Critic After Dark

Best of 2011

2012-01-22T21:51:00.000-05:00

(Updated 1/22/12)

Was the year so bad? It had its moments. Film availability was so erratic you never knew what would be suddenly available, or what needed a wait of weeks or months. Foreign and Filipino films continued to be hard to obtain and slow in coming, and for the first time I found myself going online regularly to watch what I needed to see. Frustrating and fascinating, sometimes both at the same time; at least a few heroes (O'Hara, Hellman, Carpenter) managed to work.

Some 2010 titles I include because most people saw them much later, usually on DVD (and they deserve to be seen).

Some interesting runner-ups (in alphabetical order):

The Adventures of Tintin - Steven Spielberg's gaudy Christmas ornament of a picture, a breathlessly paced action-adventure that can barely afford the time to pause and regard itself, much less generate human interest. Easily one of Spielberg's most kinetically complex works, if not exactly his most involving.

Anatomiya ng Korupsyon (Anatomy of Corruption) - Dennis Marasigan's beautifully understated adaptation of Malou Jacob's play captures the atmosphere and dynamics of a Filipino white-collar workplace better than any filmmaker I can think of since Ishmael Bernal (Working Girls, 1984), down to the secretary operating a cigarettes-and-candy store literally under the table. In Maricar Reyes' fresh new lawyer we see the near-fanatic idealism of the truly innocent, the strength that allows them to defy pressure for so long, that makes their eventual descent such compelling drama. With Sid Lucero, terrific as Reyes' kindly, reasonable, fully implicated immediate superior.

Animal Kingdom - Would be a disservice to call David Michod's gangster picture an Outback The Godfather; it's more interesting than that, a crime noir with a strong sense of place and family dynamics, a bleak spirit appropriate to the bleak desert setting.

Cars 2 - Now this is more Pixar's speed: action and comedy served up with few pretenses (leave 'heart' to people who actually know something about it like, say, Studio Ghibli). Larry the Cable Guy is inoffensive as the voice of the movie's putative hero; Michael Caine steals the show playing an Aston Martin too cool to be a fool. My vote for Pixar's best feature to date--which isn't saying much, but there you are.

Casino Jack and the United States of Money - Alex Gibney's documentary doesn't have interviews of the man to work on, and Gibney himself isn't enough like Michael Moore to give the picture the larger-than-life clown protagonist it needs to laugh with (or at), but the eponymous subject (superlobbyist Jack Abramoff) is so compellingly bizarre you keep watching anyway.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams - As beautiful a documentary as anything Herzog has done, with the cave's contours (and Herzog's gliding handheld lamps) bringing the thirty thousand year old artworks back to eerie, startling life. Did not see the 3D version, unfortunately, which is said to go a long way towards justifying the use of the gimmick.

Contagion - Outbreak for the intelligent. Steven Soderbergh directs his always smart sensibility at the disaster movie and produces (with help from experts) the most persuasive and scientifically accurate depiction of a deadly plague--and a government's reasonably swift response to it--yet made (we're talking best-case scenario here, though). Don't cough while watching with others: the sense of paranoia generated can be catching.

The Debt - No handheld shots; no chop-suey editing. John Madden's thriller, about three Israeli intelligence operatives who capture an infamous Nazi officer--is so old-fashioned it's refreshing. Of course the Nazi steals the show with the slyest, funniest performance in the picture.

The Descendants - Alexander Payne doing a novel by Kaui Hart Hemming. The plot is secondary--something about a man discovering his wife is unfaithful--to the opportunity to know a family, its fairly dysfunctional dynamics, and the weird way they warp and bend to the stresses imposed the novel's plot. Wonderfully performed, subtly told.

Drive - Nicolas Refn's first American feature has an embarrassingly awkward love story written into the heart of it and both Cary Mulligan and Ron Perlman are criminally underused, but Albert Brooks is a hoot as an amiable sociopathic gangster, and Refns in the various chase and action sequences proves himself to be a more skillful filmmaker than Quentin Tarantino (not saying much again, I know).

Exit Through The Gift Shop - Artistic terrorist Banksy's debut film is partially a hoax, not as elaborate as Welles' F is for Fake, but elaborate enough to impress. As a small bonus the film is also a brief survey of the best and most striking contemporary street art, circa 2010.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Noomi Rapace is sorely missed as the eponymous girl (Rooney Mara is a far softer alternative), but otherwise David Fincher successfully evokes with a visual style all his own the obsessive determination of a pair of sleuths hunting down a serial killer.

The Green Hornet - Not a big fan of the original show (other than Bruce Lee); not a fan of Seth Rogen's whiny self-centered schtick; not a fan of Michel Gondry's non-Charles Kaufman work--but I am a (somewhat surprised, somewhat reluctant, somewhat stunned) fan of this. A deconstruction of the superhero movie flick that leaves no headstone unturned, no latex underwear unstained.

Hall Pass - Bob and Peter Farelly's take on the need for the overgrown male child to "just grow up and get on with it" isn't quite like Judd Apatow's--and thank God for that. Not their best--that would be the scathingly funny Kingpin--but not bad, for an overgrown male child comedy.

Happy Feet 2 - George Miller's sequel to his epic penguin movie is, like the original, a touch too wholesome. But one senses something visionary about the whole enterprise, and the sight of community action on both a grand and plankton scale is inspiring indeed.

The Illusionist - Sylvain Chomet's realization of Jacques Tati's unproduced script doesn't have the wit or grace or timing of Tati, but it does have the gorgeous colors and Gallic despair of a Chomet animated feature (a lesser thing, true, but not negligible).

Immortals - Tarsem Singh's retelling of Theseus' myth should have been yet another Clash of the Titans ripoff; instead I found a stylish (if severely underwritten) adventure epic ingeniously staged, intensely shot and edited.

J. Edgar - Clint Eastwood's Hoover biopic is a skillfully rendered production, written by Dustin Lance Black (Milk, 2008) as an unacknowledged love story between Hoover and his longtime companion Clyde Tolson. Well done for what it is, but one has to question if Hoover deserves this kind of treatment, or if Eastwood should have put the man's career in a broader, clearer context (in short: one of the most terrorizing, corrupting influences in 20th century American politics).

Meek's Cutoff - Kelly Reichardt's fascinatingly elliptical drama takes a historically true event (a guide named Stephen Meek did lead a group of settlers off of the Oregon Trail, and they did meet a Native American) and turns it into an allegorical / metaphysical drama on the uncertainty of life, the inscrutability of others (or Others).

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol - Brad Bird's first live-action feature is fun, more fun in fact than Steven Spielberg's first foray into animated feature filmmaking (see above). Spielberg is the incomparably more talented filmmaker (his fight and chase sequences are lucid and beautifully staged, while Bird's are a handheld mess), but Bird does seem to possess the funnier, more inventive script (despite Spielberg having Dr. Who head writer Steve Moffat on his side), the funnier, more inventive cast (Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg).

Moneyball - Bennett Miller's true-life drama is easily the best sports movie I've seen in years, mainly because of what it is and what it isn't. It isn't an underdog-team-makes-good story; it isn't a low comedy about players' hi-jinks; it is the story of a statistical tactic that somehow upends all thinking about the game of baseball. Any time smarts trumps sports jocks, I'm so there.

My Paranormal Romance - Victor Villanueva's supernatural rom-com is a delight, though not effortlessly so. It's the story of a girl who inherits the ability to see dead people and the various men who desire her abilities, her self, her whatever. Too long by about twenty minutes, but it has energy and imagination to spare (perhaps too much so), not to mention evidence of a warmly beating heart.

Never Let Me Go - Mark Romanek's adaptation of the Kazuo Ishiguro novel is understated to the point of somnolence--at least that's how some people might take this little drama; for others it's an oblique trip into heartbreak. With excellent performances by Andrew Garfield and Carey Mulligan.

Rango - Johnny Depp proves to be as nimble verbally as he is physically; the tone, a mix of mildly bizarre humor and American frontier tall-tale telling, is sustained for the length of the picture--not an easy feat. Undoubtedly Gore Verbinski's masterpiece which, yet again, isn't saying much.

Road to Nowhere - Monte Hellman's first feature in twenty years, about a film production doing the story of a fraud and possible double-suicide crime case, is as metaphysically slippery as anything anyone's ever done. The film eventually gathers hypnotic force and drama, but not before leading you through a mirror maze of misleading imagery and narrative ambiguities (Is the lead actress involved in the actual case? Who died and who's still alive? Which scenes are of the movie production and which of the real-life case?).

