Nick Deocampo

ABSTRACT: This essay explores the application of the rhizome concept in analyzing Philippine cinema, particularly its alternative and marginalized forms. Rooted in the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, the rhizome represents a decentralized, multiplicitous structure, contrasting with hierarchical models. In the context of cinema, alternative forms such as short narratives, documentaries, and TikTok videos embody this rhizomatic nature, diverging from mainstream commercial norms. Despite digital technology’s democratization of film production and distribution, alternative cinema remains on the fringes due to the dominance of industrial capitalist structures. However, its resilience and diversity reflect a people’s cinema, shaped by historical, theoretical, and cultural forces. As TikTok gains popularity, it echoes cinema’s origins as short, accessible spectacles, challenging the dominance of feature-length films. This proliferation of alternative cinematic forms heralds an “Age of Alternative Cinema”, symbolizing the triumph of the rhizome and reshaping cinematic culture.  Keywords: Philippine cinema, alternative cinema, Philippine film history, rhizome, digital transformation  Introduction  Introducing the concept of the rhizome in the study of Philippine cinema, this essay applies its significance to a marginalized cinema, the alternative cinema that has grown outside the confines of the country’s dominant commercial movie industry. A rhizome is one informed by multiplicity referring to an acentered body, say that of a ginger or a potato, which grows in nomadic fashion underground. This is unlike the arborescent body, which takes hierarchical growth with its assigned parts from roots and trunks to the leaves and flowers of trees. This concept of organization was developed by two French philosophers, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, referring to a heterogeneous growth, opposing everything that signifies singularity as it is seen as controlling and totalitarian.i Applied to cinema, the concept of the rhizome takes various cinematic forms that differ from popular full-length movies due to its diverse expressions. They come in the forms of short narrative films and videos, documentaries, experimental, animation, installation art, video art, TikTok, and many more. This cinema initially lived a subterranean life and took nomadic journeys in its early beginnings. Although it has presently become ubiquitous with the emergence of digital technology through popular short-duration videos seen on YouTube and TikTok, alternative cinematic forms have redefined their meanings by maintaining their position outside of what is considered as the traditional industrial cinema (i.e., the movie industry and its feature-length format). Despite their popularity, such as that offered by the short video format and enjoyed by countless users and viewers, it is by no means an assurance that alternative cinema has become mainstream. What remains to be mainstream are those more popular forms that are produced by a vast system of entertainment business complex that is supported by an industrial capitalist enterprise. This is composed of an infrastructure made up not only of producers (Hollywood and its national movie industry clones are examples) but also of the global chains of movie theaters, which assure economic stability by providing a viable market for films. Attached to this main industry are subsidiary markets, like television and print industries, advertising, online streaming platforms, fashion, cosmetics, and other ancillary sectors that provide jobs to sustain the gargantuan appetite for movie entertainment. None of these can be claimed even by the phenomenal TikTok platform as providing similar sustainable income-generating benefits. The dominant mainstream has an incalculable network of business enterprises that could hardly be matched by any other rivals, thus forcing them to remain on the fringes of the film landscape. However, what alternative cinema lacks in terms of mainstream dominance, it compensates by covering a wide swathe of cinematic practices, from newsreels in the celluloid past to short video formats in the digital present. The unique properties of these film forms embody the immanent nature of motion pictures as a form of multiplicity. This principle has a significant implication on the conception of a Philippine national cinema.  In this essay, I take the occasion to promote alternative cinema as a form of a people’s cinema. The history of this form of cinema bore its resiliency in the past, surviving through the crucibles of wars, technological obsolescence, economic collapse, political repression, public apathy, a pandemic, and other forms of disruptions. I cover the historical, theoretical, technological, and cultural issues surrounding the rise of these filmic forms. The epic sweep I discuss in my historical narrative captures the travails of a cinematic form emerging through a century of a troubled past. Alternative cinema’s significance to Filipino culture is yet to be fully understood and appreciated. With TikTok as a popular form of moving pictures taking the attention of millions, one may want to think that cinema has surprisingly returned to where it first started: as short images that are as much a spectacle as when the first films were made by the Lumiere brothers in 1895. TikTok reminds us of how cinema first began. It reminds us that feature-length films are not the only forms of cinema and cannot dominate our cinematic culture. With many other alternative cinematic forms, mainstream cinema is challenged. Most notably in the digital age, cinema is reinvented anew. With the pervasive presence of alternative film forms whose numbers defy any inventory, one may think that what is happening now is the Age of Alternative Cinema, the triumph of Rhizome. This is the history that will be told.         The claim of a thousand cinemas to be found in alternative cinema is an audacious one. This goes against the prevalent notion of a monogamous, monolithic, mono-crop object called the Philippine cinema, conveniently referring to the Filipino commercial movie industry. Many times, it is the only cinema Filipinos know. Challenging this popular notion, what is suggested is a plural cinema born in multiplicity. It is a cinema that is not one but many, and because of its plurality, this form of cinema travels along nomadic paths. Banished from Eden—or that paradise called the movie industry—alternative films become vagabonds roaming the country’s cinematic landscape but hardly finding a home of their own. A sanctuary is offered in schools where