the persistence of vision

Wakas.

2011-07-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for reviews by Northern Portrait, then hop over to his new film blog at cineastefilipinas.blogspot.com . His reviews are still suave and well-written as ever.

I’ll also jump ship soon as this film blog was originally a collaborative project with my cousin Northern Portrait. I just waited for Cinemalaya 2011 to end its fantastic run at CCP.

Thanks, guys! And please do continue supporting local films…

Nel C0stales

Cinemalaya 2011: Festival winners at Cinemalaya Goes UP 7

2011-07-24T17:26:00.000-07:00

Catch the winners of the 7th edition of Cinemalaya when the festival goes to UP Diliman in Quezon City. Price of an admission ticket is 80 PHP. I think only SRO tickets are available for Ang Babae sa Septic Tank. Contact Alex at 0927 2990318.

Cinemalaya Goes UP screening schedule

July 26, Tuesday

5:00 PM Ang Sayaw ng Dalawang Kaliwang Paa
Best Cinematography (NB)
Best Music Score (NB)
8:00 PM Ang Babae sa Septic Tank
Best Picture (NB)
Best Director: Marlon Rivera (NB)
Best Actress: Eugene Domingo (NB)
Best Screenplay: Chris Martinez (NB)

July 27, Wednesday

5:00 PM Amok
Best Editing (NB)
Best Sound (NB)
8:00 PM Bahay Bata

July 28, Thursday

5:00 PM Cuchera
8:00 PM I-libings

July 29, Friday

5:00 PM Niño
Special Jury Prize (NB)
Best Supporting Actress: Shamaine Buencamino (NB)
Best Supporting Actor: Arthur Acuña (NB)
8:00 PM Ligo Na U, Lapit Na Me
Best Actor: Edgar Allan Guzman (NB)

August 2, Tuesday

5:00 PM Teoriya
8:00 PM Bisperas
Best Picture (DS)
Best Actress: Raquel Villavicencio (DS)
Best Supporting Actress: Julia Clarete (DS)
Best Cinematography (DS)
Best Production Design (DS)

August 3, Wednesday

5:00 PM Isda
Best Actor: Bembol Roco (DS)
Best Editing (DS)
8:00 PM Busong
Best Director: Auraeus Solito (DS)
Best Music Score (DS)
Best Sound (DS)

August 4, Thursday

5:00 PM Shorts A
Best Picture: Emerson Reyes' Walang Katapusang Kwarto (SC)
Best Screenplay: Emerson Reyes for Walang Katapusang Kwarto (SC)
Best Director: Milo Tolentino for Niño Bonito (SC)
Audience Choice Award: Emerson Reyes' Walang Katapusang Kwarto (SC)
8:00 PM Patikul
Best Supporting Actor: Jaime Pebanco (DS)
Audience Choice Award (DS)
Best Film for Children (Kids’ Treat)

August 5, Friday

5:00 PM Shorts B
Special Jury Prize: Hanapbuhay (SC)
7:00 PM Ang Babae sa Septic Tank
Best Picture (NB)
Best Director: Marlon Rivera (NB)
Best Actress: Eugene Domingo (NB)
Best Screenplay: Chris Martinez (NB)
Audience Choice Award (NB)
9:00 PM Bisperas
Best Picture (DS)
Best Actress: Raquel Villavicencio (DS)
Best Supporting Actress: Julia Clarete (DS)
Best Cinematography (DS)
Best Production Design (DS)

*NB – New Breed
*DS – Director’s Showcase
*SC – Shorts category

Cinemalaya 2011: 7 competition films to watch this weekend

2011-07-21T17:01:00.000-07:00

1. Niño - An artistic portrait of a Filipino family in shambles, Niño is an amazing film debut by veteran theatre personality, Loy Arcenas. It is a welcome respite from the poverty porn films pervading the local film festivals. Sir Arcenas, please do join the New Breed competitions in the coming years.

2. Busong - Auraeus Solito's film contains knockout images. A truth hunter, Solito exposes the social ills plaguing Palawan.

3. Ang Sayaw ng Dalawang Kaliwang Paa - This is the only film so far of Alvin Yapan that I deeply adore. He has finally learnt how to transpose his literary visions into engaging film language. The cotillion scene is a fantastic show-stopper. Bravo!

4. Bahay Bata - Director Eduardo Roy Jr. made good use of his privilege to film within the confines of the Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital in Manila. The film is a searing eye-opener on the state of health care services for pregnant women and lactating women.

5. Cuchera - The in-your-face shocking images linger in your mind. This raw, unrefined film could have been a major contender had it not been for its similarity with Halaw. Instead of people being trafficked, illegal drugs are carried by mules inside their abdomen, sex organ, and rectum.

6. Bisperas - Prepare for more 'shit' from Jeffrey Jeturian. The film includes scenes, realistic and unrealistic ones, that seem to cater specifically to foreign film programmers. It is notable though for its spot-on indictment of Catholics who have lost their sense of right and wrong, and understanding of the concept of sin. The queues for communion during Sunday masses rival that of Cinemalaya box-office lines but when was the last time you see hordes receiving the sacrament of penance?

7. Shorts B - The hilarious Hanapbuhay jumpstarts this fine collection of short features. The hardworking Luis diligently scours the area to earn his living. He was even seen in another non-Cinemalaya short, Tingala sa Baba.
- Immanuel is a well-photographed science fiction about a family spending their last Christmas together
- Mikhail Red seems to have tightened his short feature Hazard for Cinemalaya 7. The film tells the story of a father and son having a bonding moment

Cinemalaya 2011: Complete CCP & Greenbelt 3 screening schedules (grid format), Cinemalaya Goes to UP schedule, Festival passes…

2011-07-07T21:02:00.000-07:00

The seventh edition of the Cinemalaya film festival is…
Broader – with exhibition features from several Asian countries
Bigger – with external venues at Greenbelt 3 in Makati City
Better – Hmmmm… There’s the seductive beauty of Busong, the acidic charm of Kano, the hilarious characters of Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria, and the entertaining gem of a film, Niño.

Click here for complete CCP & Greenbelt 3 schedules

Festival is too expensive?

Frankly, I don’t think the passes are expensive. Festival and flexi passes are good deals. The premium pass though is another story.

Festival Pass (PHP 2000)
- access to all 15 competing films (ie. 13 full-length films and 2 short features programs)
- access to 8 Netpac films
- souvenir program
- priority lane access to venues
So that is about 23 films. Below PHP 90 per film lang po.

Flexi Pass (PHP 3000)
- access to all 15 competing films (ie. 13 full-length films and 2 short features programs)
- access to 8 Netpac films
- access to 8 Exhibition films of your choice
- souvenir program
- priority lane access to venues
So that makes it 31 films. Slightly above PHP 100 per film lang.

Mahal pa rin and Cinemalayo for residents north of Pasay and Makati?

Both concerns are shot down when the fest goes to UP Diliman. Price of an admission ticket goes down to PHP 80. The atmosphere at Cine Adarna may not approximate the helter skelter at CCP during festival days but it is still a nice place to watch the entries. The mostly Quezon City-based students are an enthusiastic audience and they really get into the films. There might be a Q&A with filmmakers after every screening.

Cinemalaya Goes to UP Diliman sked

July 26, Tuesday
5:00 PM Ang Sayaw ng Dalawang Kaliwang Paa (Alvin Yapan, Jean Garcia) - Highly recommended ***
8:00 PM Ang Babae sa Septic Tank (Chris Martinez, Eugene Domingo)

July 27, Wednesday
5:00 PM Amok (Lawrence Fajardo)
8:00 PM Bahay Bata (Diana Zubiri)

July 28, Thursday
5:00 PM Cuchera (Maria Isabel Lopez)
8:00 PM I-libings (Rommel Sales, Glaiza de Castro)

July 29, Friday
5:00 PM Niño (Loy Arcenas) - Highly recommended ***
8:00 PM Ligo Na U, Lapit Na Me (Edgar Allan Guzman, Mercedes Cabral)

August 2, Tuesday
5:00 PM Teoriya (Alfred Vargas, Sue Prado)
8:00 PM Bisperas (Jeffrey Jeturian)

August 3, Wednesday
5:00 PM Isda (Adolfo Alix Jr)
8:00 PM Busong (Auraeus Solito) - Highly recommended ***

August 4, Thursday
5:00 PM Shorts A (Includes Emerson Reyes' Walang Katapusang Kwarto)
8:00 PM Patikul (Joel Lamangan)

August 5, Friday
5:00 PM Shorts B (Includes Hanapbuhay, Immanuel, and Hazard)
7:00 PM New Breed (Best Picture)
9:00 PM Director's Showcase (Best Picture)

Rizal sa Dapitan (1997, Tikoy Aguiluz)

2011-06-30T23:01:00.000-07:00

Jose Rizal was a gambler who regularly played the lottery in Spain. He thought that a possible win may help big time in having his book published. It was only later that he won a large prize from a Spanish lottery. The winnings were used in purchasing hectares of land during his exile in Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte. The place holds the distinction of being a Heritage Zone mostly because of the innumerable Rizal tangibles and intangibles.

Rizal sa Dapitan, an award-winning film by director Aguiluz and scriptwriter Jose Lacaba, gives us a restraint account of Rizal’s stay in that small town from 1892 to 1896. It features arguably the best Rizal performance by a movie actor (Albert Martinez). The movie may be of worth even for those who are already well-versed in Rizal’s life. There may be a surprise, or two, left for the Rizal enthusiasts.

A well-loved doctor, Rizal’s legacy goes beyond his clinic. He creates the town’s water system, organic gardens, and fruit orchards. He made improvements to the town plaza by planting trees. He is a firm believer in education. Not only did he build a school for the children but he also teaches the kids in the afternoons.

This strong belief in education is one of the reasons why he rejects the idea of revolution as broached by Pio Valenzuela. Jose Rizal (Albert Martinez) believes that the Filipinos are not yet ready for independence. He may be a gambler but he is not a fool to push his ill-armed and ignorant compatriots to wage war against the Spaniards.

Rizal’s honor and integrity is severely tested when friends and allies coerce him to escape. He refused saying that he gave his word not to leave the place illicitly.

It is in this idyllic town that he meets Josephine Bracken (Amanda Page). The film shows the couple having a mock wedding because the Spanish parish priest will not accede to their marriage. They eventually became live-in partners. It is not entirely a rosy affair in the beginning. There is a scene wherein Rizal confronts Bracken about some rumors that cast a bad light on the character of the lady. The heated argument may have led to Bracken giving birth prematurely to a stillborn baby.

Rizal as a father? Yes, he is the father, not of Adolf Hitler, but of Francisco Bracken Rizal. And, he is also rightly called the Father of our Nation. He takes pride in being part of the Los Indios Bravos. He calls for reforms that will in time pave the way for complete independence of the Filipinos. His determination to forge a nation with common aspirations and ideals makes him the First Filipino.

Watch the film and be proud seeing Jose Rizal used his immense talents and skills to great use. Poet. Sculptor. Surveyor. Engineer. Naturalist. Surgeon. Farmer. Educator. Businessman. Nationalist. The list goes on and on…

The Tree of Life (2011, Terrence Malick)

2011-06-22T23:52:00.000-07:00

To be happy is to love…

The extraordinary, scintillating, and cathartic film bombards us with beautiful scenes of love: Children playing happily on the streets… A lad comforting a crying brother… A mother doling out advice to her three sons… Father and son collaborating on a musical duet…

Those halcyon days are long gone for a middle-aged executive named Jack O’Brien (Sean Penn). He glimpses back at the best of times but remembers mostly the worst of times.

Where were You?

A family outing turns into a lesson about life’s dark side. The religious lad asks the Lord, ‘why did a boy have to die?’ His dad, who prefers to be called father, decides to prepare his sons to get adjusted to the real world. It is a world fraught with dangers and evil people. He teaches them how to survive.

The tranquil family life is regularly shaken up with marital conflicts. These shouting bouts soon escalate into physical abuse. These latter events serve as trigger for the lad to have an intense hatred for his father. He releases his pent-up emotions through delinquent acts. He indulges in torturing frogs by tying them up in rockets. He blasts off the pointer finger of his little brother.

In his current state as a top executive, he tries to get a grip on his failed relationship with his father. He still looks up to the sky as if seeking for answers to his questions. (Director Malick is famous for his sky scenes and one of the most memorable is this film’s picturesque skyscraper scene blackened by a swarm of insects).

His father, Mr. O’Brien (Brad Pitt), is just like most parents who wish only good things for their kids and loved ones. They try to send their children to prestigious schools and provide them with the best food and shelter they can afford. They pray daily for the Lord to deliver them from evil and accidents. But, no matter how sheltered they are, the kids eventually get to face bullies, rumor-mongers, despicable ones, and low-life scums. How will religious, loving kids, who haven’t experienced traumatic events, react to evil things?

Mr. O’Brien’s approach is to toughened out his kids. He hones their boxing skills and teaches them to fight back. Jack obviously is a good student as he gets to make it to the top of a cut-throat world. But, it is a lonely world. There is a scene showing him all alone in a landscape that seems to be out of this world.

Forgive…

Amidst the search for answers, that word suddenly crops up in Jack’s mind. It will turn out to be one of the most important advices handed out by his beloved mother.

Corollary to love being the road to happiness, forgiveness is the key to surviving in an unfair world. Some people will ultimately disappoint and hurt you. The key factor is not to hold a grudge and just to forgive them. Enemies are not vanquished through fighting. They disappear when you love and consider them as friends or loved ones.

This Palme d'Or winner reminds critics of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey because of the creation scenes, wordless segments, monolith-like door in the alien landscape, life flashbacks, and the use of classical music, among other things.

Malick’s film though reminds me more of Sari Dalena’s magnificent short film The White Funeral. The lahar-ravaged landscape, erupting volcanoes, sins engulfing hearts of people, and the themes of forgiveness and rebirth are just some of the major images and topics also dealt with in The Tree of Life. The two films also feature powerful, memorable music scoring and sound effects. Both films have given me by far some of the most inspiring and uplifting cinematic experiences in my life. I can’t wait to see them again.

Jose Rizal movies: Screening schedules

2011-06-14T05:41:00.000-07:00

Haven't seen Gerardo de Leon's epic Noli Me Tangere? In a few days you'll get your rare chance to watch it.... on the big screen!

SM Cinemas, Goethe Institute, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines join the nation in celebrating Jose Rizal's 150th birth anniversary with a simultaneous nationwide screening of the classic movie. The early morning screenings at SM Cinemas are for FREE.

Click here for SM Cinema sked (Jun 16 - Jun 21)

Can't wait for de Leon's Noli Me Tangere? Then catch Eddie Romero's take on Rizal's first novel. The 13 television episodes will be shown at the Cultural Center of the Philippines' Dream Theater. Admission is FREE.

Dream Theater, CCP Sked:

Eddie Romero's Noli Me Tangere (made-for-television)

Jun 15, Wed
9:00 AM - 4:00 PM

Jun 16, Thu
9:00 AM - 4:00 PM

Jun 17, Fri
9:00 AM - 4:00 PM

If you'll ask me what Rizal-related movies I highly recommend, then the Sisa movies are on top of my list along with Bayaning 3rd World. Mario O' Hara's enchanting, sexy Sisa and Gerardo de Leon's masterful Sisa will be screened back to back this week at UP Film Institute. Admission ticket is PHP 35.

Videotheque, UP Film Institute Sked:

Jun 16, Thu
Gerardo de Leon's Sisa - 5:00 PM
Mario O' Hara's Sisa - 7:00 PM

Jun 17, Fri
Gerardo de Leon's Sisa - 5:00 PM
Mario O' Hara's Sisa - 7:00 PM

Jun 18, Sat
Mario O'Hara's Sisa - 2:30 PM
Gerardo de Leon's Sisa - 5:00 PM

Endo (2007, Jade Castro)

2011-06-07T23:42:00.000-07:00

Endo: Short for end-of-contract. Slang for last day of temporary workers.

Endo, a cinematic highlight of the illustrious Cinemalaya 2007 film festival, tells the moving story of a habitual contractual worker named Leo (Jason Abalos). He has been accustomed to holding jobs temporarily that he stopped believing in long-term planning and long-distance romance. He lives on a day-to-day basis. His meager take home pay is just enough to take care of his distraught father and shoulder the school expenses of his younger brother.

His relationships with women have been regularly brief. Most of them don’t last longer than five months. He not only endures the pain of losing a girlfriend but also ends up agonizing over the loss of another job. Almost always, his love contract is co-terminus with his employment contract.

The intense pain of losing a job can wreck havoc on a person’s life. The American film Up In the Air has a newly-dismissed person committing suicide. On the other hand, Leo may not be dead but he is nevertheless lifeless. Caught up in a Groundhog Day situation, he gets to experience the pain over and over again with no possible relief in sight. He no longer cares about living life to the fullest. It’s a cul-de-sac for the underskilled lad.

All seems hopeless until he begins to yearn for Tanya (Ina Feleo), a fellow temp worker flitting from job to job. Leo is not entirely immune to pain after all. Losing a job may be a mosquito bite to him but the pain of losing Tanya is akin to enduring a harrowing bout with tooth abscess. The pain gnaws bit by bit until he can no longer ignore the jackhammer pain. The thought of missing her forever wakes him up from his stupor and he resolves to dream and live again.

The proletarian countenance of Endo is vastly different from the middle class sensibilities of Star Cinema romance films. Leo and Tanya go to a cineplex but both decide not to watch a film. ‘Walang maganda,’ says a character. But, in all likelihood, they do not have enough money to buy tickets. All they have is one another and the hope of a brighter future.

The romantic film Endo is notable for its tender moments. The most memorable of them is a cool scene that recalls the refreshing indie spirit of the café dance sequence in Band of Outsiders. The impromptu scene highlights the magical hold of Tanya on Leo (and the audience). The girl improvises an enthralling dance right in the middle of the street. She smiles, charms, and beguiles the guy. Her eyes twinkle brightly like stars in a dark sky. Her hips sway to the beat of the music. The vivacious girl is so full of life and bewitchingly loveable. She then gives him a long, long kiss.

Tanya’s contagious optimism and positive outlook resuscitates the inert Leo. The guy decides to wait for the return of the ship-bound girl. Tanya is no longer treated as a syota or short-time girl but a potential long-term life partner. He has found the girl of his dreams and will not terminate his love contract with her.

Working Girls (1984, Ishmael Bernal)

2011-05-22T02:19:00.000-07:00

In 1984, the big guns of local cinema exploited the loosening hold of the Board of Censors, a fascistic arm of the Marcos regime. Their movies begin hinting of the burgeoning yellow movement. Lino Brocka collaborated with Pete Lacaba on their long-delayed film project, Kapit sa Patalim, which dealt with striking factory workers. Mike de Leon’s Sister Stella L broke the fourth wall with an enlightened nun exhorting the people to go out on the streets and fight for their rights and freedom.

Ishmael Bernal’s Working Girls has a trio of small scenes that may be seen as a nod to the yellow fever engulfing the country. A friend of a sexy lady shopping for clothes gently approves of her color choice (yellow), which he says is just right for the times. The second scene shows another character alighting from a tricycle. Prominently plastered in the vehicle’s windshield is a yellow sticker with the words ‘Hindi Ka Nag-Iisa,’ a slogan coined by people seeking justice for the death of former Senator Ninoy Aquino. The third scene shows a secretary stripping pages from a telephone directory. The yellow pages will be shredded and used as rally confetti. Those scenes may be too tame compared to the heavily politicized scenes and in-your-face rally footages featured in the films of Brocka and de Leon.

However, the hilarious, blockbuster hit Working Girls is notable for espousing the idea that a woman can go places where no woman has gone before. The new Filipina can rise to become a chairperson of a large bank or even assume the leadership of our country. What a man can do, a woman can also do. As the film shows, women can do it better.

The women of Working Girls are all denizens of Makati’s central business district. Carla Asuncion, Isabel, and Suzanne work for Premium Bank. Amanda de Luna, Ann Concio, and Rose belong to a professional management company. Nimfa is a jewelry seller plying her wares to employees of the two offices. Most of them are assertive and know what they want. They achieve their goals with dogged determination and lots of cunning.

The film is recommended to people thinking of getting a job in Makati. It basically says 'no weaklings' allowed here. The searing portrayal of office politics is still spot on even today. Transport fare for airconditioned buses and dollar exchange rates may have changed but the dreams, needs, and idiosyncracies of Makati-based female workers haven't changed. Seductive secretaries prey on top male executives, who gamely go along for the ride. These powerful executives utilize their money to hide problems such as unwanted pregnancies and affairs with subordinates. Married women are not immune from these playboys. Sometimes, lack of appreciation from husbands lead these married women to have affairs.

Office gossip is not entirely a women's pastime and social weapon. Jealous and envious men also indulge in gossips and backstabbing. A jilted suitor of Isabel connives with his friends to spread unsavory rumors about Isabel. The pregnant girl, given advice by her boss Carla, eventually learns to fight back. Her restaurant vengeance act draws applause from fellow women employees.

Carla Asuncion has a hard time getting her objections taken seriously by the male-dominated board of Premium Bank. The male directors laugh at her female intuition. She gets downright dirty in getting evidence to support her objections. In the end, she has the last laugh as she gets promoted as chairwoman of the bank. It is interesting to note that Carla Asuncion's initials are C.A., which can be an allusion to Corazon Aquino.

The viewers back then must have begun entertaining the possibility of Cory Aquino's ascension as the country's president. It is not an 'Impossible Dream,' as what Nimfa is humming at the start of the film. There is no such thing as an unbeatable foe. The Filipino people can win if they join forces to fight the enemy. The 1984 films of Brocka, de Leon, and Bernal show that they are lots of people (eg. striking workers, enlightened nuns, Makati girls) fighting the system. Two years later, they did win by kicking out the Marcos regime in the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution.

Temptation Island (1980, Joey Gosiengfiao)

2011-05-17T23:51:00.000-07:00

The original version of Temptation Island is one of the craziest and funniest local movies ever. The dialogues are truly hilarious. Here's a sampling of memorable lines:

Suzanne: 20/20 yata ang vision ko
Bambi: Sorry ha. I thought that was your bustline

Ship stowaway: I'm a latecomer
Azenith: Latecomer?!? Sa gitna ng dagat? Ano'ng sinakyan mo, taxi?

Suzanne: So what else is new? Everybody needs a shipwreck once in a while.

Can't get enough of these delectable lines? Watch the film and you'll get lots and lots of similar sumptuous dialogues. What makes them doubly funny is the way they were delivered by the superb ensemble. Aside from the witty comic quips, the movie also boasts of memorable blazing hot visual images such as Suzanne’s lotion scene with her girl Friday and the mouth-watering ice cream/chicken fantasy scenes.

The film does a neat job of introducing the colorful characters. A plethora of promotional spots for the Miss Manila Sunshine contest convinces several ladies to join in the hunt for the title. Four beauties get selected in the pre-finals night of the contest. Miss Body Beautiful is the innocent Dina Espinola (Dina Bonnevie). Miss Photogenic is the social climbing crybaby Bambi Belisario (Bambi Arambulo). Miss Friendship is the bitchy burgis Suzanne Reyes (Jennifer Cortez). Miss Talent is the self-confessed con artist Azenith Tobias (Azenith Briones). The four finalists are then whisked off to a yacht to start their month-long interaction with the beauty pageant judges.

As fate would have it, a fire breaks out in the yacht. The occupants jump overboard for safety. The four lovely ladies end up in a desert island devoid of potable water, food, and shelter. The hot summer season compounded the woes of the ladies.

Five other people also share their misfortune as castaways. Joshua is the gay coordinator of the beauty contest. Ricardo is the current flame of Joshua. Stowaway Alfredo is an ardent admirer of Dina. Umberto is a hunky cruise ship waiter. Maria is the loyal girl Friday of Suzanne. Their interactions with the finalists spell out who will survive and who will not survive the horrendous ordeal. The castaways get to throw away their petty quarrels, biases, material riches, and even their panties.

I adored the performances of Azenith Briones and Jennifer Cortez. The scheming Azenith Tobias is a joy to watch. When she confesses to being a crook, she did it with style. Briones’ cool delivery of her spiel is sheer delight. Her natural confidence is also seen in her wonderful speech at the coronation night. I also enjoyed her 'shit' moment with the hunky waiter. Wow! Those are excellent, profound dialogues from Umberto.

However, it is Cortez’s Suzanne Reyes who ends up with the lion’s share of memorable dialogues. From ‘Komunista!’ to ‘My panty stays right here’ to ‘Hindi nga, eh. Parang nag-jogging lang,’ her retorts are outrageously funny. Her outspoken character always gets downright dirty in the ground due to a series of catfights but her optimism and sunny attitude helps her to stand tall at the end of the film.

The movie’s legion of cult followers put a lot of pressure over the hotly-anticipated film remake by Chris Martinez. The new version seems to be fun and yummy. It features five of the prettiest, sexiest, and funniest stars in the movie industry, namely Marian Rivera, Heart Evangelista, Lovi Poe, Solenn Heussaff, and Rufa Mae Quinto. Award-winning director Martinez is a self-confessed fan of the original film and creator of the wacky hit Here Comes the Bride. If Rivera ends up playing the Reyes character, then this film promises to be a wild riot. But, before watching the new version, do try your best to catch the original film. There might still be VCD copies of it in video stores.

In the Name of Love (2011, Olivia Lamasan)

2011-05-13T17:27:00.000-07:00

Aga Muhlach. Angel Locsin.