13 Assassins - Takashi Miike's take on the jidai-geki genre features one of the most baroquely memorable villains this side of Richard Widmark, and a massive climax staged and executed with what-the-fuck flair. Not quite the clarity and complexity of Seven Samurai, but it'll do till something better comes along.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - Tomas Alfredson moves away from vampires towards something far more sinister: espionage agents wading through the murk of '70s geopolitics. The production doesn't have the room to let John le Carre's classic spy thriller breathe properly, and Gary Oldman at best captures an echo of Alec Guinness' definitive interpretation of George Smiley (the master spy brought out of retirement to uncover a mole). But Alfredson does give the picture a beautiful stone-and-iron color palette, and at certain moments achieves the kind of airless silence that goes a long way towards enhancing the film's sense of paranoia.

War Horse - Spielberg again, this time galloping in the opposite direction with the more leisurely told, more emotionally direct story of a horse wandering through the battlefields of World War I. The material is sticky enough without the director trying to whack us over the head with the poignancy of it all; one is moved, but eventually, after a struggle. Think what Carroll Ballard could have done with this.

The Ward - John Carpenter's supposed feature comeback wasn't what everyone hoped for, but it wasn't total garbage either--mostly a master of modern American horror playing the postmodern game his way, with a tiny budget and even less pretensions.

You Don't Know Jack - A hushed look at Jack Kevorkian (a.k.a. Dr. Death, outspoken champion of assisted suicides). The film presents Kevorkian's many facets: the honesty, the stubbornness, even the hubris that eventually brought him down. Easily both Al Pacino and Barry Levinson's best work in years.

Zombadings 1: Patayin sa shokot si Remington (Rough translation: Scare Remington to death) - Director Jade Castro and screenwriter-producer Michiko Yamamoto's horror parody takes its inspiration from Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell, and does it one better: instead of Eternal Damnation we're threatened with Eternal Pansification, and it's the film's conceit that This May Not Be an Entirely Bad Thing. Like My Paranormal Romance it suffers from one idea too many, and the narrative line can at times be obscured by the punchline, but personally I prefer this surfeit (of ideas, of gags, of energy) to its opposite...

Plus six titles that I thought were especially fine (in ascending order):

Tree of Life - Easily one of the most ambitious, most breathlessly beautiful films this year, in parts. The creation sequence has sweep and grandeur; the brief dinosaur sequence mystery and an elusive poignancy. The family sequences are intensely felt drama--one suspects Malick brought a lot of his personal life into these scenes. I feel the two halves belong in entirely different films, however; Malick hasn't even halfway bothered to integrate them. Then there's that beach scene, which plays like Federico Fellini's 8 1/2, only without the rueful irony (you suspect Malick for all his talent is missing a few key hues on his palette). Ultimately a failure, but what a failure!

Hugo - To paraphrase what film critic David Ehrenstein said, Mean Streets and Goodfellas was what Scorsese saw around him when he was young; Hugo was what he felt inside. An intricate clockwork of a movie that spins and shudders, chimes and chatters, striking a brassy bell for the cult of cinephilia. Martin Scorsese's film is possibly one of the most exuberant, most charming pictures of the year, and arguably the best use of digital 3D I've seen to date.

Ka Oryang - Sari Lluch Dalena's harrowing work presents in full what Lino Brocka, Mike De Leon, Mario O'Hara could only deal with tangentially in their films: the incarceration, interrogation, and torture of women during the Marcos era. Only Dalena tells the story through her inimitable experimental filmmaker's sensibility, with brief forays into surrealism and the occasional striking image.

Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay - And I thought Hugo was the most spirited, most exuberant, most cinephilic film of the year! Antoinette Jadaone's mockumentary follows veteran character actress Lilia Cuntapay (star of such Filipino horror classics as Aswang (Vampire); Shake, Rattle and Roll Part III; Shake, Rattle and Roll Part IV; Shake, Rattle and Roll Part V, and Pangarap ng Puso (Demons)) as she immerses herself Methodically in her bit parts and polishes endlessly her acceptance speech for the first-ever acting award nomination in her long and varied career. Pathos and hilarity ensue.

Certified Copy - Abbas Kiarostami's latest feature--his first to be shot outside of Iran--is a perfectly mysterious little gem, about a man and a woman wandering through the streets of Tuscany. Are they newly met acquaintances? Long-separated husband and wife? Acquaintances who have suddenly assumed the role of husband and wife? One hurries after them, trying to puzzle both the film and their relationship out while Kiarostami sits back and keeps the entire bewildering affair whirring on the palm of his confident hand.

Poetry - Lee Chang Dong's film follows a grandmother as she attempts to belatedly learn how to write poetry, and as she attempts to deal with a possible rape conviction for her grandson. Lee's achievement is to make both storylines not just complementary, but compelling; as with the very best poetry, every detail carries more than its own weight in meaning. One of the best films not just of the year, but of several years.

Sa Ngalan ng Ina (In the Name of the Mother) - My vote for best of the year goes not to a movie but to a TV mini-series; not just any mini-series but a teleserye--a TV soap. Mario O'Hara and Jon Red's take on Philippine politics of the last thirty or so years is by turns hilarious, thrilling, shameless, and sad; in effect, exactly like Philippine politics of the last thirty years. With an understated yet ultimately monumental turn from Nora Aunor, the literal face of Philippine cinema.

1.14.12

Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010)

2012-01-22T15:40:00.000-05:00

Love is a many-morphing thing

An unnamed woman (the gorgeous Juliette Binoche) attends a lecture by author James Miller (British baritone William Shimell), with her son as unwilling companion. Mr. Miller talks of his book Certified Copy, which deals with the nature of reproduced artworks and their originals (you can guess his attitude towards the whole issue by the subtitle: “Forget the Original, Just Get a Good Copy”); the woman brings six copies of his work which she plans to ask him to sign (to certify, in effect), even if, as she admits to her son, she doesn't like the book.

She invites Miller over to her shop in Arezzo, Tuscany, to a cellar store selling art replicas; the man is coolly interested, the woman nervy and flirtatious--it's obvious that they have some kind of chemistry going. The man wants to leave the city; they agree that she should drive him to the nearby town of Lucignano, half an hour away, just so long as (his only condition) he can be back by nine o'clock to catch his flight.

So begins Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy, his first feature film outside of Iran, a teasing, sneakily funny, surprisingly tense trip through the Tuscan countryside with a talkative, thoughtful pair. From the first you notice odd details: the woman tells Miller of her sister Marie, who believes that costume jewelry is as good as real jewelry (Miller observes that what he expressed through a book, Marie seems to simply apply as her life's philosophy); when Miller adds a few words to his autograph of a copy for Marie, the woman is annoyed. “Now she'll never change,” she fumes. You wonder if the woman isn't overreacting; after all, she and Miller have only just met. Later in a cafe the man talks of a mother and son on the streets of Florence; the mother once in a while stopping to wait for the son, who never hurries. “Sounds familiar” the woman tells him, a tear sliding down one cheek--you remember that that was exactly what she and her son had been doing earlier, having left Miller's lecture early (the son sauntering along, the mother far ahead and looking back).

What was that all about? Was the woman merely identifying with that woman and her exasperating teen, or did Miller really see woman and son from the window of his Florence hotel room? Have they met before, are they pretending to have met before, or have the scenes been directed in such a way that you can't definitively tell the difference? Kiarostami's deceptively simple and placid film--basically a man and a woman walking the streets of Tuscany--might seem like an elderly version of Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise (1995), or the chance couple in Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura (1960). But Kiarostami seems to be playing a far more intricate game (more intricate than Linklater, anyway), forcing those of us with DVD players to rewind and check what's really being said and done (pity the film festival viewers, who only have their memories to fall back on)--one thinks of the inexplicable shifts in mood and identity found in Bunuel's films or David Lynch.

One wonders: are the two role-playing, their roles cued by a cafe waitress who has mistaken them for a married couple? Or are they a married couple long since separated, who were playing at being strangers when they met in Arezzo? One can argue one way or the other (though I think it interesting that the two see each other long before they actually speak to each other, and must have had a chance to think their respective characters through); in this way the film resembles yet another film: Ingmar Bergman's After the Rehearsal (1984) where two people talk out an entire love affair, from passionate initiation to bitter alienation, the entire experience described entirely through words. (a thrilling experience). Also possible that Kiarostami himself never meant any rational explanation, that the relationship between Miller and the woman are meant to remain in a state of flux, evolving emotionally, if not narratively.

As for the question of copies and originals, I suppose I must admit my ignorance and say: what's the problem? At one point in the film it's said that even a painting as great as the Mona Lisa must have been based on an original face. Certainly that face belonged to someone, that someone is a human being, and humans are possibly the most complex and irreproducible entity in the world, but the challenge is in communicating the experience of meeting that human, that complex and irreproducible being--that's where the art comes in. Is a fresh leg of pork tastier than a dry-aged ham? Is a man's experience of a countryside picnic greater than Renoir's Partie de campagne (Day in the Country, 1936)? In each case the experience--complete and whole--is simplified and distilled, the essence mysteriously captured and manipulated according to the artisan's skills and sensibility. Kiarostami must have been inspired by some real-life incident that happened to him; is that experience, shapeless and incommunicable, greater than this resulting film? I have no definite answers; I can only ask.

