When you are pushed to the extremes, will you push your morality aside as well?

Oros is a tale of two brothers, Makoy (Kristoffer Martin) and Abet (Kristoffer King) who are heavily involved in the business of saklaan or illegal gambling in the slums of Baseco. In order to gain more money from their venture, the brothers and implicit neighbors stage fake funerals in their community by buying unclaimed corpses in the local funeral parlor.

Makoy, the older brother, is the instigator of the saklaan. Not only does he earn money to support himself and his family, he also goes about helping neighbors in need by letting them host the fake funerals. His brother, Abet, is being trained by him to ‘take over’ the business. Abet is reluctant and rebellious. He wants to leave the ‘business of the dead’ and go on living. He is also quite the ladies man and is being hunted by the brother of a former jilted lover.

Makoy’s character is very intriguing. In the impersonal and flippant way in which he handles transactions regarding corpses and the saklaan, it is evident that he has become very comfortable in his work and lifestyle. It seems as if he has no remorse for his actions. However, he also seems to be a very concerned brother and a responsible family man, going about his business like it were like any other in order to support his family and even those in need.

The dichotomy in Makoy’s actions represents a concern presented in the film, the desensitization of the poor in matters regarding violence and morbidity. In an environment where crime is commonplace and where you buy corpses like a transaction, people can lose the sense of shock that normally accompanies crime and gore. Money is another factor which further kills the sense of outrage that people usually have in these situations. When one needs to put food on the table, will one put morality first than the opportunity to feed the family?

Here comes the chilling implication: When people are driven to the extremes and lose the sense of shock that is consequent of atrocities, violence becomes ordinary, even a means to an end. The shock that people experience often pulls a person’s moral compass back to equilibrium. Without this moderating factor, people may be able to justify doing deeds which may be considered horrific, such as making money out of the dead, in order to earn much-needed money.

With all that said, many are saying that the film belongs to the genre of poverty porn. I disagree. Though the cinematography of the film provides a very detailed depiction of life in the slums, from the chaotic, garbage-strewn streets to the faint haze of heat and pollutants emanating from the soil, the film does not seem to be one which glamorizes poverty for the sake of profit or to promote a cause.

Rather, the film should be viewed as a cultural text which reveals an insight into the Filipino experience. It is true that poverty is very prevalent in the country and it has far-reaching social implications. Having done a lot of fieldwork in slum areas myself, I could attest that the film did do justice to the realities that are happening in major cities. Kristoffer Martin’s well-deserved best actor performance also lent a touch of personality to the experience of poverty in those areas. He exuded a natural sense of ease into his character and made the situation very believable. I scoff at the assumption that all films which deal with poverty belong to poverty porn. From my standpoint, the film seems to belong in the social-realism category as it depicts narrative which could very well be happening somewhere in the country.

The film was imbued with symbolism and themes that were quite easy to spot, from the ‘missing’ posters to the overt hints in dialogue. This made the conclusion very predictable. Young Abet who wants to escape the business of death does so ironically by dying himself. In another ironic twist, Abet’s corpse was bought by a competing saklaan operation.

Though the characters were depicted very well, the very nature of saklaan in the movie failed to develop. In the general sense the viewer is able to understand what is going on, however the movie lacked small but significant details which would have made the saklaan scenes and the movie itself much more compelling.