With huge stars like that, film buffs naturally expect Star Cinema to bring in its top people for the project. Olivia Lamasan is an award-winning director and scriptwriter. Enrico Santos has been a script and creative consultant for dozens of Star Cinema blockbusters. Both filmmakers have been semi-regular fixtures of the committee that has molded the slick, dazzling, but trite Star Cinema stories loved (and hated) by viewers for years. I enter the movie theater expecting to be treated to the same old cinematic formula but with a tinge of hope for something out of the box. Lamasan and Santos in tandem? This film must be…

Different. That’s what struck me in the initial, nerve-wracking minutes of the film. A Pinoy hosto named Garry Fernandez (Aga Muhlach) gets the jitters while queuing at the immigration checkout in a Japanese airport. The tense situation makes the viewer imagine all possible misdeeds of Garry. Is he holding a fake passport? Or maybe a luggage filled with drugs? The recent news about a Filipina hoodwinked into using a drug-filled luggage plus the suave direction and editing makes the viewer on the edge of his seat. A thorough search of Garry’s luggage reveals wads of dollar bills. He undergoes a humiliating strip search and ultimately languishes behind bars. And, then the film cuts to a Seven Years Later still. It was a great start for the movie although the arrest inexplicably reminds me of James Bond’s arrest in North Korea in Die Another Day. Same blocking? I need to watch the Bond film again.

Meanwhile, Garry has a brief reunion with his son, who is set to fly to New Zealand along with his new father. Garry decides to open a dance studio because he can’t get a decent, nice-paying job due to his criminal record. His first client is a sexy, sultry lady named Mercedes Fernandez (Angel Locsin). The film then flashes back to the past to reveal the star-crossed love affair between Garry and Mercedes.

Flashbacks are well utilized by the filmmakers. They add enthralling, important layers to the story of a passionate romance. In the name of love, the couple, Garry and Cedes, do stupid things and sometimes, heroic deeds.

Garry, in a tear-drenched monologue, castigates Cedes for leaving him after his incarceration. The first few seconds of the monologue were tolerable but then it become somewhat of an eternity of wailing. My mind was churning out thought bubbles at a fast rate. Gago ka pala, eh! Ikaw ang umako sa kalokohan ng girlfriend mo tapos ngangawa-ngawa ka diyan.

Cedes has a startling revelation as well. She says ‘Mahal kita’ or something like that. Thought bubbles begin forming again. And, as if on cue, what I was thinking coincided with what Garry is blurting out: ‘Mahal? Iba ang katabi mo sa kama…Tapos, mahal?’ Any viewer can relate to it by coming up with dialogues such as ‘Iba ang kasayaw mo… Tapos, mahal?’ or ‘Iba ang kasama mo sa FB profile pic mo… Tapos, mahal?’

The film is clearly made to induce strong reactions from the viewers. While Aga Muhlach was overly-directed in his monologue, slick editing helped Angel Locsin shone through in the ‘mahal kita’ scene. The flashbacks showing the pain and hurts borne by Cedes makes her more sympathetic to the viewers. Totoo pala! Minahal at minamahal ni Cedes si Garry.

The flashbacks show how Cedes took extreme steps to help liberate Garry. She sold her body to politicians and people with enough influence to pull strings for Garry's release. Lamasan and Santos had me hooked completely after those flashbacks. I became one of the viewers wishing for a happy ending for Cedes.

The movie reminds us to hear the side of people who in our opinion deeply hurt us by their disappearance, absence, or lack of communication. What seems to be a despicable deed may in fact be a worthy sacrifice done in the name of love. So before you judge other people, make sure to at least get their side.

The notable film have several flaws such as the idiocy of the assassination plan and the awkward action fight scene atop a factory platform. I can't fathom why the masterminds will allow the assassination to take place during a dance number between Cedes and her beau. It is dangerous as the target keeps moving. And, why would the assassin place himself in an awkward position with obstacles hindering his view? Lamasan is still not adept in plotting action scenes. The escape of Garry is made possible by crafting clumsy goons.

There seems to be a bit of cheating during a flashback scene. I am referring to the initial meeting of Garry and Cedes in Japan. Cedes correctly guesses Garry's name through an embroidered towel curled up in Garry's shoulder. When did Emman Toledo originally assume Garry's persona? There's a runaround that flaw by having Garry as stage name of Emman in Japan.

Isn't it odd that with all the hurts and pain inflicted on the characters, we don't hear a single person say 'I'm sorry'? Not from Garry, Cedes, or Emily. The filmmakers seem to take their cue on the tagline of Love Story: Love means never having to say you're sorry. They even appropriated the film's theme. The dance montage set to the theme song with lyrics is not effective.

Despite the inept action scenes, corny theme song, and unmemorable dance scenes, the film is a nice farewell present for Aga Muhlach, who is leaving Channel 2 and Star Cinema. He may no longer be young (as Garry says 'Matanda na ako') but he still shows what it takes to be one of the best actors of his generation. He allows himself to be deglamorized with shots showing him with a potbelly and enduring a strip-search.

Angel Locsin does a wonderful, excellent take on a difficult character, Cedes. That she was able to make me root for her character shows Locsin's growth as a fine actress.

With this film, Lamasan and Santos clearly shows why they are Star Cinema's top script/creative consultants. It is hard to get an audience to empathize with movie characters but they did it with flourish. This film may end up as one of the best mainstream movies of the year.

Sana Maulit Muli (1995, Olivia Lamasan)

2011-05-09T23:43:00.000-07:00

25 years ago, three films about Overseas Filipino Workers fought it out for the top plum at the 19th Gawad Urian. Two films, Bagong Bayani and The Flor Contemplacion Story, dealt with the case of a Filipina domestic servant sentenced to death in Singapore. I haven’t seen both films although reviews suggest that they are really deserving of their Best Picture nominations. The third film Sana Maulit Muli may or may not have benefitted from split votes for the Contemplacion films but viewed on its own it is a worthy Best Picture winner.

Director Olivia Lamasan collaborated with two other scriptwriters on the award-winning script. The plight of illegal aliens working in the United States of America (USA) and the difficulty of maintaining a long distance romance were effectively shown in the film.

Immigrant Agnes Sarmiento (Lea Salonga) is having a hard time adjusting to life in the USA. She misses her boyfriend, Jerry Morales (Aga Muhlach), a big-shot advertising executive in the Philippines. The two struggle to keep their relationship afloat despite being thousands of miles away from each other.

Agnes’ early days in San Francisco, California, are extremely tough on her. She struggles to fit in with her mother’s new family. A simple errand takes her nearly the whole day to fulfill because she can't properly read a map. To make matters worse, her desperate calls to her boyfriend end up in futility. She can't seem to catch her ever-busy boyfriend, Jerry. The film shows how hard it was for couples to be worlds apart during the mid-1990s. There was no Twitter and FB back then that can instantly hook up the pair. Internet social networks were still years away and the founders of Twitter and FB were still in their teens and early twenties. Making phone calls is the way couples communicate. Sending letters via post office is an inexpensive albeit non-real time alternative.

Agnes eventually gets tired of making expensive overseas calls. Slowly, she tries to forget Jerry. Agnes takes on the job of a caregiver. A Filipina friend, Karen, guides and shows her the ropes to being successful in the USA. Agnes becomes more assertive and eventually nabs a job with a realty company. She rises from the ranks to become a top realtor. Her boss is so smitten with her lovely face and good character that he proposes to her. Agnes rejects it because she realizes that she still loves Jerry.

The jerk of a boyfriend, Jerry, wakes up from his stupor. He gets to fly to the USA because of a work-related seminar. He decides to stay as a TNT (illegal alien) and tries to revive his sagging relationship with Agnes. He takes on different odd jobs such as selling second-hand cars and working in a restaurant.

First-hand encounters of abuses against illegal aliens become a big issue for Jerry. He contemplates returning to the Philippines. His decision is made easier by Agnes’ closeness to her boss. He goes back to the Philippines alone and heart-broken.

I loved the open-ended finale of the film. Agnes returns to the Philippines and meets up with Jerry. The romantic viewers may see it as a happy reunion for the two former lovers. On the other hand, career-oriented viewers may look upon Agnes’ return as just a vacation for the hardworking lady. Lamasan said she and her fellow colleagues had a hard time thinking of an ending for the film. It took them months before settling on the finale.

One more thing I adored with the film was the inclusion of the song Walang Hanggang Paalam. The film shows Joey Ayala playing the song in a bar filled with Filipinos. The classic indie song talks about a couple’s love growing strong despite the distance separating the lovers. This love ultimately serves to bring out the full potential in the other person. Agnes blossomed into a powerful executive.

Lea Salonga floundered in the early part of the film but made up for it with a solid performance in the latter part. She wasn't effective playing a wimpy girl. She was better essaying the role of Agnes as a strong, cosmopolitan lady. Aga Muhlach won a second Gawad Urian for his vivid portrayal of an executive bruised by his experiences as a TNT in the land of honey. Muhlach was not overly-directed in his scenes. It is a good thing that Lamasan was not big then on having her actors cry. Nowadays, Star Cinema films have male characters crying their hearts out. Lamasan teams up once more with Muhlach in the 2011 film In the Name of Love. Will Lamasan make Muhlach’s character cry?

34th Gawad Urian: Best Picture Nominees

2011-04-06T23:24:00.000-07:00

Three award-winning regional films from the southern part of the Philippines emerged as frontrunners for the top plums at the 34th edition of the Urian Awards. The Mindanaoan films, Halaw and Sheika, won major awards at the Cinemalaya 2010. The Cebuano film Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria picked up the Jury Prize at the Cinema One Originals 2010 and the Best Southeast Asian Film award at the Cinemanila 2010. The trio of films nabbed 9 nominations each from the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino.

Trying to steal some thunder from the purely local movies is the American co-production Amigo, directed by John Sayles. It deals with the seldom told story of the Filipinos’ bloody war against the Americans. The film also got a total of 9 nominations including a best direction nom for Sayles.

The 34th Gawad Urian will be held in May 2011.

Click here for complete list of nominees

*****

Best Picture nominees:

Amigo – Brown monkeys. Indians. These are some of the epithets hurled by Americans against the Filipinos during their bloody war with one another at the turn of the 20th century. Sayles’ movie was co-produced by Joel Torre. The searing script is fiery enough although I found the film slow-paced.

Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria - 'Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria exceeded all my expectations. The phenomenal film is a knockout combination of adept filmmaking and caustic portrait of a Filipina mail-order bride and her debt-ridden family.' (Nel)

Ang Mundo sa Panahon ng Yelo – 'The first ten minutes or so of the film are presented in an almost documentary fashion, with a warm narration that lures audience to the chilly, dangerous world of the mangangabogs/fish herders and tripulantes/boat workers in southern Philippines.' (Nel)

Chassis – 'Everything about Chassis is grim and dreary. Depicted in ominous tones of black-and-white, it seems forever set in a twilight hour… But what stays with us, more crucially, is the film’s chiaroscuro portrait of a woman with nowhere to go: Nora, with her funereal mask of a face, her sleep-walking steps, her lifeless stance – the shorthand of wretched resignation.' (Northern Portrait)

Halaw – 'Sheron Dayoc’s feature debut, Halaw, is a story of the dangerous, daily diaspora from Mindanao to immediate foreign territories, a story of risky human traffic we have for far too long turned a blind eye to. From a native Mindanaoan director, it is a welcome corrective to the lack of films about the region in general. Hopefully, it isn’t the last.' (Northern Portrait)

Limbunan – 'Whether he intended it or not, Mangansakan has forwarded sociocultural conservatism through his latest film. Limbunan may on the surface be a picture about one forced betrothal of a 16-year-old Maguindanaoan girl named Ayesah, but it is unequivocally a film about resignation and reconciliation to traditions, ultimately redounding to the practice of arranged marriages.' (Northern Portrait)

Noy – 'The movie Noy is not a great film although believers of President Benigno Aquino III will undoubtedly adore it while non-fans may find it worthwhile for various reasons. It combines the gritty realism of a Brillante Mendoza film, the acidic wit of Francis Xavier Pasion's Jay and images of a compelling TV documentary.' (Nel)

Sheika – 'The bittersweet movie boasts of a brave, gripping script and lovely soundtrack. It is the first indie film to deal directly with the notorious Death Squad in Davao City. Previous films, such as the excellent Imburnal and Engkwentro, only allude to extra-judicial killings by nameless death squads. Sheika takes the issue head on.' (Nel)

Tsardyer – A surprise inclusion in the list is Sigfreid Barros Sanchez’s haphazard take on the Ces Drilon kidnapping. The film though has potent sub plots dealing with child warriors and war’s effect on education.

Also-rans (Films without Best Picture nom but with Best Director or Best Screenplay nomination/s):

Ang Mundo sa Panahon ng Bato – A grim portrait of a miner’s descent into the hellish pit reserved for greedy people. This is the second film of Mes de Guzman’s fascinating Earth trilogy.

Balangay – A film festival collaboration between Sherad Anthony Sanchez and Robin Färdig. The free-flowing style of Sanchez gets mashed up with the short film devices of Färdig.

Maynila sa Mga Pangil ng Dilim – A 2008 movie that wasn’t featured at all at the four major local festivals last year. The closest I got to this Khavn de la Cruz’s creation is seeing DVD copies of it on sale at CCP.

Presa - 'The fantastic finale elevates the fine film into a great film. Amidst the bevy of memorable performances, the artistry of Anita Linda shines brightly during the breakdown scene and the shooting segment.' (Nel)

*****

If you missed most of the nominated films, then do catch up with them at the Cinemalaya 2011. The film festival's Ani section will re-screen last year’s notable films.

Here are 3 more films that might pique your curiosity:

Ang Ninanais - 'Refrains Happen Like Revolutions In A Song is a film of ever-changing, protean forms and guises. One is never too sure where he or she stands as realities interpenetrate. John Torres just manages to weave together an epistemic quilt that reveals the complexity of Filipino identity and psyche, while remaining true to his experimental nature.' (Northern Portrait)

Ang Paglilitis ni Andres Bonifacio - Mario O'Hara weaved his magic and creativity on this faithful recreation of the trial of the founder of the Katipunan. Theatrical elements bring home the message that the trial is a moro-moro. Angeli Kanapi steals scenes as Ibong Adarna and narrator. (Nel)

Emir - The impressive musical epic, about a Filipina nanny working in a palatial home in the Middle East, is a showcase for the country's talented singers, songwriters, and dancers. It eerily foreshadows the turmoil in the region and the subsequent return of our OFWs. (Nel)

Pisay (2007, Auraeus Solito)

2011-03-28T22:54:00.000-07:00

High school pics and youth-oriented movies were hugely popular in the 1980s. The teen angst movies of John Hughes made a big star of Molly Ringwald. In this part of the world, the local Brat Pack headed by William Martinez and Aga Muhlach thrilled fans with their own version of adventures and misadventures. The films, booming with generation-defining songs, dealt mostly with common adolescent problems such as fitting in, identity crisis, unrequited love, and strained relationship with parents. However, most of the films are mere teen fantasies. Plain-looking Andie (Ringwald) nabs a date with a rich and good-looking playboy in the cult classic Pretty in Pink. The young lads from Bagets get to drive fancy cars and bed sultry women. The films make it look like it was a good time to be in high school.

But, what is high school life really like during the tumultuous, waning years of the corrupt Marcos regime? Auraeus Solito’s Pisay is probably the definitive high school movie on the era. The production design, slang, and music are spot on. It captured perfectly the spirit of the times. President Ferdinand Marcos lifted martial law in 1981 but the political repression and corruption continue to flourish. Former Senator Benigno Aquino was assassinated in 1983. Yellow fever swept the people until its zenith in February 1986. The zeitgeist molded patriotic students and created courageous young heroes.

The film Pisay takes a look at how the 80s affected eight bright students of the Philippine Science High School. They are part of the so-called cream of the crop. Several of these gifted students have competed, and will compete, in local Quiz Bee contests and international academic competitions. The award-winning script by Henry Grajeda presented a vivid account of student life in a highly competitive national science high school. Important lessons were imparted via science and math themes that are easily understood by ordinary high school students. However, it is the film’s handling of political themes that makes it more memorable and accessible.

Episodic in nature, the movie starts with a ‘love story.’ Rom and Wena’s growing affection for one another gets smothered by their teacher, Ms. Casas. They are likened to planets veering away from their orbits and wrecking havoc on outer space. Ms. Casas reminds them to focus on their studies. The wordless meeting between the two along the hallway is beautifully filmed. The alternate student Rom barges into the honors roll but loses the girl. Parting is sweet sorrow indeed.

Mateo seems to be one of those who cannot focus on their studies. He is a bullied dormer who still yearns for his family in the province. This homesickness takes its toll on his grades. The chubby student gets dropped from the school rolls for failing a college-level math subject. He shares a valuable lesson to others like him who got kicked out. A Bell Curve diagram identifies them as winners who just happen to pale beside more diligent scholars. Mateo returns two years later to tell his teacher that he is taking up Mathematics in college.

There are more stories of other students who did not graduate with the batch. Liway, a student more attuned with social sciences than natural sciences, fights for better school facilities and repeal of the school’s segregation plan. Her courage stems from exposure to the works of her activist parents. The whole family had to go abruptly to Netherlands to escape political persecution. On the other hand, Minggoy is a budding astronomer whose life is cut short by an illness. His early death may be an allusion to numerous students killed by Marcos’ henchmen.

The stench of the crimes of the Marcos regime can not be isolated even from a government-funded high school. I’m not sure whether there was a strong student movement against Marcos in Pisay (Ms. Casas plaintively recalls a rally gone wrong) but surely, the students must have had strong opinion against Marcos after the Edsa Revolution. They will learn that among other hideous things, his crony was responsible for the cancellation of their dearly beloved anime show, Voltes V. Nowadays; graduating students barely have a clue about the legacy of Marcos. There is even an absurd movement to have his remains buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

Solito and Grajeda, both members of their school's Silver Jubilarian batch this year, have made their alma mater proud with this excellent film. Solito made a courageous decision to shun science courses by taking up Theatre Arts in college (yes, the character Euri is based on him). He went on to create movies with markedly Filipino sensibilities. I still have a hard time choosing the best film of Solito. My answer usually is the last film I’ve recently seen from among these three movies: Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros, Tuli, and Pisay. The latter film though is still his best directed film.

Congratulations to those graduating this year. Remember you are all winners even if you belong to the left side of the Bell curve’s right half.

Dung-Aw (1975, Lino Brocka)

2011-03-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

The month of March is commemorated every year in the Philippines as Women’s Month. This week’s highlights seem to be unrelated at first glance…

March 16. Two days ago, Armida Siguion-Reyna, the feisty, octogenarian actress and movie personality, became the sole recipient of the Diwata award at the 20th International Women’s Film Festival.

March 19. On that day 280 years ago, a baby girl was born named Maria Josefa Gabriela Cariño in Santa, Ilocos Sur. She will later be known as Henerala Gabriela Silang.

What else bind both ladies aside from being Ilocana firebrands and, lower your eyebrows, Women’s Month role models?

Both figure in the historical/musical film Dung-Aw. The title refers to an Ilocano traditional verbal practice of highlighting a deceased person’s accomplishments. If you have seen the film Ang Paglilitis ni Andres Bonifacio, then you’ve heard of the Dung-aw chanted by the Ilocana shaman. The Ilocano word also means ‘to look (or peek) out of the window. ‘

Dung-Aw is a glimpse into the heroism of 18th century revolutionary leader Gabriela Silang (Armida Siguion-Reyna). There is an early magnificent shot that captures perfectly the dung-aw concept. With a dirge playing in the background, we see the corpse of Gabriela lying atop a horse. A superimposed image of a black-clad lady makes it appear as if Gabriela has risen from the death. For nearly three seconds, the powerful image it presents is that of a victorious Gabriela. The extolling of a dead person’s achievements is ultimately what a dung-aw is all about.

The accompanying dirge is somewhat similar to the Lenten songs of the progressive singing group Patatag. There seems to be not so much difference between a dung-aw and the pasyon. Both lamentations narrate life stories.

Scriptwriter Mario O’Hara makes do with limited information about Gabriela. He gets straight to the point with regards the reason behind the revolution of the Ilocano peasants. The Spaniards usurp the indulto de comercio to their advantage. They allow Ilocanos to trade but only at prices set by them. The landowning couple, Diego and Gabriela, resorts to bypassing the Spaniards. However, a Judas Iscariot betrays them for a pouch of money. The assassination of her husband Diego prompts Gabriela to lead the rebels despite overwhelming odds. She was eventually arrested and, just like Jesus Christ, was executed publicly. A young revolutionary named Pablo waits for the second coming of Gabriela.

I admire the filmmakers for their courageous artistic decision of shaping the film into a dung-aw. The film is informative and instructive just like a dung-aw or a pasyon. But, it is not satisfying and doesn’t peak. It stays monotonous just like the droning sound emanating from the Pasyon. The songs and performances are not memorable. Siguion-Reyna has a beautiful voice but is simply too mature to play the fiery Gabriela.

O’Hara takes another crack at retelling the life of Gabriela Silang by directing his own film. That project, with the working title of Henerala, is on my list of must-see films at the Cinemalaya 2011. Is this the second coming of Gabriela bruited about in the film?

Another thing that whets my appetite is a dream project of Siguion-Reyna. The Diwata awardee revealed that she wants to make a no-holds-barred account of the massacre of 57 people in Maguindanao. She doesn't care about possible repercussions. To paraphrase Siguion-Reyna, true courage is fighting even when death stares at you. Spoken like a true Gabriela.

Who’s That Girl? (2011, Wenn Deramas)

2011-03-03T20:38:00.000-08:00

With the entry of SM Development Corp (SMDC) into the world of filmmaking, expect a proliferation of feel-good movies set in upscale chic condominiums and peppered with moneyed characters. Who’s That Girl? features the real estate developer’s latest celebrity endorser, Anne Curtis. The product placement starts from the very first scene. An aerial shot shows the splendor of the four-tower condominium development called Mezza Residences. The blatant advertising then gets more sickening as we see a lady transfer to her new swanky unit. A flock of hunks obligingly helps the beauteous charmer carry her things. Okay, we get it. Good Guys really do exist in these condominiums. And, also Audrey Hepburn-esque ladies, large swimming pools, and lovely rooms.

This bland movie, designed to sell the concept of high living at a condominium, may as well be the template for future SMDC movies. They will definitely not dwell in stories about corrupt generals investing in condominiums, balcony fall accidents, construction fatalities, and gas leaks in basements.

Elizabeth Pedroza (Curtis) is a UST Architecture graduate infatuated with her long-time school crush, John Eduque (Luis Manzano). Her world comes crushing down when she learns about the death of Eduque. She immediately goes to the wake and gets the shock of her life. She sees an older man, instead of a young man, lying in the coffin. The wife of the deceased John Eduque Sr gets piqued with her visit. A family friend’s simple question ‘who’s that girl?’ soon escalates into a grand-scale inquisition complete with kidnapping and high-profile rescue.

The movie takes risk with an unsympathetic character in Elizabeth. Yes, she’s hopelessly in love but her actions are reprehensible. A Thomasian stalker engaging in petty thefts? Bad… bad girl.

A stark contrast to her is Eduque, a campus heartthrob. He is supposedly a goody-two shoes but the scene showing him caring enough for mouth-agaped Elizabeth smacks of vanity and a bit patronizing. A second scene also doesn’t work out well. In a stagey contrived way, Eduque gets to comfort Elizabeth. The first act ends with no character to root for. Eduque comes across not as a Good Guy but plainly a rich, show-off kid. Elizabeth is simply despicable.

Curtis and Manzano tries their very best to salvage the movie with their on-screen chemistry. This is their third pairing and it is their worst film together so far. The characters are not likable and the truly comic moments, such as the predicament of a nude Eduque, come in trickles. I prefer their earlier pairings in All About Love and Ang Cute Ng Ina Mo, which was also directed by Deramas.

The use of a video recording to spur a moody change in Eduque’s mother is too convenient and unsatisfying. It is also a repeat of a device from the movie Ang Cute Ng Ina Mo. The video does not provide us with a concrete evidence of John Eduque Sr.’s undying love for Mrs. Eduque. How sure is she that she is the recipient of the video message?

The ending showing Elizabeth and Eduque frolicking at the UST Quadricentennial Fountain seems to be a last-minute addition by Deramas. Few films are set in UST so the Hotel and Restaurant Management graduate must have decided to show more of the school’s best assets. I think the original ending should have been the arrival of a lady in black at the interment of John Eduque Sr. Cue in the theme song, freeze frame, and you’ve got yourself a nice ending. The only problem with that type of ending is it will probably afflict the good guys at SMDC with sequelitis. No sequels please. I’ve had enough of this pathetic movie.

Sisa (1951, Gerardo de Leon)

2011-02-25T13:12:00.000-08:00

2011 is the year we celebrate the 400th anniversary of the foundation of the University of Santo Tomas and the 150th birth anniversary of Jose Rizal, an illustrious Thomasian. The year also marks the 60th anniversary of the screening of Sisa, an enduring masterpiece by Thomasian Gerry de Leon.

The classic film presents the background story of one of Rizal’s more prominent characters, Sisa. The sultry young lady is courted by four young men. One of them marries her and eventually sires two children. Another suitor takes away the life from her husband. The third one murders her child. The last one brings hope to the remaining child.

