Donor (2010, Mark Meily)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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.