ISLANDS IN THE STREAM @SXSW

It’s surprising and relieving to see work from Filipino filmmakers showing Filipino culture at this year’s SXSW film festival. Canadian Filipino director Martin Edralin‘s first-time feature installment Islands can’t get any more organic than what it shows. It’s a character study of a middle-aged immigrant Filipino man Joshua, played by Rogelio Balagtas, who finally realizes that he is at a turning point in his life. It is set up against the backdrop of the city of Toronto where many Filipinos reside. Islands is a film that shows the culture that they have established in Toronto. It also shows the meaning to be a Filipino-Canadian.

Joshua has many problems that are all catching up to him. He still lives with his parents. His mother still cooks him breakfast and prepares his lunch and obviously dinner. He doesn’t have a girlfriend or even looks like he has had one in years. He’s a janitor at a university and does not seem to have any other career options. He was a dentist in The Philippines but has to relearn in Canada. The list goes on and on for Joshua. To put it quite frankly, Joshua is a loser.

He is the exact opposite of what it means to be a Filipino which is to have as many children as possible by all means necessary. He has lived up to nothing and it is the result of what it is like to come to the city of Toronto where the grass is supposedly greener. Unfortunately, for Joshua it is just a nightmare. Things are not so rosy when you are trying to make it in a city where it’s difficult to start from scratch. There’s also not much to choose from when it comes to the talent pool of future wives with the credentials of Joshua. The fact that he does not even try is just frustrating.

Joshua ends up doing the right thing by taking the responsibility of taking care of his parents. They are both ageing rapidly and his father has Alzheimer’s. But he is not even sure himself that he can take care of them. He is just not sure of anything.

Thing start to change for Joshua when his cousin Marisol, played by Sheila Lotuaco, who has been working in Kuwait, as a caregiver, comes to stay with Joshua and his father. Whether that is for better or for worse, the audience does not really know. Marisol does teach him the finer things in life like cooking, cutting a onion and saving money by buying groceries. Marisol’s tenure at the house is a learning experience for Joshua. But he starts to produce feelings that are misplaced for her. This is because she is the only woman who has a care in the world for him.

Islands does not follow the traditions of modern or historic Filipino cinema. Since it is staged in the city of Toronto, it has a profound effect on the outcome of this film. Where things are more emphasized, dramatic and speculated in Filipino cinema, Islands is curt to that tradition. The weather and the grey living in the city of Toronto are just not as colourful to the lens of the camera of Martin Edralin.

However, the film rather shows this other side of the coin for Filipinos who have for years trying to establish a name for themselves in the city of Toronto. Their zest for life is not the same as their relatives back home. But less is more for Filipino Canadians living in Toronto. The irony above all is that Joshua is praying for more at his home alter of Jesus and saints. He wants to have a wife, and children and show that he can be a man, a father and a husband to his parents. The irritating thing about this is that he does not even try and when he does it is not someone that he should be pursuing. The more he prays, the more he realizes that reality is setting in. God does not like the ugly. God also does not like losers.