The black-and-white film contains most of the signature shots of de Leon. The first shot is a memorable close-up image of a smiling Sisa enthralled by the singing of Maria Clara. Near the end of the film is an equally memorable shot of a dark shadow cast against the walls of the bell tower.

In between the memorable iconic shots are samples of de Leon’s masterful mise-en-scene compositions. An excellent example is a beautifully framed shot showing a glowing lamp in the foreground with people on the background. Their pensive faces fill in the four corners of the shot. They speak one after the other in counterclockwise fashion. They are all wishing to be enlightened on the dark past of Sisa. Their curious faces highlight the importance of the illuminating information that will be unveiled.

The main theme of the film is enlightenment or lumina pandit. Most of the evil deeds in the film are done in dark, secluded places. These hideous acts and their perpetrators are later revealed and unmasked in broad daylight or in a well-lit room.

Scriptwriter Teodorico Santos seamlessly blended his wonderful background story of Sisa with segments from Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere. Amongst her four suitors, Sisa chooses and marries Pedring. A jealous guardia civil named Antonio arrests and keeps Pedring in a cell full of lepers. When he is eventually released, he is no longer the same.

Another spurned suitor, Sakristan Mayor Baldo, takes revenge by bringing trumped-up charges of theft against Sisa’s son, Crispin. In a fit of outrage, he beats the boy to his death in the bell tower. He then throws the corpse in a river.

An idealistic young man named Crisostomo Ibarra takes pity on the marginalized couple, a leprous man and a crazed woman. More than any other film, Sisa is probably the main inspiration for Mario O’Hara’s script Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang. The latter also has a young man caring for his small town’s main outcasts, a male leper and a pregnant mad woman.

The fourth suitor, Elias, is a faithful admirer of Sisa. He is instrumental in helping Ibarra to evade the vicious authorities. He brings hope to the surviving child named Basilio by showing him the hidden treasures and briefly reuniting him with her dying mother.

Padre Salvi and Donya Consolacion, the inglorious bastards from the book Noli, also make their appearances in the film. However, Padre Salvi is barely seen as the celebrant in Sisa and Pedring’s wedding.

Donya Consolacion is in her all-out villainous mode. She utilizes her being the wife of the alferez to break up the party hosted by Ibarra. She hates the fact that she was not invited at all to the party. Another scene shows the Donya ordering the household helpers to close the window because she can’t stand the noise coming from a religious procession outside. She becomes even more furious when she hears Sisa singing. With a whip in hand, she orders Sisa to sing and dance for her. Then, she whips her until the crazed woman escapes from her clutches.

The film Sisa has a hypnotic grip on viewers. Anita Linda is simply amazing in an award-winning performance as the crazed title character. The story-telling is tight and well-paced. However, the climactic ending seems rushed. It is basically a CliffsNotes summary of the latter part of Noli Me Tangere. The sudden change in pace left me wondering whether some parts are still missing. Is there a director's cut somewhere?

The digitalized copy of the film is not in good condition. The images are chopped in the right and bottom sides. The audio is not clear enough and sometimes muffled. I had a hard time deciphering the name of Sisa’s husband. I’m not even sure if it is really Pedring. It sounds like Peding or Peping.

I’m still thankful, though, that I saw one of the best works of National Artist for Film, Gerardo de Leon. This film was definitely the highlight of the UP Diliman run of Cinemalaya 2008. I hope Cinemalaya 2011 has a section for films about Jose Rizal, his works, and his characters. Will we finally see a copy of Gerardo de Leon’s El Filibusterismo? The epic film was scheduled for screening decades ago but the screening was unfortunately scrapped. Is a print really existing or should we just be contented playing the film in our minds?

My Valentine Girls (2011, Chris Martinez, Dominic Zapata, Andoy Ranay)

2011-02-13T20:01:00.000-08:00

The Valentine offering starts with a loveless bespectacled author (Richard Gutierrez) pondering over possible themes for his trilogy of love stories. He gets a ribbing from his precocious little sister for wasting too much time writing on the computer.

Let us take a look at the stories if they are indeed time-wasters (and money-wasters, too).

Soulmates (by Dominic Zapata)

The first episode tells the story of Aia (Rhian Ramos), a pretty girl recovering from a car crash. She is regularly visited by a ghost named Oslec, who she learns was the guy who she bumped and killed during the crash. He came back to asked a favor from guilt-ridden Aia. He wants to go home. The story unravels as Aia helps Oslec journey back to his true home.

The plot twists can be seen far ahead. How is it that Aia was able to buy tickets for their ferris wheel ride? If she wasn't able to purchase tickets, then how come she didn't question her invisibility from living persons? As the questions pile up, your initial hunch that the pair is still alive and recovering from their injuries ultimately becomes stronger.

Putting out the episode title at the start of the feature is a poor decision. It defeats all efforts to camouflage the fact that both are still alive. The audience naturally expects the couple to be together at the end. The concept of the pair meeting and having a romantic affair in the dream world is a good one, though.

I loved the scenes showing Ramos screaming her lungs out during those supernatural encounters with Oslec. Ramos is perfect for those horror/slasher films. She also has a radiant screen presence and looks a lot like a well-known celebrity. Taylor Swift? Far from it. She reminds me more of the fashionable charmer Anne Curtis.

BBFF (by Andoy Ranay)

The second segment is the weakest of the three tales. The story has sexy Andie (Solenn Heussaff) ruing her decision to set up a blind date for her boy best friend (BBF). When the girl and BBF becomes a couple, she struggles to cope with being alone.

The I'm-afraid-to-lose-my-best-friend story has been done better in films such as Close to You. BBFF suffers from having a shorter running time. The characterizations are superficially fleshed out and the pacing seems rushed. I didn't like the amateurish direction by first timer Andoy Ranay. There are several scenes that are un-cinematic and out-of-focus. The poor blocking of characters makes my eyes wander to different parts of the screen. This scanning of a shot can be a good thing if what you see is beautifully framed, but as it is, BBFF's images are lackluster and bland.

Heussaff's strong personality seems fit for an Angelina Jolie-type of action film or superhero movie. Her whistle-bait figure was highlighted in several bikini shots. Having done well in the Survivor show, she also seems destined to do a survivor/adventure film.

Gunaw (by Chris Martinez)

The last tale is a hilarious post-apocalyptic love story. A Pinoy male named Aidan is a survivor of the Valentine nuclear holocaust in 2012. In his search for other survivors, he encounters and kills zombies with ease. Three years passed before Aidan meets Ivy, possibly the last woman on earth. Will sparks fly between the two?

Director Chris Martinez is on a roll. He was responsible for one of 2010’s top comedies, Here Comes the Bride. That film gave us the fantastic performance of Angelica Panganiban as a lustful gay. This time, Martinez once more cast another actress in an offbeat role. Who would have thought of pairing the dashing Richard Gutierrez with the irrepressible Eugene Domingo, and make it work?

Seeing Domingo as Ivy is a blast. Her first appearance sets off in motion a series of laugh-out-loud scenes. With serious music playing in the background, Aidan eyes a figure praying at the altar of a church he sought refuge at. The audience starts laughing when they realize that the figure is Domingo.

The funniest scene is a dig on the requisite kilig moment in mainstream romance films. Aidan is teaching Ivy the basics of tennis. When he comes from behind to guide Ivy’s hand, the theater erupts in a mixture of laughter and swoons. I think I may never associate a tennis-based kilig moment with romance again. I just had to recall Ivy’s beaming face and I burst automatically into a grin.

Richard Somes and a fellow production designer did wonders on a post-apocalyptic setting. From the North Korean nuclear room to the bombed-out building shelter to the zombie-infested swimming pool, the production design is truly outstanding.

The inclusion of Team Pilipinas zombies is a stroke of genius by the filmmakers. Aidan had a hard time getting rid of these agile and athletic zombies. It took Aidan’s cunning before he was able to get away from them.

Gunaw is the saving grace of the150-minute film My Valentine Girls. The two earlier segments are indeed time-wasters. The newbie directors, Zapata and Ranay, had to rely on showing more skin to make their segments more interesting. Martinez had the last say on this tendency to feature eye-candy by having Domingo don a swimsuit with a deep, deep, deep cleavage.

If you have some money to spend for a pair of movie tickets but don’t have lots of time, then you may skip the first two segments and just watch the rip-roaring third segment. Your partner may thank you later for taking him/her out to a wonderful movie. What to do with the time saved is up to both of you.

Bulong (2011, Chito Roño)

2011-02-07T22:37:00.000-08:00

I always anticipate a horror film directed by Chito Roño. I can never forget my moviehouse experience of viewing Roño's blockbuster hit Sukob. It is so scary that I had goose bumps all over my arms. Sure, there are several cheap shock tricks but overall, the suspenseful and brooding atmosphere gives me spine-tingling chills. The movie, starring Kris Aquino and Claudine Barreto, is based on a local superstition stating that it is bad luck for two or more siblings to marry within a period of one year. The superstition had its origin in rural places. Children of farm hands are dissuaded from seeking marriage within months of a sibling's earlier marriage because it will surely deplete the family's savings and resources, which are dependent on seasonal harvests.

Roño once more mined a Filipino superstition for his new film Bulong. This time the movie suggests that a person with an unfulfilled wish can seek the help of a recently departed loved one. All that is needed is to whisper your wish to the deceased. The premise is that the dead person is now at the bosom of the good Lord and more likely will be able to intercede for the wishes of the living. In this regard, Filipinos seem to treat their dead relatives as saints. Most of them even visit their departed loved ones on All Saint's Day and not on All Soul's Day.

Hospital worker Conan (Vhong Navarro) is hopelessly in love with a sexy and beauteous nurse named Ellen (Bangs Garcia). He is on friendly terms with the alluring lady but gets desperate when he sees her kissing a resident doctor. The jealous guy seeks the help of his friends and learns about the power of a wish whispered to the dead. He scampers off to a wake and surreptitiously opens the casket. In a barely audible way, he whispers: Mahalin ako ni Ellen.

The next day sees Conan, oozing with confidence, making his moves on Ellen. The young woman isn't too happy with the brazen behavior of the guy and gives him a tongue lashing. The wish didn't materialize. Is it because the wish needs time to be fulfilled? No. The corpse didn't hear him. Conan belatedly learns that the dead person was deaf.

Yep, this is not a straightforward horror film. Roño knows that it is a tough act to surpass or equal his horror hits Feng Shui and Sukob. He changes tactics by making a horror-comic film. Bulong is a supernatural film hampered by the need to come up with funny scenes. In the end, it is neither scary nor is it super-funny.

While the film benefits from reliable performances of Navarro and Angelica Panganiban, Bulong is just an average movie that is a mishmash of mildly terrifying scenes and fluffily funny antics. The tired slapstick routine of bandaged patients wiping the walls and floors with their faces is here. The film also borrows some fiends and concepts from films such as Drag Me To Hell and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and also from the video game series Resident Evil. However, the special effects are very good especially the muddy zombies pestering Oprah (Angelica Panganiban) and the disfigured mammary glands of Ellen. The latter is memorable because of a deliciously wicked strip-tease set-up by Roño.

Bulong didn’t impress me much with its cinematic skills but it did leave the audience with a few valuable life lessons:

1) Leave the dead alone. They have just been freed from worldly undertakings so don't pester them with your wishes. There's also the possibility of a quid pro quo.

2) Be careful with what you wish for. This is good advice for single people especially this heart month. Conan is able to taste the love of Ellen but eventually vomits it out of his system. Being loved obsessively and violently by the girl of his dreams is not what he yearned for.

What is this thing called 'The Cinema of Lav Diaz'?

2011-02-01T03:55:00.000-08:00

A glimpse at the schedule of Philippine International Arts Festival events this heART month reveal an Ani ng Sine feature film titled The Cinema of Lav Diaz. I don't know if this is a documentary or a set of short films by the maverick filmmaker. All I know is I'll be among the curious cinephiles waiting in line to view this piece on Sunday, February 6, 2011 at the Shangri-la Mall Cineplex.

******

ANI NG SINE: A harvest of the films produced during the 2008-2010 term of the National Committee on Cinema

The Cinema of Lav Diaz * Otsenta’y Nueve * Neo-Revolution * Dawa’t Tabling * Movement of the Sun * Waray in the City * Manila’s Forgotten Forest * Entablado * Tundong Magiliw * Ang Lalaking Tinubuan ng Pakpak * Sayaw: A Documentary Film on Philippine Dances

Shang Cineplex, Shangri-La Mall, Ortigas 11:00 a.m.-8:30 p.m., Sunday, February 6

******

Pasinaya CCP Open House Festival: Film sked

2011-01-31T17:45:00.000-08:00

The biggest one-day multi-arts festival spectacle in the Philippines is back!

Catch folk dances, ballet shows, theater plays, Cinemalaya films, and more at the Cultural Center of the Philippines on February 6, 2011. From 8 in the morning until 7 in the evening, the public can choose from the more than 100 performances at a ‘pay what you can, see all you can’ scheme. Opo, pwede ang 20 pesos na entrance para sa mga estudyante.

For more info, click here

Dream Theater (film zone)

Sunday, February 6

9:00 AM Alamat ng Sili by Julie Susan Lanzuela Almoneda
3 Lapu Lapu by John Aljo Ignite

9:30 AM HALAW by Sheron Dayoc
- won the Best Film award (New Breed category, Cinemalaya 2010)
- was cited “for its timely depiction of the rigors and dangers that Filipinos go through in order to reach Sabah in search of greener pastures, its mastery of the elements of filmmaking and meaningful narrative, and its powerful herald that Mindanao cinema has come of age”
- also won awards for Best Direction, Best Actor (John Arcilla), and Best Editing

12:20 PM Emo by Car Joseph Papa

1:00 PM Laogon by Sael Templado
Imahinaxion by Samuel Elias Kirk Bacsain

1:40 PM Maskara by Alejandro Karlo Zapanta
Clownes by Neil Paul Molina
Perang Kenkoy by Christopher Asa

2:20 PM Lukso by John Kristofer Sta. Clara
Grandfather’s Clock by Marcelo William W. Munoz

3:15 PM TWO FUNERALS by Gil Portes
- won the special jury prize (Directors’ Showcase category, Cinemalaya 2010)
- also won awards for Best Direction, Best Screenplay, and Best Cinematography
- is the funniest movie at Cinemalaya 2010. This film also bagged the Audience Choice Award. It tells the story of how a coffin was mistakenly sent to the wrong set of grieving family members. The mother (Tessie Tomas) then treks nearly the whole of Luzon to retrieve the corpse of her daughter.

Presa (2010, Adolfo Alix Jr)

2011-01-24T22:41:00.000-08:00

Presa, winner of the Best Indie Film award at the 36th Metro Manila Film Festival, had a limited run at moviehouses. In several theaters, the prison drama was replaced by a foreign film after only a day, or two, of screenings. Is this a portent of what awaits award-winning indie films in the next 12 months?

I've seen only two festival indie entries, Presa and Jerrold Tarog's Senior Year. The former is the better film in terms of story-telling, acting, and over-all direction. Is it the best of the indie slate? I don't know. The film, though, is a pretty good one and probably Adolfo Alix's best so far. Yes, it is not a big deal but at least Alix is no longer contented in churning out pwede-na-yan films.

The prolific filmmaker, with more than 15 films to his name, came out blazing in the second half of 2010 with two excellent films, Presa and Chassis. The latter, about a homeless woman making ends meet as a prostitute, is a fine film marred by a shocking ending that could have been staged and directed more realistically. The castrated victim doesn't even defend himself. He is no Samson that has been deprived of strength. After the despicable deed is done, a freeze-frame of Nora's face would have sufficed. However, the acting in both films is amazing. Alix's handling of his actors is a marked improvement over his horrendous direction in Romeo at Juliet.

Anita Linda gives a tour-de-force performance as a former actress imprisoned for drug pushing in Presa. Every line and wrinkle on her face speaks of her bruising life experiences. She exudes toughness and bitchiness as Cion. She continually carps about the radio being played nightly. When she receives positive news about her release, she destroys the radio. She doesn't fear reprisal because she knows someone will come to protect her. Rosanna Roces plays the squad leader who is a big fan of Cion. She is a former policewoman who instills discipline among the women inmates.

A major effect of prison discipline is clearly shown in the clean surroundings of the prison compound. It is what you may expect from disciplined women who have lots of time. The whole place is like a well-maintained college dormitory. Each inmate has her own bed. They have access to a good bath. There is even a beauty parlor for the inmates. The food seems edible and comes in ample servings. Prison life in this correctional is a far cry from the grimy and violence-ridden jails of Deathrow, Selda, and Ranchero.

The 'good' prison life though is not the be all and end all of inmates. They desperately want to get out of prison. Daria Ramirez plays an inmate nearing completion of her jail sentence. She expects to be reunited with her husband, who is also scheduled to be released soon. Meanwhile, the other inmates go on with their prison life with the hope that their time will also come soon. Jodi Sta. Maria portrays a hardworking, martyr mother. She earns enough money by selling merienda items and laundering clothes. She then gives the money to her son during prison visits. These fleeting reunions with family members are cherished by the inmates.

Unsatisfying endings and lack of special attention to details are usually the weaknesses of several Alix films. This film luckily doesn’t have both weaknesses. However, I have a minor, minor gripe with the awkward way Tetchie Agbayani fell into the pool. A collision with a fellow running inmate must have been a better catalyst for Agbayani's dunking and surprise eloquence.

The fantastic finale elevates the fine film into a great film. Amidst the bevy of memorable performances, the artistry of Anita Linda shines brightly during the breakdown scene and the shooting segment. Cion (Linda), a self-proclaimed award-winning actress, has a hard time getting her act together during a film shooting. The pain she undergoes is wrecking havoc on her concentration. She bungles her dialogue, which speaks of her happiness over an inmate’s release. The tough, unrepentant octogenarian becomes a mere stammering softie.

Kudos to a briliant script by Alix and Agnes de Guzman, a volunteer at the Correctional Institute for Women in Mandaluyong. Alix has always been known as a multi-awarded scriptwriter. With this film, he shows maturity as a film director.

January 2011 film sked at UPFI

2011-01-16T22:25:00.000-08:00

Can't find anything worthy enough to watch at the cineplex? Trek to the University of the Philippines Film Institute (UPFI) and savor some film gems and award-winning movies scheduled this month.

Cinema One Originals 2010 :
Jan 26 Wed

3 p.m. Sigfried Barrios-Sanchez's Tsardyer

5 p.m. EJ Salcedo's Third World Happy - Cinema One Originals (Best Supporting Actress)

7 p.m. Richard Somes' Ishmael - Cinema One Originals (Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, & Best Editing)

9 p.m. Remton Siega Zuasola's Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria - Cinema One Originals (Jury Prize) and Cinemanila 2010 (Best Southeast Asian Film)

Venue : Cine Adarna / Main Cinema

RAYMOND RED :
Jan 27 Thu

4 p.m. Himpapawid - 33rd Urian Awards (Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, & Best Cinematography) and 1st MTRCB Film Awards (Best Drama Film, Best Director, & Best Screenplay)

7 p.m. Himpapawid

Jan 28 Fri

4 p.m. Himpapawid

7 p.m. Himpapawid

Venue : Cine Adarna / Main Cinema

****

Free movie screenings at the UP Videotheque:

JOEY GOSIENGFIAO :

Jan 18 Tue

5 p.m. Bomba Star

7 p.m. Temptation Island

Jan 19 Wed

5 p.m. Temptation Island

7 p.m. Bomba Star

MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI :
Jan 20 Thu

5 p.m. L'Avventura - Cannes Film Festival (Jury Prize)

7 p.m. Red Desert - Venice Film Festival (Golden Lion)

Jan 21 Fri

5 p.m. Blow-up - Cannes Film Festival (Grand Prix)

7 p.m. Zabriskie Point

SERGEI PARAJANOV :
Jan 25 Tue

5 p.m. Shadow of Forgotten Ancestors

7 p.m. The Color of Pomegranates

Jan 26 Wed

5 p.m. The Color of Pomegranates

7 p.m. Shadow of Forgotten Ancestors

JAFAR PANAHI :

Jan 27 Thu

5 p.m. The Circle - Venice Film Festival (Golden Lion)

7 p.m. Offside - Berlin Film Festival (Silver Bear)

Jan 28 Fri

5 p.m. Offside

7 p.m. The Circle

Kung Mangarap Ka't Magising (1977, Mike de Leon)

2011-01-16T03:01:00.000-08:00

I am a huge fan of films megged by Mike de Leon. I've yet to encounter a de Leon film that disappoints me. What makes it doubly amazing is the fact that, just like Stanley Kubrick, he dabbles into various film genres, turns them inside out, and still comes out with unique, masterful films such as the thriller Kisapmata, the horror pic Itim, the musical-comedy Kakabakaba Ka Ba?, the political film Sister Stella L., the short feature Aliwan Paradise, and the dreamy tale, Kung Mangarap Ka't Magising. The latter can shame most romance films churned out by Star Cinema and GMA Films.

I love Kung Mangarap Ka't Magising for a variety of reasons: the luminous presence of Hilda Koronel, the evolution of Joey's Theme, the romantic Baguio setting, the comedic touches, and the sure hand of de Leon's direction.

Hilda Koronel is one of local cinema's loveliest actresses. Boots Anson Roa, in her radio program, said that Koronel and Amalia Fuentes are the only ones that can be cited as picture perfect. Their heavenly faces register well in any camera angle. In this de Leon film, a student gives Ana (Koronel) a rating of 21 out of 21. Breakdown of the scoring is 10 for her beauty and an ace for her sexy body. Indeed, I've never seen Koronel this alluring before. Her initial appearance in the film has her in a bra-less dress. It is no wonder that all eyes are on her.

Ana is a young lady burnt out from an early marriage. She visits her cousin Cecile (Laurice Guillen) in Baguio to get away from her problems and also to finish her term paper. She meets Joey (Christopher de Leon), a direction-less UP Baguio student who is a prime candidate for magna and summa dishonors (ie. magna-nine years / summa-mpung taon sa kolehiyo).

Ana and Joey goes out on friendly dates in romantic Baguio. Cue in scenes showing them sharing an umbrella during a rainy day, having a picnic in mist-covered surroundings, and offering a shoulder to cry on. Add in laugh-out-loud scenes such as the South China Sea-viewing sidetrip and Cecile's putdowns of Joey. Sounds like a Star Cinema film? Well, not quite. The music scoring plays a key part. The evolving theme song is heard in varying degrees. It reflects the thoughts of the pensive Joey. Every good thing and bad thing that occur becomes fodder for song lyrics. A second viewing of the film will reveal the wonder of the song's creation. The beauty of using an original song is the audience doesn't have a clue on how the story ends. On the other hand, titles of Star Cinema movie themes are clear giveaways.

Mike de Leon is a scion of Narcisa 'Sisang' de Leon, head of the LVN film studio. Doña Sisang, along with producer Mother Lily Monteverde, was recently featured in a book of top women in Asian film cinema. Monteverde's Regal Films is responsible for the slew of commercial hits such as the Shake Rattle and Roll films and also critically acclaimed movies such as Manila by Night, Scorpio Nights, and Sister Stella L. On the other hand, Doña Sisang's LVN Pictures is a defunct movie studio known for award-winning films such as Biyaya ng Lupa and Anak Dalita. The company ceased producing film in 1980. The studio's penultimate offering, Kung Mangarap Ka't Magising, is a collaboration of Doña Sisang's son Manny de Leon and his child Mike de Leon.

In an informal survey conducted by the Philippine Daily Inquirer in 2009, Kung Mangarap Ka't Magising was chosen as the best Baguio film by most of the participating movie reviewers and film afficionados. The film's portrait of the city as clean, calm, cool, and romantic must be a big factor in its selection. A participant noted the film's ditching of the tendency to show tourist attractions.The other films mentioned include Bakit Yellow ang Gitna ng Bahaghari?, Dear Heart, and Baby Love. A strong contender but was not mentioned is Dinig Sana Kita. The latter and Baby Love dealt with love happening in the midst of camps in Baguio.

Baguio as a romance magnet? Hmmm, that's probably one of the reasons why P-Noy visited the city. Makapunta nga rin.

The Martyrdo(o)m of Women; The Best Filipino Films of 2010

2011-01-08T08:29:00.000-08:00

In the just concluded year, yet another bonanza year for independent films, there was a remarkable bumper crop of films centering and foregrounding the various fates of women. Now more than ever, the running theme of these films was martyrdom, as though for women, it is far preferable to a nondescript fate consigned to the background. Women as martyrs then, women as sufferers of hapless circumstance – economic, sociopolitcal, religious, cultural and otherwise – if only to feed the fantasies of the other half of the gender divide, and perhaps the perverse impulses of the filmmakers themselves. Offhand, one can reel off the following films that in varying degrees illustrate the focalization of beleaguered women: Limbunan, Chassis, Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria, and Sheika.

Surprisingly, these independent films were not there to make the numbers up. In many instances, these portraits of women attracted the full breadth of the spotlight and received the loud clamor of lionization. They have not just made the rounds of the local independent circuit – Cinemalaya, Cinema One, Cinemanila – but have been invited to appreciative festivals abroad.

