absolutely nothing to the plot; she is there just for everyone else to fawn over for her beauty, talent for music (specifically for singing and playing the piano), and her genteel manner. If anybody else is not entranced by her, they are envious of her.

But I am neither drawn to nor envious of María Clara; I’m just irritated with her. Aside from everything I’ve already mentioned, and in case you haven’t figured it out yet, María Clara is a Mary Sue—a Purity Sue, to be exact. She is the very essence of goodness, to the point that she might even put Mother Mary to shame. For this, she doesn’t seem to bear any hint of a [character] flaw, and everyone simply loves her.

When I first encountered Noli Me Tangere when I was 15-year-old schoolgirl, I practically swallowed up my teachers’ biased interpretations of the novel. It wasn’t my teachers’ fault; I’d say it has to do more of the curriculum and the poor educational system than the faculty itself that result in misguided education in the Philippines, but that’s not what we are discussing here.

I remember feeling for María Clara as what was expected of me. Now reading Harold Augenbraum’s English translation of Noli Me Tangere, I couldn’t read a scene with María Clara in it without wanting to swear at the book under my breath. It’s true that “Clarita” never utters a foul word against anyone, nor even thinks about spiting anybody; however, despite having everything a maiden would want—a loving family, loyal friends and a devoted lover— whenever María Clara does or says something she would either be complaining or crying for no apparent reason. But hey, I understand that she was depressed when Ibarra was excommunicated, but that was no reason to have a nervous breakdown over it ... becoming bedridden with just a fever, not talking to anyone. She practically turned into a baby; crying was the only thing she could do. María Clara was probably the original emo character.

María Clara is also a Relationship Sue; she exists only to be Crisostomo Ibarra’s love interest. Without her, the plot would have carried on without necessary alterations. There is no conflict going on with her; she’s suffering, alright, but everything terrible that happens is completely beyond her control. Rizal could have given her a task she could handle herself, but he was too busy making friars angry by “painting” them as perverted tyrants in a pseudo-dystopian society. If Rizal knew that María Clara has no significance to the plot whatsoever, he should have just killed her “onscreen” in Noli Me Tangere instead of killing her “offscreen” in El Filibusterismo.

As for the notion that María Clara is the prime example of the ideal Filipina is nothing less than insulting to me. I can understand how being meek and submissive is ideal; it’s always been that way in patriarchal society. But I won’t accept it if it means being totally ineffectual with no dreams or aspirations of my own. If anything, I think the notion as mentioned above might have been a mistake. We would never know for sure what Rizal was trying to put off but a highly intellectual guy like him would more likely place strong women like his mother and sisters to be ideal Filipinas; considering that Noli Me Tangere was meant to be a criticism of Philippine society in under the Spanish rule, could it be that María Clara was also what the Filipina should NOT be?

Maybe it’s just my modern idealism talking, but I personally and seriously think that it was a misinterpretation. Somebody must have admired Clarita’s submissiveness and disregarded everything else. If you ask me, like any man, a woman should also have the chance to make something of herself in this world and not be just a pretty face.

If there’s another character that should be the epitome of the ideal Filipina, I say it’s Tía Isabel. She might not be the best character on the novel either, but she’s caring and she wants the best for her family. She might not be María Clara’s mother, but she cares for the girl like she’s her own daughter. Similarly, she looks out for her cousin Capitan Tiago and is not afraid to tell him off when he says or does something stupid.

"Juliet is perfect," said Bella Swan.

For someone who has a bachelor's degree in English Literature, Stephenie Meyer doesn't know shit about Shakespeare. To some extent, I could see the resemblance between Meyer's twisted love story and Shakespeare's timeless classic Romeo and Juliet. However, Meyer fails to see the underlying significance of the play that his excellent writing tends to unwittingly conceal: Romeo and Juliet are nothing more than stupid, angst-ridden, hormone-driven, rich teenagers willing to risk their own lives and that of each of their families and friends for sex. Critics and literary experts even consider Romeo and Juliet as Shakespeare's worst work, but only because it lacks the sociopolitical impact of his other works such as King Lear or Macbeth; not to mention that Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet as a satire of how foolish young people (i.e. teenagers) can be, rather than the epitome of love and romance as Meyer apparently sees it to be.

Keeping that in perspective, let us move on to the single line that really struck me with ire the moment I set eyes on it while I was reading New Moon several months ago: “Juliet is perfect.” Although Shakespeare is known to defy the rules and standards set by Aristotle's Poetics, but he gets away with it with good writing; however, Shakespeare does obey the rule that in order for a plot to take place, a conflict must get in the way of the protagonist and further complicated by the protagonist's “flaw”.

