Review:Tribu-Not Glasshouse Objects

Ebet is an less-than 10 years old kid. He waits outside the door while his mother is inside the house with a man. The couple is having sex wildly. The man shouts dirty words and she shouted back while they are humping up and down. The man swore about his jealousy against Ebet’s mother for sleeping with another man. Ebet’s mother, a sex worker, cursed back to him in the same loud voice. Ebet heard those dirty words from outside.

Welcome to a mixture of violence and sex in Tondo, Manila, Philippines. Poverty and (later) access to weapon is a combination whose path is quite predictable. It is not hard to foresee where Ebet is heading with his life, especially in given environment in this film, Tribu, by Filipino director, Jim Librian.

There are many street gangs in Tondo whose members are bit older than Ebet. Thugz Angels is the closest one to Ebet’s house and off he went to apply to be its member. It was not easy but it was not impossible. Beating and insult are standard rites of passage for new members, including for little Ebet. For female applicants, there are two ways of initiation: the hard way or the pleasure way, which always means losing virginity. In the place where violence is celebrated and became an admission to achieve communal identity, Ebet’s fate since the beginning is written in the film’s opening.

But Jim Librian in his first feature-length film doesn’t make the process predictable. In the tradition similar to Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese) and City of God (Fernando Moreilles), Tribu, bring everyday life of its characters and how they enter and live that violent culture. We are then dazed by the paradox of their lives.

On one side, they are goodhearted kids who help their parents fetching water and tease them with English (“hi lovers” and “merry Christmas in this summer”) as if they are social climbers in opening of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace who talk French to show their social status. But we know those English words are gag from the director to underline that these weapon-mongering-youngsters have goodhearted quality, as we can found in the boys next door or even in our own kids.

The other side of the paradox is the preparation for the war that night. Weapons are collected and gangsta raps are sung. They sing of cutting-off enemy’s head and the other blabbers mimicking savage war dance. By presenting the goodhearted quality of these young gangsters Jim Librian has made the characters of his film become multi-dimensional. Goodhearted quality and celebration of violence are inseparable sides of their existence. Yet they are too goodhearted to be ignored and Librian knows how to make the audience empathize with them.

Hence when the violence happened we are not prepared for what we see. Forget about beautification of violence. The film’s statement is clear: violence is real. Amateurish-looked and shaky handheld camera and candid composition in Tribu made us feel as if we are following real-life people in real-life event. Violence becomes real not because of carnal approach of it. It is true that violence related to human body yet a film must not always depict it in frontal way. Film is audience’s perception and Librian knows very well how to construct it.

He started with giving enough exposed to the youngsters’ goodhearted quality then to the ferocious side of them. We saw them teasing around gorgeous girl next door and then they are running in the street with knives ready to slit other kids’ throat. He also made the neighborhood alive as it is in real life. Notice how he let the electricity guy being complained by group of neighborhood-wives because of mess he created. This made people of Tondo in Tribu become real. After we believe they are real life people with real life problem, then Librian bring the violence upward. By doing this, Tribu has made the award-winning and critically-acclaimed film, City of God, look like an American Idol audition. The slick approach of City of God become lavishly unnecessary compared to Tribu’s coarse realism.

This film tackles the subject very well as if the filmmakers involved in it. Librian cast local Tondo people for his film and these amateurs are perfect to play as themselves. The filming was also taken place in the streets of Tondo. Reality was approached in simple and modest way causing the term ‘neo-realism’ as faux taxonomy which applied only for theory- phile. Because Ebet and other kids’ live in violence and poverty are real. Librian do it justly by made a film that not just visiting them as if they are glasshouse objects.

The film inevitably ends with something excruciating. There is no tear-jerking moment that cause it but due to the fact that destiny has its own realistic and, at the same time, horrid way. This has made the violence in Tribu, which is far from frontally depicted, is unbearable for some people who are not ready to greet reality.***

Tribu (2007); Writer / Director: Jim Librian; Cast: Havy Bagatsing, Karl Eigger, Honey Concepcion, Mhalouh Crisologo, and Gilbert Lozano.