Itim

Itim (Filipino for "black"), released overseas as The Rites of May, is a 1976 Philippine supernatural horror drama film and the feature directorial debut of Mike de Leon, with a screenplay by Clodualdo del Mundo Jr. and Gil Quito. The film, that has been described as "one of the most remarkable debuts in cinema history", stars Tommy Abuel as a young photographer visiting his father (played by Mario Montenegro) in his provincial town during the Lenten season. There he encounters a mysterious woman, Teresa, played by Charo Santos in her acting debut. Itim addresses various topics, including occultism and religion, in a "foray into gothic horror, exploring the spiritual nature of life and people in the quiet little town of San Ildefonso".

The Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (Filipino Film Critics) included the film on their list of the Ten Best Films of the Decade. In 2022, the film was digitally restored, with a subsequent theatrical premiere as part of the Cannes Classics section at the 75th Cannes Film Festival.

Plot
The film opens on a séance where an espiritista (medium) exclaims that Rosa, a missing Catholic nun, is dead. Her younger sister, Teresa, is uneasy. Their mother asks the espiritista if she can speak to Rosa. The medium tells her to wait for Good Friday.

Meanwhile, Jun, a young photographer from Manila, is visiting his mute and wheelchair-bound-father, Dr. Torres, in their provincial hometown during Holy Week. Throughout his visit, Jun photographs various Lenten rituals for the Manila-based magazine he works for.

He comes across Teresa and takes her photograph while she is dazed. Following this are several chance encounters where she exhibits strange behaviors she does not seem to have control over. Soon, however, they discover that it was not chance but the supernatural that brought them together. In the clinic of his father, Jun finds a film negative; he develops it and sees it is a photo of his father and a young woman, who he soon learns is Rosa.

It is revealed in another séance that the spirit of Rosa possesses Teresa. Rosa's spirit lets out that she was having an affair with Dr. Torres, who forced her to have an abortion, resulting in her death. Soon after the incident, Dr. Torres figured in a car accident that left him mute and paralyzed. After revealing what happened, Rosa exacts her revenge, causing Dr. Torres to fall down the stairs and die.

Development
Originally a cinematographer, Mike de Leon was known for his award-winning work on the 1975 film Manila in the Claws of Light, which was directed by Lino Brocka. Although de Leon did not initially set out to become a director, following Manila, in 1975, he made a short film Monologo (Monologue), his second directorial effort after the 1972 short Sa Bisperas.

Monologo would serve as a turning point, the experience piquing his interest in directing. Brocka, whom de Leon had worked with in Manila, was the first person to view the rough cut of Monologo. He subsequently encouraged de Leon to pursue directing. De Leon has described Itim as an offshoot of his 1975 short film, Monologo, which was a ghost story and homage to Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 thriller Blow-up. De Leon said he was also inspired by the ghost stories of Lafcadio Hearn.

The script was written by Clodualdo del Mundo Jr., who wrote the script of Manila, and del Mundo's brother-in-law, Gil Quito. Quito conceived of setting the film during Holy Week and incorporating spiritualism. He recalled that the script was written with relative ease, except for the ending. Spiritist Becky Gutierrez was on set as a consultant for the psychic-related elements of the film. She wrote down the incantations from her actual séances for the production team, which were then used to inform the final scene. De Leon also credits production designer Mel Chionglo for assistance in re-writing the séance scene. According to de Leon, screenwriter Ricky Lee initially worked on the script but requested not to be credited. The director believed Lee, known then as a former student activist, made the request due to the lack of overt social relevance in Itim.

Casting
Initially, de Leon, as he explains in a 2022 interview, was interested in casting big-name actors, as was the common practice at the time in Indonesian film. The original idea was an erotic thriller with Alma Moreno and Bembol Roco, the latter of whom starred in Brocka's Manila. According to de Leon, after Manila, Roco committed to appear in de Leon's directorial debut but had a schedule conflict with another film he had already signed on to act in. Regarding Moreno, the director was put off when her manager demanded there be full payment upon signing the contract. Following these setbacks, de Leon asked for Brocka's assistance in casting Hilda Koronel, but her fee was beyond their budget. As a result, the production was risked on newcomers, including Charo Santos and Susan Valdez.



After winning the Baron Travel Girl beauty pageant, Santos, then a college student, was noticed by Brocka. Brocka referred Santos to de Leon and a screen test was arranged. Following the screen test, Santos was offered her first acting role with Itim. As Santos refused to do any erotic scenes, or even to kiss on screen, de Leon scrapped the original concept of an erotic thriller and instead delved into Catholic guilt through the lens of the horror genre.

The film also served as the acting debut of Susan Valdez, albeit in a non-speaking role; prior to the film, Valdez was known as a commercial model. The main role of the photographer was given to Tommy Abuel, who de Leon worked with on Manila. Meanwhile, the more seasoned Mario Montenegro and Mona Lisa were cast due to de Leon's familiarity with them as actors of LVN Pictures, which was formerly run by de Leon's grandmother Narcisa de Leon. De Leon admitted that Montenegro was his favorite of the LVN actors due to his costume films, particularly a childhood favorite, the 1954 feature Prinsipe Teñoso.

