TRANSFORMATION OF IDENTITY IN TRUE FICTION FILMS
Filipinos are very fascinated with the film which is one of the great visual mediums that consistently flourishing and expanding because it induces an invigorating effect to the viewers that has something to do with creating self-identification. It is not only for entertainment but it is now a great component to represent the experience of a person that may influence others to create their identity and to impose an outcry for a change. The true events which are adapted to film create a fictional narrative that creates a collective response to the traumatic experience of a specific person. This includes the rise of true fiction like docudramas which are based on real events. It may either suggest inspiration or warning that can generate one’s decision to transform his personality and identity.
A fictionalized true story separates from other typical kinds of fiction. Its credit came from the social and historical factors of a specific person or place. Most of the audience may accept this as an organic truth because of the name or person represented in the story. There are many OCW films and docudramas that are produced to retell the experience of ordinary people who were publicized by some tragic events. True fictions like docudramas offer the viewers involved in a tragic history of a specific person by highlighting a specific knowledge and experience generated by the media.
By the use of diverse film techniques, it may produce more flexible comprehension to the viewers to understand the experience of the real person and by arranging the facts, it may transform into a new narrative treatment that emphasizes the essence of the story, and creates empathy and more emotional atmosphere. From this transformation, the audience may also transform their personalities, beliefs, and identity by watching intently the character’s journey in one specific part of their life. And this is where the story began. A fictionalized story creates ties between audiences and real persons by opening discourse surrounding that sensationalized public figure. It can use in a contemplative way that may reveal arguments, delinquencies, conquests, and misfortunes. True fiction like docudrama emphasizes the new storytelling phenomenon of documentary adaptation. It is complex when it comes to representation and dramatization to parallel with the real events. The film, “The Fatima Buen Story”, established common elements like the star power of the actress and extraordinary ideas like prophetic inserts that further develop the story.
People tend to follow the story because they want to follow the journey of the characters that they eventually recognize as a representation of themselves — a self that needs a chance to grow. Through the transformation of the characters within the story, it may help to reconstruct one’s identity. In understanding the characters as a driving factor in building self-image, people need to know the key determinants of this phenomenon.
Actors are what the audience may consider as the prominent element in a film because of the characters they are portraying and the journey that they are working off. The actors are the representation of the real people that the audience can relate to. With acting, an actor creates a unique style, like appearance, mannerisms, and gestures, and even when talking, which employs empathy that can be used to stick with the story. If one has been immersed in the character’s journey, all the elements in the film will be essential to him in understanding the story of the character and the whole movie. Also, it develops a set of codes that are used to connect all the events within the story, which later become an essential factor in the narrative structure that is constituted in analyzing the film and also become a reflection of the audience within themselves. With all of these thoughts about the actors, one may conclude that actors in the film are the semiotics of identity.
Semiotics can be influenced by culture, experience, and events in different spatial and temporal elements. It is known as a sign that elucidates something on producing meaning. Therefore, the objects use in a film — may be in a physical form, it may refer to a different meaning other than itself, and it may be an element in a shared culture (Hartley, Montgomery, Rennie, & Brennan, 2002).
One obvious physical form that was used in the movie “The Fatima Story” is her beauty. There are so many meanings beyond the beauty of Fatima. The film creates a meaning that beauty can be dangerous for other people. It can use to lure a powerful person who can be used as a substance of affluence. The other way around, it can be also a source of obsessiveness for the person who has been tempted by that beauty. At the beginning of the movie, Fatima’s mother prescience the destiny of her daughter by the use of tarot cards. In using this object, the message of the film was established. It is about the dark history of Fatima’s life. While leading to the end of the movie, the use of the light illuminated on the face of Fatima when she was bleeding to death signified the redemption she was begging for. From that moment, the audience may have a hint that Fatima has a chance to survive in that particular scene. And they are not wrong. But the very end of the movie, Fatima was in her wheelchair and the iron bars were shut can indicate that Fatima is still imprisoned by the crime that she has committed but the narration still gives hope for a better tomorrow. By the use of diverse objects, the meaning of the scenes was justified and explained.
Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist, and Charles Sanders Pierce, an American philosopher, were said as founding semioticians in history. Even they have different concepts about the science of signs, Saussure’s semiology differs from Pierce’s semiotics, and still, both are concerned with signs (Berger 1933). From Saussure’s idea, signs are the combination of a signifier (sound-image) and signified (concept). On the other hand, Pierce suggested the three aspects of signs: icon, index, and symbol (Berger, 1933). These suggested concepts, it implies that everything can be analyzed through understanding symbols but in this study, before you analyze some sorts of signs or symbols, one must be familiarized with the language. As Saussure (1915/1966) said about language: it is a system of signs that express ideas. Language is made up of signs (like words) that communicate meanings for someone (Bignell, 1997). In films, actors’ dialogues are the language that expresses concepts, and acting and cinematography are their inner thoughts that reenact the event. In this sense, it relates how movies recreate reality in the guise of an existing experience. From Roland Barthes’ concept about semiotics, reading signs (semiotics) is analyzing the nature of images and how they are formed to imply messages and values. In movies, there are bunches of signs that give meaning and ideas to the audience. The film has something to do with the “coded message” inside each frame. It should be read as a “text” by understanding symbolic codes and signs projected inside the frame. Understanding the grammar of the film through narrative can make the story more coherent and can create new knowledge for the audience.
In adapting true stories, filmmakers are using different narrative devices available in film representing space, time, and causal relations to understand more of the story. A very powerful narration defines the limits of what can be seen and heard in the film without defining the conditions from the real events (Branigan, 1992). By the use of narrative, experience is transformed into more valuable and intelligible feelings to contribute to making one’s identity.
In the movie “The Fatima Buen Story”, there were many narrative devices that were used by the director Mario O’Hara which gave an outstanding transformation within the film. The character of Kris Aquino as Fatima became noteworthy while unfolding the different events that caused her grief and sufferings. In the first part of the film, the audience may agree that she deserved all of these negative experiences because of her attitude or personality. She was a rebel, a black sheep member of her family, an illegal recruiter, and a tackles wife — all of these characters’ characteristics are the root of her misfortune. But eventually, as the film progress, her journey creates empathy to the audience because of the narrative devices that were used. The transformation of Fatima is caused by the phenomenal logic where her being a mother is used to change her way of life. Major changes in the character were based on her existing surrounding and her goal as a member of a family which gave her a notable goal of existence. But because of her experience and relationship with different people, Fatima harvested the bittersweet effect of it. This is where the narrative becomes justifiable. The character’s past decision became a driving force to affect her present condition. The cause and effect are focused on the character’s journey. Thus the labeling of cause and effect is needed to simplify the narrative. Within this labeling, it will also have an element of choice which will be the audience’s probability of loving or hating the character that leads to a transformation of their decision.
The focused chain is barely used in developing the story. It is a series of causes and effects within a continuing center (Branigan, 1992). Who is the center? Fatima herself. The events surrounding Fatima are used to develop the narrative. The grouping of certain events in Fatima’s life affects the formative process for the denouement of the film. It only suggests that the ending of the narrative can be foreshadowed by the beginning and by the plot. In The Fatima Buen Story, the prologue opens with the prediction of Fatima’s destiny through cards foretelling by her mother. From there, it gives a hint that Fatima is meant to die which happened in a real event. But this destiny was supported by the tragic events that happened to her life. But what is good about this story is that the transformation is clear and acceptable. From bad to good, from disaster to redemption –these are some of the details of how the story used the cause and effect series which became useful to build the identity of the character. This identity was supported by a formative process. Because of the formative process which is the cause and effect chain, the audience clearly understands the journey of the character. Thus, if one understands and accepts the inevitable transformation of a character like Fatima, her life story may use as an example of how a person may renew his or her life to be a better person.
It is also useful to understand the narrative by sorting out the concept of the “story world” into two parts: the diegetic and the nondiegetic. The diegesis is often referring to certain events that occur within the story world. The diegetic world is what we see on the screen that presents the interior view of the character and the occurring world directed by a particular set of laws (Branigan, 1992). Also, the non-diegetic elements are prominent in some parts of the films which help to add tension and emotion to the story. Like in The Fatima Buen story, some non-diegetic inserts (dream sequence) and music were used to represent the misfortune of Fatima. The narration of her mother serves as a non-diegetic narration that oriented the viewers to the totality of the film. And because of her role in Fatima’s life, the audience may give their empathy to the narrator but eventually, it also helps the audience to have an emotional attachment to the main character. Because in real life, Fatima’s mother was the one who witnessed her daughter’s ups and downs. The narration of Fatima’s mother retells her daughter’s victimization and trauma because of her wilfulness. But through her narration, gives hints to Fatima’s inner struggles. The combination of true events that happened to Fatima and the different cinematic techniques used serve as a new version of the texts and it is a new way of digesting information and transformation for audiences.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Berger, Arthur Asa. Signs in contemporary culture : An introduction to Semiotics. Longman, New York, 1984.
Berger, Peter L., and Thomas Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality. Penguin, 1971.
Bignell, J., Media Semiotics: An Introduction, 1997.
Branigan, Edward. Narrative Comprehension and Film. 1992.
Saussure, Ferdinand de, and Roy Harris. Course in General Linguistics. Bloomsbury, 2016.
