A scene from ’58th.’ Screengrab/YouTube
On November 23, 2009, Mrs. Gigi Mangudadatu was on her way to file the certificate of candidacy of her husband Esmael Mangudadatu, who wanted to run for the position of governor of Maguindanao province. She went with members of their family, their staff, as well as the media. In the town of Ampatuan, they were blocked by a group of 100 men who went on to shower bullets at all of them. 58 people lost their lives that day.
One of the media men who joined that tragic convoy was Reynaldo "Bebot" Momay (Ricky Davao), a photojournalist by trade. His married daughter Reynafe "Nenen" Castillo (Glaiza de Castro) had to go to the chilling crime scene to witness the retrieval of the victims' bodies, who had to be dug out of the earth using a backhoe. At the end of these operations, there were only 57 bodies found. Bebot Momay was not one of them.
The details of the fateful day were related by Nenen to a filmmaker (Mikoy Morales) by way of a Zoom call. Papa also used the device of Nenen being able to bring the filmmaker along to witness certain scenes with here. We meet Nenen's family — her husband Ronnie (Biboy Ramirez), as well their two sons Raprap (Zyren dela Cruz) and RJ (Marco Masa), who displayed their psychological trauma from these events in very different ways.
Directed and co-written (with Aica Riz Ganhinhin) by animator Carl Joseph Papa, this film was once again rendered in his signature rotoscopic animation style. Three of his previous films were also rendered this way, namely, "Manang Biring" (2015), "Ang Paglisan" (2018), and "Iti Magpupukaw" (2023). These three won Best Film in their respective film festivals — the first two in CinemaOne, and the latest one in CInemalaya.
"58th" has recently been chosen to compete for the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. There were scenes recreated with professional actors like Glaiza de Castro and the late Ricky Davao, which were then rendered into rotoscopic animation. These were stitched together with TV news reports, the grisly real-life footage of the body retrieval operations, as well as the pained appeals of the victims' relatives back then for a prompt autopsy.
The stylistic choice to render the recreated scenes into rotoscopic animation may puzzle some viewers, but for me it was quite logical. Using the animation style, Papa was able to artistically depict the extreme violence of the heinous massacre and follow Nenen go through the rows of decomposing dead bodies, without making the audience outright vomit. The images still make us feel shellshocked as the victims' blood splatter upwards as bullets mercilessly rained down into them.
The way Papa told her story and how De Castro portrayed her, we are moved by Nenen's frustrations about the seeming miscarriage of justice in her father's case for now 17 years. She never saw his body. She still has no closure. Dela Cruz's portrayal of Raprap's anger, Masa's portrayal of RJ's courage, and Davao's portrayal of Bebot's conviviality — all transcend through the rotoscopic animated images drawn on top of them.
This review was originally published in the author's blog, “Fred Said.”