Yanggaw

1320 Words3 Pages

Yanggaw is a film directed by Richard Somes. The said film depicts a story of a woman, named Amor is facing drastic changes upon having a mysterious sickness. Later on it was found that her sickness is causing her to turn into a monstrous beast at night or in Philippine folklore, she has turned into a yanngaw or aswang. According to Merriam-Webster, aswang is a witch who possesses evil spirit. The film mainly revolved into two aspects. First was how her family responded to her condition and the second aspect illustrates as to how others, meaning their neighbors, had reacted to the changes happening to Amor and her family. The said two aspects were illustrated in a cause and effect flow of narration. In the beginning of the film, the viewers are given an introduction as to how Amor is doing; perhaps there was a glimpse of Amor’s current situation. She was so sick to the extent that she does not utter any word, she couldn’t even open her eyes at first, which could also imply how terrible her feeling was. Furthermore, her body was not entirely shown and a great emphasis was given to her face, this shot implies two things. The suspension of showing her entire body, perhaps showing her face alone, allows the viewers to think what kind of sickness Amor was experiencing. Moreover, this could also illustrate the discomfort she was feeling, and how helpless her situation was as she was just wrapped in a blanket and could not do anything. Given with her vulnerable, sickly sate, Amor went to home in order to seek rest and comfort in the arms of her family. Her arrival was a surprise for her family. Two things brought their surprise. First was that they are shocked that Amor is home again, and second was Amor’s state when she got home, a... ... middle of paper ... ... inferred that the filmmaker did such in order to illustrate the over all theme of the film which was the strength of every family. More often than not, families face difficulties that will test their unity and their oneness, just like occurrence of change in Amor’s physical and psychological state. Sometimes, some of them would run away from their families in the hope of escaping their problems, just like Toto, but no matter what happened they would always find refuge back in the arms of their families just like Amor, and more importantly there is an existence of a never-ending love of parents to their children, just like Nyor and Inday who are willing to protect and save their children from possible threats. Although, Nyor had killed his daughter in the end, I perceived such act as something heroic in which he saved his daughter from further corruption of her.

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