But to return to the crux of the matter: a good majority of these women films are apt to reveal a sadistic streak; they project their subjects in hopeless and helpless distress. An entry to the Cinemalaya Festival in 2010, Limbunan is a tale of anguished betrothal, counting down the last days of sequestration before a woman’s wedding, held hostage by circumstance and culture. Chassis, newly minted under the auspices of the Cinemanila Festival, is about a homeless woman who lives under cargo trucks and is forced to provide for her child through prostitution. A Cinema One production, Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria charts the travails, by turns suicidal and cynical, of one woman who is forced to ransom her family’s future with marriage to a foreign man. In Sheika, the title character and her two teenage sons – refugees fleeing war in Mindanao – meet a tragic fate worse than what they had left behind. It was screened out of competition at Cinemalaya.

Common wisdom suggests that these films may have, at this point, gone beyond scrutiny and question. They are decorated world-beaters, says one kibitzer. They have become instant classics, says another. They have passed the rigors of academic discourse, says a third. Aye, they are beyond reproach, they all say in unison. That’s that.

Then again, maybe not. Exploitation films have not so infrequently put us on the world map, but often for vulgar reasons. In a way, many of the 2010 films aforementioned are no different from exploitation films. Each spotlights and exploits a social problem that features the suffering and brutalization of women, but the cards are so stacked against these distaff protagonists as to offer little circumvention and subversion of their sorry plight. The heart of the problem always proves bigger and more insurmountable than any woman protagonist can ever handle.

The philistine platitude is that cinema proffers no panacea, so the atrocities against cinematic women should not be taken too seriously. Cinema corrects little and resolves little – not the enormities against the world, not the sad plight of women. But the truth may be closer to the contrary: we, for one, have sworn by cinema like nothing else. In our country, so much faith and esteem are projected onto the icons of cinema that we see them as saviors and liberators from poverty and mundane hardship. We give them pride of place, in more ways than one.

In France, Bunuel’s L’Age d’Or and Isidore Isou’s Venom and Eternity have had such galvanizing power on audiences as to have caused riots at their premieres. In Belgium, the so-called Rosetta Law was enacted to shield and protect its young workforce, all because of a little but potent film made by the Dardenne brothers. In Iran, filmmakers are so feared and regarded as threats by the state that they suffer harsh repression, are imprisoned or exiled. (Jafar Panahi is now serving a 6-year sentence in jail, while Mohsen Makhmalbaf has to go abroad to make films.) That is the transformative potency of cinema.

Meanwhile, our independent filmmakers are still grappling with the weltanschauungs of the past. Limbunan, Sheika, Chassis and Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria: these films, in various gradations, are still peddling antediluvian characters with mostly antediluvian motivations. What is regrettable remains how they naturalize the image of the suffering woman. To say the least, it is not easy to sit through these films. Martyrdom, our films keep repeating, becomes women.

In Limbunan, the notion of extreme self-sacrifice on the part of women extends to Muslim societies. When Ayesah questions her enforced betrothal in Limbunan, she is operating along a sound understanding of her predicament, but curiously she submits meekly to the antiquated traditions of her society. Could she not have made the liberating gesture of flight? No, the film argues, Ayesah has bigger roles to fulfill – hers will be a marriage to ensure peace pacts -- a soothing balm in an uneasy landscape. It is worth looking into a film like Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s Gabbeh for a refreshing contrast, a tale that brooks no parental and cultural edicts stacked lopsidedly against its female character.

Suspiciously analogous to Limbunan is Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria. Central to this film is the specter of another unwanted marriage; this time Terya, the main protagonist, is a mail-order bride, about to be shipped off to her would-be husband in Germany. The trade-off, for Terya’s family, is practical and financial security and prosperity. Terya is inconsolable at first – to the extreme extent that she tries to take her life at the start. Like Ayesah, Terya is presented with the option of flight: she has a man that she can elope with. She doesn’t take it.

Towards film’s end, Terya's family -- that is, her domineering mother -- has a change of heart, and presents the daughter a way out. But Terya, again, opts out of it. Instead, she mysteriously becomes compliant, and agrees to the ruinous marriage after all. As though sleepwalking to the overtures of a headlong script, she goes from attempting to kill herself to becoming a resolute bride-to-be in the space of one schizophrenic hour. Part of the blame goes to director Remton Zuasola's intent of doing it all in one plan sequence. (The one-take poetics may be impressive, but it also highlights the jarring transformations of characters and the zigzagging of motivations.)

Cynical, benighted martyrdom has entered into it: through this marriage, she will be acceding to her family’s requests, but her deeper motive seems to have the weight of scorn and accusation, with the design of disowning her family afterwards. There is the suggestion that Terya will go the same route of her supposedly exemplary cousin who has enriched herself from the same prospects Terya is facing. By implication, Terya has become an exchangeable piece of commodity. Her decision is not just one of senseless self-sacrifice, assuaged with the prospect of hefty monetary recompense, but one that seems to have destroyed her soul.

If women are so frequently threatened and harmed by external forces, Sheika presents a portrait of psychological annihilation and extreme bereavement. Sheika has been variously trumpeted as the latter-day Sisa, or our version of Mother Courage. Like her predecessors in the realm of drama and literature, Sheika loses her children in incomprehensibly violent ways; her life story is so traumatizing that she ends up mute and catatonic in a sanatorium. Even there, her tribulations are not over, she must endure being raped by the janitor, with his masculine act, his masculine seed, consequently stirring her back to life. (For this, Mardoquio obviously steals a page from Almodovar's Talk to Her.)

Chassis, a film about a homeless woman’s extreme poverty, may represent the darkest of the entries here, its tone one of unrelieved hopelessness, but surprisingly, albeit narrowly, it justifies its bleak outlook on the world and its very subject. Nora, a homeless woman, is forced into low-rent prostitution to make ends meet and to provide for her child, but something happens to dispossess her completely. Her final gesture, a symbolic act of emasculation, must be parsed as one of revolt, against a world that offers little, but takes and dispossesses what she has. The violence, too, could be symbolically against us, voyeurs who provide so little succor.

Here then is an array of women painted with a narrow ontological palette, all so martyrized as to seem dramatically interchangeable (Ayesah and Terya: unwilling brides-to-be; Sheika and Nora: bereaved and vengeful mothers). There has to be a hidden page or chapter on creating characters in that slim volume our independent filmmakers keep consulting. But make no mistake about it: there is no invoking here of the dramatic paradigms of, say, socialist realism: the emphasis on hyper-positive characterizations, all rose-tinted portraitures, all idealized and heroic figurations.

Diegetic women, this side of identity politics, can only hope for the same variety of fortunes reserved for the privileged other. Perhaps it remains more naturalistic – and more cinematically dramatic – to depict these women in threatened circumstances, especially according to Third World settings. But, in the final reckoning, let them not be lost causes. Let them transcend passivity and impossible subjectivity. If they go down fighting, if they are vanquished in the end, afford them some measure of moral victory. If they trump their adversaries, let them for once keep their souls intact.

The Best Filipino Films of 2010

Ang Ninanais (John Torres)
Ang Paglilitis ni Andres Bonifacio (Mario O’Hara)
Vox Populi (Dennis Marasigan)
Halaw (Sheron Dayoc)
Balangay (Sherad Anthony Sanchez/Robin Fardig)
Kano: An American and His Harem (Monster Jimenez)
Ang Mundo sa Panahon ng Bato (Mes de Guzman)
Ang Mundo sa Panahon ng Yelo (Mes de Guzman)
Mondomanila Filmfest Motherfuckers (Khavn dela Cruz)
Chassis (Adolfo Alix Jr.)

The Best Foreign Films

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
Film Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard)
Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas)
Dogtooth (Giorgos Lanthimos)
Breathless (Yang Ik-Joon)
Honey (Semih Kaplanoglu)
Copie Conforme (Abbas Kiarostami)
The Robber (Benjamin Heisenberg)
If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle (Florin Serban)

A Retrospective of Films Discovered in 2010

Star Spangled to Death (Ken Jacobs, 2004)

The Parade of Planets (Vadim Abdrashitov, 1984)

Mass for the Dakota Sioux (Bruce Baillie, 1964)

There is No Path Through Fire (Gleb Panfilov, 1968)

The Hart of London (Jack Chambers, 1970)

Don Giovanni (Carmelo Bene, 1970)

Bhuvan Shome (Mrinal Sen, 1969)

London (Patrick Keiller, 1994)

Eika Katappa (Werner Schroeter, 1969)

Strongman Ferdinand (Alexander Kluge, 1976)

Sant Tukaram (Vishnupant Govind Damle/Sheikh Fattelal, 1936)

Hide and Seek (Su Fredrich, 1996)

Free Radicals (Len Lye, 1958)

Top 10 Filipino films of 2010

2011-01-08T00:45:00.000-08:00

Making a short-list of the top local films is a breeze the past few years. A major reason is the proliferation of good films churned out and exhibited by the triumvirate of Cinemalaya, Cinemanila, and Cinema One Originals. The hard part is trimming the list down to only ten films. The trio can easily fill in the top 10 slots but, in year 2010, a couple of slots ended up in the hands of a Cultural Center of the Philippines-produced epic and a Star Cinema(!)-produced animation film.

Here are some of the more memorable local films I’ve seen in 2010:

AmBisyon 2010 - is a public service project of cable channel ANC. The anthology consists of 20 short films aimed at helping the electorate get a glimpse of the pressing issues of the country. The quality varies but the film is worth viewing for the few gems. Some of the best short features include Brillante Mendoza's captivating music video Ayos Ka, Jon Red's lovely PSG, Jerrold Tarog's competent Faculty, Henry Frejas' hilarious Hanapbuhay, and the heartbreaking Wag Kang Titingin (Pam Miras), winner of the Best Short Feature award at the Cinemalaya 2010 competitions

Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria – a fascinating one-take film about a lanky mail-order bride from the Cebu island of Olango. The actors portraying the father, Merle, and the recruiter are excellent acting finds

Ang Paglilitis ni Andres Bonifacio - Mario O'Hara weaved his magic and creativity on this faithful recreation of the trial of the founder of the Katipunan. Theatrical elements bring home the message that the trial is a moro-moro. Angeli Kanapi steals scenes as Ibong Adarna and narrator

Donor - Viewing the film is like attending a concise master filmmaking class by Mark Meily. The movie tells the relevant story of a Filipina donor working around a law prohibiting kidney transplants to foreigners

Emir - The impressive musical epic, about a Filipina nanny working in a palatial home in the Middle East, is a showcase for the country's talented singers, songwriters, and dancers

Kano: An American and His Harem – Apocalypse Now on a smaller, personal scale. An American soldier, scarred by child abuse and the Vietnam war, wreaks havoc on a village in the Philippines. A prime example of excellent documentaries churned out by local female filmmakers (eg. MonsterJimenez and Ditsi Carolino)

Layang Bilanggo - The Cinema One Originals 2010 best picture has a glaring fault in its clunky prison infighting segment but made up for it with an elegiac view of senior citizens cooped up in a retirement home. It was this film that I remembered most during the Christmas season and not the other Bing Lao-influenced (and overrated) film Sampaguita. It is true that sometimes senior citizens impede on our shopping and travel plans but it is during this season of merrymaking that they desperately yearn for some attention. The holiday season coincides with the closing of another year. The elders want a bit of assurance that they are still loved and needed. They dread the coming year for it may see them in a retirement home, hospital bed, or in a coffin. The film captures perfectly the anxiety, the regrets, and the reminiscing of past glory by the elderly

Limbunan – a beautiful film about a young lady caught up in a web of religious and family traditions. I see the girl's betrothal to a 'good' man as similar to being handed over to a 'good' religion by the elders

RPG Metanoia – a thrilling movie that plays a lot like a video game. The story tells the importance of experiencing life outside the world of video games and social networking sites. The jaw-dropping animation is light years away from that of Dayo and Urduja. This is the best Metro Manila Film Festival movie in years so try to catch it while it is still showing in some theaters

Sheika - Fe GingGing Hyde gives a stunning performance as a Tausug mother using her wiles to save her children from the evil ones. This film further enhances Arnel Mardoquio's reputation as an excellent regional filmmaker

MMFF 2010 Parade: Sina Super Inday, Fr. Jejemon, Agimat at Enteng ay nag-shake rattle and roll

2010-12-30T17:49:00.000-08:00

SMX, Mall of Asia, Pasay City (December 24, 2010) - Lovely stars and grand floats at the Metro Manila Film Festival Parade

MMFF 2010 Parade: RPG Metanoia

2010-12-29T19:59:00.000-08:00

SMX, Mall of Asia, Pasay City (December 24, 2010) - The voice talents of the wonderful animated film RPG Metanoia joined the Metro Manila Film Festival Parade.

**** If you can only watch one film this festival season, then watch this awesome film. The suave animation is light years away from that of Dayo and Urduja. There are lots of cool character designs including a yoyo-wielding boy and his heroic father. The story is interesting enough for kids and adults. The voice talents are mostly good with the exception of Aga Muhlach. ****

MMFF 2010 Parade: Rosario

2010-12-29T19:45:00.000-08:00

SMX, Mall of Asia, Pasay City (December 24, 2010) – The colorful and expensive float of Rosario amazed the people during the Metro Manila Film Festival Parade. It eventually won the Best Float award.

MMFF 2010 Parade: Dalaw

2010-12-28T20:16:00.000-08:00

SMX, Mall of Asia, Pasay City (December 24, 2010) – Kris Aquino and the scream team shrieked their way at the Metro Manila Film Festival 2010 Parade.

MMFF 2010 Parade: Ang Tanging Ina Mo (Last Na ‘To!)

2010-12-27T22:31:00.000-08:00

SMX, Mall of Asia, Pasay City (December 24, 2010) – Ai-Ai delas Alas and her brood participated at the Metro Manila Film Festival 2010 Parade.

Their comedy film nabbed nine awards including the Best Picture award. It also won awards for Best Actress (delas Alas), Best Director (Wenn Deramas), Best Screenplay (Mel del Rosario), Best Story (Mel del Rosario), Best Supporting Actress (Eugene Domingo), Best Musical Score (Jesse Lasaten), Best Child Performer (Xyriel Manabat) and the Gender Sensitive Award.

Happyland (2010, Jim Libiran)

2010-12-10T19:25:00.000-08:00

Who is the all-time highest goal-scorer of the Barcelona Football Club?

Is it David Villa of the World Cup 2010 winning team Spain? No. Is it exciting-to-watch Argentinian player Lionel Messi? No.

The answer is Paulino Alcantara. The early 20th-century footballer scored a phenomenal 357 goals in 357 matches! He is one of the legendary players of the venerable club. And, he is a Filipino.

Flashforward to the 21st century. The sport of football is no longer on the radar of most Filipinos. Despite cable television bringing live broadcasts of World Cup 2010 matches to local viewers, football did not make a huge dent in the consciousness of the Filipino people. It seldom dominates headlines and front page stories in our basketball-crazy country. So it is quite surprising and gladdening to read news, and see television coverage, of the Phl football team's entry into the semifinal round of the AFF Suzuki Cup 2010.

On the night the film Happyland had its world premiere at Cinemanila 2010 in Robinsons Movieworld Galleria, a spunky football team from the Philippines pulled a stunning 2-0 win over the defending champion team from Vietnam. Phil Younghusband, who had a cameo role in the film, scored the second goal for the defense-oriented Azkals. The extraordinary good news is a perfect assist to the advocacy of non-profit organization Futkal Inc and filmmaker Jim Libiran.

Futkal is an acronym for Futbol sa Kalye (Football on the Streets). The group passionately teaches children the game of football in an alternative way. It takes away the notion that football should be played only on soccer fields. It is definitely not a game only for rich kids. Anybody can play football in an abandoned street, open space, or vacant lot.

Jim Libiran returns once more to the streets of Tondo in Manila for his second film. Just like his debut film Tribu, he focuses on a group of young people. These impoverished young boys are no longer rappers but futkaleros or street footballers. A Spanish missionary priest named Fr. Jose manages the group and zealously preaches the gospel that football is the sport for Filipinos. He always tell the amazing exploits of footballer Paulino Alcantara in Europe to prove his point.

Shunning the edgy story, dark milieu, and raw violence of Tribu, Libiran molds a more mainstream film for his target audience: the youth. His new film deals with the problems of a varied set of young characters such as a neighborhood basketball idol, a fleet-footed snatcher, a pedicab driver, and a pair of solvent-sniffing friends. The straight-forward story traces how this odd group of resilient misfits rise to redemption. The best parts of the film are the football match segments. They give valuable insights on how the futkaleros play the game and how they behave. Their unorthodox playing style may not be the beautiful game played by the Germans or the Brazilians but it produces good results for the team. In March 2010, a Tondo futkalero was part of the Phl team that won a trophy at the Street Child World Cup in South Africa.

Happyland may not be a beautifully slick film, marred by still-to-be-refined blurry shots, but it gets an A for advocacy. Libiran plans to show the film to schools and youth clubs all over the country. The film screenings will hopefully result in more kids getting out from a drug and crime-filled life and getting into the wonderful world of football. Local teams winning tournament matches are mere bonuses.

Mondomanila (Khavn dela Cruz, 2010)

2010-12-06T09:26:00.000-08:00

These body fluids, this defilement, this shit are what life withstands…

Any crime, because it draws attention to the fragility of the law, is abject, but premeditated crime, cunning murder, hypocritical revenge are even more so because they heighten the display of such fragility.

-- Julia Kristeva, An Essay on Abjection

This is not another masterpiece by Khavn dela Cruz. This is not guerilla digital filmmaking at its finest. This is not the stuff of cinema: Certainly not about the high-jinks of the juvenile and the poor; the foisting upon audiences of the taboo and the abject; no, there is no subversive import lying just beneath the surface. No, this is not a film by Khavn dela Cruz. This is not his 28th film. This is not Mondomanila Filmfest Motherfuckers.

Frivolity aside, Mondomanila represents one of Khavn’s best films to date. Here is a flower of evil plucked from the fertile dung of the margins, blooming among the dregs of society; here is a work of uncompromising and unwavering vision, a film that was almost stillborn, but now here in our midst, jumping out at us like a jack-in-the-box, thumbing its nose at us who cower behind blinders. In a word, be prepared for a frightful but rollicking ride through a no-man’s land that we, the coddled, hold our breaths against and turn away from.

At the rotten core of Mondomanila are teenage layabout Tony and his juvenile posse, Paranoid X, pleasure-seeking delinquents without a future but never to be taken for pushovers. Here in their neighborhood of slums and garbage dumps, they are kings, and the cameras observe them in very close proximity, rendering them through hallucinatory filters, washed-out colors, split screens and strange lighting. These Bunuelian olvidados exhibit few inhibitions: young, brash and compliant, they mouth their syntax of obscenities and perform outrageous acts that straddle the lines of morality. They sing and rap, some of them break-dance, some hold small jobs, some don’t, but what makes them gravitate together, what defines them, are common misery and drug-induced fantasies.

Much of their adolescent fantasies, predictably, revolve around sex. Among them is a compulsive masturbator, who uncontrollably does his thing even in the group’s presence. Another literally engages in bestiality: easing himself on a live, squawking goose, just before he chops off its head. Lumped together, their sexual obsession is even worse: they peep on fornicating midgets and lesbian twins. Meanwhile, menace lurks in the background: Whiteboy, a Caucasian pedophile, makes no bones about his perverse ideology and submits the young kids of the neighborhood to “sexual slavery.” Soon his deviancy hits very close to home.

Figuratively, and all but literally, one gets buried neck-deep in Mondomanila’s proverbial bodily fluids. The immoral. The criminal. Few taboos remain unscathed here. Combining the abrasive aspects of his recent films namely Squatterpangk and The Family that Eats Soil, Khavn transvaluates Julia Kristeva’s notions of the abject and turns it from a source of horror to something darkly humorous. Instead of horrifying us and making our skin crawl, Khavn numbs and etherizes our sensibilities into a catharsis: blood, piss, excrement, bestiality, sodomy, and mutilation are here in plentiful doses that erode our guards. At some point we start to laugh; we wallow and luxuriate in it. Numbed and etherized in the abject, Khavn paves the way for his film’s subversive end.

Cunning murder, hypocritical revenge, to borrow Kristeva’s words, this is what the film deems its logical coda. Guile, cunning, hypocrisy are exactly the words that befit the crime, subsequently a composite of several crimes. The fact that the crime is compounded raises the acts to the level of the abject, many times over. We laugh nervously and must do a double-take, as the so-called heroes dance and sing for joy after the fact: We realize our rank complicity, our blurring concepts of right and wrong. We argue curiously: But doesn't the crime -- done as it is at the expense of someone draped with neo-colonial trappings -- translate to a symbolic act of patriotism? And how to explicate the aggravating actions after the crime? Reparations? Somehow it is so morally wrong; somehow it is so viscerally right.

Chassis (Adolfo Alix Jr., 2010)

2010-12-05T09:19:00.000-08:00

A truck. A homicidal, ten-ton truck. To see Adolf Alix’s Chassis is to step figuratively into the path of such an oncoming, runaway vehicle. For good measure, the same truck will back up on your convulsing body just to make sure it does the job. Alix’s latest film is just that, unforgiving. Unforgiving; it spares nobody. Not the film’s diegetic characters who must endure the grinding forces of poverty and harsh circumstance. Not the viewing audience, no matter how prepared it believes it is for a film like Chassis.

But don’t get me wrong. The same uncompromising virtues are what makes Chassis an ultimately commendable film. And I’m beginning to like it for the same reasons that may ultimately discourage a wider patronage. As with any genuine art, after all, common sensibilities are meant to be shocked and scandalized. It’s often ahead of its time. This is not to say, though, that Chassis is a work of such ground-breaking originality. One will recoil from this realization: that it’s a pauperized version of Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman.

I say “pauperized” for several reasons. One, Chassis is a literal pauperization, the story is transplanted to an impoverished scenario. Unlike the domesticated Jeanne Dielman, the heroine of Chassis is a woman without a home. Nora inhabits no living space of her own, but a parking lot in a harbor compound, where the underside of her chosen cargo truck serves as her roof. Like a hermit cab without a shell, she must look constantly for a home to live under. She must lug her few belongings – a cardboard mat, a few clothes, a few cooking utensils – from one chassis to another, at the mercy of the trucks’ brisk schedules. Two, what Akerman takes a monumental 201 minutes to dramatize and make a statement, Alix accomplishes in a dense and intense 73 minutes, a veritable slice of life.

Chassis, like Akerman’s film, however, is about self-sacrifice, an entrapment in helpless circumstance, and what happens when one’s reason for it ceases to exist. In Chassis, Nora is a woman trapped in a cycle of poverty and prostitution. She resigns herself to selling herself very cheaply in order to support a hand-to-mouth existence for herself, her lover and her young, uncomprehending daughter.

Her daughter represents the last consolation, a final lifeline, for whom she can sustain her state of indignity. She will put her through school on any pain. She will promise her what she can only grant through acts that degrade her in the eyes of everybody. Her smile is reserved just for her child. Never for anyone else, not for her lover, not for the truck drivers who use her like so much latrine, not her demi-monde kind in this compound, not for the Mormon missionary who tries to evangelize her.

Everything about Chassis is grim and dreary. Depicted in ominous tones of black-and-white, it seems forever set in a twilight hour. One never knows whether it’s lightening or darkening. All one senses is its sepulchral nature. The gargantuan specters of cargo ships and maritime industry, meanwhile, tower in the distance, as though never to stop for the negligible fates of humanity. But what stays with us, more crucially, is the film’s chiaroscuro portrait of a woman with nowhere to go: Nora, with her funereal mask of a face, her sleep-walking steps, her lifeless stance – the shorthand of wretched resignation.

While the last drastic gesture of Jeanne Dielman is born out of a long, cumulative process of prostitution and thankless domesticity, we can pinpoint the last straw that produces Nora’s act of rebellion. With Nora’s raison d’etre intact, however, it is foreseeable that she could go on and on indefinitely as a martyrized woman. Whether, like Jeanne Dielman, Chassis will become a feminist favorite, however, remains to be seen. Viewers have been reportedly put off by its unrelieved bleakness and hopelessness, remarking how utterly different Alix has turned out to be since the days of Donsol and Kadin. But that’s beside the point. To repress the reality depicted in Chassis just to humor our squeamish bourgeois sensibilities is just wrong; wronger when we do nothing from the comfort of our armchairs.

Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria (2010, Remton Siega Zuasola)

2010-12-04T19:37:00.000-08:00

Days before the start of the Cinema One Originals 2010, there were high expectations for the film entries of Richard Somes and Remton Zuasola. Somes gained a well-deserved reputation for his film Yanggaw, which won majority of the awards at the Cinema One Originals 2008. Zuasola won raves for his Cinemanila 2009 short feature winner To Siomai Love. I haven’t seen the latter, which was said to be a one-take wonder, so I wasn’t sure if he deserved some of the buzz. I became more curious about his Cinema One entry when I learned that it was also done in one take.

One-take full-length feature film? Can Zuasola really pull it off?

Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria exceeded all my expectations. The phenomenal film is a knockout combination of adept filmmaking and caustic portrait of a Filipina mail-order bride and her debt-ridden family. Imagine mixing some of the colorful female characters of Noli Me Tangere, the craziness and wittiness of a Joey Gosiengfiao comedy, the savvy skills of a real-time method filmmaker, and the competence of a Cebu-based crew and actors, and you've got yourself a potent brew of pure indie film goodness. It is so good that as the end credits roll on you cannot wait to watch it all over again. It is simply the must-see Pinoy indie film of 2010.

The film begins with a mother searching for her daughter, Eleuteria. Along with her husband and her other daughter, they scour the area for traces of the lanky teenager. The latter is seen trying to drown herself in a creek.

