Land(e)scape: Narratives of Escape in Landscape Cinema as Nationalist Yearning Gerald Y. Pascua Landscapes greet gaze with space, an environment where spectators find(and/or lose)themselves twofold; (1) in the presentation and representation of “physical” space through depth and breadth, and (2) in the construction and deconstruction of “ideological” space through encoded politics of positioning and framing. This paper explains how cinema, as opposed to fixed forms (painting, photography), is capacitated to be contemplated as landscapes with(in)choreographed directionalities. Furthermore, this paper suggests that landscape cinema is best understood as instrument of cultural power that frames and signifies our narrativized cultural identity and history. Such a reading of Mababangong Bangungot (Perfumed Nightmare, dir. Kidlat Tahimik, 1977) which depicts a personal narrative of escape and passage, juxtaposed with two texts, Qiyamah (dir. Gutierrez Mangansakan II, 2012) and Mula Sa Kung Ano Ang Noon (From What Is Before, dir. Lav Diaz, 2014) which depict symbolic narratives of a return amidst collective escape (1) project the concinnity of physical and ideological landscapes in framing a cinema narrative of (un)escape and return, (2) explain how cinema as landscape present the film’s personal narratives of escape as microcosm of a nationalist yearning, i.e., “lunggating makabansa,”and (3) explore the promise of our landscape films, as it gained more momentum in the age of digital filmmaking, in contributing to the invigorated searching for the national Filipino identity.
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