Assuming everybody reading this knows the conflict and plot of Romeo and Juliet, there must be character flaws that go with it, right?

Romeo's flaw tends to be more obvious than Juliet's. Rash and reckless like a whirlwind, he immediately falls for Juliet so soon after breaking up with Rosaline. Romeo also went straight to Friar Laurence, mere hours after meeting Juliet, to arrange their marriage. But wait, whose idea was it for them to get married?

Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.
If that thy bent of love be honourable,
Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,
By one that I'll procure to come to thee,
Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite;
And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay
And follow thee my lord throughout the world.
~Juliet, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II

There you have it, people: it was Juliet's idea. She was no worse than Romeo, and not any better either. If there was any hint of so-called “love” within them, they might have at least thought about sacrificing their affair to avoid further conflict between their families or else urged their parents to reconcile so their relationship can have some breathing room. Unfortunately, the young couple thought of nothing else but to satisfy their sexual desire, which they know they'll taste only at marriage.

What was so “perfect” about Juliet anyway? I for one don't see anything pure or perfect about her. Like Romeo, she thinks of nothing but herself. Like Romeo, she is just as willing to risk getting disowned for having an affair with the enemy. … If that's not stupid, I don't know what is.

If Eclipse and Breaking Dawn Ended My Way

I finished Eclipse two nights ago, skipping several insignificant paragraphs and dialogs along the way. This makes me just one book short of finishing the Twilight series—two if you count Midnight Sun. (I wouldn’t count the upcoming The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner because it has nothing to do with Bella or Edward.)

Like the two previous books, Eclipse could have been shorter; but “concise” doesn’t seem to exist in Stephenie Meyer’s vocabulary.

The epilogue was my favorite part. Told in Jacob’s point of view, Jacob is contemplating on the future now that Bella is bound to choose Edward over him anyway. Leah Clearwater taunts him while she urges him to get over Bella; her speech and actions were hostile, but she was the only character so far (apart from Rosalie Hale in the first book) who ever said anything that made total sense.

The falling action with Bree and the Volturi caught my attention in particular. Little Bree’s presence was so captivating despite her short existence in the book that I’m not surprised that Meyer wants to tell Bree’s side of the story.

Even if I happened to be a fan, I don’t think I’d like the outcome of events at the end of the third book. I already know what’s going to happen in Breaking Dawn; considering what I’ve seen in Eclipse, here’s how things could have turned out if it went my way:

Carlisle Cullen could have convinced the Volturi to spare Bree. His previous alliance with the ancient coven should have earned him enough influence toward them. If they let Carlisle adopt Bree, Bree would have been a new little sister in the Cullen family, as well as a witness to the events in Breaking Dawn.

Meanwhile, a few casualties could have been nice; and it would have made total sense, too, considering that Victoria’s army of newborn vampires clearly outnumbers the Cullen family and the Quileute wolf pack, not to mention that they’re bigger not only in numbers but in strength. I don’t mind Sam or Rosalie or Jasper Hale or even Jacob Black getting killed. It would still break my heart to have Jacob die, but at least that solves the love triangle issue the easy way. This also spares everyone from the nauseating prospect of Jacob “imprinting” on Bella’s baby.

However, if Jacob doesn’t die, it would have been great if he ends up with Leah. This is something that many a Breaking Dawn hater (including former fans) were expecting. Now that I’ve seen Jacob and Leah interacting, it would have been great if they fall in love in the end. I’ve read somewhere that in Breaking Dawn, Leah actually defends Jacob by telling Bella off. I realize that Stephenie Meyer wanted every character to have a happy ending, so why not let Jake and Leah get together? That’s a lot better than having Jacob fall in love with a baby and have Leah still be left with nothing.

Dumbele

I remember rehearsing an excerpt of this piece back in 2005 with the UST Chorus of Arts and Letters; not long after hearing my older choir-mates rehearse in the university park, putting me in a trance of awe. I never got to perform this with them because I left the choir later that year.

This music conjures in my head images of ancient Filipinos pleading to their rain and fertility deities over a dying field. ... beautiful ...

Fake Evanescence

I first heard of We Are The Fallen in a vlog by a YouTuber by obsessedwithamylee, who made it clear that “I do not support this band … Amy Lee is Evanescence.” That was, like, at least half a year ago. I didn’t bother finding out anything about this band beyond that it’s composed of former Evanescence members including Ben Moody. I didn’t really care at all because considering that all of We Are The Fallen are former Evanescence members, I'm pretty sure that they’ll just sound exactly like Evanescence without Amy Lee. I was ticked off enough knowing that Ben Moody supposedly said, in a nutshell, that they’re better than Evanescence would ever be.

