Almost 50 years later, ‘Nunal sa Tubig’ remains depressingly relevant

**media[29326]**AVANT GARDENERI recently watched “Nunal sa Tubig” (A Mole in the Water), whose digitally restored version can be viewed on YouTube. Written by Jorge Arago and directed by Ishmael Bernal, the 1976 film revolves around the small fishing village of Sta. Fe located in the middle of Laguna de Bay. It stars Daria Ramirez as Chedeng, the daughter of the barrio’s healer and who herself is a midwife in training; with Elisabeth Oropesa as her best friend Maria, the daughter of a fisherman; and a quite frankly sus looking George Estregan as Benjamin or “Yamin,” a motorboat operator that the two women do not know they are both involved with.The film was restored through the efforts of ABS CBN’s Film Restoration Project using the only existing copy of the film, which was discovered in the Fukuoka City Public Archives in Japan, which explains the Japanese subtitles. More than 250 restoration artists spent around 3,600 hours restoring the film to its current condition.“Nunal sa Tubig” refers to a line in the film uttered by the island’s old timer, which goes something like, “Our island is but a mole on the water; a mole on the foot of a divine being.” This is in reference to the local belief that a person with a mole on the sole of their foot is someone prone to wandering. This could refer to, despite all the small town drama that happens in Sta. Fe, how insignificant the barrio and its inhabitants are in the grand scheme of things, trapped in a cycle of poverty.The film meanders, much like the provincial life it chronicles, its highs and lows presented in a similarly straightforward manner, as if to say all events are neutral and their meaning lies in how they are perceived.Since this is an agriculture column, I’m not going to dwell on the personal dynamics, but on the agricultural ones.Most of the residents of Sta Fe are fish pen operators, though they don't own their own operations. Maria’s family, for example, works for Mr. Blanco, who lives in the city (it isn’t specified which one) and who, at one point, visits the village with his wife and daughter, the latter painted as disdainful of the poverty around her as she answers her mother, who herself only speaks Spanish, in English; as using the language of our conquerors is cinematic shorthand for looking down on fellow Filipinos (a trope I personally have beef with, but that’s a different matter altogether).The community tackles events and challenges familiar to many agricultural workers and rural residents: the need for economies of scale, as when Yamin tells his mother that he has been tasked to organize a cooperative; individuals seemingly working for the good of everyone when, in fact, they have their own personal intentions, as when his mother asks if the fishermen will listen to a motorboat operator, Yamin reveals that Mr. Blanco promised to help him get a job off the island if he succeeds; the encroachment of ostensibly good but as yet understandable technology, as the uproar caused by aquaculturists from the mainland explaining that the fishers need to avoid fishing in an area of the lake for four months so the fry they will distribute there can grow; and most devastating of all, the sudden loss of livelihood due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, as when everyone’s fish suddenly dies and the villagers are forced to dry (daing) them to be able to recoup at least some of the loss.Not everything is bleak. There are bursts of humor in the film, mostly when landlubbers try to get in and out of boats, the only way in and out of the island. There’s a darkly funny scene where a census taker asks the first person she sees, who happens to be Maria’s mentally ill aunt, who the leader of the village is and her aunt tells the visitor that she’s the leader, which results in Maria berating the poor census taker because she thinks the latter is making fun of her aunt. Even the priest is not spared; he and his briefcase fall into the water, the latter drenched beyond redemption. Scenes like this highlight the village’s isolation and the villagers’ need to rely on each other.What I like about old films is that even though they are fiction, they nonetheless offer us a glimpse into what life used to be like. What broke my heart about the film wasn’t the drama between the main characters, but how current it feels. “Nunal sa Tubig” turns 50 next year and yet, for many rural communities in the Philippines, things haven’t changed a bit.