Critic After Dark

The Quiet Man: The Films of Mario O'Hara

2026-03-31T10:43:00.003-04:00

In 2005 we put out a book: Critic After Dark: A Review of Philippine Cinema

In 2026 we're doing it again.

The Quiet Man: The Films of Mario O'Hara was twenty-one years in the making, a collection of pieces new and old on the filmmaker plus a fistful of photographs, some of them never seen before, with a focus on arguably his greatest muse Nora Aunor, and we're launching the book on Sat April 25 (five days after O'Hara's 80th birthday) at 3 PM in Archivo 1984, 5F Building A, Karrivin Plaza, 2316 Chino Roces Avenue, Makati City, Philippines.

Be there if you dare.

Sirat (Oliver Laxe, 2025)

2026-03-27T12:28:00.008-04:00

Just deserts

Oliver Laxe's Sirat is a little hard to describe: Luis (Sergi Lopez) and his son Esteban (Bruno Nunez Arjona) look for his daughter Mar in a rave in southern Morocco. The pair wander aimlessly while the dancers surround them in an assortment of clothing haircuts hair dyes tattoos piercings, all swaying to the pulsing rhythm. They talk to people, hand out photos; no one has seen her, but there's another rave, closer to Mauritania, where they might find her.

(Warning: story and narrative twists discussed in explicit detail!)

So far so unpromising. It's a dusty milieu, the ravers don't seem interested in or can't afford high fashion, and the music is more loud than anything. More, Luis doesn't show much urgency to his search; he and Esteban walk about trying not to stare at all the writhing bodies, looking distinctly uncomfortable, so fish-out-of-water they're literally gasping for air. We-- or, rather, Laxe's camera-- stick close to the pair because they seem to be the only familiar, approachable, reasonably clean people in the crowd.

But is Luis being casual or cautious? It's been five months since they've seen her, and we have no idea long he's been looking, or what his search's been like-- could Luis' nonchalant manner be something he acquired along the way, a kind of emotional guard to keep from repelling others, a way of warding off hustlers or con men or predators? A way of guarding himself from what he possibly may find (Mar dead, or worse).

Soldiers arrive, announce the rave is over and they must evacuate; Luis and a group consisting of two vans break away from the military escort and drive deeper into the desert. Luis has to depend on these people-- he apparently knows nothing about the desert, knows next to nothing about driving through a desert or over mountains with rugged roads. The ravers don't look particularly friendly but they help, reluctantly, and he reciprocates in turn.

And that, I submit, is the fragile heart of the film: the kind of camaraderie that can form in extreme conditions, in this case the heat and bleakness of a Moroccan desert. The ravers are practical (or as practical as folks looking for the next party are practical), and frugal with their resources, but confronted with someone's distress they somehow some way step up to extend a hand. "These people are cool," Esteban breathes. He finds the ravers' tightknit bond refreshing, wants to spend as much time with them as he can. Stef, the group's unofficial den mother; Jade, of the flinty face but inexpressibly compassionate eyes; Tonin, who manages to improvise a puppet show out of his stump leg singing into its prosthetic peg for a microphone; large-bellied large-hearted Bigui; Josh the chatterbox. They're idealists in their way, leaving societal norms and value judgements behind to seek out the latest techno sensation and each other. You could call them marginalized but they're really knights in patchwork armor still tilting at windmills or, in this case, stereo speakers.

That's what the film's wayward first half is all about; a sudden left turn (actually more a downward curve to the right) and these characters you've followed-- reluctantly then eagerly, your attachment to them having at this point taken root and sprouted-- undergo the ultimate test of survival, and as writers from Jack London to Ernest Hemingway to F Scott Fitzgerald will tell you, the true nature of one's character is revealed under such circumstances.

A note on the music: not a fan nor an expert of techno or of music in general, but the score's relentless pounding beat, initially annoying, starts seeping into your skin as the film progresses, to the point that it becomes metaphorical-- standing, in effect for our ravers' nihilistic need for that unrefined vibration in their ears and on their faces, and for their respective heartbeats which, as it turns out, can be suddenly cut short at any time.

And that's it, that's the movie. Except that the aforementioned endurance test is more superbly timed and staged and drawn-out tense than anything I've seen in any other film this year (to be fair haven't really been looking that hard)-- Sinners? One Battle After Another? Snore. In terms of sheer teeth-grinding armrest-ripping beads-of-sweat-popping-on-upper-lip suspense this is superior, not just because of simple suspense mechanics but because over the course of its nearly two hour running time it's succeeded in letting you know each of its characters and making you care about their ultimate respective fates.

As for the title: 'sirat' apparently is an Islamic term, the bridge between heaven and hell, that the one without sin can cross quick without effort while others will plunge into the fires below, and one can take it as a random label slapped onto what happens onscreen or one can take it as the film's true viewpoint: that we're all tested similarly, as randomly, by life.

Maybe the other major criticism that can be leveled on this film is the question: what does this all ultimately mean or does it mean anything at all? The final images do suggest something-- that what Luis and Esteban and the rest of the ravers, citizens of an ostensibly more civilized society traveling to this far corner of the earth in search of a party a vibe maybe a daughter, what people from a more ostensibly civilized culture might consider a terrifying nightmare scenario-- for the people seated next to them it's Tuesday.