Eleuteria is a mail-order bride who, until the last minute, dillydallies with her decision to go to Germany. She has a local boyfriend. This fact, along with the thought of being ruthlessly shoved into marrying an elderly foreigner named Hans Kirschbaum, makes Eleuteria hesitant to go abroad. Ironically, these two factors become crucial decision changers in the end.

The spine-less boyfriend desperately coaxes her to elope but eventually surrenders because of strong opposition by the parents, relatives, and friends of Eleuteria. Another spine-less male figure is her fisherman father. The latter objects to his daughter's impending marriage but doesn't want to impose his will on the matter.

When she decided to drown herself, Eleuteria tries to call attention to the fact that she does not want to go away. Locked in a psychological battle, she just doesn't want to give in to the whims of her mother. However, constant nagging by her mother made her decide to accept her elder's wish. The belated decision is not so much a daughterly obedience but more of a rebellious, contemptuous act against her mother and the spineless male figures in her life. In a chance meeting with a childhood friend, she says she will never set foot again in their small hometown.

But, just like migratory birds frequenting it, they do come back to Olango Island, Cebu. Cousin Merle, recently separated from her German husband, comes home for good. With her savings, she is able to build a three-storey house. She is the one guiding Eleuteria every step of the way.

The film captures the long, eventful journey of Eleuteria from a creek to the boat terminal in a masterfully orchestrated one take. The ensemble acting is so natural and realistic that the local residents don't mind the shooting happening in their midst. The actors are just like members of a regular family out to send off one of their family member. Even the crazy guy seems to be not out of place. Most barrios in the Philippines have their share of loonies. In this film, the barrio has craziness as its theme for a fiesta. Aside from the crazy guy, there are other interesting characters in the film such as the scene-stealing father and the Paris, Italy-based (!?!) recruiter. Their interaction with one another produces loud guffaws from the audience. The witty screenplay is based on a novel by Maria Victoria Beltran.

Zuasola deserves all the hoopla (and awards) for his film. On the other hand, Somes' film Ishmael didn't live up to expectations. Its best scene shows a fallen alien unsheating his blades on his arms and whooping up hordes of Decepticons. Oops, I think that is from the film Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. See, I can barely remember good things about Ishmael. Somes loses his magic touch with his second film. I hope Zuasola doesn't succumb to the so-called sophomore jinx.

Astro Mayabang (2010, Jason Paul Laxamana)

2010-11-29T04:51:00.000-08:00

I'm amazed at the increasing number of young filmmakers in the movie industry. With Cinemalaya and Cinema One Originals leveling the playing field, all the tyros need to do is present feasible good screenplays. Their shortlisted stories are so refreshing, daring, and original that you just had to forgive them when they come up with untrammeled, technically unpolished, and information-overloaded films.

Astro Mayabang does not have that glossy and slick look of a major studio film but its screenplay has a few noteworthy things to say. It tells the story of a Kapampangan lad named Astro who wears his patriotism on his sleeves literally. Part of his daily get-up is a Philippine flag-inspired jacket and Pinoy pride shirts and paraphernalia.

The film takes a swipe on Filipinos who passionately latches on to all Pinoy achievements, no matter how small, in order to mask their shameful and disgusting behavior. Patriotic Astro has a flipside attitude in that he is a racist and a xenophobic. He castigates a couple of foreigners for refusing to give alms to a beggar. Misdirected criticisms against the others reflect on the idleness and insecurities of Astro. He should ask himself what he has done to improve the lot of his dysfunctional family and poor countrymen. They are barely scraping by but show-off Astro still keeps on buying those colorful, expensive limited edition shirts and jackets. This reflects on the fiesta mentality of some Filipinos. The latter are willing to go to loan sharks in order to serve sumptuous food dishes that leave a deep impression on visitors. Di bale nang mabaon sa utang, basta may maipagmayabang lang sa kapwa.

Astro goes to great lengths to proclaim his love for Pinoy singers and music groups but he buys only pirated compact discs. He is like one of those Facebook fanatics who keep on liking films they haven't seen at all. The film aptly puts it: ‘Loving someone doesn't end in simply claiming that you love someone or something.’ You have to walk the talk. Don't just proclaim your love for the artists, show it. Support your favorite singers by buying original CDs. Watch their films on movie houses. More importantly, emulate those traits that help Pinoy achievers excel in their respective fields.

Insecure Astro is not so much suffering from what Nick Joaquin noted as Filipinos' heritage of smallness but more so from lack of solid knowledge about his country's history, arts, politics, and cultural heritage. Yes, Astro has a superficial, tiny amount of Filipino-ness in him. He yearns for those rare Pinoy pride moments that temporarily boost his self esteem. Astro even appropriates some foreigners in his small set of contemporary idols and icons. His concept of an idol is one carved out of colonial mentality and love for Hollywood. All across his room are pictures of 8-division world boxing champion Manny Pacquiao, 'Glee' actress Charice Pempengco, Journey lead singer Arnel Pineda, wrestling icon Batista, Tony winner Lea Salonga, and even that of Cristeta Comerford. Cristeta who? She is the Executive Chef of US President Barack Obama.

Take away the temporary phenomenal effect of the Pacquiao fights and Astro will not be as happy and proud to be a Filipino. What if Pacquiao retires from boxing or, shudder the thought, loses a match? Who will then give a boost to the superficial Filipino-ness of the youth? Politicians? Entertainers? Indie filmmakers? The latter group has been a steady provider of good news to Filipinos. Their award-winning films have conquered film festivals around the world.

A character from the film remarked that Filipino films suck. Well, he might change his mind after watching the wonderful entries from the Cinema One Originals Digital Film Festival 2010. In an amazingly fruitful year, majority of the films are good enough to warrant repeat viewings. Astro Mayabang, marred somewhat by the repetitive use of footages, boasts of fine performances by Arron Villaflor and Megan Young. It received a special citation from the festival jury and nabbed the Audience Choice award, which seems to be based on box-office performance. Jason Laxamana must have been proud. Hmm, a popular hit and a critical citation for a debut film? Not bad for an undergrad student.

Layang Bilanggo (Mike Dagñalan, 2010)

2010-11-19T08:32:00.001-08:00

There is much to admire in the early goings of Layang Bilanggo. The first 10 or so minutes are a study in storytelling restraint and concision, an opening sequence that redounds to great directorial promise. First, we are given to witness an assassin’s pinpoint precision as he executes a hit. The film then cuts to a jail office where a journalist and the chief warden discuss rumors of prisoner-assassins. The warden hems and haws, clearly concealing the truth. Subsequently, we get the assassin's vantage, his double life in prison... In a few precise and penetrating scenes that reflect and lay bare the urgency of what it dramatizes, the film sets up an absorbing premise and introduces the disturbing reality of the prisoner-for-hire.

Prisoner-for-hire. That criminal mutation born out of extreme state impunity and corruption, on the payroll and protection of penitentiaries that are supposed to reform him. In Mike Dagñalan’s sophomore film, the focus falls on one such assassin named Paul, a man who is caught on the horns of a dilemma. He wants to turn his life around, but he is helpless. For him, there is no exit: middle-aged and all, he must keep on killing to remain useful to his sponsors, to whom the diminishment of his abilities might spell expendability. Death. His is a cheapened life whose fate is not his to decide.

There are two parallel strands that interweave to tell this man’s story. One strand traces his apparent past as an assassin who gets instructions from a warden named Adamos and a shadowy godfather. Even in the confines of such irregular circumstances, there are still other irregularities: power struggles among penitentiary officials, and machinations for his criminal services. Which is where the film starts to lose it. These sequences comprise some of the subplots that unnecessarily complicate the film, where a little narrative restraint would have been to the point.

The other strand of Paul’s story is his search for his daughter and his admission into Anawim, an institution for the aged. Here he is a curious presence. While the real denizens of Anawim grapple with dementia and second childhoods, Paul turns out fine portraits. We soon realize why he is here: why he noticeably has a close rapport with the home's art teacher. She is his abandoned daughter. He has found her. There is no outright reunion, but that doesn’t stop the film from approximating it. Suffice it to say: she soon calls him father.

Such is the suspect dramatic roundedness of Layang Bilanggo. It is crammed with all the melodramatic elements beloved to Filipino tastes. Listen to its twist-a-minute delights: The sad, elderly stories in Anawim. The alliance of a cop and a criminal. The formidable foe in a woman assassin. A father and daughter’s de facto, if momentary, reunion. The high-body-count finale: What more can a casual filmgoer want?

Quick eventfulness seems to be the filmmakers' overriding credo and Layang Bilanggo's ultimate undoing. The film, it turns out, credits four scriptwriters. Throw in a script consultant in the person of Bing Lao, who must have wielded little veto power, and you have the makings of an over-determined and overwritten story. Where a more direct expose on a disturbing criminal reality would have sufficed in making a powerful and unforgettable and relevant statement, Dagñalan stubbornly elects to tell a story chockful of popular and sensational action and drama. Layang Bilanggo may have romped off with the top prizes at the recent Cinema One Film Festival but it remains the work of a callow filmmaker. This is not yet Kubrador or Kinatay or Bakal Boys. This is glorified soap opera.

Ishmael (Richard Somes, 2010)

2010-11-18T10:06:00.000-08:00

Richard Somes knows how to hardsell his latest film. Ishmael, he declares, is a homage to the Filipino western. A salute to a long-lamented genre, a shout-out to the pantheon of cowboy icons of the past. He rattles off the names one by one: Lito Lapid, Dante Varona, and Ramon Revilla Sr. Ah names to remember, he sighs, and his words whet our appetite, treble our expectation of impending fun. Expectation, perhaps, of a humorous spoof, or a deadpan tribute.

Alas, for all its declared heritage, for all the hoopla around this new film by the celebrated director of Yanggaw, Ishmael is a paradox of a failure. There is little to none of our own spaghetti lore revisited in this film. None of the director’s mustachioed heroes. (The mustache seems to be his fetish.) None of the genre’s tropes and trademarks. (Sure it features the trope of revenge, but so does any kung fu film.) None of the wide-brimmed hat; the skittish horses, the hot, sandy deserts.

It’s not as if Somes is aiming for something more cerebrally unique, more intricately intertextual. Somes himself declares, at the outset, how Ishmael is little more than a genre exercise. Leaving aside this authorial self-deprecation, one regrets to report that the writer-director is not wide of the mark. And worse. What Somes perhaps believes to be new and innovative is the persistent referencing of films outside the genre of the western – as if to do so is to transfuse new blood and resuscitate this dead category. Epic fail. The effect is plain pastiche. All the allusions point to are the viewing habits of Somes: Anglo-American, sure. While at it, Somes does not disguise his filmic methods and modalities: he quotes generously and flagrantly.

Notice The Night of the Hunter knuckle tattoos on Ishmael. Disappointingly, the tattoos on this ex-convict, returning to a town ruled by a messianic cult figure, tell no story. They are not so much palimpsestic layers but so much like badly done graffiti. Notice the scripture-quoting character from Pulp Fiction, the megalomaniac who counterpoints Ishmael’s down-and-out figure. This film drips with so much Tarantino obsession that it’s hard to shake off the image of Samuel L. Jackson quoting chapter and verse. Notice towards the end the Edward Scissorhands’ weaponry at work, part and parcel of a character who resurrects from the dead to unleash his inner Rambo, his murderous rampage.

That may be the most intriguing moment in Somes’ film -- its sudden, last-ditch flight from realism, the last-second departure from the predictable. We have been waiting for the irreverence, the impiety at the expense of the conventions of this double-dead genre to kick in and here it is…But too little, too late. Everything that came before bleeds into it, engulfed by our ennui and indifference.

Ishmael remains very good to look at, but hardly disguises its architectonic flaws. It is sumptuously photographed and well put-together from latter-day film techniques, the handiwork of an accomplished and au-courant filmmaker, but the screenplay is scantily, too safely written. A script doctor would have helped a lot. As it stands, the script is severely wanting, perhaps the element of the sustained send-up, or perhaps a modicum of tension that could propel it through the swathes of expendable exposition. Expendable exposition is what happens when a film is meant to be a vehicle for its acting talents. The speaking parts here are not particularly piquant but just plain redundant.

The compelling villain also eludes this film. Not even Mark Gil’s efforts at camp and tongue-in-cheek delivery deflect and redeem the Tarantino borrowings: the effect is neither chilling nor humorous. His figure is an ironic Messiah, a Pontius Pilate and lecher rolled into one, and still seems not evil enough. His minions always do his bidding, even when we like our villains rough-and-tumble, their dastardly deeds not overheard but evident. Yet the little touches could have sufficed. The lone telling moment about him is his choice of a serenade piece: atonal music on the piano a la Arnold Schoenberg. Good one.

Ishmael, in the end, is not even close to imitating the western. What it parallels better is the samurai. This is no better exemplified than by the fight scenes at the film’s climax, with one man, strapped with bolo blades at both hands, taking on a townful of religious cultists. Reverberations of Masaki Kobayashi’s Hara Kiri or Kihachi Okamoto’s Sword of Doom are set off. He is like an avenging, exterminating angel. Coming back from the dead, he may be staking a claim to the mantle of the real messiah. Or maybe just staking a claim to redemption, a little of dignity.

Third World Happy (2010, EJ Salcedo)

2010-11-13T17:17:00.000-08:00

This smart and competent film of Edward James Salcedo was the third consecutive good film I saw at the Cinema One Originals Digital Film Festival, which is ongoing at the Shangri-la Plaza Mall. The sixth edition of the film festival promises to be the best ever yet in terms of higher-than-average quality of competing films and exhibition films such as Confessional, Wanted: Border, Hesus Rebolusyonaryo, and Serafin Geronimo: Ang Kriminal ng Baryo Concepcion. The last two films were shown last weekend on cable channel Cinema One as part of the film festival's tribute to maverick indie director Lav Diaz.

Third World Happy is the best Sam Milby film I've seen yet. The acting ensemble, the direction, and the screenplay are all superb. The dashing actor still speaks in an American accent but this time it fits his character Wesley Tecson, a gifted painter based in the USA who comes back to the Philippines because of the death of a loved one. In the course of his stay here, he encounters what it is like to be happy and contented.

Milby doesn't bare his abs but gets to effectively bare the angst of his character. Wes is a Fullbright scholar who ends up as a lowly assistant in an art gallery in New York. He shies away from contact with his family and friends in the Philippines. One of those he left behind is his ex-girlfriend Aylynn (Jodi Sta. Maria). The scene showing the initial meeting of the two after 12 years of separation was well directed by Salcedo. The characterization of the two former lovers were so fleshed out that the audience gets to empathize with both of them. Sta. Maria was so good in portraying a jilted woman trying to put up a brave front. Giving ample support to the leads are Melissa Mendez, Archie Alemania, and a host of other actors.

New filmmaker Edward James Salcedo based the film's story from his life experiences. A proud Thomasian, having graduated from dear old UST Elementary in 1983, Salcedo finished high school and college in the United States. Racism changed his world viewpoint. Life in the First World is not as happy as in the Third World. He persevered in the competitive world of advertising, where he encountered similar people stuck in their day jobs because of the need to pay the bills. Most have given up on their dreams to become comic book artists and filmmakers. The death of his uncle led EJ back to the Philippines where he eventually got to fulfill his dream of being a filmmaker. In 2007, the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino nominated EJ Salcedo's short feature Talahib, which dealt with faded dreams.

The theme of lost dreams also crops up in Third World Happy. Much expectations were borne by Wes in the United States. Everybody expected him to conquer the art world. But, not everybody can be a Juan Luna.

I like the character Achi in the film. She is first seen reading the book Ilustrado, which suggests that the dead is not who you expect it to be. She envies author Miguel Syjuco for having conquered the literary world. Wes asks her why she doesn't pursue her writing. Achi replies that she had to take over managing their family's funeral business. On the day of Wes' departure, she is able to make Wes proud of her writing. She may not have been a Syjuco but at least her well-written obituaries can still make a huge difference.

Wes realizes that he doesn't have to live to the expectations of people. He doesn't have to create a Spoliarium or an Ilustrado to make people proud of him or to make them happy. They are already happy. He just needs to do what is important and joyful for him to do. At the end of the film, he goes home.

I loved the last frame of the movie. Wesley's miniature painting looms big in Aylynn's room. Yes, bigger than Juan Luna's Spoliarium.

The Cinema of Celso Ad Castillo (2009, Produced by Byron Ron Bryant)

2010-11-12T15:40:00.000-08:00

A lot of movie industry people were interviewed for this documentary on the legacy of filmmaker Celso Ad Castillo. Some of them call him Maestro. Others look up to him as a genius. Lav Diaz affectionately describes him as a madman. But, I tend to agree most with their observations that Castillo is a visual artist par excellence.

One of the best visual stylists in local cinema, Castillo was aptly described by Peque Gallaga as a lucky cinematic animal. The heavens and the weather conspire to create a picturesque moment every time he shoots a film. Castillo admits to having fits over the setting up of his first ever camera placement. But, once he got over it, he goes on to utilize his being a former comic book illustrator to paint beautifully-framed stories.

Check out the odd camera angles of his horror classic Patayin Mo Sa Sindak Si Barbara. The coffin being carried out of the hearse seems to have a 3-D effect of trying to break through the screen. The eerie mirror reflection of Ruth's diabolical glare still brings shiver to the spine. The haunting visuals and spooky soundtrack bolster the film's reputation as a scary terrifying flick.

There's a story behind the famous wet look popularized by beauty queen Gloria Diaz in Ang Pinakamagandang Hayop sa Balat ng Lupa. She narrates how she was showered with lots of movie contracts after her return from the United States. From those offers, she chooses Castillo's. She was so impressed with the filmmaker's Patayin Mo Sa Sindak Si Barbara that she promptly said yes. New and still naive in the film industry, she hikes off to location shooting with nary a change of clothing and underwear. The film crew accompanies her to a nearby town to look for a bra. The available ones for sale are so bad Diaz decides not to wear a bra in the movie. Since the movie is set along the sea coast, there are shots of Diaz in a wet, see-through dress. The catfight between Diaz and Elizabeth Oropesa on the coastline is the stuff that wet dreams are made of.

Castillo went on to do much more revealing films for the Manila International Film Festival and the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines. His films Virgin People and Snake Sisters emerged as top-grossing flicks. There is a clip from Snake Sisters that shows Castillo's wicked sense of framing. We see a young scantily-clad female hunter searching for a prey. With her body crouched low, her posterior is prominently seen and surrounding it are dozens of erect phallic sticks.

I remember reading an article that says that of all the sex films shown at the Manila Film Center during the Marcos era, Castillo's Isla was said to have had the horniest effect on the audience. The story seems to imply that the Film Center insider based his assessment on the sticky state of the theater after a full-house screening of the film. A tantalizingly nude Maria Isabel Lopez frolicking in the sands and sea is simply too much to handle for itching viewers.

Castillo loves casting beautiful women in his films. He also adores the sea and the rain. Almost always there is a scene in his films set along the waters or set during a rainy day. Ron Bryant, a protege of Castillo, indirectly paid tribute by directing a Cinema One Originals film titled Alon, a story of a pretty, nubile girl vacationing at a seacoast village. Bryant upped the ante by helping create this eye-opening documentary.

The best visual revelation I'd discovered from the documentary was seeing traces of Fernando Amorsolo in Castillo's agrarian film Ang Alamat ni Julian Makabayan. The enchanting sunlight bathing the fields, the colorful attire of the farmers, and the framing of the daily rituals allude to several paintings of Amorsolo. Aside from the visual references to Amorsolo, the film is also memorable for those shots of farmers seemingly bonded to the lands. From a distance, a group of farmers are busy doing planting chores. Most of the time we see them with only their upper body half visible. The missing legs say a lot about rural bondage and feudalism in our country.

I'm extremely thankful to Cinema One Originals 2010 for giving moviegoers a rare chance to view bits of Castillo's works at Shang Cineplex's Premiere Theatre, a top-tier luxurious movie theater with excellent sound system. Castillo and Lav Diaz are this year's worthy recipients of a tribute by the annual competition for independent filmmakers. Cinema One Originals 2010 is ongoing at the Shangri-la Plaza Mall until Tuesday, November 17.

Andrew Leavold's Search for Weng-Weng (or, the Story of the Pinoy Grindhouse Cinema)

2010-11-07T00:25:00.000-07:00

Blood (red, green, and splattered all over). Boobies (perky, taut, and free from silicone implants). Bullets (and bamboo spears and lots of bombings).

These are the elements of the B-movies, which were the focus of Andrew Leavold’s November 4, 2010 lecture at UP Videotheque. Popular fare in drive-in theaters, these movies also end up as the second, lesser film in a twin-bill offering. Ranging from horror films, women-in-prison dramas, post-apocalyptic revenge flicks, they have been described as trash, crass, and low class. But, to those hordes of people who grew up watching them in Betamax or VHS tapes, these films have been wonderful guilty pleasures. Judging from the audience response to a preview of Mark Hartley's documentary Machete Maidens Unleashed, a new generation of moviegoers is ready to partake of the sumptuous silliness of Philippine-made grindhouse movies.

Some of the more memorable cheesy exploitation films were made and produced in our country. Quentin Tarantino remarked that the Philippines is unique in being a filmmaking country with two distinct industries. There is a film industry that caters to local audiences. LVN Films, Regal Films, and Star Cinema belong to this group. There is another film industry that caters exclusively to international viewers. This segment is responsible for the Roger Corman-produced horror films, Eddie Romero's Blood Island trilogy, and the Chuck Norris actioners.

Leavold spoke of how Filipino visionaries and businessmen such as Conrado ‘Boy’ Puzon, Bobby Suarez, and Cirio Santiago dabbled into this goldmine of exporting films. Puzon bought local films for a pittance. He refurbished and dubbed them into foreign languages. He made lots of money selling them to video and film distributors all over the world. The Anthony Alonzo-starrer W is War made it to Europe. An IMDB reviewer described the film as ‘one of the bizarre masterpieces’ from Europe. Suarez initially started dubbing Chinese films into English. He then made a couple of films such as Cleopatra Wong and The One-Armed Executioner, both of which penetrated the almost-impregnable North American market.

Cirio Santiago is a name I grew up with. As a teenager I used to borrow tapes from the neighborhood Betamax rental store twice a month. There came a time when I have watched all the famous films (read: award-winners and commercial hits). I started venturing out with unknown titles. One of those obscure titles I saw was Cirio Santiago’s Stryker.

Theatrically released in the Philippines as Battle Truck, Stryker tells the story of a loner in a post-apocalyptic world. Good guys and bad guys fight it out over scarce water. They ride in armored-clad cars, gas-guzzling motorcycles, and a heavily-fortified truck. It had been years since that fateful viewing but I still remember the midget pissing on the lead character’s face, the scantily-clad girls, and the truck magically evading all sorts of obstacles (Shoot the wheels! Shoot the wheels! Aah, idiots). I didn’t know then that it was a rip-off of Road Warrior. I was just a high school kid having lots of fun watching it. My enjoyment of the film was amplified because the film was made in the Philippines. Wow! I became more proud because the international film was directed by a Pinoy filmmaker. Little did I know that those exported films will reach, and profoundly affect, other kids like Quentin Tarantino, who ended up as an ardent fan.

On the other side of the world, an Australian boy in Bahrain makes do with pirated tapes of films. He encounters some outlandish films with actors of unknown nationality. They don’t look like Chinese and they neither resemble Mexicans. A close encounter with a 2.9 feet midget named Weng Weng sets the young Leavold to begin probing the origin of those films. Having identified them to be Philippine-made, he scours for more of those weirdly-attractive films. The decades-long passion for Pinoy B-movies resulted in a documentary, a doctoral thesis, and a humongous, to-die-for collection of 700 tapes/videos of obscure Philippine-made films.

Leavold is an engaging speaker with lots of stories to tell. He narrates how Cirio Santiago would usually bring a jeepney at Malate and hauls aboard a troop of almost drunk, sleepy Caucasians willing to join the day’s shoot. He also speaks of how marketing savvy people pushed up the name of local actor/s to top billing even if he/she appears only for a few minutes in the international film.

Leavold’s inexhaustible love and respect for those Pinoy B-movies has a magical way of rubbing on to his listeners. A UP Film graduate complained that she had a hard time getting access to those B-movies. Leavold then spoke of a magical place where nearly all the rare stuff that film buffs want to view is available. Quiapo is the place where he finally got a copy of Romero's The Ravagers. The pretty graduate then remarked that she may have to break her vow of not buying pirated DVDs. Those B-movies seem to be so irresistibly fun.

A Caucasian friend of Leavold told of how scared he was during their sojourn to Quiapo. On the day major western countries issued travel advisories, there they were in crowded Quiapo. He kept hearing 'Americans, Americans' in the utterances of the people. He might have been a new visitor who mistook the people's hospitality and over-eagerness to help for hostile acts. What about Leavold? Well, he didn't mention any untoward incidents. He just mentioned that he wants to learn Filipino in order to better understand the films of Chiquito. In fact, he will return to the Philippines in 2011 to shoot an action film with the members of what he affectionately calls the goon community of local cinema.

In 2007, Quentin Tarantino brought his stash of Pinoy B-films for screening at the Cinemanila festival. He also rode a pedicab in going to Malacañang Palace. In 2010, Andrew Leavold braved the throng in Quiapo to get his loot of priceless pirated DVDs. If these distinguished people were willing to risk their limbs just to put the spotlight on Pinoy B-movies, then those films must have been worth viewing.