First published in Businessworld, 1.12.12

Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt, 2010)

2012-01-22T06:15:00.002-05:00

Follow the leader

Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff isn't your usual genre Western; it may have covered wagons, women in bonnets and gingham skirts, men with flintlock rifles and even the odd half-naked indian, but no--this isn't a Western so much as it is Ms. Reichardt's inimitably strange foray into the genre.

Strangest of all is that the story is based on actual events. Stephen Meek did guide a thousand settlers, among them a group led by one Solomon Tetherow, away from the main trail into the Oregon desert, where they promptly got lost (there was talk of possible Indian attacks); Tetherow's followers did meet a Native American, and they did offer him a blanket in exchange for water.

For Reichardt's purposes the thousand settlers were whittled drastically down to nine, the two hundred covered wagons to a mere three. The pacing is more than a little leisurely; the incidents--the capture of the Native American, a dangerous wagon descent, arguments and confrontations, a case of severe dehydration, and finally a showdown involving rifles and pistols--don't seem as important as the opportunity afforded to Reichardt to pose her nine dusty, despairing travelers against the vast Oregon wasteland. This isn't Larry McMurtry territory, where Southern melodrama plays out against the ironic, implacable forces of history; the film's focus isn't so much on the historical as it is on the existential.

Solomon Tetherow (Will Patton) is the party's ostensible leader, but they follow Stephen Meek (Bob Greenwood, resplendent in his mane of mountain-man hair); Meek in turn chatters away, telling of one near-death adventure after another, promising that water is “just over those hills.” We meet his followers just about the time they're ready to lose faith in him; early in the picture one settler takes the time to scratch out the word 'Lost' on a rock before turning to unenthusiastically continue their seemingly endless slog; later Tetherow's wife Emily (Michelle Williams) asks her husband “is he ignorant, or just plain evil?”

Reichardt leaves the question hanging over the settlers while they continue their journey (she leaves a lot of questions hanging throughout). You watch this unlikely band trailing behind their unlikelier leader and you wonder: are they going to survive? More pressing yet: are they going to keep following this chattering nut of a guide, who seems to make up landmarks as he goes along? When an alternative's presented, it's hardly much better: a Native American (veteran stuntman Ron Rondeaux) is brought to camp, and offered a blanket if he would lead them to water. Meek scoffs at his trustworthiness and suggests he's leading them to his fellow tribesmen to be massacred. The man does have a point--if Meek seems unable to lead them out of the desert, he at least speaks to them in words that they understand; the Native American chatters away almost as much as Meek does but in an untranslated, unsubtitled language (the native's solemn deadpan demeanor does make him seem more authoritative). He's as inscrutable as Meek is unhelpful.

The allegorical meanings pile up as the settlers' options run out; tensions rise, fingers stray toward rifle and pistol triggers. Michelle Williams who plays Emily Tetherow is easily the most recognizable face in the cast (Greenwood's is obscured by all the hair), but her character doesn't really stand out, at least not at first; everyone, even the Hollywood celebrity, is lost in the thousands of miles of Oregonian sand and stone, the thousands of miles of empty silence. It takes Reichardt some minutes to even come to a medium shot--for the film's first ten or so minutes we are treated to endless long shots of the actors struggling across the sparse landscape. For a true closeup we have to wait until the near end, when the film plays out to its enigmatic conclusion--then the camera is focused on Williams' alert but unenlightened face, trying to puzzle out the meaning of what she's looking at. Meek at one point declares ominously that this “was all written out long before we got here;” one suspects that he's talking not so much of the script as of a scenario--of a briefly sketched situation where the nine characters (plus one Native American) are released to roam randomly, and resolve their various destinies.

The image is highly theatrical--one thinks of a chamber drama--but the film is the exact opposite: instead of a confined space that intensifies the claustrophobia and builds psychological tension to the bursting point, we have a stage on which tension and drama dissipates, blows away (don't think Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit so much as Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot). Instead of men and women confronting the possibility that fellow humans represent the worst possible threat, they confront the possibility that there is no threat, no hope, no relief, no resolution, no end to their bleak circumstance. If there's another, worst definition of hell...I'm hard pressed to think what that might be.

First published in Businessworld, 1.5.12

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog 2010)

2012-01-07T05:02:00.000-05:00

Open, O Sesame

Werner Herzog's first ever 3-D feature begins with the camera gliding down a row of what look like vines; it lifts up in the air to take in the limestone cliffs looming over the Ardeche River, in Southern France. We see Herzog accompanying an expedition of mostly scientists ascending a narrow trail up the face of that cliff, to arrive at a metal door “as massive as a bank vault.”

Inside are treasures as fabulous as anything Aladdin might find--cave paintings of various sizes and subjects, on differing kinds of surfaces, employing many colors and techniques. Some of these paintings may have been drawn some thirty thousand years ago.

Thirty thousand years! The United States, by way of comparison, was established a little over two hundred and thirty years ago; the oldest form of writing found is dated approximately eight thousand years ago; the oldest city (Damascus) has been inhabited for something like eleven thousand years. These drawings, if their dating can be believed (there is some controversy, which Herzog never once mentions), are three times older than any presently existing evidence of human civilization.

But it's more than just the age; the drawings are complex, lovely, powerful. They leap at the screen in silent agitation--or rather not so silent; the horses' mouths (as someone points out) are agape, as if whinnying; rhinos lock horns in tremendous head-on collisions, and you can almost hear the sound of impact; a female lion sits firmly on her haunches, unwilling to mate, her lips peeled back in an irritated growl. Herzog points out the multiple drawings of a rhino's horn, and speculate that the artist--and despite the dispute over their age, no one disputes the drawings' artistry--was attempting to suggest motion, that this was in fact some kind of proto-cinema, the first attempt to capture moving pictures on a flat surface (either that or it's one of the earliest examples of animation ever).

Part of the pleasure of a Herzog documentary is the presence of Herzog himself. He's the polar opposite of the invisible, unjudgmental documentary filmmaker; he pokes, prods, asks all kinds of questions, not always the obvious ones. To one archeologist he poses a stumper: “Do they dream at night?”

How is the poor scientist to respond? But Herzog is an impatient, eccentric creature; he wants to delve into mysteries, ponder paradoxes, illuminate the darker, less obvious corners of a mystery. He asks about the soul; one man speculates that the soul might have been an adaptation to the world, one that must have worked (we've had them ever since), and that these paintings are their communique, fired like furtive emails into the future (at us, in effect) in the hopes of maybe not making contact but of giving us an impression of their state of mind and being, captured in an image.

Herzog points out a red handprint repeated many times near the cave entrance, and how it stands out because of a crooked little finger. He follows the handprint into the cave, pointing it out in various drawings; the finger seems less like a flaw than a signature, the sign of a unique personality--possibly the world's first auteur...

For deadpan comic relief Herzog gives us eccentrics like the scientist who through research has managed to assemble a bone flute--the kind of musical instrument he guesses might have been played in the caves, all those millennia ago--and promptly tootles a brief rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” He follows a perfume designer who hikes around the aboveground area, sniffing for ancient air seeping from the ground (the caves were discovered by explorers who felt the updraft); he's hoping to detect the caves by scent. The designer later confesses an ulterior motive--he's involved in a theme park to be built nearby, with an exact replica of the caves and their drawings as a feature attraction.

All this narrated in Herzog's Teutonically accented yet soothing voice, his intensely pinched face gazing at one wonder after another. Herzog over time and through his many documentaries has developed a distinct onscreen persona (you don't expect the director of Nosferatu (1979) and Aguirre: the Wrath of God (1972) to be boring do you?), one strong enough to stand up to bizarre characters like Dieter Dengler (Little Dieter Needs to Fly, 1998) or Timothy Treadwell (Grizzly Man, 2005). On his own his persona throws a probing if quirky light on the wall art; he's dealing with artists long dead (though their work has a marvelous presence) and he's free to speculate, endlessly.

The ending is pure Herzog. From thirty thousand years into the past he turns to the future: a nuclear power plant some twenty miles away, the largest in France, has diverted coolant water to create an enclosed tropical environment; hundreds of crocodiles thrive, and unsurprisingly a number of them are albino mutants. Herzog films these altered baby reptiles and wonders what they might think, if ever they come face-to-face with the Chauvet drawings...

