KINGKONG

Last week, my wife would have had me thrown over the PNB building for being so insistent to watch KingKong. yeah, the gigantic ape that made the empire state building a legend. i was insistent because despite the fact that the movie has had many releases way back, i never had the chance to watch it. As a kid i lived in a town where english movies are shown on mondays and tuesdays only, inside a movie house where you have to squint to be able to see the screen through the thick cigarette smoke. if you find that a bit discomforting, wait 'til you get to sit on a "galunggong" left over or if lucky enough just the peeling of a hard bolied "saba". KingKong could have been shown in that beloved movie house of ours or it wasn't, or probably i was too pre-occupied anticipating Leon Guerero to totally have not given a damn about KingKong when he debuted in our town.

Anyway, my wife, after much of my prodding, and a dozen repeated warning of "this better be good or else..." by her, agreed, and off we went with some friends. And there i was mesmerized by the gigantic ape, the graphics was awesome, you can almost count KingKong's hair in his nostrils, and you can be convinced that such a giant exist if you're ignorant about technology. It was an aesthetically satisfying movie. there wasn't much of a story really, because way before i entered the movie house i knew KingKong will die, and from stories i have heard since childhood, i knew he died because of a girl, as half normal leading men do, in rudy fernandez's case, always does.

However, when he eventually died of bullet wounds from airplane, and falling from the empire state building, a comment from one of the characters really got into me, looking at the lifeless body of the giant ape he said, "it wasn't the airplanes, it was beauty that killed the beast..."

My first thought was, is he referring to the girl? no he wasn't, he was referring to the sunset that KingKong loves to watch. it was the reason why he climbed the building, not the girl. it was that beauty that eventually killed the famous beast.

Going home, i was contemplative, for 3 hours i've fallen in love with the ape, and most improtantly i was left with a realization: We all are beasts to a certain degree, there are things about us that can be considered beastial, yet amidst that animalistic nature we crave for beauty. Beauty, like our beastiality comes in different forms, and we label them with different names, the beastiality of anger is but a manifestation of a craving for beauty that is love, the beastiality of coldness is but a lack of a much sought beauty called warmth, and the animalism of loneliness is but a state brought by the powerful desire to be with...

There is a dying of the beast in us everyday. When you genuinely smile and say its okay after a heartfelt sorry from someone, when you hug a child after having broken the china, the beast can be said to die of beauty of forgiveness and understanding. It is only by the recognition of beauty that our lives start to make sense, and it is in the dying of the beast through beauty that we truly become human.

KingKong, ape that he was, saw beauty only in the sunset and died for it. us, however, evolved apes that we are, can find it beyond vermilion and orange...if we can't, then KingKong was a greater ape than we are.