"Dagsin" or "Gravity", alludes to the “heaviness” of life, the trials and tribulations we experience as human beings. It refers to the heaviness we feel when we are burdened by life and all its tragedies— the weight of emotion that assails us, when someone we love dearly passes away or when we are weighted down by unresolved guilt. Gravity also metaphorically describes the force that attracts and binds us to one another… Love.
*This statement was a part of the dossier submitted to the Cinemalaya Selection Committee in 2015 and its excerpt (highlighted in yellow) was first published in the souvenir program of the 4th Danish Film Festival in Manila hosted by the Royal Embassy of Denmark.
ABOUT ATOM
ATOM MAGADIA (Renato Magadia, Jr.) is an alumnus of the Art Center College of Design in California for Film Production. He received further training from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, UCLA School of Theater Film & Television, Actor’s Studio West, the American Society of Cinematographers and the Society of Motion Picture Still Photographers. An award-winning Commercial & Fine-Art Photographer, he was also an active member of the Royal Photographic Society of England and the Advertising Photographers of America for several years.
After graduating from the University of Southern California Marshall Business School with a degree in Finance/Business Management in 1990, Atom worked for more than fifteen years in the U.S. and the Philippines in the Finance/Banking and Real Estate sector, before finally deciding to concentrate on Filmmaking, Photography, writing and visual-art.
An artist who hones his skills in both the Commercial and Fine Art fields, Atom believes in art that both entertains and amuses, as well as elevates and engages our minds and souls. He combines his unique assortment of skills and talents (across various disciplines: Visual Arts, Literature and Drama) to create compelling and unique works that aim to make people think about their lives, their actions, their humanity and the world they live in.
Inspired by the ideas of Danish Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard and French Existentialist Albert Camus, the movie's main plot is simple but we have richly layered the movie with sub-plots (World-War II and Martial Law), characters, symbolisms and metaphors to illustrate how Love can shelter us from the tragedies of life. The most obvious examples are the names of the characters: Justino (for Justice or conscience/the conscious mind), Corazon (heart/the unconscious), Mercy (God's Mercy), Nurse Grace (God's Grace), etc.; and of course the story’s timeline, which exactly coincides with Holy Week (Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday).
The whole movie is shot, paced and edited from Justino’s subjective perspective, reflecting both his mental as well as physical states— the memories of his youth are deliberately more vivid and idyllic (mimicking the sentimentality of old Filipino Romantic films from the 1940s and 50s), in contrast to his present which is more slow, somber and funereal in feel. The camera is static most of the time to emphasize Justino’s paraplegic immobility, except when we are objectively observing him from another character’s point of view.
I used the location itself, an old mansion, to magnify Justino's predicament. Grand but now nearly abandoned and falling apart, the house mirrors its owner, who is now old, worn-out and nearing his end. Like a ghost, Justino wanders within the shadows of his past entombed in this mausoleum of memories.
Although the movie can be classified in a number of ways: Drama, Romance, Arthouse, etc., I personally categorize it under "Noir," because "Dagsin" is actually a crime, suspense drama of sorts, where the perpetrator, the victim and the executioner are one and the same person. A respected and venerated Judge during Martial Law who compromised his integrity in exchange for the safety of his wife, Justino's conscience now haunts him and insists on passing judgment on his past sins.
In the end, “Dagsin” is one man's "soliloquy" of desperation for his departed love, his soul and his God.
*This statement was a part of the dossier submitted to the Cinemalaya Selection Committee in 2015 and its excerpt (highlighted in yellow) was first published in the souvenir program of the 4th Danish Film Festival in Manila hosted by the Royal Embassy of Denmark.
ABOUT ATOM
ATOM MAGADIA (Renato Magadia, Jr.) is an alumnus of the Art Center College of Design in California for Film Production. He received further training from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, UCLA School of Theater Film & Television, Actor’s Studio West, the American Society of Cinematographers and the Society of Motion Picture Still Photographers. An award-winning Commercial & Fine-Art Photographer, he was also an active member of the Royal Photographic Society of England and the Advertising Photographers of America for several years.
After graduating from the University of Southern California Marshall Business School with a degree in Finance/Business Management in 1990, Atom worked for more than fifteen years in the U.S. and the Philippines in the Finance/Banking and Real Estate sector, before finally deciding to concentrate on Filmmaking, Photography, writing and visual-art.
An artist who hones his skills in both the Commercial and Fine Art fields, Atom believes in art that both entertains and amuses, as well as elevates and engages our minds and souls. He combines his unique assortment of skills and talents (across various disciplines: Visual Arts, Literature and Drama) to create compelling and unique works that aim to make people think about their lives, their actions, their humanity and the world they live in.
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