The Philippine Film: The Evolution Of Philippine Cinema

Review of Related Literature
History of Philippine Cinema. 1 July 2002. 8 November 2016 .

History of Philippine Cinema (2002) chronicles the evolution of Philippine Cinema and focuses on the content of the films rather than the technical aspects of movie-making. It highlights the prominent film genre of each decade from the 1930s to the 1990s. It also talks a great deal about how social realities, specifically World War II and Martial Law, affected the film industry.

World War II scarred the nation, and with scars come stories to tell. One of the ways people were able to process the devastation and suffering they had gone through was by creating and watching local war films, a kind of patriotic film the Philippine society hadn’t had its

These films reflected the people’s awareness of the criminallity and corruption in the country, dissatisfaction with the status quo, and rebellion against it. Later on, censorship during Martial Law limited the creative freedom of people in the film industry and banned movies criticial of Marcos’ regime. But since the government used films for propaganda, films could get away with being grittier and sexier so long as the film showed that Marcos’ New Society was better than the society depicted in the film and free from those evils.

Filipino films are retellings of the Filipino people’s experiences, expressions of their desires, and echoes of the cultural reality they live in. Moreover, films make them more aware of these things, thus making clearer their vision of an ideal world.

Cowan, Gloria and Margaret O'Brien. "Gender and Survival vs. death in Slasher Films: A Content Analysis." Sex Roles: A Journal of Research 23.3 (1990):

First, he likens the repetition of the horror scene in one episode to the repetition of crimes against humanity committed during Martial Law. Next, he compares the inability of monsters and their victims to escape their roles as beasts and sufferers in another episode to Arroyo’s maintenance of power, Aquino’s “consolidation of his faction of the ruling elite’s power,” and the inability of the poor to escape poverty. Lastly, he relates the intensifying of social melodramas and the wait for justice to be served in an episode about an unpunished crime to the slowly increasing extrajudicial killings and human rights violations from Arroyo’s to Aquino’s