Watch out for spoilers! I will be mentioning spoilers from the film… so if you do not want spoilers, stop reading right now.
My wife and I visited Tawi Tawi a very long time ago in 1995 just to see the solar eclipse then. We were just in and out the same day. So not much touristy thing there, and I wasn’t in that touristy mode / wavelength / frequency of thinking at that time.
My fervent wish these days is to be a nosy tourist, peering in other people’s lives. In this case the Badjao people living in Bongao Tawi Tawi. From the safety of a cinema seat, to avoid any kidnapping, bandit encounters in that part of the country. It seems they just had to shoot on location. The place, the people, the costumes, the traditions were captured to my satisfaction… but I had hoped they would at least have used high definition like they do in Discovery Channel or National Geographic channel. Maybe we just watched it in the wrong cinema with a poor projector? Seems the Youtube movie trailer has better quality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thy_Womb
Eye candy! Look at those Badjao houses on the waters, their simple boats, their market, their outfits, their community, the people.
Tradition! From their Islamic faith, inside the mosques, their prayer rituals, their everyday social life, the search for an additional wife, the dowry system, the negotiations, the marriage ceremonies, the marriage dancing… from traditional music to pop music influence. Awesome!
Nature! From simple fishing, to cleaning fish, to whale sharks, sea turtles laying eggs, senior sex to the new wife giving birth!
Life is all good and normal until the necessary movie drama just has to be included: Our hero husband and wife have no children and it seems they are somewhat 60. Among their many skills is theirs of being a mid-wife. Of course they are pro-life. They tried adopting once or several times but are now an empty nest, they said when their adopted children grew up their biological parents just called them back for themselves. So now they stood firm on the idea that they must get a 2nd wife so that the husband may at least have biological children they can truly call their own. One husband and 2 wives is a normal thing… not one eyebrow raised in this community.
After some unsuccessful attempts at finding a 2nd wife, they finally manage to raise the money for a dowry of 150,000 pesos and found themselves extremely lucky to see for the first time their 2nd wife that she was quite a young beauty and would surely give them children.
Thy Womb movie poster
The drama was later revealed in a private conversation with the young 2nd wife to be and the senior husband as part of the negotiations. It was shocking, unacceptable and cruel that the young 2nd wife-to-be asked if the senior husband was clear on the deal that as soon as she gives birth to their first child, he was to divorce his beloved first wife! Which had extremely surprised the senior husband as it seems his first wife had agreed to make that deal behind his back.
The last scene showed the 2nd wife giving birth, husband assisting, first wife as mid-wife doing her usual job. And lastly, first wife handing over the new born baby boy to the happy new mother, the 2nd wife. The movie ends.
The audience is left to think what happened to the first wife. Did they really push through with the deal to divorce her and she be left all alone? Or after the few months that they had known each other they would all have grown fond of each other and found the practicality of having an older wife around as mother, healer, income bread winner? I mean really, the husband and the first wife were true love – best friends.
I always look at the bright side of life and would conclude that first of all, the dowry deal of kicking out the first wife was unbelievable. It’s not as if they had the luxury of kicking out someone who was so useful, a bread winner, so loving, so sacrificing… a mid-wife and healer at that!
But it’s all a part of the show. Something for the Christian viewers and the monogamy only urban viewers to at least think about. Otherwise, the movie may have just as well been a science or tourism documentary to visit Tawi Tawi and the gentle Badjao people.
I loved it! Please convert to high definition and release on Blu Ray! Hope this opens the doors to tourism in Tawi Tawi. Hey you kidnappers, bandits and rebels… time to dismantle that old family business… there’s more money and happiness in tourism!