Herzog filmed the documentary in 3-D; he believed that this device (he had previously dismissed it as a gimmick) would bring out the curves and contours of the cavern rock, to better present the drawings. I wouldn't know if this worked; I only managed to catch a 2-D screening, and the DVD was released the same way. Watching the film in this imperfect and incomplete mode, I can only speculate: Herzog himself worked in less-than-ideal conditions; he had limited time and resources, and used technology ill-suited to the task at that time (3-D photography in commercial features often meant shooting foreground, midground and background separately, then having them digitally integrated--an impossibility in the cave). The artists (or artist) that did the drawings had even more primitive equipment--shards of rock, charcoal, pigments, their own crook-fingered hand.

And yet the artist managed to suggest movement and sound; he managed to suggest fury and grandeur. Using rock and dye and charcoal he made the first effective stab at creating a 3-D image--and arguably his methods have a proven track record thirty thousand years long. Herzog employs a few tricks of his own: sending his cold lamps slowly across the cave face and fading them on and off, he re-creates the kind of traveling light that must have fallen on these drawings, the way they were meant to be seen (Herzog early in the film notes that the drawings are found at just at the point when the sunlight stops). The music--and Herzog and the archeologists agree, there must have been music--is all strings and woodwinds and voices, the kind of instruments they might have played.

Like that long-ago artist Herzog uses his limitations to his advantage, evokes his own magic; watching the film on a TV screen, in the poor medium of DVD, can we do any less? It's just one more link shared, between viewer and filmmaker and artist long gone.

First published in Businessworld, 12.29.11

Get real, Get Real Philippines

2012-01-02T07:19:00.000-05:00

First of the year and already I'm compelled to write a less-than-friendly post.

Before anything, a caveat: as of today, have not yet seen any of the films at the 2011 Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF)--would like to, but am having a time trying to arrange a viewing. So, yes, I'm putting that out for the record, up front.

Reason for this cobbled-together post, though, is a budding website called Get Real Philippines, a series of articles written mostly by the webmaster, with a handful of fellow writers (well, one other, apparently). For the most part the articles seem well-written, lively, reasonably well informed, generally progressive--until this article by someone named 'Ilda,' on the recent MMFF.

Not a big fan of the MMFF; for the longest time they've enjoyed the privilege of being the only game in town in Metro Manila theaters during the Christmas season, ostensibly the biggest market in the busiest time in the Philippines, arguably one of the biggest and busiest in Southeast Asia, if not the world. There was a time when this was a good thing: the festival showed the likes of Ishmael Bernal's Himala (Miracle, 1982), and Mike de Leon's Kisapmata (Blink of an Eye, 1981). The festival has reportedly degenerated into a showcase of mostly slapdash commercial products, including the Mano Po series (I'd seen the first one--not a big fan of that either--and heard harsh words about the sequels).

Like I said: not a big fan. But I don't think it and the entire Filipino film industry, independent and mainstream alike--deserve the general hosing-down found in that article. Statements like "Unfortunately, our films tell us and everyone else that we are shallow and superficial" seem to slam Philippine cinema in general--so are we shallow and superficial, as portrayed by Bernal, De Leon, Lino Brocka, Mario O'Hara, Lav Diaz, Brillante Mendoza? Are our films "a total waste of the people’s time and money?"

Getting down to specific titles, the article mentions three: Enteng ng Ina Mo (Enteng of your mother--but that's a rough translation, it's really a play of words on a classic Filipino profanity) I can't really comment about. It sounds like it's a wholly commercial production and sequels are usually not the greatest films in the world as a rule but I haven't seen the picture and the writer, apparently, has; she pronounces judgment on the script and dialogue, and casts aspersions on the actors and producers' motives (I know it's impossible for her to actually read their minds, but I'll call that a rhetorical tactic; been guilty of doing the same for movies I didn't like). But when it came to her takedown of Panday 2 she writes "the new Panday movie is being criticized for being a blatant rip-off of the 2010 Hollywood blockbuster remake of Clash of the Titans."

"Being criticized?" Is she repeating what she's heard from others? Is she suggesting that she hasn't seen the movie? True, she does add "There was nothing special about the “special” effects either," but is it possible she's basing her judgment on online trailers?

More damning is her take on Shake, Rattle, and Roll 13: "What else can people expect to get out of it? Not much, obviously. People are probably watching it for the eye candy." Then she goes on to disparage the starlets on the festival parade (I understand where she's coming from, but I personally can't find it in me to disparage starlets; they're often fresh young things from the provinces who've been struck blind by all the money and attention, and often lead harsh lives off-camera). Three sentences that don't really talk about the picture, but rather how people might react to the picture. When called on this in the article's comment section, the writer replies with unusual evasiveness: "It doesn’t really matter if I saw SRR13 or not."

Um--yes it does, actually. Basic rule in journalism in general, criticism in particular: know of what you write.

I can't say I can judge this installment myself but I did see the original series back in 1984; Bernal's sequence (Prigyider) in particular was a witty original. I've dipped into the series once in a while and found a few good segments (Kapitbahay, in Shake, Rattle, and Roll IV, 1992). Critic Dodo Dayao does praise this thirteenth variation in his blog--and I do trust Dayao's judgment; he's an astute writer on local and international films, and writes about the movie in close detail with considerable eloquence. Ms. Ilda has every right to disparage the picture, and she makes a good point about the laziness of film producers in general, but she must see the movies first. Anything less smacks of lazy journalism.

Webmaster 'Benigno' defends his fellow writer in a follow-up article, helpfully titled "Filipino indie film makers need to stop whining and step up."* He succinctly summarizes the events that led up to his writing of the article; then he introduces his opinion with: "Based on the sort of comments I’ve seen so far posted in that article..."

Wow, don't people do actual research anymore?

He writes "it seems the people who lament the marginalised place “indie” films hold in the Philippines are better at whining than stepping up to said challenges" (chip on the shoulder much, hm?)" and adds "It is “impossible” only because the Philippine indie film sector lacks the sort of innovation that makes billionaires out of nerds and outcasts like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs."

Um--blanket judgment on an entire industry (this time independent) based on comments made on blogpost article. Useful information here: if one has to make a handful of sweeping generalizations on an industry, it helps to actually read up on and talk to both industry insiders and outsiders in close detail. The more research put into the article, the more authoritative and persuasive article can be.

Benigno then goes on in detail about the Weinstein Brothers and Miramax Films, holding them up as an example of an independent outfit that was actually profitable; actually, Miramax was not the blockbuster moneymaker it claimed to be; that aura of profitability came more out of the Weinsteins' ruthlessness and ability to manipulate contractual conditions than out of the creation of actual independent hits.**

Independent filmmakers (and you'll have to take my word for it that I'm talking from experience about people I know well) are some of the hardest-working and most innovative people I know. They do miracles; they create art out of impossible budgets, and in impossible circumstances. Asking them to market their films brilliantly and well is one more impossible task to add to their basket, and I agree this much with Benigno: this just might be what the filmmakers need to do. This isn't the first time it's been said, nor is he the first one to say it; he just needs to do the research, and it wouldn't hurt to dial down the obnoxious, know-it-all tone (him apparently not knowing it all, at least about this industry).

The question of making Filipino independent or art films pay has been around for a long, long time, and no one has come up with any definite answers. Lino Brocka's Insiang (1974) was a box-office flop, despite being screened in the prestigious Director's Fortnight in Cannes, despite being made for a low budget; Mike de Leon's Sister Stella L. was welcomed with glowing praise, and standing-room only previews; when it was released it flopped, despite the name of Philippine star Vilma Santos in the marquee.

Independent filmmakers today actually have a somewhat better record at the boxoffice; unlike Brocka, they can leverage digital technology to make their films cheaper, faster, easier to make, and in the case of a few titles, they have made some profit (if I remember right, Auraeus Solito's Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros) did modest business and Ang Babae sa Septic Tank (Girl in Septic Tank) did huge business (roughly 20 million pesos, or over $400,000). In the case of Zombadings the big studios reportedly attempted to repress the picture, keep it out of theaters so it wouldn't threaten their mainstream product.

But--comedies and zombie pictures? What about Sari Dalena's Ka Oryang (see image above), this year's Cinema One Best Picture, and in my opinion one of the best and most important film I've seen this year, Filipino or otherwise? Not to put down the two titles (haven't seen them, but have heard good things), independent films are also meant to deal with things commercial product won't touch (that's why they're independent). If it's difficult to market independent films, that's a combination of a system rigged against the independent filmmaker, an often difficult to market subject matter, and--let's throw this in as well--Filipinos who if they don't frequent Filipino films often condemn said films to the trash heap ("If it's Filipino it must be trash (and no, I don't watch Filipino films)"). This particular segment of Filipinos is crucial to the indie filmmaker; he's the kind of viewer who might appreciate an innovative independent film--if he can be troubled to actually view it.

