Demons

In 2000 O’Hara directed his final pito-pito film: Demons (Pangarap ng Puso), about a pair of children who grow up near the Negros’ enchanted rain forests, fall in love, and fall into the currents of history and tumultuous change. Their growth can be seen in their evolving view of the magical creatures dancing about them – as a child’s metaphor for the wide, unknown world; as a pubescent’s metaphor for emerging sexuality; as a young adult’s metaphor for the impulses that drive terrorists and military fascists alike, locked in a never ending cycle of violence and revenge.

I was asked once after a screening of this film (by the late Nika Bohinc, if I remember rightly!): why would children be frightened of the spirits of the forest when all they have known is innocence and joy? I had an answer then, a fairly good one I thought, but having mulled it over, I feel this is how I should have answered: that what children know is so very little compared to what they can see going on about them, and that even with their handful of knowledge (or, rather, because of it - what was Socrates’ definition of a truly wise man?) they can sense danger and darkness beyond their small, secure circle. Children can sense, and see, and in this way know (even if they are not sure of the particulars); thus equipped, and not incapable of imagination, they can fear. When they grow up into flawed adults (a budding poetess and crusader, a feared rebel killer), their knowledge increases and the width of their circle widens; but the darkness is never completely dispelled, and the fear never really goes away.