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Dadong shoots Noel

This scene really shows the definition if the person cannot have someone to keep for themselves, then no one can't.

Happy Lunar New Year, everyone! So today, we're talking about a classic Filipino movie based on real-life events from the 60s called Kisapmata. I heard someone brought him up which makes me curious and began to check out the article of the movie on Wikipedia. Now becoming interested of seeing it, I decided to watch the movie for real and find it very great to watch thanks to Mike de Leon's excellent film directing.

Today's candidate we're talking about is Dadong Carandang.

What's the work?[]

Kisapmata (translated as in the blink of an eye in English) is a Filipino psychological drama horror film directed by Mike de Leon that was first released on the 1981 Christmas. The movie is based on the real-life events happened back at the 60s before the reportage "The House on Zapote Street" was written and published by Nick Joaquin (known by his pen name Quijano de Manila). The movie follows the story of the abusive and controlling patriarch Dadong Carandang who rules over his entire household with an iron fist to make sure that no one in his family are allowed to leave the house, not even his 25-year-old daughter Mila is safe with him even after she and Noel were married and they have to find a way to escape from her abusive household.

Who is he?[]

Dadong Carandang is a main antagonist of 1981 Filipino psychological drama horror movie Kisapmata. He is an abusive and alcoholic patriarch of the Carandang household who ruled it over with an iron fist to make sure none of his family are allowed to leave, not even his 25-year-old daughter Mila is safe with him even after he and Noel were married. When Mila and Noel decide they should leave his household together out of fear, Dadong desperately used the gun to kill his entire family before committing suicide while believing if he cannot have his daughter back, then no one can't.

What he has done?[]

NOTE: This was all written by me on my PE proposal/removal sandbox before I copy and paste it on his article while I'm expanding it. If any users think this was a plagiarism once I published this proposal, it's not, so please don't take this seriously. (Special thanks to Pro for pointing this out)

The film starts this Sunday on November when Dadong's 25-year-old daughter Mila announced to him that she will be married to Noel due to being pregnant for two months. Despite being skeptical about Noel, he reluctantly agrees to let Mila marry him if he proves himself to be good enough for her. The next morning, he brings Mila to work and asked her to bring Noel to their house so he could talk to him. Later that night, he and Noel are talking together where he asked Noel if he got anything to prove himself to be good enough for Mila and tell him to bring his parents as well.

In the middle of November, the Carandang family are having a dinner with Noel and his father Peping, whom he was mocked for being six years younger than Dadong. Both Mila and Noel announced they will be married on December 8th, which is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and Dadong asked for the dowry for their wedding. After Noel and Peping left the Carandang household, Dadong went to Mila's room and talk to her about their wedding until his wife Dely comes in to tell him the water's ready. During the wedding preparation, Dadong would do anything to prevent his daughter Mila from married with Noel by keeping an eye on them and taking away her savings but Noel was able to borrow from the bank. When the Carandang family visit the Manalansan household, he wasn't very happy about it, even when they're having a dinner.

The wedding is finally happening on the December 8th where Mila and Noel are happily married. While they're dancing, their parents are also joins in with them as well. When Dely suddenly become tired due to her blood pressure, Dadong escort his wife back home for her to rest while the couple stays at their wedding with Peping. Later that night, Dadong orders Onyang to lock the gate to prevent anyone from going outside, meaning Mila and Noel aren't allowed to go to their hotel reservation for their honeymoon. Before they go back to bed, Dadong went to lock the door with his rifle.

The next morning, Dadong, Mila and Noel are having breakfast where he mocked and laughed at both couple for missing their honeymoon last night. When Mila and Noel were atr the Manalansan household, she tried to contact her father but only for him to hung up instead. When they got back home, they witnessed Dadong is having a fight with his wife before he allowed them to go back inside. He then lock the door with his rifle again. Dadong is taking both Mila and Noel to the movies where they're watching a movie with violent and inappropriate themes. When they got back home, he tells both married couples about his involvement with fighting married couples who stabbed each other while he's still a policeman. When Mila went sick and got up to her room, Noel stays with his father-in-law where he belittled and shows his distrust towards him. Meanwhile, Mila and her mother talked about how selfish and controlling Dadong is over their household.