Haven't seen a B-movie? Take the plunge and explore the fascinating flipside of Philippine cinema. The films are outrageously funny and adventurous, and just like comfort food, they are nice to devour once in a while.

The Social Network (2010, David Fincher)

2010-10-22T19:17:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite comic strip characters is Charlie Brown. He's a good guy but has problems getting noticed by the girl of his dreams. He makes those beautiful hand-written cards that remain unsent. Maybe, he isn't sure if the girl is available or if they have anything in common. Absence of a ring on her finger does not automatically mean that she is single and unattached. Girls also don't go around with a sign that says 'I like chocolates' or 'I'm a passionate cinephile.' Charlie badly needs someone or something to help him with his problem.

Maybe, that someone is Mark Zuckerberg. Maybe, that something is Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook came into existence in spring of 2004. It was too late for Charlie Brown, who ceased to live, along with his Peanuts mates, in February 2000. However, I'm sure that there are thousands, make that millions of 'Charlie Browns' out there using the Facebook to befriend someone or to score a date.

The first scene of the brilliant, wildly entertaining film sees Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) having a date. He talks so fast that I had a hard time catching up with what he is saying. What his pretty date heard though is enough to make her head for the exit. The young man can't get over the failed date. With booze in hand, he ranted against her in his blog. Soon, he realizes what a jerk he had been and tries to woo the girl all over again. The rest of the film takes a look at the project he creates in order to catch the attention of the girl, Erica (Rooney Mara). What he created is really an attention grabber.

Current statistics reveal that the once-small Harvard-based information sharing project has grown into a worldwide phenomenon. Facebook now has 500 million active users. These people spend over 700 billion minutes per month on the website. Wow! That is a staggering amount of time.

Most of the Facebook use time is allotted to lurking, as suggested by a report released by computer security firm Palo Alto Networks. A minimal amount is spent updating comments and playing games. People are more concerned with what their friends are doing, their plans, their current moods, and of course, their relationship status.

The must-see foreign film presents a fascinating ringside account of how the interplay of technical wizardry and knowledge of human needs led to the creation of Facebook. It reminds me of another attention-grabbing, twisted online project which exploited the basic need to love/belong and be loved. In 2000, a Pinoy programming student named Onel de Guzman inserted a computer virus in an email with the subject line ‘I Love You.’ The note contains an attachment that, when opened, re-sends the message to everyone in the recipient’s Microsoft Outlook address book. It also leads to the loss of every JPEG and certain other files on the recipient’s hard disk. The Love Bug wrecked havoc on millions of computers around the world in a single day.

Who can resist the urge to click on an ‘I Love You’ attachment or ‘Accept Friend Request’ button? Maybe the girl who ditched Mark Zuckerberg. The ending shows the young man lurking and patiently waiting for that important Facebook notification.

Shake Rattle & Roll X (2008, Mike Tuviera / Topel Lee)

2010-10-17T06:46:00.000-07:00

Filmmakers Mike Tuviera and Topel Lee tried their best to scare viewers in the first two chapters, which are set in places people are likely to regard as safe and secure. Emergency is an aswang story set in a busy hospital. A major theme from the short feature is environmental degradation, which also crops up in the Tuviera-megged Nieves. The aswangs are forced to come out after incursions by people into their forest haven. They fight back after the death of their leader's child.

I love the black smoke effects by Larger Than Life. The ceiling-and-wall climbing aswangs need a little bit of tinkering and polishing, though.

Class Picture segment stars Gerald Anderson, Kim Chiu, and Erich Gonzales. It deals with a group of students attempting to stop a curse wrought by a nun who taught at 19th century San Selino College. The short feature is good enough for a few shrieks.

The handful of scares gives way to laughter. Yes, you read it right. Laughs came courtesy of the charming third segment featuring Marian Rivera as a kooky slayer named Nieves. Think of a 21st-century Gabriela Silang. Provide her with a Batman-worthy belt set and a native bag full of amulets, potions and knick-knacks (bluetooth headset!). Then, garb her in a sexy ultra-modern terno. What you get is the first engkantolarya, a lovely and courageous slayer of jealous engkantos, mischievous creatures, and terrifying monsters.

Nieves is a female albularyo raised to the next level. Not only can she cure mysterious illnesses, she kills off the root of the maladies with the ease of Buffy. Add the frank, acerbic wit of a stand-up comic, the pop culture sensibility of a jolog, and the mesmerizing beauty of a lovestruck angel, and you've got yourself one of the best movie characters in a long, long while.

Nieves was supposed to have a spin-off film last year but it didn't push through. It would have been a well-deserved break from the Shake, Rattle & Roll (SRR) formula of pure thrills and chills.

The horror series is a perennial blockbuster during the holiday season. But, most of the stories are basically pedestrian, recycled ones. Regal Films is wily enough to throw in the star power in order to camouflage the weaker segments. The tenth edition of the series is one of the better editions yet. Nieves is up there with the SRR gems such as Ishmael Bernal's Pridyider. For those wondering, Rivera has a starring role in an entry to the 2010 Metro Manila Film Festival. I hope she does magic once more to her new character, Super Inday.

Patayin Mo Sa Sindak Si Barbara (1974, Celso Ad Castillo)

2010-10-11T19:37:00.000-07:00

The smart and pretty accurate title says it all! This classic is really a terrifying chiller of a movie.

Nurse Barbara Enriquez (Susan Roces) comes back to the Philippines to attend the wake and interment of her stepsister, Ruth Martinez (Rosanna Ortiz). She extends her stay in order to help her niece Karen cope with the loss of her mother. Meanwhile, strange things begin tormenting the members of the household.

Director Castillo utilized mirror and glass reflections to enhance the visual appeal of the film. He also came up with distorted shots and eerie camera angles to heighten the terror index.

I can’t forget the cemetery scene involving Ruth and Barbara. I remember Rosanna Ortiz from her films with Dolphy. I never imagine that she can be this effective in portraying a vengeful woman. The piercing glances of Ruth are diabolic. The scorned woman is really bent on killing people who have hurt her. From that point on, the suspense goes on full throttle until the end of the movie.

One of my favorite scary moments sees Fritz Martinez (Dante Rivero) approaching Barbara at the fountain. You can feel Barbara is uncomfortable talking to Fritz. The audience is left wondering if they indeed had an affair. There is unbearable icy tension because Ruth may chance upon them. When the doll appeared, I nearly jumped from my seat. The excellent music score played a big part in setting the mood.

The only false note in the film is Barbara's attempt to calm down Karen by reciting the Apostle's Creed. Susan Roces' delivery bordered on campiness. That was the only thing that marred Roces' otherwise fine performance.

I hope Cinema One includes this horror classic in its annual film festival/competition. It deserves to be seen in a darkened movie theater. Try to imagine ogling the eyes of the vengeful Ruth on the big screen! Whew! That ought to be a spine-tingling moviehouse experience.

Sheika (2010, Arnel Mardoquio)

2010-10-01T19:48:00.001-07:00

The film Sheika, a captivating and haunting valentine to the beautiful but violence-wracked island of Mindanao, is my favorite at the Cinemalaya 2010 festival. The powerful images (eg. an 'imprisoned' Gary reading Shie's journal) and life-affirming stories crawl their way into your head and stay embedded there along with your cherished memories.

Fe GingGing Hyde comes up with a devastating performance as Shie, a Tausug widow who lost her mind after the deaths of her sons. I cannot forget the part wherein she attempts to shield her son from an assassin’s coup-de-grace. Her unexpected action at the bridge is the best I’ve seen yet of maternal love and sacrifice in local cinema. Until the very end, she fiercely protects her children from the snares of the devil. Diyablo. That is the word she used to describe the goons. It bespeaks of the deep hatred she had for these fiends.

Combining the sensuality of Charito Solis, the fierceness of Nora Aunor, and the subdued acting of Lolita Rodriguez, Hyde is so awesome that I can’t think of any actress that may do justice to the role of Shie. I was wondering who the festival officials had in mind for the main character. It was said that a pair of Cinemalaya officials voiced out their preference for a mainstream actress.

Filmmaker Arnel Mardoquio did the right thing in withdrawing his film from the New Breed competition. He refused to heed the 'suggestions' of the powers that be. He stuck with his decision to film with a purely Mindanao-based crew and actors. In the end, he was vindicated. The resulting film eventually won the Netpac Award.

The bittersweet movie boasts of a brave, gripping script and lovely soundtrack. It is the first indie film to deal directly with the notorious Death Squad in Davao City. Previous films, such as the excellent Imburnal and Engkwentro, only allude to extra-judicial killings by nameless death squads. Sheika takes the issue head on. It presents the true story of a mother who’d lost her four sons to the heartless assassins of Davao City. It indicts the local business group for supporting the death squad members.

The soundtrack does not seem to include a song by Joey Ayala, but his song themes are very much apparent. Davao City and Mindanao in the film were not unlike the places depicted in the songs of Ayala. Gun-related violence and bloodshed mar the beautiful city and the bountiful island. Hamletting and discord are widespread. With corpses springing out from nowhere, the city is slowly turning into a cemetery. Pastilan! Pastilan... Ang Dabaw ay sementeryo!

However, just like Shie, Davao City and the rest of Mindanao can still recover from a traumatic past. Twisted loving care from a friend helped Shie to get well. Local songwriters and filmmakers seem to agree that love can overcome violence and hatred in Mindanao. The Cinemalaya 2010 standouts Limbunan and Sheika both utilized Asin's immortal song Himig ng Pag-ibig in their soundtracks. Amidst all the misery and ugliness brought by the war, the Mindanaoan filmmakers are still hopeful that beauty, peace, and love will reign someday in the southern Philippine island.

Terror is A Man (Gerry de Leon, 1959)

2010-09-24T08:57:00.001-07:00

Terror is A Man is a taut and superbly-crafted horror b-movie that terrifies on a visceral and psychological as much as a scientific level. The title could not have been better chosen: it’s a resonant billing and advertising come-on rolled into one. Terror and man, in the hands of the future National Artist, Gerry de Leon, truly equate. For the purposes of the genre, there is the putative beast of terror on the loose, while the real monster preens, man-like, on the foreground. This film revivifies and returns to the thematic concerns of The Island of Dr. Moreau and Frankenstein, among other models, as it skewers the arrogant anthropocentrism of man and the cold, inhuman methods of science.

A remote, misty and shadowy island off South America, the ominously named Blood Island, is the locus where terror reigns. De Leon conjures an eerie and expressionist island with minimal fuss and even more minimal budget, an island where a crazed scientist named Charles Girard rules with the sanction of science. Performing countless surgeries, transplants, and other disfiguring experiments on a panther, he seeks to bring about a new and improved species of man, a man without the burdens of unproductive emotions.

The film's monster of science, a furry biped midway between animal and man, follows a cardinal principle of horror: he is a monster kept, literally, under wraps for much of the film. In fact, he is never completely visible, always either drenched in shadows, or swaddled in layers of gauze. When he starts to wreak revenge, we are held breathless by what he does and inflicts more than what he must look under the bandages. When the islanders start to die, they flee en masse just as an American survivor of a shipwreck is washed onshore. What this newcomer, a man named William Fitzgerald, finds on the island are unwilling accomplices to the heedless experiments: Frances, Girard’s wife and unwilling nurse; Walter, the doctor’s minion who lusts after the doctor’s wife; and a couple of native servants.

De Leon makes do with a shoestring budget and true poverty aesthetics. Filmed on location in Corregidor and Cavite and other parts of Luzon in the Philippines, with an able cast of mostly American actors, Terror is A Man was shot in grainy black-and-white with bare and spare settings and yet has the look and feel of a well-oiled Hollywood b-movie production. Filipino exploitation, in the form of other horror fare and women’s prison flicks, was still a decade or so away, but de Leon’s effort could very well have served as a prototype and template for those following in his footsteps.

At a time of heated debates worldwide about the pitfalls of genetic experimentation, Terror is A Man has the potential for a revival. With its eerie imagery of disfiguration and sadism, it packs a potent argument against the free, unregulated enterprise of scientific study. De Leon may be simply paying homage to favored classics by H.G. Wells and Shelley, but perhaps he had a strong prescience of scientific dilemmas to come, and the underpinnings of moral rectitude to back it up.

Ang Mundo sa Panahon ng Yelo (2009, Mes de Guzman)

2010-09-19T16:31:00.000-07:00

Ice is the Earth is the magnificent opening salvo of Mes de Guzman’s trilogy of films dealing with the plight of ordinary Filipinos. Films about our poor countrymen? Again? The award-winning filmmaker was not entirely happy with his choice of film themes. He wants to someday make a film that is full of hope but in the meantime he shares some indelible images of poverty and melancholic life of Juan de la Cruz.

The first ten minutes or so of the film are presented in an almost documentary fashion, with a warm narration that lures audience to the chilly, dangerous world of the mangangabogs/fish herders and tripulantes/boat workers in southern Philippines. Child divers steer fishes through the nets. They ensure that small stones don’t get caught up in the nets. During lulls in fishing action, the fish herders do errands or serve as lookouts.

A charming, powerful segment is the montage of playtime aboard the vessel. It is a believable portrait of idyllic moments. From skipping ropes through clapping games and wracking brains during the different board games, the men had lots of fun. Those with spare money spend some time in karaoke joints. However, too much idle time wearies down the younger ones.

Enchanting images from karaoke videos spur 14-year-old Pempe (Elijah Castillo) to cajole his brother Digos (Edwin Pamanian) about moving to Manila. These incessant pleadings by Pempe become a major irritant in the daily lives of the two orphans. Their supervisor noticed their rift and decides to transfer Pempe to an ice factory near Manila.

Ice. Sea.

These two elements dominate the film as much as the two orphans. The brothers are rumored to be mermen. They are full of energy when at sea. The warmth of brotherly love negates the devastating coldness of the ocean. Hence, when Pempe decides to get away from the sea and his brother, he ends up like a fish out of the water. The film then shows the importance of constant heart-warming communication. Visits by Digos become scarce due to distance and work. The anger felt by the youngster becomes an icy, impervious wall that never thaws even after his death. His lifeless body is covered up in ice just like the fishes dropped off at ports.

Filmmaker de Guzman is a gifted storyteller. His combination of words and images is vivid and memorable. Take for example the striking image of rusting ships. It captures perfectly how the Marcos family and their cronies left the Philippines in a sorry, crumbling state. Pier Kalawang is an apt description for the country.

The director has an interesting acting find in Edwin Pamanian. Cut from the same mold as Tsai Ming-liang’s Lee Kang-Sheng, the actor’s ordinary, rugged look and raw acting fit in perfectly with the documentary feel of the film. Pamanian also stars as a miner in the second movie of the Earth Trilogy. Both movies were funded by foreign film festival groups.

I've been wary of several foreign-funded films whose synopses look promising but when you see the finished products, urgh, they are pure hogwash. Ang Mundo sa Panahon ng Yelo is different. So is Ang Mundo sa Panahon ng Bato. The two Earth films restore my faith in local films funded internationally. Göteborg International Film Festival Fund, which supported Ice is the Earth, was responsible for co-producing Lav Diaz's excellent Heremias. I'm eagerly anticipating the fund's other Filipino projects such as Jim Libiran's Happyland and Monster Jimenez's Kano.

Empties (Jan Sverak, 2007)

2010-09-17T11:36:00.001-07:00

Not unlike Umberto D. in Vittorio de Sica’s 1952 masterpiece, Josef Tkaloun is an old and senior citizen who seems to be running on empty. He is the picture of a spent force, slowly becoming out of touch with his profession, alienated from his young charges and the inexorable march of the times. (He mistakes a recycle bin on a computer's operating system to mean an actual waste basket.) His weariness and surliness with his insolent and irreverent students one day reaches the tipping point. He declares to the principal: he is no longer happy; he tenders his irrevocable resignation.

The film, however, doesn’t go downhill, and downbeat, from here. This prologue is one, big red herring. Jan Sverak’s film is anything but a somber neorealist treatise about old age and marginalization; instead it proceeds to capture something more cheerily humanist, a picture about joie de vivre.

The joy of living. Of that, Tkaloun has plenty to spare. Nobody’s fool and nobody’s patsy, he is someone who would like to pursue life on his own terms, though sometimes ill-advised. First, he takes on a young man’s job as a courier – the kind that requires him to negotiate city traffic on a bicycle. The results prove disastrous. After an almost debilitating bicycle crash, he lands a closeted job at the supermarket. It’s a job that merely requires him to receive assorted empty bottles from customers. It’s a thankless job on paper, enough to make his wife feel scorned. She voices to him her suspicion that he is trying to stay away from her.

Her fears may not be entirely misplaced. Meanwhile the new job presents singular joys for Tkaloun. (It also affords the film its title, an ironic but apt metaphor). Perhaps after the years of aggravation from school children, he relishes the intercourse of grown-ups. Before long, he befriends everyone at the supermarket, his fellow employees and a diverse collection of regular customers. Among the lot, there is the old and reticent Rezac, who heads the station that processes the empties; Lamkova, the feeble, old woman, who depends on Tkaloun to deliver groceries to her home; and Ptackova, another customer, who has made no bones of wanting to have an affair with him.

Written and conceived and brought to life by Zdenek Sverak, the director’s father, Tkaloun leaps to life among a crowd of empties, both the literal and figurative ones. He plays the role of an aging cupid, a positive but mischievous enabler, who connects the many lonely characters around him: from old man Rezac to Tkaloun’s divorced daughter, Helena. As relationships he has engineered prosper around him, Tkaloun, too, is entertaining temptations in his own life. They haunt him in frightful yet funny dream sequences that provide a surreal tone to the film. His wife, however, may have learned a trick or two from him.

Ending with a symbolically life-embracing balloon ride above Prague, Empties is a return to form for the father-and-son team behind Kolya, the wonderful Oscar winner for best foreign picture in 1996. Jan Sverak’s direction may be sometimes too winsome, and too witty (if that’s ever bad) and his metaphors too neat and apt; and Zdenek Sverak’s characterization too enthusiastic and childlike; it can’t be denied that they work well together. After a much-publicized falling-out during filming, the Sveraks appear to have patched differences with the recent release of a new collaboration entitled Kooky. May there be more partnerships in the future!

All is Forgiven (Mia Hansen-Løve, 2007)

2010-09-13T07:36:00.001-07:00

All is Forgiven is a family drama unlike any other: its portrayal of the sad realities of a troubled home, warts and all, is rendered with dignity and grace, subtlety and lyricism. While its underlying foundation and genre is drama – here a drama that enacts a family's dissolution and fragmentation, and its aftermath – it remains even-keeled and avoids the melodrama of the overwrought. It's a film that lives and breathes with graceful action as much as graceful pauses.

Mia Hansen-Love’s quietly poetic first film is one that does not take a high moral ground about the nature and dynamics of families. Everyone, after all, is born of a family: no didacticism needed. All the film wishes is to frame and follow its characters, its family of three: the thirty-something Frenchman Victor, his Austrian wife, Annette, and their still-uncomprehending five-year-old daughter, Pamela.

The film begins in 1995 in Vienna, where Annette is employed, and shifts to Paris a month or so later, where it slowly becomes clear that each change of residence is an attempt at a fresh start. This is all because Victor is nursing a bad habit. A drug addiction. Casually, he sums up his concept of life this way: writing in the morning (he is a failed poet), taking walks in the afternoon, and doing drugs at night. The change of scenery, however, fails to remedy their escalating marital problems, and the family dissolves.

The second half of the film takes place in Paris, twelve years later. Elided in the action are the rehabilitation of Victor, who now lives quietly in the city as a proof-reader in a publishing house; Annette’s re-marriage with another Frenchman; and the upbringing of Pamela. Pamela, who is now a high school student, soon receives word from Martine, Victor’s sister, and their contact results in a meeting. All those intervening years, Martine reveals, Victor has been trying to touch base with his estranged daughter. When Victor finally does get the chance, the father-daughter reunion is civil and without recrimination. As they meet subsequently again and exchange letters, the past is threshed out and finds a measure of resolution. The end is a moment that echoes with powerful pathos, with an even more ultimate resolution.

All is Forgiven, paradoxically, reveals and repeats what each of us already know, and yet resonates with a kind of emotive power that few films achieve. What’s almost as paradoxical is how Hansen-Love has crafted a highly refreshing film while remaining indebted to a host of filmmakers: in All is Forgiven, we find the quiet grace of Ozu, the poetic touch of Assayas, the conflicts of Pialat, and the tormented figures of Garrel. On second thought, the way Hansen-Love marshals her diverse influences with remarkable assurance and aplomb, and ultimately delivers, why should it be held against her?

Therein lies the real achievement of this film. Once director Hansen-Love realizes the universality of her themes, their inherent nature in our collective consciousness, she proceeds to draw on film lore, and her final calculations and execution bear her out. Elliptical, almost plotless, without a grand thesis, yet almost mythical, All is Forgiven tells us a story of such surprising immediacy and detail that we will remember the names and faces, flaws and all, for a long, long time. A lifetime.

My Brother is An Only Child (Daniele Luchetti, 2007)

2010-09-10T09:19:00.000-07:00

Perhaps because compatriots Bernardo Bertolucci (Before the Revolution/The Conformist) and Marco Bellocchio (China is Near/ Good Morning, Night) raised the bar so high for films about radical politics that filmmaker Daniele Luchetti, if he so much as knows his filmic ancestors, seems to have resigned himself to repeat the cinematically hackneyed aspects of the turbulent 1960s in which his film is set, in favor of the dynamics of his easily predictable story. Instead of attempting an ambitious and noble film, Luchetti settles on a highly orthodox filmmaking meant, presumably, to capitalize on the commercial potential of a powder-keg premise.

My Brother is An Only Child, true enough, features some explosive action, but foregrounds a straightforward story; here it is the dramatization on the theme of sibling rivalry. But its story of two brothers – the Benassi brothers, the teenage Fascist Accio and the older Marxist Manrico – is not founded on a relationship of fatal jealousy, or treachery, or betrayal. Its plot skirts that with a more conciliatory statement -- that family is family, regardless of how someone is the fair-haired boy, given the lion-share of opportunities and the imprimatur of the family. Commendably, director Luchetti opts to frame the picaresque experiences of the younger sibling, Accio, as he comes of age, the hard way.

What remains noteworthy, too, are the contradictions in Accio's makeup. He may be feared for his street thuggery, acquiring for him aliases along the way, but he remains an awkward teenager who has yet to experience a young man’s rites of passage. His virtues are apparent in scenes where he cherishes his books and learning Latin. He would like nothing better than to attend a classical university. Perhaps it is out of resentment of Manrico, perhaps out of his consignment to a technical school by his family, that he has come to idolize the proto-Fascist Mussollini and has joined Neo-Fascist elements who battle Marxists in the streets.

Manrico draws near to being a cookie-cutter figure, but his understated affection for Accio is a nuance that sets him apart. The family condones -- if not dotes on -- his fashionable Marxist leanings and his role as a union leader at a factory – remember, these are the 1960s – but he leads a double life throughout the film. For a mere factory worker, he is surprisingly in easy control of stashes of money he won’t hesitate to spend on himself. His cavalier regard for women also seems to hint at compromised ideals.

Quite devoid of imagination, the film installs a woman, and not extreme ideologies, between the two brothers. Accio can only look on and carry a torch for Francesca, while Manrico cheats on her. Like Manrico, Francesca is a Marxist, but enjoys the presence of Accio and their dialectical debates. There are not many surprises throughout: the film can be distilled into the aforementioned ménage-a-trois. When the film springs a surprise at the end, it registers like a tacked-on contrivance. My Brother is An Only Child concludes with a fantastic ending that seems out of left field and rather unearned.

If Bertolucci and Bellocchio operate on a more sensible and more intellectual plane, Luchetti’s hashing out of ideological dilemmas is unimaginatively literalistic, fraught with images of tensions and frictions and pitch battles in the streets between Neo-Fascists and Marxists. Granted, it sketches the cynical measures of radicalism that extremists of both sides have been known to employ, but what new insight or vantage can it proffer? Well, Bertolucci may yet come out of semi-retirement, but Bellocchio still seems to be alive and kicking and cranking out films. There is no tossing and turning in the graves yet.

The Leaving (2010, Ian Loreños)

2010-09-06T21:57:00.000-07:00

Unfriended.

If you're a regular Facebook denizen, then you've probably experienced having your name removed from a friend's list of contacts. It hurts badly, especially if you haven't an inkling why you were obliterated from the list.

The emotional pain pales in comparison with the terrible anguish of a Chinoy young man named Martin. He also gets dumped without any explanation. The dumper in this case is his girlfriend! He wanders around Chinatown in his troubled state. He wants to confront her but something deters him and that is the fear of the truth. He knows she is no longer interested in him.

The Leaving deals with the fears of Chinese-Filipinos in Binondo. Director Ian Loreños laments the fading traditions and changing landscape in his neighborhood. There are fewer speakers of Chinese language among the youth. Dilapidated houses are torn down to make way for condominiums and malls. Scores of families leave for better places. This diaspora brings out some fears and anxieties in young Chinoys.

Loreños brilliantly frames their stories within the horror genre. He is quite successful in bringing out the screams although a bit too much reliance on Asian horror imagery (eg. Sigaw's empty corridors and the fiends of Japanese horror films). He fails to maximize the Chinese Ghost Month setting of the movie. A Singaporean movie The Maid starring Alessandra de Rossi was more effective in scaring viewers with Ghost Month tales and traditions. The Kelvin Tong film features memorable spooky vignettes such as the reason behind vacant seats at performances and the punishment for people who've done bad things during the seventh month of the Lunar Calendar. Singapore was shown as hell for Pinay domestic helpers.

