The Experience of the Past in the Visual Nostalgia: An Analysis of Romantic Films Set in Baguio

Abstract

Popular romantic films create a dominant nostalgia for the spaces of Baguio (e.g., pine trees, vast mountains, Session Road, Burnham Park, Burnham Lake), a convention that continues to capture the consciousness of the masses. These films craft their own definition and narrative of the city. Stories of rest and recreation, escapism, and romance are spun, and are closely intertwined with Baguio’s past: of how the Americans had transformed the mountaintop city into what they envisioned as an ideal, idyllic vacation place for the elite. But as a consequence of this “reality” portrayed in popular cinema, contemporary sociological, cultural, and ecological issues and problems that Baguio faces are pushed aside. Indeed, in these films resonates the power of American colonialism.