De Leon recalled approaching Rolando Tinio, his former teacher, to discuss whether his wife, actress Ella Luansing, would play the espiritista in the film. However, Tinio turned the discussion instead into a criticism of Manila. The role eventually went to Sarah Joaquin.

Filming
Principal photography commenced at the ancestral home of de Leon in San Miguel, Bulacan over the course of two months in 1976. Since it was his family's home, de Leon took liberties with the set production, including removing walls and moving old furniture around, much to the displeasure of his father when he visited the set. The house is the place "where more than two decades later (de Leon) would also shoot Bayaning 3rd World."

Itim is regarded as the first major production design work of Chionglo, who would later go on to be a respected director in his own right, best known for the trilogy consisting of Sibak, Burlesk King, and Twilight Dancers. On the set of Itim, Chionglo was also assigned to assist newcomer Santos as her acting coach.

The film also served as the first cinematography work of Rody Lacap, a former color grader and optical print operator at LVN Pictures. Lacap had first been hired by de Leon as a gaffer and lighting director for his short film Monologo. He would go on to be the cinematographer of several of de Leon's other films, including Kakabakaba Ka Ba?, Kisapmata, Batch '81, and Sister Stella L., as well as Peque Gallaga's Oro, Plata, Mata and Marilou Diaz-Abaya's José Rizal. Lacap was co-cinematographer with Ely Cruz, who also worked with de Leon on Monologo, and would go on to photograph Peque Gallaga's Scorpio Nights, among others.

Santos described de Leon on set as seeing "a genius in action" adding, "He storyboarded the entire movie in his head, even before the first shot. He expects perfection from everyone." There were similar recollections by actor Valdez, recalling, "Meticulous in preparing a shot. He was particular about how the lighting was set up. Lengthy waiting time when he sets up the lights which shows how much of a consummate director he was." The more experienced Tommy Abuel recalled similarly that de Leon "was mainly concerned with the technical aspects of the film such as camera angles, shots, lighting, etc." De Leon himself admitted he is not an actor's director, but rather treated film acting as an element of the overall film.

Post-production
In order to achieve a bleak and moody atmosphere, de Leon used various post-production techniques that imagined the cinematography's darkness as a protagonist, including exposing the negatives twice. A tricky procedure, several negatives were ruined in the process, requiring the re-shooting of the respective scenes. The film was scored by Max Jocson, who worked with de Leon on Manila. For several scenes of Itim, Jocson scored "against picture" by having live musicians play the score while the film was being projected in real-time.

Supernatural and horror
In a 2022 interview, De Leon explained why he was interested in making a film containing elements of supernatural or at least fantastic that he had started exploring in his 1975 short film, Monologo : "One thing I liked about Blowup was the idea of existential alienation. Monologo was a ghost story. The character takes photos and he does not realize that he has photographed a ghost or a presence in his own house. I mean, his camera saw it but he did not. (...) I was also a big fan of the Japanese ghost stories of Lafcadio Hearn." But, concerning the categorization of Itim as a horror film, he added: "I also happened to watch Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now while I was in Germany in the mid 1970s. And when I was in college, i found Jack Clayton’s The Innocents so frightening. It is still one of the best ghost films ever made, in my opinion. I still cannot watch it alone. You will find elements of these films in Itim. (...) Friends and critics said that Itim belonged to the horror genre, which I did not question." A retrospective review at the French website DVDKlassik commented: "Mike de Leon lets fantastic emerge as the only way of justice for a violence that is sadly real and inscribed in the mores of this patriarchal society. The threads of the invisible world tighten to expose a very real monstrosity." Another retrospective comment insisted that the film is based on a "personal and multiple inspiration, almost syncretic, where fantastic border zones, enigmatic rites, occultism and religious statuary mingle".

Catholicism and folk Catholic imaginary
The film is set during Holy Week, which film academic Bliss Cua Lim describes as "a season in which the mundane time of everyday life intersects with a biblical temporality of sin, repentance, and redemption." The final scene occurs during Good Friday, which Lim suggests means the story falls short of the redemption symbolized by Easter Sunday and thus "closes on the darkness of death, remorse, and frailty named in its title."

There are several allusions to Catholic rites, devotions, and images, including the uninterrupted chanting of the Pasyon; a veiled statue of the Virgin Mary; and a group of twelve life-size saint statues representing the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ. These allusions, theologist Antonio Sison contends, are presented through the lens of "folk Catholic imaginary", that blends images of Catholicism with the Filipino primal religion. As such, the séances depicted are not part of Catholic belief but "occup(y) a niche in folk Catholic practice, which does not take issue with religious syncretism.", that approaches it with seriousness and confers the séances a certain religious legitimacy, thus distinguishing the séances in Itim from other depictions of such scenes in horror film.

The character of Jun, the young photographer, first encounters the apostle statues when he takes photos of them as several women chant the Pasyon. The statues then appear to Jun in a dream. They surround him and then suddenly begin moving towards and circling him, alerting Jun to the heinous deed committed by his father. Sison comments, "The folk Catholic imagery recognizes the divine intervention of religious images who will use dreamscape as a means to interrupt sinful patterns in the characters' lives and make metanoia a possibility, or, at least, a promise."