After talking to his friend Ernie about his problems with his father-in-law, Noel went back home to Carandang household and discovered he was locked out of here for the night. He went to Ernie's house to stay over night and tried to contact the Carandang household. Mila was about to answer his calls, but is afraid to go downstairs since her father was there below. The next morning, Noel and Ernie went to Carandang household where they meet up with Dadong at the pigsty. He went up to Mila's room and argued over her father's tyrannical authority over the household. A crying Mila admits the reason why Noel was locked out that night because the household has a curfew here and Dadong's orders must be followed. Noel convinced Mila they should move out but she's too afraid to do something about their problems. He angrily went down to confront Dadong for his actions before he left back home. Later that night, Dadong told Mila she cannot go back to work next Monday and slaps her for talking back to him.

After the Carandang family went to church last Sunday, Noel went back to work while Mila stays at her home by the next Monday. Mila writing in her diary about the baby starts forming in her womb. While he's talking with his former colleagues, Dadong heard the phone call and answer it, but it's only Noel who asked if he could speak with Mila and instead he hung up. Later that night, Mila snuck downstairs to call for Noel and tell him she wants to leave her home while her mother overheard their conversation. While both mother and daughter were talking together, it was revealed that Mila was raped by her daughter which caused her to be pregnant in the first place and Dely tried to escape from the Carandang household before but it was futile. Mila convinced her mother they should escape together, but Dely refused and promised not to tell her father about her and Noel's escape plans.

The next morning, Dadong overheard Noel went to his home to wait for Mila, but Dely told him to wait for her. When his wife return to their room, Dadong angrily assaulted her to demanded to tell him what she's planning, but she refused which prompts him to threaten her not to leave their house if she dared to help Mila escape. Later that night, Dadong went to Mila's room and raped her, which causing her to cry by the next morning. Cannot bear to live in her miserable life, she pretended to scream in pain which attracted her father's attention and he brings her to the hospital where the doctor discover her condition is fine. After the doctor leaves, Mila disguised herself as a doctor and leave the hospital to use the phone from the convenient store and call for Noel so they could escape together. However, Dadong noticed his daughter's missing, so he went back home to get his gun and went to Manalansan household to confront Noel and get his daughter back while held gunpoint at its household maid. Later that night, he and his wife are having a dinner until Onyang accidentally spilled a water on him. He furiously kicked her out of the house and told her to never come back.

He threatens his wife to help him get their daughter back, which forced her to visit the Manalansan household and apologized to Peping for her husband's behavior. Later, Dadong and Peping went to eat at a restaurant where he "apologized" for his behavior by admitted that he made a "mistake". When he and his wife went to Manalansan household to reunite with their daughter and her husband, Dadong "apologized" to them for his behavior and insists they should have Christmas dinner together. On December 20th, Dadong contacts the Manalansan household and asked Mila to come back home because her mother was sick, but in reality Dely was fine which means he lied to her so he could have her back home. Getting sick and tired of her father, Mila and Noel went back to her old home to pack their belongings, but Dely convinced them not to move out because of what happens if Dadong finds out about this. When Dadong enters Mila's room, he tried to convinced her not to leave because he need to claim the baby, but instead Mila defied and argued that he have no claim over the baby and her. Now finally snapped, Dadong went to his room to get his gun and threaten his family at gunpoint with a mindset if he can't have his daughter back home with him, then no one can. His wife Dely went out tried to protect the couple, but Dadong caught her in the act and shoots her twice to death. He then turns towards both couple and shoots at them, before finally killing himself.

Heinous standards[]

The film Kisapmata is entirely made with heavy drama and darker themes due to the man's heavy abuse towards his family and the mention of an incest like he has been raping his own daughter before. According to Mike de Leon's 2022 memoir Last Look Back, the movie was made to be a representation of masochism (referring to Dadong's sick obsession over his daughter) and authoritianism (which was inspired from Ferdinand Marcos' tyrannical regime), so it proves that the movie isn't an exploitation.

However, not only Dadong is the only antagonist of the movie, he entirely sets the entire standards of it, while his family and former maid were victims of his abuse and the others including Noel's father Peping and friend Ernie were simply his family's allies who tried to help them with their problems, so none of them are doing their villainous deeds as Dadong is. So lemme tell you everything about what he has done. Despite being married to Dely and had a daughter named Mila, all he does is ruling over his entire household with an iron fist so he expect them to follow his expectations and make sure no one is allowed to leave his house or rebelled against him, which of course made them easily too frightened to do anything against him since they've been kept under his thumb for so long. His entire house is clearly made of claustrophobic for his family as his family are too scared to face him whenever his presence is always around them.