The attitude isn't new; Gerry De Leon, Lamberto Avellana, Manuel Conde had to contend with this in their time; so did Lino Brocka, Ishmael Bernal, Mario O'Hara.

I'm not trying to completely put down or thoroughly trash Benigno and Ilda and their like; I enjoyed reading their blog, and think they have the right position on some issues (the need for better reproductive health, holding Aquino accountable, and so on). I think their hearts are in the right place, and their effrontery appropriate--when targeted at those that deserve that effrontery, like corrupt government or conservative institutions. The Metro Manila Film Festival? For the most part, yes--I've seen my share, no, more than my share of their garbage; I've also seen a few gems, though, and I'm careful to make the distinction. More power, Get Real Philippines, only--get it right, too. It'll help you in the long run.

*I know, I know, my sarcasm's showing.

**Old joke:

Q: How do you make a small fortune in Filipino filmmaking?

A: Start with a big fortune.

All I want for Christmas is the Director's Cut

2011-12-25T19:34:00.003-05:00

Everybody pauses and stares at me
The Director's Cut is gone as you can see
I don't know just who to blame for this catastrophe!
But my one wish on Christmas Eve is as plain as it can be!

All I want for Christmas
is the Director's Cut,
the Director's Cut,
see the Director's Cut!

Gee, if I could only
have The Director's Cut,
then I could wish you
"Merry Christmas."
It seems so long since I could say,
"Action movies are so good!"
Gosh oh gee, how happy I'd be,
if I could only see it (shhhh, shhhh, I'm watching)!

All I want for Christmas
is the Director's Cut,
the Director's Cut,
see the Director's Cut.

Gee, if I could only
have the Director's Cut,
then I could wish you
"Merry Christmas!"

Please sign the petition: LET OUR ASIONG GO!!!

Have yourself an 'Inasiong' Christmas

2011-12-24T04:38:00.000-05:00

(For a recap of what happened, please check out this blog post, its sequel, and its second sequel)

And just like that, apparently, game over.

Aguiluz had managed to file a court case against the producers of Asiong Salonga. A TRO (Temporary Restraining Order) was issued against the film's December 25 screening. It looked as if Aguiluz's complaints were finally to be taken seriously.

And they were, to a point--the producers agreed to remove Aguiluz's name from the credits. No print of the director's cut, however, is forthcoming, and the MMFF will be screening the reportedly butchered and tarted-up producer's version. The same version will be sent to film festivals and film markets all over the world; as far as the rest of the world is concerned, the producer's cut is the one and only version of Manila Kingpin: The Asiong Salonga Story in existence...

And that, apparently, is that.

It was pointed out in a comment to one of my previous posts that Aguiluz should have expected what happened to him when he dealt with Governor Ejercito--one thinks of the saying "He who sups with the Devil should have a long spoon."

Well--one tries; the thing about the Devil is that he can make things happen for you, or at least that's the well-known motivating detail that accompanies the classic narrative. Yes, you're going to get burned, yes the outcome is never worth the trouble, and yes you only realize this when all has been said and done (or at least that's how the classic narrative goes). But in the real world, if you want to wait for a decent, straightforward producer to hand you the money to do your dream project, you'll never get started--that's the nature of the business. At least Aguiluz dared and nearly succeeded.

The real loser here, of course, is the Filipino people. As far as Philippine cinema is concerned, the action genre is dead; has been for some time. Aguiluz hoped to clear away the hoary cliches, the l, the ridiculous acting tics and gestures that have encrusted the genre like so many barnacles on an outdated sailing vessel; he had hoped to do a radical redesign, and came close to succeeding.

It may be small comfort to him, but when it comes to filmmakers who have attempted to remake a genre and were undone by their producers, he is in good company (Erich von Stroheim, Orson Welles; Sergei Eisenstein--and that's just including the obvious few).

Maybe someday that director's cut will be seen and, better yet, appreciated. Someday.

Have yourself an 'Inasiong' Christmas, folks.

(As for the online petition, it may have little to no effect, but I for one would like to be on record as wanting that Director's Cut released in whatever form. I'm not planning to have my signature removed; if anything, I'm proud to keep it there. You can see it in if I remember correctly the number five position on the list...and you're invited to add your own anyway, for principle's sake)

Asiong Salonga--the Director's Version

2011-12-23T03:06:00.000-05:00

Asiong Salonga--The Director's Version

(Please take the time to sign the petition asking the producer to release a Director's Cut of the film)

So here is the story the way I heard it:

A film was shot based on the story of Asiong Salonga, a notorious Filipino gangster who ruled Tondo in the late '40s and early '50s. The film was directed by Tikoy Aguiluz, and starred Jorge 'ER' Ejercito, Governor of Laguna, who was also the film's producer.

There were disagreements between director and producer as to the direction the film should take. The producer--naturally--wanted a commercial product; Aguiluz wanted something that would meet the criteria of good storytelling, with a minimum of cliches and an original attack on the classic Filipino action film. This is the compromise they came up with:

Working with his editor and longtime collaborator Mirana Medina, Aguiluz put together a 115 minute cut. This cut, as Ms. Medina outlines in careful detail in her blog, trimmed or edited out scenes that 1) had little to do with the story; 2) included melodramatic (her term was telenovela, or TV soap-opera) acting; 3) involved melodramatic dialogue; 4) employed traditional Filipino action film fighting cliches; and 5) retained traces of Governor Ejercito's former acting persona, which comes across as negative (her term is mala-demonyo, or demonic).

The producer, wanting his own cut, worked with Medina's assistant editor and put back in most of the elements Aguiluz and Medina took out, arriving at a 2 hour 30 minute cut. This was the cut Ejercito is apparently complaining about as 'boring' and 'slow,' not to mention 'overlong' (that's the running time of a Transformers movie which, when you think about it, is boring and overlong). Ejercito claims to have hired four additional editors, who have trimmed down their long version to a reported 108 or 110 minutes. According to Aguiluz some additional footage was shot without his knowledge, footage which included gunfights and an explosion, and this was included in the producer's version.

This was the version that was shown to the CEB, and while the response was good (the film was rated "A") the report noted "underlying melodramatic tendencies," and that "there are just too many fight scenes." They further noted that "E.R. Estregan seems awkward in some scenes."

Medina in her blog wrote "after watching the raw footage during the first shooting days, we could already see the great chances of Gov (Governor Ejercito) to win an award as Best Actor." I'm guessing his performance could only be improved by the trimming done by Medina and Aguiluz (removing the melodramatic excess, the traditional action film cliches, the former acting persona to reveal a new man altogether).

It probably won't help that, according to Aguiluz, the music composer the producer brought in created a totally unacceptable music score, one that as the director puts it is "meant for a soap opera and not for Asiong."

Things apparently got ugly after the two edits were made. Aguiluz was not informed that Ejercito was unhappy with the film. He was not informed that additional footage was to be shot. He was not invited to the December 17 premiere. His name was not removed as per his explicit request, but the names of his two editors, Mirana Medina and Rolando Eucason were removed and replaced by the name Jason Cahapay.

It's hinted that Aguiluz was paid a hefty sum for his name, hence their refusal to remove it. I've heard horror stories of this happening before, but it's a shock to hear it still happening--a man can't even control the use of his name? Something seems wrong about that.

Something equally wrong about removing Ms. Medina's name. As I noted in a previous blog post, Ms. Medina is not only Aguiluz's only acceptable choice to edit his films, she is easily one of the finest editors in the world, let alone Philippine cinema.

Incidentally that hefty sum isn't exactly correct. Aguiluz was contracted to work for eighteen days, and shoot extended up to thirty-six; he should have received P450,000 for the extra eighteen days, but his pay was negotiated down to P200,000 (roughly $4,500--American filmmakers, indies included, please note).

There are claims that a director's cut as Aguiluz has requested is too expensive, roughly P2 million ($50,000.00). Aguiluz points out that this isn't true--the Director's Cut exists in the Bangkok post-production outfit used; kinescoping has already been done with the producer's cut. Assembling the cut, scoring and mixing it shouldn't cost too much more--an estimated grand total of P500,000 (less than $11,500). This in fact is the agreement director and producer arrived at in the first place, before the producer began his extracurricular activities.

It would be in the producer's interest to do this cut. He may be interested in recouping his costs here in the Philippine, but the international film festival circuit, and the market available through this circuit, is a whole different animal. Aguiluz has the experience--he's attended many a festival, not just as guest or juror but as competitor, and directs his own international film festival (Cinemanila); he knows the criteria by which international film jurors and distributors judge entries. He knows the lay of the land, so to speak, and should be the most qualified person around to judge how and in what form the film should be presented abroad.