Like obsessedwithamylee, I do not support this band either, so I put them out of my mind until a few days ago, when I was watching videos in YouTube of Evanescence’s “secret show” in New York from November 2009. For some reason, people kept mentioning Carly Smithson in the comments; if you didn’t know who this person is already, you might remember her as a tattooed Amy Lee look-alike from the 7th season of American Idol whose final performance was of “Jesus Christ Superstar” for Broadway (Andrew Lloyd Webber) week. I was taken aback when I saw a comment saying “F**k Carly Smithson!” and I got confused; a powerful singer, Smithson was my favorite contestant of that season so I couldn’t see what people would possibly have against her. Then, in another video, I found another comment that clarified everything: “… We Are The Fallen is Ben Moody’s new band. Which is Evanescence’s first album Fallen and fake ass Carly Smithson as the replacement for Amy Lee.”

This came off as a bit of a shock for me. I have great respect for Smithson as a singer and performer, and I was kinda heartbroken that Ben Moody and Co. would use her like this. Forgive my choice of words, but that’s how I feel. Carly Smithson is a powerful singer; having her in this band makes her look like a fake, and she’s not. Ben and Co. ought to be ashamed of themselves. They are arrogant and pompous for constantly comparing themselves to Evanescence and then pulling Carly in. This endeavor is in vain and I hope that Evanescence (according to Amy Lee, they’re recording for a new album) will outshine We Are The Fallen, which I think will happen.

Deception

A shroud of lace
Covers my eyes
Conceals my face
And all your lies

You bought my love
With sweetened drugs
I soared above
Held down by tugs

So much damage
No veil can hide
All the sickness
Hidden inside

Fundamentalists and Hypocrites

In my teens, I was under a struggle with my faith. Then, when I was 19, upon learning that God can help those who have been seriously hurt, like ex-atheist-turned-Christian-rock-star Lacey Mosley, who has been outspoken about her faith since she was rescued from suicide at 16 years old, I thought, How could I doubt He can rescue me, too, when she got bigger problems than I?

I was raised a Catholic, and I loved to read Bible stories. My favorite parable was the one about the Parable of the Talents, but the one that struck me the most was the Parable of the Unforgiving Slave. From that, I learned to take Jesus's two powerful commandments seriously: 37Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” In relation with the Parable of the Unforgiving Slave, I'm going to focus on the second commandment.

I've been a YouTube user since 2007, I think, and I've come upon many atheists, who, despite their blatant refusal to understand how faith works, have earned my respect because of their intelligence that I could only wish that they find find God and accept that He loves them. Sadly, most of the rest of these internet atheists are trolls who bash Christians and Christianity for the sake of proving the invalidity of the Christian faith and religion in general. But what breaks my heart even more are the Christians who shove their religion in people's faces and pretend to know so much about their faith but totally behave the opposite way of how they're supposed to.

God gave us free will so we would love and serve Him with all our heart. Even if we turn away from Him, we are free to go back. We are made in His image and likeness, so we are expected to act by our divine nature and let others think and act on their own. We are not to impose our faith on anyone; the most we can do is encourage them.

Just last night, I came upon an arrogant Christian in the comments section under a video with a Nine Inch Nails song called "Heresy". He (or she) was arguing with an atheist, trying to prove the existence of God by explaining the "order of the universe". I knew he was trying to do what St. Thomas Aquinas did in Summa Theologia, where Aquinas strained his reason to explain how there is a God, and with that, he filled out a big, fat book. Thomas Aquinas was a brilliant man; even so, I don't believe that explaining God with all his human reason was a piece of cake. That the Christian on YouTube attempted that in a single comment seemed to me so arrogant to the point of being ludicrous. I genuinely felt very bad for him and the person he is arguing with because the Christian guy won't get respect, and the atheist would not understand where the discussion is going. I gave him a piece of my mind: "It's people like you and your 'just because' arguments that make Christianity look bad. You're not making any sense. You don't give out such broad points and expect people to understand you. If you want to prove God is real, you show it, not shove it." That was fair, wasn't it? But he lashed out at me with "its people like you who should EAT A DICK lololol".

An earlier comment controlled my urge to lash back, and it made me feel heaps better. "... In case you read this, I believe in God as well but I don't shove it in people's faces and talking down to people because they don't. You should try it, stop being close minded. ..." I guess it wasn't worth it to fight back. I already did my part on showing him how to defend his faith; if he doesn't listen, let him face the consequences. For someone who believes in God, he surely has no idea how to show it. Christians are supposed to show love and kindness, even to those who spite them, for 'tis in this way that others would learn how it is to love the way that God taught us.