LJ Reyes won an acting award for her role as the martyr wife Grace in The Leaving. Her student year/s at St. Stephen High School gave her the tools to portray a Chinese-speaking character. Just like the betrothed lass of Limbunan, Grace gets bamboozled by an elder with the positive aspects of arranged marriages. The gist of her mother's advice is that as long as she (Grace) gets to eat three meals a day then the marriage is fine. I'm sure young Chinese women will raise hell with this pathetic advice. Incidentally, the Singaporean movie The Maid has a vivid hellish view of an arranged marriage.

Unfriended? Dumped? Betrayed?

The Leaving asks you to retreat, pray, move. Moving on is not enough. Martin goes from place to place but ends up distraught at the end of the day. Grace keeps on living her uneventful daily life the same way over and over again. Both characters eventually see the light and reexamine their lives and priorities. They pray for guidance and discernment. They move forward and leave the ghosts of the past.

Donor (2010, Mark Meily)

2010-08-13T19:56:00.000-07:00

Indie film favorite Meryll Soriano loves doing Cinemalaya films. In the competition’s six years of existence, she has appeared in six noteworthy film entries. She won the Best Actress award for her role in Room Boy at the first Cinemalaya competition. In 2006, the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino bestowed on her the Best Supporting Actress award for her performance in Rotonda. Four years later, she will romp off with the Best Actress award anew at the Directors’ Showcase category of the Cinemalaya 2010.

In Donor, Soriano churns out a mesmerizing performance as Lizette Bernal, a vendor of pirated DVDs in Manila. On her daily commute to work, she always makes it a point to read job notices at an overseas employment agency. One day, she chances upon a wanted ad for a video store clerk. From a direction-less woman ambling by, she regains a sense of direction and purpose in life.

Bernal decides to get away from her do-nothing lover, Danny (Baron Geisler). The loss of a job pushes her to pursue her dream of working abroad. The required placement fee left her with no choice but to donate her kidney for a fee.

The illegal trade of organs caught the attention of director Meily during a trip to North America. He worked with several others on a script. Somehow, the setting was set back to the Philippines. He was amazed to learn of a street in Manila where scores of tricycle/pedicab drivers have donated their kidneys for a fee. Kidney transplants seem to be more rampant than figures collected by government agencies.

The underground selling of kidneys became so bad that in 2008, the Department of Health (DOH) issued an administrative order imposing a total ban on kidney transplantations for foreign patients. In 2010, the DOH issued another administrative order prohibiting health professionals from engaging in the kidney trade.

Donor shows how the high demand for kidneys prods people to search for legal loopholes. Lizette Bernal marries a Jordanian in order for the kidney transplant to push through. She gets to fulfill her dream of wearing a wedding gown and hopes to fulfill another dream with the money she will receive from her husband. The amount of 100,000 PHP received by Bernal is a far cry from fees shelled out by moneyed kababayans abroad. Excluding plane ticket and lodging expenses, the amount can get as high as 270,000 PHP for a kidney. The clamp down on commercial kidney transplants forces brokers to bring willing donors to other countries.

Watching Meily’s film is like attending a filmmaking master class. The tight script has several funny scenes. I had a blast with Soriano’s reply to a foreigner looking for a DVD of the French classic The 400 Blows. Karla Pambid, who seems to be channeling Joyce Bernal, is wickedly hilarious with her wisecracks.

Meily also does a bit of channeling, only this time it is a different Bernal. He shoots a gripping abortion scene that recalls Ishmael Bernal’s Hinugot sa Langit. The classic film stars Maricel Soriano, aunt of Meryll Soriano. The younger Soriano inherited her aunt’s expressive eyes, spunk, and acting chops. The acting of Meryll in Donor is a must-see. The way she uses her eyes and brows to convey what she feels is a joy to behold. Baron Geisler was able to keep up with the bravura performance of Meryll. I can't forget the look on his face when he realized that he is short of money to buy a condom. The searing image of Geisler’s bullet-ravaged head is one of the iconic Cinemalaya scenes that will be etched in viewers’ minds.

Donor and two other entries to the Directors’ Showcase show that dream projects of veteran directors deserve to be given grants. The outstanding films somehow compensated for a weak batch of New Breed films. Only the Mindanaoan films, including Arnel Mardoquio’s Sheika, were at par with the works of the veteran directors.

Refrains Happen Like Revolutions in a Song (Ang Ninanais, John Torres, 2010)

2010-08-05T10:10:00.000-07:00

The films of John Torres are forever striving and aspiring for intimacy, it seems. They are not unlike an ongoing series of cinematic billets-doux meant for a secret addressee, defying the impersonality of communal viewing spaces. All of Torres’s films, so far, prompt this impression, confirmed by the position of privilege given to his speaking voice. In an era of stylized aesthetics and depersonalized poetics in filmmaking, the gesture of this speaking voice is a rare virtue that should not be altered nor faulted. It is a meditative and reflective presence that is contributory to a cinema of confession, of a persona laid bare, of sincerity. To quote the late Alexis Tioseco: (Torres’s voice)… is deliberate in its cadence but always sincere—and that sincerity is the key. It unlocks the secret to the beauty of John as a filmmaker, but also John as a person. It's a sincerity so tangible, so real, that it's disarming.

It is hardly surprising then that Torres has chosen to valorize a voice, a shibboleth of sorts, that fabled and mellifluously singsong timbre of the Ilongo language, here in his latest film. At the outset, however, the director makes clear (he did at Cinemalaya 2010) that everything is grist to the creative mill, the language being a premise in the filmmaker’s accustomed operandi of playing with cinematic form. Refrains Happen like Revolutions in a Song is not simply meant to uphold the orality and epistolarity of his chosen language(s) but to put a premium on the many cultures that underpin it. It is the director’s most ambitious work so far, as it also attempts to transcend the confessional material of his previous films (though he has been quoted that certain aspects of this latest film struck a very personal chord with him) and explores, instinctively, matters as hefty as the study of native signs, and the vitality and utility of culture in the face of acculturation and other threats.

His point of departure is the mythical island of Panay. Torres essays the role of a poetic sort of benshi who makes an epistolary dedication at the start to a complicit other – perhaps a twin, a lover or an alter ego? – with whom he inhabits the liminal, interstitial spaces within myth, history, folklore and the pertinent arenas of the abstract. Intertitles soon inform us about the oral tradition of the Sulanon tribe of the island: how certain female children are made to learn the Hinilawod epic by rote and by heart, essentially a love story between two elementals who meet only in dreams. This commitment to memory takes many years to master and the child is kept away from society, and is hence called a binakod. Her consecration to her calling somehow idealizes her in the eyes of common folk and is hence mythicized as much as the elementals.

The film opens in earnest in present-day Panay as it follows Sarah, a beauteous lass who uses her charms to perform the ruthless job as a debt collector. But her job entails much waiting and frustration, so that Sarah and her assistant while away the tedious time by telling stories – with Sarah assuming the role of a binakod, and later on, a tamawo, the elemental in search of her love. This role-playing, these make-believe moments are not too-far-fetched owing to the nature of insularity. Panay islanders remain steeped in and attuned to a mythic/folkloric collective unconscious that permeates everyday idiom and vocabulary.

History then weaves another thread into the film's story. We read about anecdotes of two factions of revolutionaries fighting for leadership of Panay Island at the start of the 20^th century, while American colonizers try to crush or pacify them. These accounts feed the imagination of Sarah, a welcome distraction as she goes from one job to the next. The intertitles soon inform us that Sarah becomes intertwined with history and saves the lives of revolutionaries. Toward's film's end, she disentangles herself from work, and heads to the cane fields of La Carlota, looking for the man she has never met except only in her dreams. Much like the myth she enacts in make-believe.

Much of the film translates as a conundrum, starting with its title in Filipino. Ang Ninanais may be translated as “the desire” or “the intended,” an adjectival noun whose very intention is left a question mark. In semiotic terms, this film can also be entitled The Signified, whose identity, again, is elusive. This titular referent could be a variety of things: an elusive other as much as an elusive gesture or an elusive abstract. As in much of the film, one is continually kept guessing – the temporal collapse connects the past and the present, the world of abstraction and the world of the concrete are commingled as the epistemological boundaries are erased – to the dangerous edge of losing the point and the plot completely.

Skeptical minds would be tempted to dismiss this filmmaker’s methodology as verging perilously on free association. To wit: he takes two disparate narrative or ideational elements, and weaves an arbitrary connection between them, and repeats the process all over again. Valid, perhaps. What is undeniable is the difficulty of pulling off this improvisatory propensity with conviction, and somehow there is enough sleight of mind and heart from Torres to eke out a worthy film.

While Todo Todo Teros and Years When I Was a Child Outside focus on overtly personal hurts and human failings, Refrains Happen Like can be said to be less personal, more multifocal; it explores conflations (past and present, myth and reality, history and contemporary) and parallels (Sarah’s life and folklore, Sarah’s life and history) of epistemic phenomena, which give a glimpse into the difficult but rich, inner lives of multicultural and multilingual Filipinos. There is a wealth of phenomena at work here, the collapse of the past and the present, the mirroring of the historic and the contemporary, the mythical and the folkloric, the make-believe and the real – all illustrating the complexity of establishing human identity – and perhaps illustrating the difficulty, if not the improbability, of human connection and intimacy.

Refrains Happen Like Revolutions is a film of ever-changing, protean forms and guises. One is never too sure where he or she stands as realities interpenetrate. Torres just manages to weave together an epistemic quilt that reveals the complexity of Filipino identity and psyche, while remaining true to his experimental nature. The balancing and juggling act of this film is a difficult task -- a fact that, in turn, may confound viewers -- but even as a transitional film for the filmmaker, it is a much more layered and much richer work than any analogous film ever attempted -- even the well-regarded Thai film, Mysterious Object at Noon, by Apitchatpong Weerasethakul.

Sigwa (2010, Joel Lamangan)

2010-07-29T23:53:00.000-07:00

Director Joel Lamangan admitted that he was quite nervous with his first Cinemalaya film during the second day of the Sine Taktakan forum. He had apprehensions about how his film compare to those made by young filmmakers.

Sigwa is a film that Lamangan can be proud of although it is not what I was expecting from Lamangan and scriptwriter Bonifacio Ilagan, both activist victims of the harsh Marcos regime. It is not, and does not pretend to be, the definitive movie on the volatile seventies. It is more of a nostalgic search for the missing children of the Left movement. The film examines what happens to activists when they grow old.

The filmmakers took a risk in making a Fil-Am mother as main protagonist. Dolly (Dawn Zulueta/Megan Young) is a former journalist turned activist who was deported to the United States of America after her arrest in the 1970s. She came back to look for her daughter who she initially thought to be dead. The character is well wrought but she is too tame and American to represent the fiery generation of Filipino activists.

Dolly is no longer the firebrand she used to be. Two of her colleagues have mellowed down as well. On the extreme end is Oliver (Tirso Cruz III/Marvin Agustin), a student activist leader who has made a 180-degree turn to become a defender of the status quo. Instead of serving the people, he is propping up the administration of an unpopular president. Azon (Gina Alajar/Lovi Poe) was traumatized by a rape-torture incident and led a quiet life in the province raising a family. Only community organizer Rading and New People’s Army member Cita continue to be involved in the movement.

The film blends the star power and polished performances of a mainstream blockbuster with the relevant, edgy story of an indie film. It is not a smooth marriage because of the film’s difficulty in straddling the line between mainstream and indie filmmaking. Lamangan should have used hand-held camera tactics to capture in-your-face rally break-ups. The massive rally at the start is stagy and lacks gritty realism. It doesn’t help that it came after stirring footages of actual First Quarter Storm rallies were shown that set the screen ablaze. It will take nearly the entire movie before a scene of such power and courage is shown again.

The explosive ending is something that will never see light in a mainstream film. The convoy of Cabinet Secretary Oliver is intercepted by a group of rebels. An irate Oliver gets down from his car and meets face-to-face with his ex-lover and ex-comrade Cita (Zsa Zsa Padilla/Pauleen Luna). The scene cuts to a medium shot of the beautiful, smirking amazon fighter and then, the screen fades to black. The ending works because Lamangan leaves it up to the viewer to imagine the kind of punishment (or redemption?) befitting the treacherous Oliver.

Sigwa, the box-office hit at the Cinemalaya 2010 festival, is a good advocacy material that will probably make the rounds of the vast human rights network here and abroad. It may not be as bombastic and intense as Dukot nor is it as dramatic and epic as Dekada ’70 but it surely kicks ass.

Vox Populi (Dennis Marasigan, 2010)

2010-07-27T07:03:00.000-07:00

Vox populi, vox dei.

The voice of people, the voice of God. In Dennis Marasigan’s frank but comic political satire Vox Populi, these ancient words are turned on their head and undergo the worst ironies and corruptions we in modern times are not exactly unfamiliar with and not exactly unaffected by. For all intents and purposes, we have rendered passé the spirit of this Latin saying, made extinct as Latin itself. For politics, Philippines-style, implicates and indicts us, who take on the term political animal with savage literalism. Our brand of politics, to amplify the metaphor, is a disgustingly tentacular beast that corrupts and depraves everything it touches.

In Vox Populi, the vantage point is recomposed and refreshed yet again – through the eyes of a blank-slate character straight out of a Frank Capra political comedy. Connie de Gracia, a first-time candidate in mayoralty elections in a town called San Cristobal, displays an unsophisticated, all-but-naive manner, with still youthful features that belie a past she terms disgraced. It’s a wise and ingenious character makeup, the tabula rasa, the innocent eye that might as well be that of a child. And it is just as well: Electoral candidates have a way of devolving into self-conscious and docile creatures who lose their ability to judge themselves and their public acts correctly.

Everything happens on the last day of the campaign – the meat of this film and the subject of hand-held cameras following Connie de Gracia’s every move – packed as it is with gross incident and shockingly frank exposition that reveal the putrefying cross-section of Filipino politics. Around Connie de Gracia are a retinue of supporters who seem more naturally pragmatic and more politically wise than she could ever be: Tony, the political strategist who does most of the dirty work performing electoral sleights of hand behind her back; Ricky, Connie’s younger brother, who will use traditional electioneering tactics and personal charms to sway wide swaths of voters like religious groups and friendly block-voters, and Letty, her personal assistant who simultaneously feeds her voter psychology and sandwiches for missed meals.

Even in these all-too-cynical times, there remains a lightly off-putting power about the campaign transactions that go down in Vox Populi. They proceed shamelessly with the same audacity of commercial barter and bargain. Barefacedly, potential voters make known their problems that need to be resolved in a strict, reciprocal transaction of quid pro quo. Even Connie de Gracia without fully realizing it is already being sucked into this vortex of corruption. Asking about the technicalities of the electoral rules, she makes sure that her every campaign move is legal, although it may involve something so immoral and unethical as the subtle disenfranchisement of her opponents’ voters.

Essentially, Vox Populi goes over familiar but factual terrain, but Marasigan is an adept operator negotiating his material with controlled satire and refuses to milk his situations for easy laughs. When the moments do come, they are well-earned and authentically funny. The diverse and motley characters that Connie de Gracia encounters on the last day of the campaign are just as familiar: her brother’s grizzled godfather who only wants her to acknowledge all of her past – both their shameful parts and the reflected glories of her politician father – before he pledges his support; the pastor who has control of a block-voting religious group; an old professor of Connie’s who tests the true idealism and mettle of his old student; and a business tycoon who hedges his bets by supporting all the candidates with the agency of money. Marasigan weaves all these characters and their contexts with assured and masterful insight and confidence. A gifted farceur in this instance, Marasigan could have been a vulgar humorist if he didn’t exercise tranquil restraint. The laughs could have come fast and cheaply, but fortunately that isn’t so. He measures and weighs all his effects and the result is a potent film that doesn’t last one second more than it needs to.

Vox Populi is a refreshing satire with an old soul. We may know in advance the social types and social ills the film acidly presents to us but we shake our heads with as much outrage as the first time to its corrupt and savage truths. After all, these compromised and concessional truths define for us the hulking juggernaut known as the Filipino realpolitik. Redemption comes for the much-aggrieved audience at a crucial moment in the film when a group of youths approach candidate Connie – to pledge their support. Her strategists ask automatically, In return for what? The answer is a gentle reproach – or perhaps a stinging rebuke – of youthful idealism, a moment of exclamatory significance for a crowd awaiting sweet deliverance.

Ang Paglilitis ni Andres Bonifacio (2010, Mario O’Hara)

2010-07-26T23:12:00.000-07:00

Among the films featured at the 6th Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival, this historical film is one of the most important. A faithful retelling of one of our history’s sourest incidents, in which a hero orders the death of another hero, the film is a lemon juice distilled painfully on Filipinos’ open, gaping wound.

As the film credits roll on, excerpts of various komedya plays are presented. We then see Andres Bonifacio (Alfred Vargas) playing a prince searching for the Ibong Adarna, an elusive bird with healing powers. Among the audience member is his lover, Gregoria de Jesus (Danielle Castaño). The next few scenes show the depth of the couple's love for one another. A bawling Gregoria is briefly detained after the arrest of her husband, Andres Bonifacio.

The trial of Bonifacio is dragging in most parts. The repeated questioning of the prisoners takes its toll on viewers' patience. Director O'Hara should have shortened the segment by showing successively similar responses to a single question. Limited budget obviously played a role in his inability to reconstruct the events narrated by the witnesses. The theatrical elements of the trial are a perfect fit for the moro-moro proceedings. At the start of the trial, the inept lawyer tasked to defend Bonifacio is already asking for forgiveness for his client's wrongdoings.

Angelina Kanapi steals the film with her portrayal of the Ibong Adarna and narrator. Instead of lulling the viewers to sleep, she is the one that energizes the whole film with her strong screen presence. Donning a semi-kalbo haircut and made up in white make-up, she eerily recalls Death in Ingmar Bergman's Seventh Seal. When she wears a red and yellow dress and performs a dance, I can't help but see it as a dance of death by Spain. The colonizing country can then be seen as the one responsible for Andres Bonifacio's death.

I love the music score for this film. The hymn Marangal na Dalit ng Katagalugan was played in the background during the execution of Bonifacio. The lyrics refer to the fight against the Spaniards. Again, the film seems to suggest that Spain was responsible for the death of Bonifacio. The lovely kundiman Jocelynang Baliwag was given prominence in the early part of the film. It was the song sung by Gregoria and the captured soldiers of the Magdiwang faction. In the guise of a courtship song, the lyrics pertain to love for the motherland. Another song that serves as an outlet for nationalism is the song Sa Dalampasigan. It pays tribute to martyrs who served as inspiration of the Philippine Revolution.

It’s always a pleasure seeing O’Hara conjure wildly creative films like Ang Paglilitis ni Andres Bonifacio. Marvel at how he showed the horrors, the bombings, and the killings during the revolution using minimal money. Heck, save for the interminable trial scenes, I was mesmerized with the film’s inventiveness and Filipino-ness. The band playing komedya music; poem readings; the folk dance pandanggo sa ilaw; all these things, and more, magically transported me to the late 19th century Philippines. O’Hara’s film reminds me of Raya Martin’s A Short Film About Indio Nacional. The latter is similarly structured in framing the revolution within the popular mediums of entertainment in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

Even though Ang Paglilitis ni Andres Bonifacio failed to received an award from the five-man jury at Cinemalaya 2010, it is a must-see film for Filipinos. It may spur them, as I did, to learn more about our heroes and history. If you’d enjoyed the film, then you’ll probably relish O’Hara’s offbeat masterpiece Sisa. A film that can only come from the wonderful imaginings of the veteran director, the movie suggests Sisa is the voluptuous morena lover of Jose Rizal.

Two Funerals (2010, Gil Portes)

2010-07-22T20:43:00.001-07:00

A cross between Colorum and Ded Na Si Lolo, this hilarious film is a welcome return to form for director Gil Portes. According to the acclaimed creator of Mulanay, Saranggola, and Mga Munting Tinig, he came across the subject for the film in a tabloid. He read about the case of a corpse that was delivered to the wrong set of surviving family members. This germ of an idea haunted him for years. He peddled his story to lots of producers but none will touch it.

SineDirek could have been a perfect venue for Portes’ project but it failed to materialize this year. It is a good thing that Cinemalaya expanded its grant program by coming up with the Directors’ Showcase competition. Portes and four other veteran directors were able to get sizable budgets for their dream projects.

Two Funerals was a crowd-favorite during the festival. There was boisterous laughter from the audience all throughout the movie. Jeffrey Quizon is a delight to watch as a married man battling his personal demons. Mon Confiado and Benjie Felipe are an odd couple cooking up ways to earn money during the wake. Confiado’s theory about the lady in the coffin is a certified hoot.

Tessie Tomas shines again in a Cinemalaya film. For the third straight year, her marked portrayals give luster to the films. She earned acting nominations for her portrayal as a friend of a dying cancer patient in 100. She was nominated and won for her role as a pawnshop owner in Sanglaan. This year, she unravels her comedic timing and dramatic skills in her role as a mother determined to get hold of the corpse of her daughter. Her breakdown scene at the wake in Matnog, Sorsogon was a difficult one to do but she pulled it off.

The award-winning script by Enrique Ramos was obviously well thought of. I love the juxtaposition of the holy and the irreverent, the spiritual and the mundane. Almost all punch lines hit their mark. There was an excess of gay-themed jokes, but why carp? The only glitch I can see with the script is the politician campaigning during Good Friday.

Portes expressed gladness over the horde of awards received by his film. It even won the Audience Choice award in the Directors’ Showcase category. I came to appreciate the cinematography only after viewing the film projected beautifully in the Teatro Huseng Batute of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The night scenes at the bridge were wonderful. During the early days of the Cinemalaya 2010 festival, all the films I’ve seen at the Little Theater suffered from poor projection. The organizers remedied this problem by moving the projection system closer to the screen.

Two Funerals is an entertaining, fun-filled film. But, if you’re going to watch it at Cine Adarna in UP Diliman, then be warned that the film may literally end up as dark comedy. I hope the UP Cineastes’ Studio and co-organizers utilize a better projection system. Straining your eyes to check out the action at dark, projected images is no laughing matter. The audience deserves a better moviehouse viewing experience.

UPDATED (July 24):

Coincidence? Fast response?

Anyway, I want to thank the UP Cineastes' Studio and co-organizers for vastly improving the projection of a film at Cine Adarna. I had a great time yesterday during the Sampaguita screening.

Catch Cinemalaya 6 goes to UP next week. The best of the competition entries is still to be screened. The must-see film is Mark Meily's Donor. Two Funerals, Ang Paglilitis ni Andres Bonifacio, Halaw, and Shorts B program are also well worth seeing.

Sampaguita, National Flower (Francis Xavier Pasion, 2010)

2010-07-20T09:58:00.001-07:00

Francis Xavier Pasion’s Sampaguita, National Flower – a real-life glimpse into the nightly fates of a group of street urchins selling the titular garlands in the streets of Manila – has just won the Special Jury Prize at this year's Cinemalaya. Popular reception also seems to validate such critical acclaim as first- and second-hand accounts attest to the ability of this film to draw tears of apparent pity and sympathy at various screenings. At the risk of seeming callous and iron-hearted, let me say that the reception borders on the curious -- an exaggeration, an overcompensation for something? -- but then again aren't we the same country of bleeding hearts reeled in by the sobering stories and saddening sagas coaxed out on national television by the likes of Willie Revillame and Jessica Soho? Frankly speaking, there’s also already an entire subgenre of films that have more dexterously parlayed the dramatic potential of a similar premise: Bunuel’s Los Olvidados, Hector Babenco’s Pixote and Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay. Sampaguita does not hold a candle to those classics.

But a bad filmmaker on the evidence of this film, Pasion is not. Already, to say that Sampaguita possesses no power to move is to deny the foregoing and underestimate this filmmaker’s powers of manipulation. To sweep its audiences into simultaneous applause and tears is no mean feat. Pasion knowingly deploys his practiced tricks as he intercuts actual interviews with his young subjects and the corresponding dramatizations of their confessions en route to crafting an account of poverty.

We do get a vividly graphic if stylized sense of degradation that befalls the young characters of this film. Images sear on our memory: tired and weary, they sleep on hard pavement with cardboard for blankets; the cops and city officials chase and scatter them off the streets like so many vermin; the night unlooses on them shadowy pedophiles and various predators. There is no reprieve for them, those whose lives on the home front are not appreciably better, and perhaps worse, since they presuppose bigger expectations for a sense of home. As a prologue of sorts demonstrates, our national symbols are being drained of lofty meaning for the dispossessed. The sampaguita, more significantly, has become inextricably linked with images of deprivation, danger and despondence.

But Pasion commits suspect decisions, too. None more glaring is his choice of a curious timeframe to formulate his story. Here it is Christmas season, and the acts of charity are more commonplace and more forthcoming than during the rest of the year. All of a sudden, the streets are not so uninviting, but a source of bonanza for those who know how to beg and hustle. This cosmetically closes the gap of class divisions, a misrepresentation of social conditions that Pasion must be called to explain. By showing the bourgeoisie in a positive light, doesn’t it return the onus of decent existence on the shoulders of its young characters?