The word 'respect' has been bruited around, sometimes a bit too often; Aguiluz is known to be pugnacious and unafraid to stand up for his rights, but in this case I think he's also in the right. What was and is still being done to him is too much, and should not be tolerated--not by Aguiluz, not by any filmmaker, Filipino or otherwise.

(Again, if you feel there is the least bit of rightness to our cause, please take the time to sign the petition asking the producer to release a Director's Cut of the film)

E.R. Ejercito tries to defend his interference in 'Asiong Salonga'

2011-12-18T06:05:00.000-05:00

Update on the Asiong Salonga controversy:

(If you're coming to this only now, please read the petition letter for a summary of the situation and if you agree, please sign the petition)

An article dealing with Governor Ejercito's reaction to Tikoy Aguiluz's request.

Some reactions off the top of my head.

"Hindi, basta ako, ang comment ko Direk Tikoy, magaling si Direk Tikoy.

Pero dagdag niya rin, "Pero yung editing and music, hindi niya linya yun.

"Huwag niyang pakialaman yung area na yun sa movie."

(For me, my comment on Director Tikoy, he's great.

Then he added: "When it comes to editing and music, that's not his line.

"He shouldn't interfere with those areas of the movie").

Difficult to respond because I haven't seen the film, but we're talking here of Tikoy Aguiluz and his long time collaborator and editor Mirana Medina. She has edited his films since his first feature, Boatman in 1984 and as far as I can see they have never varied their editing style or philosophy when it comes to pacing, rhythm, shot length. And I can say, having seen almost everything they have done, that theirs is some of the crispest, most no-nonsense editing in Philippine cinema.

Aguiluz's practice is to bring in Medina not just at production stage, but pre-production stage, and they plan out the editing almost from the point when they work out the script.

This has several advantages: Aguiluz knows what's essential to telling the story, what to leave out or fight to keep when money's short, or when things go wrong. He (and Medina) know the bare minimum needed to tell the story properly, even when they're missing several days' footage, or when the production is chaotic. That preliminary edit they share in their heads is their lifeline, to keep things clear, to recognize when they don't have a film and need to shoot some more, and what can be improvised when things don't work out.

So when Aguiluz says that his film's damaged because a few scenes were added (see this article for an explanation of the changes), my impulse is to believe him. He knows the film's structure, along with his editor; they've lived with this structure for the whole time, from the writing through pre-production, through the shoot, to post-production. To add or detract from a Tikoy Aguiluz film is like, in effect, slicing away or stitching on various appendages to a beautiful woman's face--the result is hideous, no matter what you think of the original visage. You do serious damage to what is essentially a finished product.

In a later article Ejercito declares that he found the pacing too slow, and he hired younger editors (he repeats the word "younger" at least twice) to (presumably) pick up the pacing. To this I reply: but at what cost to the storytelling? Are we to have Bourne Identity style editing when the story is set in the '50s? Will the audience marvel at the 'faster pacing' or laugh their heads off at the inappropriateness of the faster cuts? Does Governor Ejercito consider the Filipino people to still be cinematically and visually illiterate--that they wouldn't know good or appropriate editing when they see it? I don't declare--haven't seen the final product--I only ask.

Boatman, Bagong Bayani (The Last Wish), Segurista (Dead Sure), Tatsulok (Triangle), Biyaheng Langit (Paradise Express) for all their flaws have all been excellently edited, fast-paced films; the actions scenes are exciting to behold and never self-indulgent. Based on Aguiluz's filmmaking record, I frankly can't see where this is coming from.

Any filmmaker will tell you this; the idea of anyone adding to or cutting from their film can have them shuddering. I've already mentioned Mario O'Hara as having experienced this several times, but everyone from legendary Mike De Leon to maverick Celso Ad. Castillo to the late Ishmael Bernal to Lino Brocka himself has suffered interference, and all to a man will say they don't like it (Brocka has said so frankly in many interviews). It smacks of second-guessing, of mistrust. It suggests the producer has no confidence in his decision to hire the filmmaker in the first place.

(Again, if you agree with any of this or if you believe in artistic freedom in general, please consider signing the petition)

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO RELEASE TIKOY AGUILUZ'S 'ASIONG SALONGA' UNCUT AND UNALTERED

2011-12-18T04:47:00.000-05:00

From the website, a letter describing the situation and what is being demanded. If you agree--if you believe in artistic freedom, and the right of the director to be final arbitrator as to the status of his work--then please sign the petition.

We want Tikoy Aguiluz's Asiong Salonga!

Greetings,

This concerns the upcoming film Manila Kingpin: The Asiong Salonga Story, starring Jorge 'E.R.' Ejercito, directed by Tikoy Aguiluz. Months before it had been announced that Aguiluz was to direct this film, which would be produced by and star the aforementioned actor.

The news was greeted with excitement. It would have been the first Aguiluz movie in eight years, and was seen not just as the first major work of a major Filipino talent, but a return of the action film genre, and of the historical period film to mainstream Philippine cinema. It was to be entered in the Metro Manila Film Festival, and even that was seen as a return to the MMFF of years past, where prestigious films were not only screened but also competed in the festival.

Then on December 14 this article co-written by Bayani San Diego, Jr. and Marinel Cruz appeared:

The trouble with Asiong

The article outlined what was in effect a request by Mr. Aguiluz to have his name removed from the film's credits, his reason being that additional scenes were added without his consent, and that the final edit and music mix were not his. The film in its final form, he believes, is not his film.

These are serious accusations. There appears to have been a breakdown of communications between director and producer, to the extent that the producer has withdrawn control of the film from the director, and has altered the film substantially in ways that the director has not approved of.

The film in effect has been changed in ways that the producer has seen fit; without the director's consent, however, we have to assume that the producer has changed the film to make it more commercially viable, or--being the lead actor as well--to make his role more substantial, his character more appealing. We also have to assume that, without the director's consent, these changes were not applied to improve the film's artistry, or its cinematic values.

We have to assume this because historically speaking, a producer's interference in a film has often resulted in less than happy results. Erich Von Stroheim's Greed (1924) was cut to about a fourth of its running time, and consensus opinion was that this was a great loss; Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) lost its original ending, which was considerably shortened and re-cut, and most film historians believe that the altered ending is far weaker than the original.

This applies as well to Filipino film history. Pressure was put on Lino Brocka to change the ending of his masterpiece Insiang (1976), to better conform to censorship laws, and to conform to former First Lady Imelda Marcos' adage that films must reflect “the true, the good, the beautiful” (Brocka was said to have changed the ending, but in a way that he believed would remain faithful to the film's themes). Bernal was pressured to change the name of his masterpiece Manila by Night to City After Dark; his ending too was altered to make the film more palatable to Filipino censors.

Mario O'Hara seems to be the patron saint of interfered-with filmmakers. He was fired from the production of Mga Bilanggong Birhen (The Captive Virgins, 1977); the producer gave the film to another filmmaker, and the result is an incoherent mess. The producer had hardcore pornographic footage inserted into his Bed Sins (1985) without his consent. His Sindak (Fear, 1999) was taken away from him, extra scenes inserted, the final edit changed.

Some might argue that interference from the producer is not quite the same as from the government; both have different interests, of course, not to mention differing stakes. The point is, it's all interference. It's the taking over of a work by people who have not lived with the work day in and day out, for weeks or even months at a time, deciding the final form of something they often only have a few days to look at and familiarize themselves, and the results have almost never come out well. As Erich von Stroheim said of the editor that butchered his film Greed: "The only thing he had on his mind was his hat."

The ultimate loser in all this is the average Filipino viewer. Time and time again he is told that he is stupid, and will not understand more intellectual, or complex forms of storytelling. Time and time again he is told that the violence is too intense, or the sex too explicit, or the film too dark or slow for him to appreciate, or understand, or resist; if he sees it, he might be tempted to kill someone or rape someone else, or kill himself out of despair. What few people seem to realize is that the Filipino viewer is perfectly capable of deciding for himself what he wants and does not want to see.

Aguiluz has asked of his producers that he be allowed to screen his edit of his film to festivals overseas; this is nice for festival viewers overseas, but what about us, the Filipino viewers?

We have had enough. We the Filipino viewers--we the viewers of the world as well--have had enough. We have waited patiently for and have been long excited to see this film of Mr. Aguiluz, Mr. Ejercito and their collaborators. We ask of the producers that they release the film in the form Mr. Aguiluz originally envisioned, and trust in his overall love and passion for filmmaking and for this film that it is already in the best form it will ever be, and any additional alteration would be both wasteful and beside the point.

We believe the Filipino people have long been hungry for a quality mainstream Filipino film, one that tells a well-made, well-written popular story, and we believe Mr. Aguiluz--with the help of Mr. Ejercito and everyone else involved--has done it. It is there, unaltered, already ready to be fed into the projector. We want to see that film, as decided by the artist best qualified to make that decision. We ask that you give us that film.

