Biyaya ng Lupa Reaction Paper

  It was my first time watching a Filipino film in the 1950s and I was astonished when I finished the film because not only was it aesthetically pleasing (at least for me) but also the story was executed well because it depicts the culture and the lifestyle of the Filipinos which makes the film a Philippine film. Although at first, I was bored because of the wedding sequence because it took way too long for me, all that said, it was worth it because it emphasizes how much they love each other.

When it comes to technicalities I was surprised because there were certain transitions that were very familiar to me, one is the quick pan transition in which I saw in most of Tarantino’s movies, and I was impressed because at that time I thought all the transitions are bland or default like fade-ins and outs, jump cuts, etc. Another thing that caught my attention is how the story started and how it ended, I’ve watched some Filipino films accidentally because my parents were watching and I’ve got no control over the television so I just join them, and I noticed how familiar the plot of the story from Biyaya ng Lupa is similar to Filipino films in the 1980s or 1990s in where at the beginning of the story is the build-up of the characters, and in the middle is the conflict, and at the end is revenge. 

I now think that Filipino films in the early years are very important up to this day because it plays a big role in developing films all over the years and it is continuously evolving. We as filmmakers have adapted the techniques and concepts from those years and as a result, we are able to establish a finer version of these films in our own story.