I see several tales. Tale, a story that may not be completely true. Or a story of someone’s actual experiences. First is the feminist statement on the role of the rural female in reforming society through underground means.
Second is the transformation of the lead female Marilou from a passive housewife subservient to her husband the community to a passive resistant supporter of a rebel movement to an active aggressor.
There are the tales of Father, Mayor, Mayora, the rebel, the fertile wife, the spinster, the military and the most colorful, the comfort women.
Beyond the tales, I see a setting in throwback days in Barber’s Tale, a movie of Jun Lana. A rustic idyllic place where pace is slow, day is long, air is clean. A place that is quiet where conversations disturb the sound of the river and the howling wind. When night falls, a single “hasag” is sufficient to illuminate the entire shack. It tells a story of setting and time. Where the center of action is in a barber’s chair whose seat is not made of foam but of an organic leaf. Razor used is not a thin razor blade but a hardened metal. This small barrio is set in a flat land surrounded by hills. To gain access one crosses a river in a hanging bridge. To escape, one hides inside one of the chambers of a cave.
Access to the outside world is in a small box called a transistor radio powered by cell batteries and at times through an outdated tabloid and Panorama magazine. Control of the barrio is like any other community, through the Mayor, the parish priest and the commanding officer.
Those were the days when tales were told by a living creature called man where a story unfolds slowly tracing the transformation of the central character. Soon a tale will be told about the snowballing of the transformation of Marilou and Edmond to the barrio, the community, a sector and eventually to a movement.
Barber’s Tale is a creation of Jun Lana starring Eugene Domingo. Movie was shot in Daraitan Tanay. Photos lifted from mymovieworld.
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