(Again, if you agree with any of this, or if you believe in the rights of an artist to express himself freely, please sign the petition!)

Immortals (Tarsem Singh, 2011)

2011-12-17T04:15:00.001-05:00

Superhero salad

Consider poor Theseus. His divine father bequeathed on him godlike strength, but not godlike immunity to life's sorrows; his human father abandoned him to be raised by his mother. He's required to travel to Athens, encountering many dangers along the way, to claim his birthright; when he arrives his stepmother tries to kill him.

Theseus' father commits suicide; his best friend is captured by the Furies. He's considered one of Athens' greatest heroes, but no one would ever mistaken his life for a bowl of cherries.

For whatever reason Theseus hasn't enjoyed the name recall of, say, Hercules; his life's story hasn't been adopted into half a dozen sword-and-sandal epics, nor has it been turned into a Disney movie musical. He is mostly remembered for his adventure against the Minotaur, a monstrous half-man, half-bull creature that lives in a labyrinth--wouldn't be surprised to learn that people are readier to remember the Minotaur than they are his name. He hovers in that Underworld of dimly regarded mythological figures--not quite familiar, not quite forgotten.

Now he gets the exclusive multimillion dollar Hollywood 3D production treatment--only it isn't what it used to be. 3D has lost some of its luster, ever since the sequels to both the Pirates of the Caribbean and Kung Fu Panda franchises failed at the boxoffice. This production was obviously meant to cash in on the success of Clash of the Titans, not to mention the larger-than-life bloodbaths found in 300, but some of the bloom has faded from action-fantasy as well (Conan the Barbarian, anyone?). Knowing all this, I walked into the theater expecting to find a second-rate Clash; instead I found an intensely violent, exuberantly stylish comic-book action movie.

Tarsem Singh for much of his not-very-prolific career has been something of an eye-catcher. His The Cell (2000) I didn't much like--it dwelt too much on a cliché of a story, the hunt for a serial killer and his hidden victim--but it did feature said killer's more exotic fantasies, some of which involved hermetically sealed junk and desiccated corpses in the spirit of Jan Svankmajer (a master at conveying physical corruption). His The Fall (2006) was an altogether warmer, more winning project, the attempt by a disabled stuntman and his child friend to weave a fantasy of a story; Singh envisioned slow-motion action in a swirl of colors, set against an electric blue sky, largely desert landscapes, and ravishing Islamic architecture.

Immortals is a step forward and upwards--not a serial-killer hunt, nor an exercise in willed storytelling, but a retelling of the life of Theseus, one of the great Greek mythological heroes. Characterization is minimal--you barely know these people--but their expressions, their gestures, their voice delivery are consistently intense, outsized, intricate. They may be shallow, barely sketched-out people, but they're vividly, memorably so.

Like Louis Leterrier with his Clash of the Titans Singh makes heavy use of digital effects; unlike Leterrier Singh has formidable imagemaking abilities, and an awesome sense of drama--he'll frame tiny figures against a vast set, crawling across a polished floor like so many ants, or throw vivid colors across electric-blue sky and desolate land, against which he parades a procession of outrageous Eiko Ishioka costumes.

Like, say, Zack Snyder Singh likes to make extensive use of slow motion in his action sequences. Unlike Snyder, Singh has a genuine sensibility, one that draws inspiration from more eclectic sources (for The Cell Singh possibly viewed the works of Jan Svankmajer; for this film he's quoted as saying he's trying to emulate Michelangelo Caravaggio). Snyder's sources of inspiration? For 300 obviously Frank Miller (a good draftsman, but his historically distorted view of Thermopylae (not to mention racist and homophobic view of the Persians) plays out on a monotonous color palette--red on black on red on black...); for Watchmen it's pretty much Dave Gibbons (whose closely detailed realism is effective, not exactly inspired--you can't help but suspect the intricate camera moves found in the comics were closely scripted by writer Alan Moore).

Singh's basic approach to the material may be questionable (a comic-book look at Greek mythology?) but the man does know how to wield a camera, and to cut the resulting footage together in a rhythm designed to elicit awe, exuberance, a sense of majesty. Comic book? Well--yes, but consider: mythology was the Greeks' (and for that matter the rest of Western civilization's) way of telling elemental stories of lust, vengeance, ambition, pathos; they were colorful, dramatic, easy to comprehend. The gods were the ancient Greeks' equivalent of the superhero; like superheroes they maintained some kind of secret identity, showing themselves only in times of great crisis, and only to people who have proven themselves worthy. Like superheroes they (and their progeny) represented the Grecian virtues, Theseus in particular: bravery, loyalty, integrity, ingenuity in the face of impossible odds.

Immortals is short on humanity, long on the human body in all its speed, power, grace; watching this makes you almost want to go hurl a javelin, or run a really long course, or do something Olympian. If the gods had to pick an artist to do their 'graphic novel,' they could have done worse, much, much worse.

First published in Businessworld 12.8.11

The Ward (John Carpenter, 2010)

2011-12-13T00:21:00.001-05:00

Girl gone bad

It starts ominously enough--girl running through the woods, coming upon a house, reaching in an open window with matches to light the curtains, squatting to watch the house burn down...

The cops come and grab her; she resists violently (but if she didn't want to be arrested why didn't she run?). Kristen (Amber Heard) is sentenced to a psychiatric ward with only four other fellow patients, and the feeling of a largely abandoned, mostly empty building. They have meandering, sporadically hostile therapy sessions with a Dr. Stringer (Jared Harris) who speaks in an ominously Teutonic accent, and whose primary assistant is named, ominously again, Nurse Lundt (Susanna Burney)...

What exactly is going on here? Why is there almost as much staff as patients? Why does the ward look empty most of the time? Why would the nurse leave her station for such unlikely lengths of time? Why does the doctor keep using hypnotherapy? Why would Kristen burn that house down? Why was she running through those woods in the first place? The inconsistencies and unanswered questions are almost more bothersome than the creepy atmosphere, and one wonders if Carpenter went into this with a half-baked script (by Michael and Shawn Rasmussen, for the record). To the suspense of Kristen surviving her ordeal is added an extra element of suspense: will Carpenter's first feature film in nine years end in disaster and disgrace for the veteran horror filmmaker?

Well--yes and no. This isn't the clean-cut Carpenter of the early years, who employed techniques pioneered by Howard Hawks to create low-budget thrillers that made much more money than was put into them (Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), Halloween (1978)); it's not quite middle-phase Carpenter, who gleefully toyed with metaphysical concepts to the befuddlement of his fans (In the Mouth of Madness (1994), Cigarette Burns (2005)). I'd call it hybrid Carpenter, where he's trying to get back to his Halloween roots while still addressing his need to nitpick at the fraying weave that holds our reality together...

The hostility that accompanies this film is understandable--it's misleading, it refuses to explain itself, it doubles back and reinvents itself in a way that might leave the viewer confused, if he isn't paying attention. Or if he's paying too much attention; putting together the picture in one's head, the pieces may not fit, the overall scheme may not provide a satisfying resolution, or even a coherent one.

But--does that matter? Carpenter shows younger filmmakers how suspense is really done. There's a moment early in the film when the girls are in their recreation room and the entire building is plunged into a blackout; the girls are startled, then amused, then begin to panic from the oncoming thunder, the increasingly intense lightning-flash. One girl cries out; another hides. Their panic starts becoming contagious; you wonder if the flashes don't have a shock cut hidden among them that would reveal something truly frightening--

At which point Carpenter cuts to a long shot embracing the entire room. Sudden eerie silence; the lights have just come back on. All five girls stare at each other wondering--did something just end, or is something about to begin? Carpenter manages to make the failure of a “boo!” moment even more unsettling than if a scare did occur--not an easy achievement.

Later we see evidence that Carpenter's been keeping up; some images seem inspired by Takashi Shimizu's Ju-on (2002); others seem to reference Eli Roth's Hostel (2005). Not too many, thank goodness; Carpenter's still able to toss in moments that have a flavor all their own--like when Iris (Lyndsey Fonseco) is strapped down to a chair awaiting her grisly end (no digital cheats here; the prosthetic makeup looks reasonably realistic, and Carpenter shows just enough to make us flinch, not so much that it looks drawn-out and cartoonish).

Even better is when Kirsten first undergoes electroshock therapy--the order to have it approved and her strapped to a table is carried out with appalling speed (I hope if I'm ever a candidate for electroshock the doctors would at least put in the proper paperwork, or pause to consider less extreme solutions--an herbal enema, perhaps?). She's whimpering, a tongue block inserted in her mouth, the inevitability of her position all too apparent in her eyes; when shock is applied her head shudders against the leather cushion, which warps in time to her shuddering. Seen from above you see the warping as rays radiating from her head--as if she wore a halo of electric force that flashed in time to the terrible shuddering rhythm...