Marty Supreme (Josh Safdie, 2025)

2026-03-15T15:48:00.000-04:00

Bounce

Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme takes its cue from its central character: brassy, loud, unrelentingly annoying, chronicling the life of one Marty Mauser, a nascent shoe salesman and up-and-coming pingpong player. Marty to put it mildly likes to burn both ends of his candle: he hustles players at the local bar; hustles his rich friend Dion (Luke Manley) to finance production of orange pingpong balls with his name printed on them; hustles his married friend Rachel (Odessa A'zion) for sex at the shoe store's back room; hustles his Uncle Murray (Larry Sloman) for $700 to help finance a trip to the British Open in London (to be fair Uncle Murray's hustling Marty too, trying to manipulate the young man into staying on as salesman while having an affair with Marty's mother Rebecca (Fran Drescher)).

Timothee Chalamet trades in his Kwisatch Haderach stillsuit for a long-sleeved blouse unbuttoned to reveal the sweatsoaked undershirt, glues a dead caterpillar to his upper lip the way I assume Guy Gardner likes to sport a bowl cut-- as a loud 'FUCK YOU' to anyone who objects to his grating personality. It's perfect; like him or not as an actor, have to admit this role fits Chalamet's less-than-charming persona to a t, down to the nipples standing defiantly erect 'neath the thin cotton.

It's a vibe, I suppose. Helps that Darius Khondji is cinematographer, with shadowed aesthetic developed from his time with Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, City of Lost Children, Alien Resurrection) through his time developing the dank grandeur of David Fincher's signature features (Se7en, Panic Room) to his time applying richly textured layers to James Gray's later features (The Immigrant, The Lost City of Z, Armageddon Time) to his time illuminating the Safdie brothers' shaky-cam aesthetic (Uncut Gems, this film), lending them more gravitas and solemn beauty than some of them actually deserve. For this production Khondji adds a sumptuous glow about Chalamet's tousle-haired head, suggesting he's more 'Fast' Eddie Felson than Ratso Rizzo (we're not totally fooled, but Khondji for moments at a time manages to leave us confused).

Also helps that legendary Jack Fisk is production designer-- he grew up in '50s Illinois, is adept in creating worlds set in the past (Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, Killers of the Flower Moon), the relative present (The Straight Story, Carrie, Mulholland Drive), the nightmarish subconscious (Eraserhead). Fisk's work here is so immersive I can believe it helped settle and modulate Safdie's usually frenetic camerawork, the visual equivalent of slowing down from the near-incomprehensible near-hysterical gibberish Adam Sandler spouted in Uncut Gems to the comparatively sedate rat-tat-tat delivery of '30s screwball comedies.

Does the film work? To a point. It wants to be The Hustler, to beat that film at its own game of taking up a relatively lightweight game (billiards), here employing an even more seemingly trivial sport (table tennis) to pronounce on momentous matters (At what point does selling one's honor dignity soul for the umpteenth time become too much? Who in this dog eat dog world does one truly care about, dig in one's heels for-- and why?), but lacks Robert Rossen's lean elegant visual design, lacks George C. Scott's Mephistophelean presence as counterweight. Marty stands alone in a world of fools and suckers and that I suspect is how Chalamet (who's never suffered from a shy and retiring ego) likes it, and likely why this film fails to touch its intended level.

This Marty isn't even half as interesting as the real deal-- Marty Reisman, on whom Chalamet's character is loosely based, was a table tennis player from the age of nine, won his first city championship at the age of thirteen; he hustled for money and yes toured the world as opening comedy act for the Harlem Globetrotters, often visiting Hong Kong, and (a detail omitted from the film) smuggled gold and Rolex watches out of Asia into the United States. He won the 1997 US National Hardbat Championship at the age of 67, and in 2008 demonstrated on the Late Show with David Letterman that he could split a cigarette with a pingpong ball. On archival video footage Reisman looks improbable, with limbs longer and lankier than Chalamet's (you can believe he can cover a pingpong table with arms outstretched), his onscreen manner is far more charming and charismatic-- if he ever approached me for financing of thousands of orange pingpong balls with his name printed on them, I'd seriously consider his proposal.

This isn't Safdie's best work either-- that would be Uncut Gems, co-directed with brother Benny, in a milieu the brothers grew up in (the New York Diamond District), with real stakes (loansharks, a gambling addiction, a crumbling marriage, millions in rings and gems and unsecured loans), with Adam Sandler sweating the kind of desperation Chalamet can only fantasize about. Usually not a fan of the Safdies' trademark smash-n-grab frenetically-cut style but in this one case they may actually have a point, and so does the film-- an icepick of a point, driven into your skull between your eyes.

And this isn't even the ultimate table tennis saga-- that would be Masaaki Yuasa's Ping Pong: the Animation, with visuals that make the Safdies look like they are on quaaludes, and a narrative that goes into power dynamics, players' psychology, the significance of the sport to various countries' cultures (specifically Japan and China), the pitfalls and virtues of both victory and defeat. Would I call Marty supreme? Wouldn't call it bad, but would definitely rank it fourth at best.

First published in Businessworld 3.12.26