Ari: My Life with a King is a film from Pampanga. It opens on a school ceremony honoring distinguished alumni of that school. The ceremony is already starting, but one of the guests to be honored isn’t there yet. Jaypee (Ronwaldo Martin), the student tasked to get him, has gotten lost in the lahar-stricken landscape of Pampanga. It takes a while, but he eventually finds Conrado Guinto (Francisco Guinto), the king of Kapampangan poetry, and gets him to the ceremony. Later, Jaypee takes him back home and ends up sharing a drink and spending the night. The young man, who speaks Tagalog, gets to learn a thing or two about Kapampangan poetry, and he recruits the king’s help in writing a poem for the girl he likes.
That synopsis doesn’t really cover it, though. One might expect, based on that summary, that the film is about the young Jaypee gaining an appreciation for his own culture, and learning to use poetry as a means for getting in touch with his feelings and winning the heart of the girl he loves the most. But the film isn’t nearly that sentimental. And it isn’t nearly that clichéd. The film confronts the death of culture with bracing sobriety, allowing the tragedy to creep in without so much as a tinge of narrative manipulation.
This is a film that takes place in the shadow of Mt. Pinatubo. It begins with text reminding the audience that it has been nearly twenty-years since the eruption. The film then makes the case that in the wake of the devastation, a generation has grown with little connection to Pampanga’s native culture. The main character of the film is a teenager who doesn’t even know that the gray dust that his motorcycle is having trouble getting through is the legacy of that eruption. Jaypee speaks Tagalog, even though the king only talks to him in Kapampangan. In the film, distances are everything, whether personal or geographical. Everyone is getting farther away from each other.
What’s interesting is that the film isn’t prescriptive. It doesn’t even make the case that Kapampangan poetry will solve problems or necessarily make things better. It doesn’t contrive a scenario where poetry saves the day. It lets poetry be poetry, and allows the verse to make its own case for itself. The verses, all written by Francisco Guinto, are wonderful, and are all the argument the movie needs. Even with English subtitles that don’t quite capture the poetry, the depth of feeling and connection makes it way through.
But the movie offers no illusions about its ultimate fate. This is also a film about dying, and the film seems to say that there might be no saving this beautiful bit of culture. There can only be the monuments, the movie itself existing as the grandest tribute to a tradition that is essentially lost. The film crafts this tribute with bracing scenes of the Pampanga landscape, still coated with the legacy of devastation. Performances are great as well. Ronwaldo Martin doesn’t do anything fancy, but this role doesn’t really call for it. This movie is really all about Francisco Guinto, who really does strike a regal presence in spite of the smallness of his kingdom.
There are some parts of Ari: My Life with a King that don’t really work for me. The back half of the film introduces conflict that doesn’t really feel in tune with the rest of the film. But overall, this is a lovely piece of work. It is yet another example of the most exciting movement in our local cinema. Regional cinema is the most important aspect of this new era in our filmmaking, expressing ideas from cultures outside of the weirdly insular Metro Manila. Ari: My Life with a King is a worthy addition to this growing crop of wonderful regional works.
My Rating:
