Failing to go the distance

IZA Calzado and Nonie Buencamino play husband and wife trying to rebuild their family.

Marriage equality is currently gaining ground around the world, but in most parts of the world same-sex marriage is banned and disdained. A few years back, same-sex marriage was virtually non-existent, forcing many gays into heterosexual marriage to be accepted in society and to have traditional familial support, which is so important gays had to deny themselves, living in constant fear of discovery, for the rest of their lives.

Until now, many gays still go into heterosexual marriages, either forcibly or willingly, having been taught to think that there are no other options. While some have been successful in creating a semblance of a functional traditional family, others are not as fortunate, either they are untimely outed and then rejected or they decided to follow their heart. When that happens, it may leave broken hearts and shattered lives, and this is what Distance, an entry at the Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival, focuses on.

AFTER five years, Liza (Calzado) returns to her family to face animosity from her children. The 100-minute drama, written by Keavy Eunice Vicente, opens on desolate beach in United Kingdom, where the main character Liza (Iza Calzado), sufficiently wrapped against the cold, strolls along under a steel-gray sky, a picture of sadness.

Upon returning home, Liza has a visitor, Anton (Nonie Buencamino). One can glean from their awkward conversations that the visitor is quite familiar to her but the visit is quite unexpected, even unwanted. Anton says he is bringing her home to the Philippines.

In the Philippines, Liza feels ill-at-ease at Anton’s home, where she meets the two children, Therese (Alessandra Malonzo) and the teenaged Karla (Therese Malvar). The meeting feels forced and uncomfortable. As the film proceeds, one can piece the back story. Anton is Liza’s husband and the two children are her daughters. Liza had been having a lesbian affair, which Anton constantly forgave her for. There were several times that Liza wanted to end their relationship. Finally, she left her family and ran away to the United Kingdom to be with the love of her life (Max Eigenmann), who later on died of cancer. Five years later, Anton came to fetch her.

The rest of the film depicts how Liza tries to re-establish a relationship with her children, who have become alienated from her. She becomes a dutiful wife and mother—cooking them breakfast, attending events, and driving them to and from school. Anton is always calm and encouraging, expressing a deep devotion to Liza despite what happened. While the younger Therese is beginning to warm up to Liza, Karla remains cold, angry and downright insolent. The situation comes to a head with Karla lashing out on Liza for her abandonment and her not apologizing and Liza crying her sorry.

After two decades of being a producer for Walt Disney Company shows, TV5 programs and films such as Jun Robles Lana’s Bwakaw and Barber’s Tales, director Perci Intalan made his first film, Dementia, in 2014. Distance is his third film and his first Cinemalaya directorial entry but he showed deft hands in maneuvering drama full of quiet and awkward scenes that emotionally grips by the end.

Distance is Perci Intalan’s third film and his first Cinemalaya directorial entry but he showed deft hands in maneuvering drama full of quiet and awkward scenes that emotionally grips by the end. Viewers leave the theater with a heavy heart, but my heart is heavy and aching for a different reason. While the film seems to portray a family drama not often seen, it actually does not fill a void or feels incomplete. It does not completely illumine viewers about the situation of a family where a parent happens to be gay and decides to follow her heart. Actually, the story will not be too different if Liza is made to be straight and to run away with another man. However, since the character the filmmakers chose is a lesbian, the dynamics change.

Throughout the film, Liza is made to understand the damages she left behind. Distance can be summarized as thus: How Liza is made to feel sorry and to apologize for what she did. And what she did was to be true to herself and to follow her heart.

There is no attempt at making the family understand Liza, but is more concerned on their own hurt. She is made to return to a life she left behind, seemingly forced to conform to a role she is supposed to perform, to society’s approval, lest she will be regarded as negligent and cold-hearted. It appears that she is emotionally manipulated to conform.

The contentious episode in her life, which is very important to her, is dismissed as “indiscretion,” “infidelity” or “selfishness” and no one have thought or asked how she really is.

It will add more dimension to the film if it makes audiences understand why gay people go into heterosexual marriages; how they are forced or restricted into it because they are not given the necessary structures and support to form their own family; how they are made to believe that a traditional marriage is the only way. If portrayed otherwise, Liza’s past action will be understood as human and not branded as entirely wrongful. Such a depcition will make a difference in a large body of work that depict gay people as devious.

This is not to say that infidelity and running away from your own children is right. Liza is made to realize that and the damage it caused.

A scene/episode in Distance, where Karla has burgeoning romance with another girl, can be developed as a vehicle for her to understand her mother and eventually reestablish their bond. It would be very clever to devise parallel experiences as a way to understanding.

However, this was not explored and instead it becomes a reason for Karla to hate her mother more.

Distance’s reliance on silences and emotion has weighed it down. It proves to be well-developed as a tearjerker but not as venue to provide understanding and enlightenment.

There is much distance it can go through, but it discontinues by the first pit stop.