Sa Paraiso ni Efren (English Title: Efren's Paradise) is a 1999 Tagalog-language Filipino film that tackles emotional entanglements that interweave an unusual four-way relationship.
Melvin, a social worker, meets handsome stripper Efren and they become friends. When Melvin's mother dies, he moves in with Efren and his three female roommates.
One of the film's strengths is Melvin's relationship with Efren, which is more social and "motherly" than overtly sexual. Efren, who grew up without a mother, is in constant search of a mother figure as an adult. Efren's endless search is foregrounded in the film's opening credits, which show a mother breastfeeding her baby. In a dream sequence, Efren dreams of a mother fig. ure who is a man in drag, in the person of Melvin. Waking from this dream, Efren makes love to Melvin. Melvin is the nurturing "mother" Efren has been looking for, and their union can be read as a manifestation of Efren's unresolved Oedipal desires and is perhaps the "true paradise" referred to in the film's title. But their lovemaking begs the question of how it is possible that a supposed lalake can love a bakla. In one scene, Efren enters Melvin's room and tells him, "You're making me fall in love with you." In the film, desire is grounded on the capacity to nurture, not on gender. Efren wants a nurturing mother figure in his life, and Melvin is the perfect provider of this need given the construction of the bakla as an effeminized being.
Melvin does not have a typical bakla experience: he falls in love with a masculine gay man rather than a lalake. Melvin's friends are bakla, and apart from their effeminacy, the ultimate proof of their kabaklaan is their desire for lalake. Melvin, however, changes in that after his relationship with Efren, he gets a masculine gay man for a lover, whom he meets in a bathhouse, a place traditional bakla would not be found because a bakla desiring another bakla is unthinkable in their traditional culture.
As now used in the Philippines, "gay" denotes a host of homosexual identities, including the traditional bakla. It is perhaps possible to propose that the bakla has undergone radical changes in the last twenty years-so much so that to some, bakla may no longer be marked by effeminacy, but simply by a desire for the same. Likewise, the object of desire of the bakla has changed to now include fellow bakla or gay. When the bakla claimed gay as his name, he inevitably had to alter his vision of the beloved. He opened himself to the possibility of loving the same, which is what gay in Western discourse signifies.
Melvin, therefore, represents a breakaway from the traditional bakla, a movement away from the search for the lalake. He is the embodiment of the bakla who not only has named himself gay but also is open to the possibility of loving another bakla/gay. He is a Filipino gay subject who occupies a space undefined in traditional gender constructions, a hybrid space between the traditional bakla and the Western gay, a "Third space," to use Homi Bhaba's term, that "resists the politics of polarity" (here the dichotomy bakla/gay). This allows the bakla to recognize his otherness from gay (now being gay himself, but still not quite) and expands the discourse of sameness and masculinity in its construction without completely forsaking his "woman-hearted," lalake-desiring self. This paradox attending the Filipino gay, or bakla, identity is the inevitable outcome of the bakla's colonial past and neocolonial present and the hegemony of the globalized Western-invented gay identity. The film not only shows the fissures between bakla and gay but also reconstitutes the bakla's identity in terms valorized by the hegemonic homophobic culture.
Sa paraiso ni Efren - Efren's Paradise 1999 - Directed Maryo J. de los Reyes
Melvin, a social worker, meets handsome stripper Efren and they become friends. When Melvin's mother dies, he moves in with Efren and his three female roommates.
Haven of Hybridity: In Efren's Paradise
In Philippines gay discourse, "gay" is used to denote homosexuals across generations, class, and educational backgrounds as well as across levels of masculinity and effeminacy. Both macho and effeminate homosexuals have found a common home in the term "gay." The bakla as a subject position is refashioned in Sa Paraiso ni Efren (In Efren's Paradise, 1999). Directed by Maryo J. de los Reyes and written by Jun Lana, Sa Paraiso ni Efren is the story of Melvin, a soft-spoken bakla NGO worker who falls in love with a go-go boy (macho dancer) named Efren and decides to move into his apartment. Produced by the mainstream film matriarch Lily Monteverde (Mother Lily) for Good Harvest Films, the ambitions of the film and its homosexual theme place it more appropriately on the periphery of the industry, which, according to del Mundo, combines artistic intent and commercial viability. The film was marketed as a bold flick with the sexy female and male starlets on the poster, and it showcased a lot of heterosexual sex scenes.One of the film's strengths is Melvin's relationship with Efren, which is more social and "motherly" than overtly sexual. Efren, who grew up without a mother, is in constant search of a mother figure as an adult. Efren's endless search is foregrounded in the film's opening credits, which show a mother breastfeeding her baby. In a dream sequence, Efren dreams of a mother fig. ure who is a man in drag, in the person of Melvin. Waking from this dream, Efren makes love to Melvin. Melvin is the nurturing "mother" Efren has been looking for, and their union can be read as a manifestation of Efren's unresolved Oedipal desires and is perhaps the "true paradise" referred to in the film's title. But their lovemaking begs the question of how it is possible that a supposed lalake can love a bakla. In one scene, Efren enters Melvin's room and tells him, "You're making me fall in love with you." In the film, desire is grounded on the capacity to nurture, not on gender. Efren wants a nurturing mother figure in his life, and Melvin is the perfect provider of this need given the construction of the bakla as an effeminized being.
Melvin does not have a typical bakla experience: he falls in love with a masculine gay man rather than a lalake. Melvin's friends are bakla, and apart from their effeminacy, the ultimate proof of their kabaklaan is their desire for lalake. Melvin, however, changes in that after his relationship with Efren, he gets a masculine gay man for a lover, whom he meets in a bathhouse, a place traditional bakla would not be found because a bakla desiring another bakla is unthinkable in their traditional culture.
As now used in the Philippines, "gay" denotes a host of homosexual identities, including the traditional bakla. It is perhaps possible to propose that the bakla has undergone radical changes in the last twenty years-so much so that to some, bakla may no longer be marked by effeminacy, but simply by a desire for the same. Likewise, the object of desire of the bakla has changed to now include fellow bakla or gay. When the bakla claimed gay as his name, he inevitably had to alter his vision of the beloved. He opened himself to the possibility of loving the same, which is what gay in Western discourse signifies.
Melvin, therefore, represents a breakaway from the traditional bakla, a movement away from the search for the lalake. He is the embodiment of the bakla who not only has named himself gay but also is open to the possibility of loving another bakla/gay. He is a Filipino gay subject who occupies a space undefined in traditional gender constructions, a hybrid space between the traditional bakla and the Western gay, a "Third space," to use Homi Bhaba's term, that "resists the politics of polarity" (here the dichotomy bakla/gay). This allows the bakla to recognize his otherness from gay (now being gay himself, but still not quite) and expands the discourse of sameness and masculinity in its construction without completely forsaking his "woman-hearted," lalake-desiring self. This paradox attending the Filipino gay, or bakla, identity is the inevitable outcome of the bakla's colonial past and neocolonial present and the hegemony of the globalized Western-invented gay identity. The film not only shows the fissures between bakla and gay but also reconstitutes the bakla's identity in terms valorized by the hegemonic homophobic culture.
Sa paraiso ni Efren - Efren's Paradise 1999 - Directed Maryo J. de los Reyes
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