My friend and I had a good opportunity to watch one of the entries in the QCINEMA International Film Festival last weekend.

A certified film snob, my friend had suggested that we watch Oda sa Wala ( Ode to Nothing). After the movie, we exchanged thoughts on why we both liked it.

This movie is ideal for humble people who get trapped in loan sharks’ foolish and nefarious shenanigans, and when they are at their wits’ end, helpless with fear and anxiety, they pin their hopes on miracles or luck through divine or pagan intervention. When all alternative solutions fail, they can be teetering on the edge of abysmal insanity or aberration.

The story is about Sonya, a spinster who lives with his old father in a town and earns a living out of their family-owned funeral shop. However, the business does not do so well that she gets behind with the big money her family owes the merciless moneylender, who almost collects all her earnings. But one morning, two men surrender to her a corpse of an old woman whom they happen to kill in a car accident. They give her money to keep silent. Eventually, she decides to keep the corpse in the belief that the corpse brings their funeral shop good luck. Unknown to Sonya, the corpse to which she gives life and considers part of the family is the reason for losing her sanity.

The movie has explicit messages. Money can corrupt our sanity. It can blur our reason and widens the gaps in our relationship with our friends and families. It can even kill our deep humanity when we learn to lose compassion for others.I am emphasizing can with a capital C ; I believe that some of us are still smart enough to understand how money manipulates our life. Other than that, we should not rely on objects that are believed to possess good luck for solutions to our problems, especially with money matters… (when an amount of prayers does not work.) These objects have no life to move the world for us. Luck lies in our hands. Solutions to our problems require actions. We are the only ones who can fend ourselves. No one else! Thus,  let us not sit tight, stare into space, and twiddle our thumbs. We are here in this world to work, so get moving!

It is just weird and morbid that the object of  luck here is a decaying corpse. For Sonya, it’s nothing, for dealing with stiffs has been part of her job.

In the context of psychology, to some extent, we cannot blame Sonya for her irrationality. She is stagnant in the period of her life unknowing how to start again. She is bereft of her mother’s loss, and her father no longer talks to her because he blames her for it. She does not have friends as the movie suggests. She has a hidden desire and lust to meet a man, for she feels unloved. At the same time, she is burdened by how she will clear the debts of her family. These are the preposterous dynamics Sonya should sort out in the first place. She should be in the prime of her life, somewhat fancy-free and insouciant, only if money did not complicate everything.

I appreciated the movie in a sense that I’ve never watched as bizarre a movie as this. It suggests a macabre story of madness but shows the reality that humans can be creepy at the time of despair. Also, the movie is allegorical. Its director implicitly employed symbolic representations for the viewers to figure out the salutary lessons. The corpse may be the obverse of Sonya’s sanity. The antiquity of the house may be the representation of being locked up in a time warp. The gloomy, elegiacal, bleak, and dreary ambiance may be associated with the internal feelings of the characters. The ending when Sonya enters the jungle and is trapped in the darkness may indicate her permanent lunacy. So, you can feel that you are watching a tear-jerker that will make you learn how to empathize others, on the mould of Sonya.

Despite that it is a melancholic movie, and the viewers should feel sorry for Sonyang’s miseries, it still evokes a sense of humor, but I prefer to call it black or gallow’s humor. The viewers may not help but giggle at Sonyang’s character since she is played by a famous comedian, Marietta Subong known as Pokwang in showbiz. My friend and I were awe-stricken but gagged ourselves from laughing hysterically.

I learned that the movie won big at the awarding ceremony lately. It bested the other entries for Best Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Artistic Achievement Award, Best Director, and Best Film. Kudos to all the winners!