With the noblesse oblige of the bourgeoisie in evidence, it throws in a suspicious, Empsonian form of ambiguity into the proceedings. Have the noble acts of our representatives on screen galvanized us into action, or have they just reassured us into complacency and refrained from seeking our further intervention? It may be an old chestnut but the saying Everday is not Christmas holds a demonstrable, time-tested wisdom. Sampaguita may have reduced us to tears, but it has also absolved the audience of its crucial role of social transformation. It may have coaxed us into applause, but only for our majestic mirror-image in the eyes of these little, pitiful street urchins.

Halaw (Sheron Dayoc, 2010)

2010-07-19T10:04:00.001-07:00

Here in imperial Manila, how often do we stop and think about distant Mindanao? This begs repeating, for in truth we have consigned our southern brethren to the margins of consciousness. Worse, we think of them with a colonizer’s orientalism: warlike and belligerent, intractable and ungovernable. No understanding and touching base with their kind, let alone extending what is due them as part of the nation. Our nexus with them is tenuous, characterized by neglect and ignorance, hostility and strife. While the North gets the lion’s share of infrastructural development, budgetary allocations and administrative favor, the South is a poor relation that must fend for itself, even if it means scattering its desperate denizens in search of greener pastures.

Sheron Dayoc’s feature debut, Halaw, is a story of the dangerous, daily diaspora from Mindanao to immediate foreign territories, a story of risky human traffic we have for far too long turned a blind eye to. From a native Mindanaoan director, it is a welcome corrective to the lack of films about the region in general. Hopefully, it isn’t the last. It isn’t pretty to look at as it should be, no glossy and hypnotically arresting visuals but a cinematographic treatment marked by raw, cinema-verite imagery centering on those who would rather escape notice, let alone documentation. Halaw is a film that follows the human smuggling through the so-called southern backdoor. Rendered in real-time narration, it details, with a strict observational stance, one fraught passage through the perilous seas of Mindanao.

In a seaside town in Zamboanga, where it all begins, a Badjao named Jahid and his young daughter Daying prepare for the illegal pump-boat crossing to Sabah, where they intend to locate his missing wife. They lack the requisite fare but prevail upon the boat’s conductor with Daying’s last remaining possession, her earrings. Another practiced traveler is Hernand, a white slavery operator who is finding it hard to recruit his share of unsuspecting women (i.e. virgins are at a premium). In Hernand’s company is one such girl, too wide-eyed and ignorant to calculate her impending mistake, drawn ironically to her future incarnation, a middle-aged prostitute in the same boat, who plies her flesh in Malaysian territories. This prostitute gladly humors her with a modern woman’s accessories: her beguiling perfume, her fancy clothes and her lucrative claims if the younger girl played her cards right.

However, the sea journey is never free of risk and treachery. The pump-boat operators may know all the precautionary measures from mapping out the best routes to escaping detection in Malaysian waters, but nothing is guaranteed. The smallest exigency – e.g. the presence of water in the hull, the sudden sputtering of the boat’s motor – can be a cause of concern for both the travelers and their transporters. Easy passage is for the unusually lucky.

Even as there are divertissements along the way – e.g. the young Daying regaling her boatmates with what must be a Badjao dance, something she parlays into a handful of coins – the sense of reprieve is palpably temporary. In a well-conceived, penultimate scene set on Mananako Island, the last stopover, the sense of peril becomes apparent. Flesh becomes the currency to settle old debts, and the sea is no longer what it seems. The hardest part, however, is far from over.

If, as one watches, one detects an Ariadne’s thread of sorts through Halaw and films like Jeturian’s Kubrador, Mendoza’s Manoro and Ralston Jover’s Bakal Boys, the sure guiding hand of Armando Lao and his real-time paradigm have been at work all along. This scriptwriting wizard, who has for years ensured a steady stream of well-conceived screenplays, lends his assistance to a new filmmaker once again, although one begins to wonder if his unmistakable influence has made for a homogenization of those films he has helped to shape. Frankly, for as long as a film is given ample time to germinate in the collaboration, what matters should be the well-made product.

That seems to be part of Halaw’s one glaring problem, its rough-draft finish. Like an exquisite corpse, Halaw has some missing vital parts. The interaction between the travelers, the agoraphobia of the open seas, the different complexions and colorations of a journey, seem hurriedly sketched, rushed. A sense of narrative truncation happens at the end, all too abruptly. Perhaps, this picture’s structure is an attempt to draw a parallel to the lay of the land, highlighting the chopped-up nature of a nation. Like a gangrenous limb, there is a part of us that must want, desperately, to be separated, amputated.

Cinemalaya 6 goes to UP Diliman, Quezon City

2010-07-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

Catch the winners of the 6th Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival at UP Diliman. All films will be screened at the UP Film Institute's 800-seater Cine Adarna. Price of an admission ticket is PHP 80. Please contact 0915-514-2640 for inquiries and ticket reservations.

Screening schedule of Cinemalaya 2010:

JULY 20 / TUESDAY
5pm - THE LEAVING (Ian Dean S. Loreños)
- Best supporting actress (LJ Reyes)
- Best production design
- Best cinematography
730pm - MAGKAKAPATID (Kim Homer Garcia)
- Audience choice award (New Breed)

JULY 21 / WEDNESDAY
5pm - HALAW (Sheron Dayoc)
- Best picture (New Breed)
- Best director (Sheron Dayoc)
- Best actor (John Arcilla)
- Best editing
730pm - SI TECHIE, SI TEKNOBOY AT SI JUANA B (Art Katipunan)

JULY 22 / THURSDAY
5pm - LIMBUNAN (Gutierrez Mangansakan II)
730pm - REKRUT (Danny Añonuevo)
- Best supporting actor (Emilio Garcia)
- Best sound

JULY 23 / FRIDAY
5pm - SAMPAGUITA (Francis Xavier Pasion)
- Special jury prize
730pm - MAYOHAN (Dan Villegas and Paul Sta. Ana)
- Best actress (Lovi Poe)
- Best screenplay

- Best cinematography

JULY 26 / MONDAY
5pm - VOX POPULI (Dennis Marasigan)
730pm - SHORTS A*
BOCA by Alistaire Christian E. Chan, BREAKFAST WITH LOLO by Steven Flor,
DALAW by Janus Victoria, DESPEDIDA by Borgy Torre & FACULTY by Jerrold Tarog

JULY 27 / TUESDAY
5pm - SHORTS B*
HARANG (BARRIERS) by Mikhail Red, HAY PINHOD OH YA SCOOTER (I WANT TO HAVE A BICYCLE) by Hubert Tibi, LOLA by Joey Agbayani, "P" by Rommel Tolentino & WAG KANG TITINGIN by Pam Miras
- Best short film (Wag Kang Titingin)
- Best director (Milo Tolentino for P)
- Best screenplay (Mik Red for Harang)
- Special jury prize (P)
- Audience choice award (P)
730pm - TWO FUNERALS (Gil Portes)
- Special jury prize (Directors' showcase)
- Best director (Gil Portes)
- Best screenplay
- Best cinematography
- Audience choice award (Directors' showcase)

JULY 28 / WEDNESDAY
5pm - DONOR (Mark Meily)
- Best picture (Directors' showcase)
- Best actress (Meryll Soriano)
- Best actor (Baron Geisler)
- Best supporting actress (Karla Pambid)
- Best production design
730pm - ANG PAGLILITIS NI BONIFACIO (Mario O’Hara)

JULY 29 / THURSDAY
5pm - SIGWA (Joel Lamangan)
- Best supporting actor (Tirso Cruz III)
730pm - PINK HALO-HALO (Joselito Altarejos)
- Best editing

JULY 30 / FRIDAY
5pm - HALAW (Sheron Dayoc)
- BEST PICTURE (NEW BREED)
- Best director (Sheron Dayoc)
- Best actor (John Arcilla)
- Best editing
730pm - DONOR (Mark Meily)
- BEST PICTURE (DIRECTORS' SHOWCASE)
- Best actress (Meryll Soriano)
- Best actor (Baron Geisler)
- Best supporting actress (Karla Pambid)
- Best production design

Limbunan (Gutierrez Mangansakan II, 2010)

2010-07-16T11:47:00.001-07:00

Beautiful shots make me sick. – Roberto Rossellini

Filmmaker Gutierrez Mangansakan must be under the mistaken notion that it is enough to illuminate a social problem and withhold comment in order to maintain a semblance of judicious and solomonic position. That is the fallacy he commits with his latest film, Limbunan. False, because there is no such thing as an objective cinema, not even that supposedly most objective of cinematic practices, the documentary. Each frame committed to film contains the seeds of politics and position.

Whether he intended it or not, Mangansakan has forwarded sociocultural conservatism through his latest film. Limbunan may on the surface be a picture about one forced betrothal of a 16-year-old Maguindanaoan girl named Ayesah, but it is unequivocally a film about resignation and reconciliation to traditions, ultimately redounding to the practice of arranged marriages. Mangansakan has revealed at the gala for this film at Cinemalaya 2010 that the film was partly occasioned by the Maguindanao massacre. It is a reaction to the inflicted violence that must have weighed on creating a pacifist film, which Limbunan seems to be.

Certainly there is nothing wrong with a pacifist film except that it protects the status quo. It describes a flawed culture in Maguindanao, but it prescribes, by default, by a compliant ending, the continuation of the current state of things. It glosses over the very problems it raises. Gloss, that’s what it is, and to appraise the film at face value is to disguise the reactionary values conveyed at its core. Limbunan gingerly broaches the issues inherent in arranged marriages, fettered women’s rights and other corollary problems, but, ultimately, they are given the short shrift. They are all conveniently swept under the rug of supposedly bigger and vaster considerations.

Limbunan is not without its virtues. It is quite admirable in its unconventionality, stripped down and almost bereft of story, unlike the routinary run of traditional narratives. It is a visual film more than anything, its lush, poetic imagery borders on superfluity, but it may help explain the dilemmatic passage of time within the film. It is a tonal poem with deceptive moods.

It is a tonal poem that charts a month of confinement for Ayesah, a month of solitude during which all her needs are attended to. But she is almost inconsolable; her betrothal is against her will. Her sense of inequity is evident as she questions her elders about the wisdom of this looming marriage. However, she is prevailed upon to stay the course by her sagely aunt, Farida, whose wisdom is painfully earned and learned. She comes from a long line of women who have had the same nuptial experience. She knows her niece’s hurts, but there are bigger relevancies, according to her, than personal happiness. There are vaster sociopolitical repercussions linked with this impending union – perhaps peace and progress in Maguindanao?

Limbunan is no humanist document in spite of Mangansakan’s intentions. Long after the arranged marriage that is hinted to have taken place at film’s end, what will have become of Ayesah? Essentially a sacrificial lamb, a human pawn, she must forever stay mute, as mute as her place of domestic exile – the limbunan we get glimpses of and experience with her. But again, to believe the entrenched practices, there are more pertinent things than personal happiness, the fate of entire territories perhaps, though Ayesah loves another man.

Instead of chipping away at the ossified values and unprogressive traditions in Maguindanaoan culture, Limbunan devotes its time lulling us with pretty pictorialism. Bound in the immediate vicinity of Ayesah’s home, the camera follows Ayesah’s playful sister, Saripa, who examines the natural minutiae of their backyard (hints of Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood come to mind). However, the kind of imagery we see bears little contributory value – not tension; not emblem – except perhaps as an index to the long wait that Ayesah must suffer until the moment of inescapable reckoning. Her aunt may assuage her griefs, her own mother assume Ayesah’s everyday chores, but this anticipation of the enforced marriage, the sense of self-sacrifice, is so much like a death sentence – so aestheticized as if this inequity were not so cruel and inhuman.

The Leaving (Ian Loreños, 2010)

2010-07-10T12:33:00.001-07:00

Everything is changing, leaving, and returning. There is always a constant transience in this world. -- The Leaving, program synopsis

Strange but one sees little of the transience in question ever dramatized in this film. The film promises movement and what we get is stasis. If nothing else, everyone here is trapped in purgatorial states, a state of imprisonment, which makes transience synonymous with escape. Escape, that’s all – and perhaps a dastardly one. Let’s recite their names one by one. Martin, unable to fend for himself, literally hightails it to the loving arms of his parents in the States. Grace sees transience by giving up on her marriage. The line of least resistance. And those who supposedly make the existential transition – the transient ones? The lovers, William and Joan – they do so through violence. Violence also takes another neighbor; they find her all broken like the rag doll that is supposed to stand for her missing younger sister. Sick. And how about the ghosts trapped in this haunted apartment building? This film defines transience in the most perverse terms: A function of flight and defeatism. The frightening part is, it seems done in solemn earnest. As such, one tries to see another film altogether. Another review instead, written before knowledge of those lines about transience – unearned, never made concrete.

According to popular notions, the Chinese in this country are so clannish and tight-knit in their ethnicity that it's hard to single out anyone of them who is struggling in life. Mention the word Chinese and this immediately conjures lofty and grandiose images of a business tycoon, or a rich, well-connected fat cat, or a kid studying in the most exclusive schools. In Ian Loreños’ The Leaving, one gets to see the other side of the tracks: Tsinoys who are economically vulnerable and subject to moral and human susceptibilities.

But Loreños -- who wears a number of hats as writer, producer and director for this film -- locates his characters almost exclusively within a middle-class spectrum, which short-circuits some of the exercise. Still, in a film set in a haunted apartment building in the enclave of Binondo, it’s a good college try. Perhaps, there aren’t really impoverished Tsinoys around after all.

Three intertwining stories make up The Leaving: subtitled Martin, The Lovers, and The Wife. In Martin, the eponymous character is the scion of a once-wealthy family who have since emigrated to the United States, leaving him alone to fend for himself. In the ensuing fall from grace, his girlfriend has left him, while he goes applying in futility from one job to another. In The Lovers, Wiliam, a married man, is embroiled in a volatile affair with travel-agent Joan and they tussle with deadly results. In The Wife, one sees a long-suffering character who discovers her husband’s indiscretions and starts a close, almost intimate relationship with the next-door neighbor, Martin. These overlapping lives must also coexist with the ghosts and ghostly ones trapped in the apartment building.

A nagging feeling of familiarity, however, sours an appreciation of this film. What condemns it is an unbridled wearing of influences on its sleeves. The Leaving is a pastiche of all-too-identifiable sources -- from Asian movies, mostly Hong Kong derivations, particularly Wong Kar-Wai, and still more specifically In the Mood for Love. Read above for the plot toThe Wife. From the very Asiatic color motif – red, all shades of red, curtains, calendars, fruits, dresses, and blood, copious blood – to suspiciously familiar shot compositions to the presence of ghosts recruited from Asian horror flicks, Nakata’s The Ring among others, this film is like a shameless collage that would put Picasso and Braque to shame.

It would have been all compensated for had this film recounted fresher, more novel stories, but that, too, is not forhtcoming. Aside from slavishly quoting In the Mood for Love in one part, the other two stories are not compelling enough to sit through either. They are trite tropes that one might generate in a scriptwriting workshop – e.g. someone looking for a job to no avail; a pair of lovers fighting and leading to the most logical extreme. If Loreños feels so compelled to tell stories about Tsinoys, he is better off adapting stories by authors like Charlson Ong, Mario Miclat and other Tsinoy fictionists. Having said that, Loreños had a good premise – the notion of the struggling Filipino-Chinese – but somewhere along the way, he just lost the plot, and ended up paying homage not to Tsinoys but an entire continent.

Cinemalaya 6: Bigger and better!

2010-07-06T13:34:00.000-07:00

The 6th edition of the Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival is bigger and better. There are now 24 films entered in the competition as compared to 20 films last year.

Some of the best filmmakers out there have entries in the competition. Award-winning veteran directors Mario O'Hara, Mark Meily, and Joey Agbayani lead the pack of old guards. Meanwhile, tyro directors Francis Xavier Pasion, Sheron Dayoc, and Jerrold Tarog infuse the festival with their refreshing filmmaking styles and mesmerizing stories.

There's a lot of bad news-good news combos this year.
1) Arnel Mardoquio's Sheika withdrew from the New Breed Full-Length competition. It will be shown though and is in competition for the NETPAC award.
2) There are no film screenings scheduled at Silangan Hall. The good news is there is a whole day of screenings added to the festival. Yep! There will be screenings on Monday, July 12.
3) SineDirek didn't materialize this year. The good news is Cinemalaya created the similar Directors' Showcase. New films from O'Hara and Meily? Wonderful!
4) There will be a special screening of Raymond Red's Himpapawid during the festival. However, Erik Matti's The Arrival is also scheduled on the same timeslot. What film to watch then? There will be lots of times when a moviegoer will be confronted with the issue of what film to watch during the festival. That's great news for cinephiles.

Cinemalaya 2010 promises to be the best edition yet. Among my recommendations in the exhibition category are:

AMBISYON 2010 by Various Directors
17 July / Sat 09:00 PM Tanghalang Manuel Conde (CCP Dream Theatre)
- Two of the shorts are also included in the New Breed Short Feature competition
- Catch the films of Brillante Mendoza, Jerrold Tarog, and Jon Red

ANDONG, ANGAN-ANGAN, DIAMANTE SA LANGIT, ROLYO & GABON
18 July / Sun 10:00 AM Bulwagang Alagad Ng Sining (CCP MKP Hall)
- Andong is a rollicking story of a boy obsessed with television shows

BOSES by Ellen Ongkeko Marfil (from 12 up)
10 July / Sat 10:00 AM Bulwagang Alagad Ng Sining (CCP MKP Hall)
- An abused boy learns about the different parts of a violin and more

DINIG SANA KITA by Mike Sandejas (for ages 12 up)
18 July / Sun 10:00 AM Tanghalang Huseng Batute
- A deaf-mute guy reaches out to a troubled female rocker

EMIR by Chito Rono
16 July / Fri 06:15 PM Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino (CCP Little Theatre)
EMIR by Chito Rono
17 July / Sat 10:00 AM Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino (CCP Little Theatre)
- One of the best films so far this year

ENGKWENTRO by Pepe Diokno (Cinemalaya)
17 July / Sat 06:15 PM Tanghalang Manuel Conde (CCP Dream Theatre)
- A young man tries to get out of his drug-infested and violence-ridden place

KUNDIMAN NG LAHI by Lamberto Avellana (1959)
17 July / Sat 03:30 PM Tanghalang Manuel Conde (CCP Dream Theatre)
- My favorite film of National Artist Lamberto Avellana

RED SHOES by Raul Jarolan
10 July / Sat 06:15 PM Tanghalang Manuel Conde (CCP Dream Theatre)
- The screening is some sort of a homecoming for the should-have-been-a-Cinemalaya-finalist

SANGLAAN by Milo Sogueco (Cinemalaya)
12 July / Mon 06:15 PM Tanghalang Manuel Conde (CCP Dream Theatre)
- A beautiful film about relationships and mementoes

*** Complete screening schedule ***

Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor (Koji Yamamura, 2007)

2010-07-03T08:45:00.000-07:00

The true way is along a rope that is not crossed high in the air, but only just above the ground. It seems intended more to cause stumbling, rather than to be walked upon -- Franz Kafka. Lines of caution and despair, they provide the epigraph to this startling anime film, inspired by a Kafka short story of the same title. What director Koji Yamamura and his intrepid team of animators do well is take a spare and barebones story by the Czech writer and create a disturbingly oneiric vision of the world like no other.

A Country Doctor takes just over 20 minutes to accomplish its purpose, breathing life as it does into a brooding tale about the human condition. It opens, forebodingly, in a country doctor’s courtyard as he prepares to answer an emergency deep in the night. What complicates his impending journey is a snow blizzard sweeping through the terrain. To add to his woes, his horse has died during the cold, wintry hours. His servant girl Rosa tries to look for a replacement, knocking from door to door, but to no avail. But just as the country doctor starts to rue his luck, a groom comes out of nowhere with a pair of mysterious horses. The groom turns out to be a malicious figure who telegraphs his carnal intentions upon Rosa, alarming the country doctor just as he is about to leave. He has little time to react, it seems, as he is hurried off on his rig.

Arriving at the end of his journey, the country doctor is ushered to the sickbed of a boy , who whispers to him his intention to die. At first the country doctor finds nothing wrong with the child, no fever, no worrying symptom of any kind. But a wound in the boy’s side is revealed on closer inspection; the country doctor just missed it until it is hinted to him. It’s a festering wound, the size of a palm, full of wriggling worms. Stripped naked by the boy’s family, sung to, and made to keep a close vigil on the boy, the country doctor reassures his patient but escapes the sickroom as soon as the boy falls asleep. Naked and freezing on horseback, he rides blindly through icy snow and buffeting winds of the night.

This short précis of the film’s storyline follows Kafka’s prose with close exactitude. Even so, this anime gives free rein to the expansive imaginations of its animators. It’s a combination of story and execution that produces a film ripe with multivocal meanings. The country doctor, who at the end rushes homewards, or nowhere, through blizzards of snow, is plagued with various exigencies, but seems blindly cognizant of them, or chooses to remain ignorant. Neither does it seem probable for him to redeem his servant girl from the groom’s raging lust, nor will he see through his wounded patient’s crucial hours. What does the elusive wound represent? What does the doctor's undressing mean? Who is the groom? Does the country doctor stand, as critics claim, for the modern man too deadened to respond to the real emergencies of existence?

The beauty of Yamamura’s film lies not only in its unsettling story but in its visually gripping evocation of a dream world. Rendered in stark, monochromatic colors, both characters and context evoke surreal and expressionistic 2-d representations that complement its existential themes. The animation revels in modernist touches: distortions and elongations of human figures (faces, limbs and torsos), the elements, and the inanimate. This is all occasioned, it seems, by the particulars of Kafka’s story: the swirly, inky night, the driving snows, the worm-infested wound, the dream-like goings-on. Complemening it all is the ghostly presence of storytellers intoning like the narrators of a Noh play.

Yamamura’s A Country Doctor is a triumph of anime filmmaking that has to be seen to be appreciated and cherished. Without going overboard, it takes here and there, successfully synthesizing all manner of influences: from Frederic Back to Yuri Norstein, from Die Brucke to German Expressionism. Rarely do we encounter adaptations that do justice to their sources. A Country Doctor has the distinction of surpassing its basis, Kafka be damned.

How to Become Myself (Jun Ichikawa, 2007)

2010-06-30T11:08:00.000-07:00

Some contend that life must be lived with a mediation of masks. Others espouse the contrary: a life conducted with as much consistency and honesty as possible, without dissimulations and the need for social personas. Jun Ichikawa’s How to Become Myself undermines the reductive simplicity of either perspective, and forwards a strategic compromise between the two. There is verity in the oft-repeated line from Whitman: “I am large, I contain multitudes.”

Based on a novel by Mado Kaori, this is the story of two kindred spirits floundering through young adolescence as they parse what it means to live happily and approach life at the right pitch and proportion. A profound yet delicate drama, it is a film that continues in the same vein and tonality as the director’s previous offering, Tony Takitani, employing a subtle direction that owes to the tranquil touch of Ozu. Ichikawa finds his comfort zone in borrowing the old master’s quiet cadences and pillow shots, affording his story a quality of equanimity and a lyrical rhythm.

As the film opens, two adolescent girls named Juri and Kanako meet very briefly just before high school graduation. It’s a meeting that leaves a lasting impression on both girls, with Kanako leaving behind a line from Dazai Osamu: “You’re a good liar; you should do the right thing.” Cryptic, but the line somehow clicks with the listener. The two lose touch and resettle in different towns, with Juri finding a sense of equilibrium in her new life. It’s no mean feat, as she must buck the divorce of her parents, and adapt to a new school and environment.

Thanks to the talismanic line from Dazai, the once-troubled Juri reinvents herself and turns her life around. She becomes well-adjusted enough to become everybody's favorite at school. This is the part where word about Kanako reaches her. Relocated to another school, she faces the same prospects as Juri once did. Juri decides to intervene and makes contact with Kanako via email. While Juri turns their correspondence into a novel, Kanako takes advice about everything: from classmates to school etiquette, down to what to say to a suitor, what to order on a date. Through her friend's steady instruction, Kanako refashions herself to great effect.

It’s a hackneyed conceit straight out of Edmond Rostand. But Ichikawa makes the Cyrano-ish character of Juri more humanly vulnerable as the drama wears on. Juri proves to be no worldwise figure but an insulated girl who lives vicariously through her friend. The seemingly passive Kanako has been thoughtfully testing out her friend’s advice, all along, and provides the best existential insight in the film when Juri needs it.

But the concerns of Ichikawa’s film are also very contemporary. At a time of discarnate relationships online, relationships built on emails, video conferences, and text messages, it’s a film that slightly suspects but surprisingly doesn’t take an entirely dim view of new technology in advancing relationships. Cast to a great extent as email and text exchanges between Juri and Kanako, How to Become Myself recuperates the epistolary tradition. There is power in the written word, now more than ever.

The presence of novelist Dazai Osamu is often invoked and lingers in the background. His hovering spirit in Ichikawa’s film is an ambivalent one, not outright glorified nor ridiculed. His words sustain Juri at one point, but his meanings may very well have been misconstrued. If Dazai’s characters are frustrated suicides or maladjusted individuals, Ichikawa’s are made of sterner stuff. There is fight in them, and one is quite certain, no matter life’s adversities, of their resilience. They will never go the way of Yozo in Dazai's No Longer Human or Dazai himself.

At once poetic and pragmatic, How to Become Myself is like a book wanting to be read and learned from. A self-help tome, a survival manual, a teenager's guide to the universe, or whatnot, but its heart will be forever in the right place.