Darkness
In the approach of the film, the religion and horror themes share the trope of darkness or blackness (Itim meaning black) as commentators have noted: "In a captivating syncretism, European influences blend quite naturally into a Filipino setting – and into an imagination – where mysticism and Christianity already coexist. Itim shines with this singular harmony of gentleness and fear, of magical realism and spectral fantasy. He lets the darkness take over the setting to the point of making it a character in its own right." The theme implied a particular use of colour that restoration enhanced: "Often described by critics as a slow-burn, atmospheric horror, the film has the expected oppressive darkness against white compounded with unexpected dark browns and maroons in interiors against verdant backgrounds. The Italian film laboratory L'Immagine Ritrovata restored these qualities to their proper depth, soaking the viewers in a bath of voluminous, deliberate color, light, and shadow." This includes "darkness (dilim) and light (liwanag)—the selfsame words that haunt the urban protagonist of Itim from the first evening on".

Social justice
The film was said to express "De Leon’s lifelong fears about “the dark side of our culture”: the Spanish colonial legacies of superstition and antiscience in his native Philippines." In 2022, de Leon commented: "One thing that made my films a little different from most other Filipino films was that they didn't focus on depicting squalor and poverty, which international festivals love in third world films. Instead, they dealt with the corruption of the Filipino middle and upper classes, the abusive patriarchal rule in the Filipino family, or the fascist training instilled in student fraternities." Also in 2022 he explained: "“Horror has now acquired a more sinister meaning. It is no longer about a ghost but about the monsters of Philippine politics, monsters that, after a long wait in the subterranean caverns of hell, have returned to ravish and rape my country all over again. The crazy thing is that we invited them back.” A 2023 French review of the DVD version wrote, "Mike de Leon lets fantasy emerge as the only way of justice for a violence that is sadly concrete and inscribed in the mores of this patriarchal society. The threads of the invisible world tighten to expose a very real monstrosity."

Release
Initially released in 1976, it was made commercially available in the Philippines in 1977. The film was internationally screened for the first time in 1979 at Filmex in Los Angeles.

Restoration
Although the Asian Film Archive offered to fund the digital restoration of Itim, delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic led director Mike de Leon to fund the restoration himself. The restoration was done by L'Immagine Ritrovata, the same film lab de Leon worked with for the restoration of his films Batch '81 and Kisapmata, as well as for the restoration of Manila in the Claws of Light. The restoration used the original negatives, which had been stored at the British Film Institute since the 1970s.

On May 20, 2022, the restored version premiered at the 75th Cannes Film Festival as part of the Cannes Classics section. It was personally introduced by Cannes Delegate General Thierry Frémaux. The restored version had its Philippine premiere at the 10th QCinema International Film Festival.

In November that same year, the restored film was included in the "Mike De Leon, Self-Portrait of a Filipino Filmmaker" retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. It was screened alongside screenwriter Clodualdo del Mundo's behind-the-scenes documentary Itim: An Exploration in Cinema. The following month, Itim was shown in another retrospective, "Mike de Leon: A Life in (Moving) Pictures," at the Three Continents Festival in Nantes, France.

Home media
In March 2023, Itim was released on Blu-ray Disc by Carlotta Films as part of a five-box set of a selection of films directed by de Leon.

Box office
Itim was a commercial flop upon its initial theatrical release, running for only one week.

Critical response
The film received however a positive response from Filipino critics. Pio de Castro III lauded Itim in a contemporary Times Journal review, writing that the film was enigmatic, technically excellent, and "the touchstone against which all other films of 1977 will be gauged." The Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (Filipino Film Critics) included the film on their list of the Ten Best Films of the '70s.

In 1998, after a screening at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Walter Reader Theater, as part of a Festival of Philippine Cinema, Ray Privett highly praised the "sparse, long-take style" of the film and its soundtrack and stated that watching the film was an experience that would haunt him for some time. A retrospective review of the film calls it "an esoteric psychological drama that leans towards genre cinema". It has also been described as Leon's "horror masterpiece". A mixed retrospective review at AsianMoviePlus, however, criticised what they deemed "unnecessary technical flourishes" and the "slow-burn" pace of the film, and stated that Itim was a "generally enjoyable if somewhat flawed supernatural effort"

Accolades
At the 1978 Asian Film Festival, Itim was awarded Best Picture, and Charo Santos was recognized as Best Actress. Mike de Leon's sophomore feature, Kung Mangarap Ka't Magising, as well as Eddie Romero's Ganito Kami Noon... Paano Kayo Ngayon? were also festival entries. De Leon's father, producer Manuel de Leon (although not a producer of Itim), accepted the award for Best Picture on his son's behalf. In 1956, the film Child of Sorrow, produced by Manuel de Leon, had received the same honor.

Itim also received four Gawad Urian awards: Best Cinematography, Best Music, Best Editing, and Best Sound.