Ang Sayaw Ng Buhay Namin
There's something kinda weird about sitting 8000 miles away from home in a Singapore hotel room watching a Malaysian-subtitled Tagalog movie about overseas workers.
Although it was hella cheesy, it was actually quite good. It told an interesting story that was just plain jacked up. I missed some of the beginning, but due to my rusty tagalog skills, the story goes something like this: Mom (Vilma Santos) gets a good gig working in Hong Kong. Husband can't stand her being away from home, so she comes back and they try to make things work. Family struggles to make ends meet so she makes the tough decision to go back to work in Hong Kong as a live in housekeeper/nanny. Now here's where it gets crazy... The family she works for totally bails on her for a 4 week vacation, forbidding her to leave, locking her in the house (there's bars) and straight up taking away her passport. And get this -- they also took the phone cord! While she's shut in, her husband dies tragically in a construction accident. She has no idea about this until the family returns and hand her a FedEx envelope that was sitting in the pile of mail outside the door. She comes back to her family, and oh Nellie... Abandonment issues abound. The eldest revolts with drugs, cigarettes and abortions, the son becomes a total anti-social loner (ends up losing his scholarship at school), and I forget what happens to the youngest kid.Crazy, eh?
But what I really liked about the film was how the themes were so fundamental to the family unit... I've seen situations where parents work their butts off to make loads of money to provide a good life for their kids -- but at what sacrifice? Not being there for your kids? How do you define success? How do you know if you've done a good job with your kids? There was a conversation in one part of the movie that I couldn't get the full gist of, but she basically said how some people see the good life that you've provided for your kids -- a house, food, education -- and say, "Wow, she's a good mother to her kids". But the reality is that her kids are jacked, so is she really a good mother?
I gotta say, though... Vilma sure can turn on the water works.
posted by VirtualErn @ 11:57 AM
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1 Comments:
for a minute there I had to make sure that it wasn't CrisPer's blog that I was reading.
just kidding bud.
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