Last
year, The Debut,
a highly professional and dramatic film about experiences
of Filipino Americans in Southern California, presented some
of the problems faced by various generations of Filipinos
in the United States. This year, The Flip Side,
a low-budget black-and-white movie directed by Rod Pulido,
has the same objective but is far more amateurish in acting
and cinematography even though the story seems more realistic
than the plot of The Debut. Each
person in the film has a problem of some sort, and only one
or two solve the problem by taking appropriate action. The
mother and father (played by Abe Pagtma and Ester Pulido),
who both work, try to hold together the family through dinnertime
conversation, but they appear so fatigued from perhaps two
jobs that their problem is that they really do not know what
their children and grandfather are doing or thinking. Darius
Delacruz (played by Veerwin Gatpandan) is a college freshman,
but he is not motivated to learn in the home environment except
from his elderly grandfather Lolo (played by Peping Baclig),
who is an elderly survivor of the Bataan Death March. Having
served a stint as a plantation worker in Hawai`i, Lolo now
he is pinning his hopes on a lottery ticket so that he can
afford to go home to Ilocos Sur to visit (or perhaps to die),
but he spends most of his time resting alone in a small room.
Darius, who was born in the United States, wants to rejoice
that he is Filipino, so he tries to learn the Ilocano language
of his grandfather and the Tagalog language of his parents.
Meanwhile, his younger brother Davis (played by Jose Saenz)
Afros his hair, has African American friends, and speaks the
African American patois, presumably because he is mistaken
as a Black at a school where Filipinos do not stand out as
a distinct ethnic group. Although he tries to excel at basketball,
he is too short, so he often hangs from a stairway landing
at home, hoping to grow taller. Davis has perhaps achieved
a bit of independence at home as a result, but ethnic self-hate
can never be healthy. The final character is daughter Marivic
(played by Ronalee Par), who calls herself "Mary"
when around Caucasians. She expresses her ethnic self-hatred
in the form of sassy responses to her brothers and parents
and with the lie that she is "Hawaiian" when she
is with her White boyfriend. Marivic is almost never home
for dinner; she works at night so that she can earn enough
money to Caucasianize her nose. Although her boyfriend invites
her over to his house to see videotape films, she never reciprocates
in kind; clearly she is ashamed of her family. Then one day
the fragile equilibrium in the family is pushed off balance
when Davis informs Darius of the secret that Marivic plans
to get a nose job. When Darius informs the parents, her mother
is supportive, her father expresses chagrin that she did not
tell him beforehand, but ultimately they put up the money
for her operation. The parents simply want whatever their
children want, doubtless expecting that they will care for
them in their old age. Darius objects, apparently sensing
from her independent attitude that she will not be around
then. After the operation, with a bandage over her nose, she
goes to see her boyfriend, whom she also has kept in the dark
regarding her operation, and his response is to jilt her.
Darius, who has been trying in vain to get everyone to celebrate
Filipino culture as a united, happy family, then insists that
grandpa must return home sooner rather than later. Wearing
his army uniform proudly, grandfather gets into a taxi at
the end of the film. Thus, Darius has made at least one person
in the film truly happy by behaving in an exemplary Filipino
manner. MH
I
want to comment on this film
