PALALI: A Screenplay

This screenplay is historical fiction. I started writing it in 1993. It took about four years to finish. I finally finished in October 1997. And I've finished editing it today.

Many events are based on facts but I have used some true to reality names, events, etc. perhaps to remind myself that truth and fiction are two figments of the mind divided only by a very thin, threadlike line.

Frankie is the main character of this story. He narrates a story of how his maternal grandfather first came to the Philippines from Spain during the turn of the 19th century. This is the first part of the story. Historical events such as the Revolution of 1898 and historical characters Jose Rizal and Emilio Aguinaldo serve as a background to this part of the story.

The second part is a fictionalized version of his impressions of the World War 2 and how his father was involved in this war. This part is interfaced with documentary shots of the war in the Philippines

The third part is all about Frankie--a more subjective almost diary type of narration-- his life, his thoughts, his parents, brothers and his sister, relatives and friends, expressing through them his thoughts and ideas, nostalgic, philosophical; sometimes dialogues are in Spanish, Tagalog and Ilocano.

All in all, I have attempted in this screenplay, to express at least from a linguistic point of view how I, as a writer who was brought up in many languages, try to photograph a particular situation in a "slice of life" portrait, reflecting in the language appropriate in a particular ambience.

Rizal and other Filipino writers like Balmori used this technique in their Spanish works, writing in Tagalog to describe some scenes, or to have dialogues in Tagalog because Spanish could not capture the essence or the mood of the situation. In my case, I would insert dialogues and even narrations in Spanish, and also include some Ilocano and Tagalog dialogues, because English would not capture the colour and the mood .

Dettagli