581 WORDS / 4 MIN READ / ORIGINALLY POSTED JUNE 1, 2015 (EDITED)
Next in PBS’s Filipino-American Lives series is Harana, a docu whittled down to an hour from a feature-length film, available from www.HaranaTheMovie.com. Young, classically trained Pinóy guitarist Florante Aguilar returns to the Philippines to see if he can find any locals still familiar with the lost Pinóy courtship custom of serenading maidens at their windows from below. His main interest seems to be retrieving their songs, which are distinct from the Kundiman form. Without much expectations, he turns up three wonderful and endearing old men: A farmer, a fisherman, and a pedicab (tricycle) driver, all of whom he puts on stage at Manila’s Cultural Center and Los Angeles’s Hollywood Bowl. It’s easy to see which of the three is Aguilar’s favorite, and I concur.
If any of you recollect our evenings serenading the girls at UP’s (University of the Philippines) residence halls, you’ll want this DVD. If you remember harmonizing to Oscar Ramos singing his signature My Special Angel, or recall how, right after Roger Hipol sang, it started to rain, and how the girls threw their umbrellas down to us, you’re in the right frame of mind to pop a beer, settle on the couch, and watch Harana. Or if not a beer, maybe a box of kleenex. The songs here, the poetic lyrics and haunting melodies, will pierce any true Pinóy’s heart. Be forewarned.
And it could pierce even deeper, considering that my criticism of this film is that its sound mix could be improved. The visuals are a delight, but some of the sound transitions are poor, the music fading in and out in (to me) a jarring manner. To be fair, the worst example of this occurs not in the film itself but in the Salonga intros to all three programs in this series; however, in a movie that purports to showcase music, you expect extra attention paid to matters like this. That’s why I can’t give this film five stars. But kudos to the sound techs for their efforts to minimize the annoying background noise. You don’t realize how pervasively noisy the Philippines is until you sit down and jam with musicians there.
A minor quibble: The film is mostly in Tagalog and Ilocano with English subtitles, and when they sing Kung sakali, Neneng, palad ko’y mabigó and the subtitle reads, “If by chance, Neneng, you break my heart,” am I the only one who leaps off the couch in protest? Palad ko’y mabigó verges on poetry, plaintive and resigned at the same time; does “If by chance you break my heart” really work the same register? OK, so I can’t think of an alternative translation, but still…
In fact, I’d love to hear any translations you come up with. No one’s credited for subtitles in the final roll; hopefully it’s not Jessica Zafra, whose translations (and cats) I admire— or I’d be very disappointed.
Finally, Freddie Aguilar’s song Anak seems out of place in a program about harana (serenade) songs. The only reason I can think of for Anak’s inclusion might be that Freddie and Florante are somehow related, and Freddie asked Florante for a favor (repeat that three times real fast! “Freddie asked Florante…”)
So, summarizing Harana: I loved this program. Aguilar is a great guitarist, but the real stars are the old songs revived here and the three singers Aguilar found. I’m getting the full-length DVD, hoping that the sound mix is better there. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.