Not only his controlling and tyrannical authority around his household, Dadong has been abusing his entire family and especially his former maid for any reasons. Such as:

  1. Mila: He always sees Mila as a mere of his own possession rather than his own daughter. His actions clearly gave a heavy impact on her that made her severely traumatized because of this, the example is that he has been raping her before which made her pregnant in the first place, which is called incest and inbreeding. So that's why she decide to marry Noel because of this. During the wedding preparations, it is mentioned that he stole her own savings to prevent her and Noel from getting married, but Noel managed to borrow from the bank. Following her marriage, her father Dadong comes into his room that night when she was asleep and implied to have... oh no... not again... and it made her crying by the next morning. Even after she temporarily escape from her home and lived with Noel, she still hasn't recovered from her trauma as she keeps having nightmares about him.
  2. Dely: Despite being "married" to her (as Mila claims she wasn't married and he has no legal hold on her), she doesn't show interest on his wife Dely and only treats her like his own personal servant despite having one former maid of his. Due to forcing her to follow his expectations, Dadong has no problems beating her up with physical violence whenever she makes a mistake or planning to escape from their household, especially when he overheard Noel and Dely's conversation at the front gate. It is mentioned that Dely tried to escape from him, but with no success and she was forced to stay with him. After Mila escaped and lived with Noel, he used his gun to threaten Dely to help him bring their daughter back, right before he killed his entire family and himself when they rebelled against him.
  3. Noel: Due to him being the one who's going to marry Mila, Dadong began to show disdain and mistrusts towards Noel ever since they first met, making fun of him for not being manly as him nor following his expectations, and would do anything to prevent both couple from getting married but to no avail. Even after he was married to Mila, Dadong still treats Noel like crap like making fun him for missing his and Mila's honeymoon and locking him out of his house for the night because of the few curfews that leads to Mila not being able to help him out of fear for not following his expectations. Just like Mila, Noel is easily traumatized because of this.
  4. Onyang: Not only his entire family, but the former maid Onyang was also abused by her master into following his expectations as well. One slip up or he'll be pissed off, which happens when Onyang accidentally spilled a water on him that made Dadong extremely angry so much that he kicks her out of the house and never come back again, forcing her to live on the streets where she has nowhere to live. This kind of punishment is too harsh but petty to be dismissed as a genuine discipline.

And finally, when her family are clearly turning against him including his daughter Mila and his son-in-law Noel got fed up with his abuse so much that they decide to pack their belongings and moved away from him, Dadong has finally snapped and grabbed his gun and held them gunpoint to prevent them from leaving, but only to leave him no choice but to kill every single one of his family when his wife Dely tried to protect the couple before moving on to them and finally committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Despite his suicide is clearly well-deserved, no one in his family are safe enough to escape from his abuse. To summarize it, all of his heinous actions is played horrific enough to stand out because of everything he caused that I have explained from above.

Mitigating factors[]

Now I cannot find a reason why he acted very abusive and controlling towards his family even after I watched the entire movie, even if he has one, it still doesn't excuse for the way he did. While it's true he may be alcoholic which clearly affects his mental health that made him abusive towards his family in the first place, but there's nothing to prove he clearly has moral agency issues. In fact, he's genuinely aware of how his actions has affected his entire family, such as while he tried to convince Mila to stay with him, he says that he needs to claim the baby, showing that he's aware of the rape he inflicted on her.

While he presented himself to be a friendly and socializing old man who casually talked with his family and guests and always joking with them, it was actually a ruse to hide his true abusive and tyrannical nature of his and most of them were just insulting them for petty and unlikeable reasons, like Noel for not being manly as he is nor following his expectations or his father Peping for being six years younger than him. Though he may seems to love his daughter and is very protective of him, but this is more of a toxic and unhealthy obsession towards her rather than genuine care as he only saw her as a mere possession of his rather than his own daughter.

And finally, when killing his entire family including his son-in-law Noel, he does nothing to stop himself from shooting them all nor talking or yelling at them, but at least he tried to threaten them not to leave or else he shoots them all. His long pause before killing Mila? Well, either if he kept her as his possession or just dispose her if she rebelled against him, so he decide to chose the latter option due to believing if he cannot have her, then no one can. Committing suicide by shooting himself in the head could be a sign of guilt, but instead of showing remorse for killing them all, he was actually pretty much unhappy that he has no one to be put under his thumb, proving how much of a sociopath he is.

So yeah, nothing is pretty much redeeming about this fat monster.

Final verdict[]

Let's all give the late Vic Silayan a gift for his amazing and marvelous performance of this abusive controlling father by giving an easy yes to him (may he RIP...)