directed by Paolo Villaluna and Ellen Ramos
When we are confronted with realities, bitter or otherwise, we succumb to weakness but somehow there is a feeling of wanting to arise from the dark abyss that collapses our being. We deny the darkness and choose the light. We gather what enough puissance we have, find out in the most impossible of ways and try to win over whatever our choice demands. In our constant search for self-actualization, we stumble upon realities that are dream-like and illusions that turn out to be real.
“Ilusyon” is an out-of-the-ordinary visual depiction of man’s search for answers on his questions about life, love and himself. It revolves around the central idea that WHAT YOU SEE IS NOT ALWAYS WHAT YOU GET. It delves on the human response on concepts like beauty, love, dreams, deceit and self-identity.
“Ilusyon” is about a young man named Miguel, who leaves the province to search for greener pastures in Manila. His father, a modernist painter, entrusted his house to Miguel while he was away. Miguel found a job as a house painter a day after he arrived in Manila. He also crossed paths with a lot of quirky personalities during his stay. There was the English-speaking mailman, the stout, hot-headed foreman, the nagger landlady and the young, flirty niece of the landlady. The core of the plot unfolds when Miguel meets Stella, a beautiful nude model who was supposed to be the subject of his father’s paintings. Struck by Stella’s beauty, Miguel does the unthinkable by pretending to be his father.
True to its avant-garde nature, “Ilusyon” does not flatly present a predictable storyline; nor does it have embedded ideas that need no further interpretation. A streak of depth envelops “Ilusyon” as several untangibles come into play in the film, “Ilusyon”. Each intangible are representations of the different illusions that the main character comes face to face with. First is the concept of beauty. For Miguel, beauty is something that is aesthetically pleasing, symmetrical and proportional, just like Stella’s body. Beauty is art, and because Stella was his art, Stella was beautiful. But when Stella contacted a strange skin disease and started to have dark blotches around her chest, Miguel saw a different Stella- an ugly Stella for whom he felt disgust for; a Stella whom he cannot stand to paint.. From this it can be seen that Miguel’s perception of beauty is limited to what the eyes can see and not from what the heart can feel. This makes Stella an illusion of beauty; for her beauty is not permanent, she no longer is ideal because she was grimed by the smears of skin disease and worse, grimed by Miguel’s rejection.
Love is another concept unconventionally explored in this film. Miguel experiences “love at first sight” the moment Stella knocked at his door. He fell in love with a beautiful stranger and had an almost talk-free breakfast with her. He adores her as he draws and paints her. However, his so-called “love” for Stella wears off for a flimsy reason such as a skin disease. After lying to Stella that he is a real painter and after having intercourse with Stella for multiple times, a few brownish, red, blotches change his mind. This shows that Miguel’s feelings for Stella cannot be qualified as love, but as infatuation for Stella’s former beauty. This is evident by the fact that the level of relationship that Miguel has with Stella is merely physical. He takes penchant looking at her and having sex with her, but that’s it. Stella is an illusion of what a “beloved” should be in Miguel’s point of view. In this film, the concept of self-identity comes hand in hand with self-deceit. He takes on his father’s identity as a Modernist painter; quits his job as a house painter to let himself fit into the “ideal man” image that 1950’s Philippines calls for: educated, Manila-bred and has a remarkable field of expertise. Miguel believes that his pseudo life in the shoes of his father would make him one step closer to everything he yearns for: his dream of being a real painter and his dream of spending the rest of his life with a beautiful woman. By assuming his father’s identity, the treatment of reality for Miguel suddenly becomes dreamlike. In the blink of an eye that he totally eliminates his own identity, he believes that self-actualization is his ultimately, but his notion of sudden success is just an illusion.
Each sprouting character in “Ilusyon” represents harsh realities that exist in Miguel’s life. The landlady, in her loud clothes and nagging nature, always bugs Miguel to pay the rent. Her annoying character represents the reality that in this world, nothing is easy and nothing is free unless you work hard to get something. Another manifestation of avant-garde qualities in this film is the talking carabao that Miguel always dreams about. The idea of talking animals is not very original, as such appeared in other films such as “Amelie” and “The Mirrormask”. It is evident, however, that the inspiration for the talking carabao was drawn from other avant-garde films such as those mentioned. The carabao is not simply a recurring character in Miguel’s dream sequences; though irksome and pessimistic to Miguel’s views, the talking carabao is an illusionary representation of Miguel’s subconscious self or his conscience. The mailman who speaks only broken English takes penchant in poking fun at Miguel’s being a “painter”. He often compares Miguel to his father and thinks that Miguel is inferior to his father. It may be that the mailman’s role is to give a comedic angle in this film; but primarily, the mailman represents the voice of reality that makes Miguel realize that he is deceiving himself by pretending to be a painter and pretending to love Stella though his attraction to her is mainly physical. Even the childish, flirty niece of the landlady who hula-hoops all the time has a representation to contribute to this film. Her hula-hooping alludes to the cyclical nature of life and her bubbly disposition is a manifestation that life is simple and should not be complicated by self-inflicted superficialities.
Dialogue-wise, the characters in “Ilusyon” do not say much. But whenever they say something, their statements are deep and have an underlying meaning to them. Take for instance the statement of the Doctor (Boots Anson-Roa in a cameo role) regarding Stella’s skin disease says a lot more than just the disease: “What Stella has are discolorations. They don’t itch, they don’t hurt and they absolutely won’t do her any harm. You see, diseases infect people. There are so many diseases that some of them don’t have any names yet. Some diseases are internal, and they often are ignored. But there are some that are external, they are visible, that is why they are given so much attention. There are more important things in life that need to be pondered more upon than minor, harmless diseases like this one.” The Doctor’s statement serves as a wake-up call to Miguel that he doesn’t have to destroy others and himself just because of the appearance of dark blotches on Stella’s body. Breaking up with her is useless because whether she has the blotches or not, she is still the same Stella inside. The statement of the mailman also bears so much meaning to it. When Miguel told him that he is not his father, so the mailman should stop comparing him to his father, the mailman’s reply was: “Of course, you’re not your father. Your father is a painter and you’re….I don’t know what you are.” Simple and casual as it may seem, the mailman’s reply is factual: Miguel is indeed nothing because he is deceiving himself.
In a nutshell, “Ilusyon” was ironically able to contradict the idea that “everything is an illusion”. With the mixture of art and ingenuity, the most vivid of its messages struck me like a beautiful painting. The last words of Miguel will forever linger in my mind: “A PAINTING CAPTURES THINGS THAT DO NOT LAST: FAMILY, LOVE AND MEMORIES THAT GIVE MEANING TO LIFE. IT MAKES ME THINK THAT LIFE IS AN ILLUSION, THAT NOTHING IS REAL. BUT NO, EVERYTHING IS REAL.”
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