The Honest Religiosity of Candè

By John Anthony S. Estolloso

I WATCHED Kevin Piamonte’s Candè twice: first, with students who readily and rowdily identified with the antics of the juvenile characters, and the second time, with a more eclectic group mostly composed of churchgoers (it was a Sunday afternoon). For both times, the screenings were fascinating: there was cinematic charm, true-to-life characterization, and a downplayed pathos endeared by Ilonggo sensibilities and beloved by the Ilonggo audience.

For Candè humanizes faith and religion by shifting the spotlight to the devotee-participants. No sanctimonious displays of prayer or flourishes of religious fervor: there were only the characters in search of answers.

Two clear settings emerge in the narrative: the gastronomic and the physical. From the opening sequences of the film to its last scenes, the storytelling is punctuated with food, as befits the locale of the story. As such, food becomes a metaphor of remembrance and ways of life. It also establishes social divides as well as removes these. Coming from an affluent family, Timothy breaking bread at Boyboy’s humble carinderia and learning to cook from his mother cross class boundaries, while establishing relationships which are inevitably frowned upon by the former’s family. Despite these clashes, it sets in motion a pervading motif that recurs throughout the film: home is where the belly finds sustenance and comfort.

The physical venues resonate with that social divide. The contrast between affluence and destitution manifests itself with the boys’ residences and environs. These in turn seem to reinforce the motivations of their families – strangely parallel yet at the same time vastly different. Observably, members of both families ‘gamble’ to remove themselves from the status quo: for Boyboy’s lackadaisical father, it is the pipedream offered by triumph at the cockpit; for Timothy’s well-to-do parents, it would be an overseas stake for a better life.

Amid these juxtapositions, the fiesta of the Candelaria is almost relegated as a shared space where these divides are blurred. Shots of the high mass and the procession interspersed with the iconic cathedral spires and the crowded balcony where the ever-growing statue sits in its glass case establish the festive hodgepodge where people from all walks of life rub elbows and mingle. Then on to the more motley crowd of the feria which eventually becomes the setting for both mirth and misfortune.

Maternity in both physiological and spiritual sense is underscored here: with the fiesta as shared space, both life and loss emanate from participations in the cultural act. Archetypically, the conception of a child (Dondon, the younger brother) is beseeched during the feast-day. Conversely, the loss of the same child takes place some years later at the fairgrounds of the same celebration. Through it all, euphoria and grief alternatingly permeate the characters. While there is joy in the conception of a son to the mother, grief likewise flows from his eventual loss by physical separation. As if to heighten the pathos of this loss, Timothy leaves soon after the tragedy, amidst the turbulent emotions surrounding the event. In an act of escaping what is spiritually inescapable, he removes himself from the locale and from all the people involved in the irreparable incident.

An adult Timothy (played by JC Santos) ultimately returns to Boyboy’s wake, during a latter-day fiesta of the Candelaria. But it does not assuage his guilt and grief; even a childhood friend’s untimely demise cannot provide closure. At the end of it, the Virgin must intervene. As if to hearken to his platitudes, the Virgin as consoling deus ex machina appears in all her glory, accompanied by the lost boy of the past: the feast-day miracle is accomplished and closure is achieved.

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The film’s dramatis personae are estimable. The boys playing the main roles are trite, not in the sense of the cliché, but in their believability as local youngsters who laze the day with

earthy homegrown banter and with nary a care about wasting the hours over the most mundane of things. JC Santos is convincing as an expat Ilonggo, his Hiligaynon malambing enough to soften his troubled and burdened character. Sunshine Teodoro as long-suffering and bereaved mother and wife is poignant, her performance heartrending without resorting to histrionics. The string of appearances and cameo roles by familiar faces enlivens the tragicomedy of the cinematic corners, one that makes the Ilonggo viewer blurt out, “Yes, I can relate! I’d say or do that too!”

So will Candè be the next great Ilonggo film? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But its honest religiosity and humanity will always be its tour de force.

(The author is a faculty member of one of the private schools of the city. The film’s poster is used with permission.)