By film's end Carpenter manages to answer most of our questions; more, he manages to square away any number of narrative sins he's committed during the course of the story. More it's difficult to reveal--suffice to say, I only need mention certain filmmakers or even titles and you'd know what just happened; the twist is hardly new. But this is Carpenter's latest, and it's surprisingly whole and coherently put-together despite the questions posed along the way, despite the speed with which Carpenter whips the story along, despite the countless unanswered mysteries. Not his best, but I could have done much worse things with my ninety or so minutes..

First published on Businessworld, 11.24.11

Tribute to Mario O'Hara at the Cinema One Awards (11.13.11)

2011-12-03T04:00:00.001-05:00

I'm sure you've already seen or at least heard about this before.

Cinema One Originals, which helps produce, screen and promote independent digital films, had decided to give an honorary award to O'Hara, for his pioneering efforts in independent cinema.

Star-studded affair. Ricky Lee handed O'Hara his award; Nora Aunor was a co-recipient. There was reportedly a videotaped tribute to O'Hara, of which, or so I hear (I don't have Cinema One, alas), portions of an interview I did for them was included.

Now that some time has passed, I thought of posting the full contents of that interview for downloading here.

It was basically four questions (warning, the files are large, as in hundreds of megabytes).

1. Sino si Mario O' Hara sa larangan ng pelikula? (What's the role of Mario O'Hara in the field of cinema?)

2. Bilang isang manunulat, si Mario O'hara ay sumulat ng mga obra na may social relevance. Ang mga topic niya ay naka-focus sa mga deviants ng society at pinapakita ang realidad ng buhay na hindi romanticized. Gaano ito kahalaga sa mga manunuod at sa buhay ng bawat Pinoy (As a writer, Mario O'Hara wrote works with social relevance. His topics are focused on the deviants of society and reveal the reality of life unromanticized. How important is this to the viewer and to every Pinoy?)?

3. Si Mario O'hara ay kilala bilang direktor, manunulat at aktor. Ano ang pinakamahalagang kontribusyon niya sa pelikulang Pilipino (Mario O'Hara is known as a director, writer, and actor. What is his most important contribution to Philippine cinema?

4. Si Mario O'Hara ay (Mario O'Hara is)_______________

Shorts (Hugo; Immortals; J. Edgar; The Killers, three versions)

2011-11-27T03:04:00.001-05:00

Hugo

An intricate clockwork of a movie that spins and shudders, chimes and chatters, striking a brassy bell for the cult of cinephilia. Forget the ostensible story--something about some silly orphan hiding in a railway station (Why doesn't he seek a shelter? Or better yet, why doesn't the film show us why he refuses to seek a shelter?), at the same time seeking the parts to repair a broken-down automaton--and enjoy the film's true subject matter: the love of film, and of filmmakers. Martin Scorsese directs in two modes: with exuberance, and with a crystalline sense of still-eyed wonder, the kind Spielberg used to specialize in until all the honesty in the emotion was strip-mined away. Here it is again, fresh and new-minted, it seems--produced out of the tip of one's ear (after being given up for lost) as if by a prestidigitator's hand.

Yes there is slapstick--a sop for those with attention deficit disorder--but more to the point there is magic, mainly from Scorsese's camera, and mainly from the warmth radiated by Scorsese's irrepressible love for films. Wonderful picture and, thanks to the camerawork (by Robert Richardson) and production design (by Dante Ferretti), wonderful visual texture--one of the best to date to use 3D, easily.

Immortals

Now this is a surprise--from what all the critics are saying, I walked in expecting a secondhand, second-rate Clash of the Titans remake; what I found instead is a stylishly violent retelling of the Theseus myth. Tarsem Singh (The Cell, The Fall) arguably uses a similar style to Zack Snyder (300)--all slow-motion bombast, to follow an intricately dancelike fight choreography (I'm guessing they all get their inspiration from John Woo). Only Singh has been at it at least four years longer than Snyder, and Singh to my mind at least is the superior action filmmaker (his fight sequences are more graceful, more varied, less wearying on the eye). Plus he insists on papering his film with striking imagery--from Jan Svankmajer for early parts of The Cell, from Caravaggio for Immortals (Snyder's main source of inspiration for 300 is Frank Miller; for Watchmen Dave Gibbons). Considering it's mostly a straightforward superhero movie with a subpar script and little to zero characterization (you recognize the people mostly from their costumes, and basic physiognomy) it's not bad; not bad at all.

J. Edgar

Clint Eastwood's Hoover biography is actually pretty good. A little po-mo time-sequence shuffling, a nice little twist at the end reminding us what J. Edgar's been doing all along (controlling the narrative to tell his story his way), a tender little love story, all in that retro-seeming straight-shooting visual package that is Eastwood's trademark storytelling style. Maybe the film's biggest problem is fitting this appropriately to one of the most ambivalently repulsive figures in modern American history--yes, he contributed to law enforcement, the same time placing himself pretty much above said law; yes he possibly loved Tolson, possibly platonically, but denied the same opportunity to many other Americans--I think we need to see this more. Fascinatingly flawed, both film and figure.

The Killers (1946)

Siodmark's German Expressionist style rules this version of Hemingway's short story, which pretty much runs out some fifteen minutes in. The rest of the film tries to answer the question left hanging in the air: just what did he do that made him decide to stop running from death? It's an intricate answer, one that involves a double cross on top of a double cross (on top of as it turns out a third double cross), and a femme fatale as beautiful as Ava Gardner (who comes across as arguably the single most desirable creature onscreen, if not in all of Hollywood). Burt Lancaster as Ole Swede ain't chopped liver either--when he swings into action taking down a gunman, or runs across the screen to shoot his pursuers' tires he's raging-bull huge yet agile; all the more haunting, then, is the image of him lying down (as Hemingway chillingly puts it) “too long for his bed,” passively waiting for his approaching fate. Siodmak shoots Lancaster so that only his middle torso is visible, his head and legs sliced off by the surrounding dark as if by a guillotine; he already looks like a collection of body parts. When warned about the oncoming killers, his disembodied voice full of resignation and despair gives thanks for the warning but declares with finality: “I'm through with all that running around.” Absolute acceptance of an unavoidable fate: that's what great film noir's all about.

The Killers (1964)

Don Siegel's remake (it was an attempt to make the first ever TV feature, or so I'm told) suffers from budgetary woes: the soundtrack is partly borrowed from Welles' Touch of Evil, the racing sequences are all rear projection--poorly done rear projection, at that--and the producers couldn't even convince John Cassavetes to get behind a real set of go-cart wheels (Angie Dickinson, to her credit, is game). Still, the nastiness has if anything been intensified: Lee Marvin strides into a school for the blind and menaces the helpless receptionist; later he gives Ms. Dickinson similar treatment, only rougher. And it's not true that these killers aren't as playful as in Hemingway's story or Siodmak's version--in one scene, while Norman Fell is being sweated by Marvin, Clu Galager pulls off his shades, looks them over, wipes them clean on Fell's damp hair.

Siegel directs with economy and straightforward brutality. The harsh TV lighting and flimsy sets reveal this to be an appropriate version of The Killers for its age: crass and overbright, a nightmare dressed in cheap plastic and garish synthetic fibers, filled with sudden explosions (inserted footage that seems unreal and disconnected from the rear projection footage) and equally sudden impulses--like the one that has Cassavetes taking a swing at and knocking down Ronald Reagan, future President of the United States.

The Killers (1956)

Andrei Tarkovsky's directorial debut, an adaptation of Hemingway's classic story. Easily the most faithful with regards to dialogue and text, the film is also the most wayward with regards to visual and emotional tone--the bartender looks like a tubercular Soviet student aesthete, the pair of assassins look as if they would rather order an expresso, and one of the customers seems to have wandered in from out of a Soviet dockyard workers' strike, possibly taking a break, another sports a beret (later Tarkovsky himself walks in, whistling a lively rendition of Lullaby of Birdland). Still, there is style here, a brooding use of camera movement and shadows harkening back to the German Expressionists (and, ironically, Siodmak) that is satisfying to see. Unfortunately, the scene involving Ole Swede's bedroom (directed by Alexandr Gordon) fails to show us the feet sticking out over the edge of the bed--a key detail.

11.27.11

Cinemanila 2011 (13 Assassins; Dario Argento; Jafar Panahi; Nora Aunor)

2011-11-20T22:35:00.001-05:00

Cinemanila 2011: Cup runneth over

It's that time of the year again, and Cinemanila--running from the eleventh of November 2011 (All those ones! Put that in your lottery ticket) to the seventeenth at the Market! Market! Cinemas at Bonifacio Global City in Taguig, Rizal--is easily the best show in town, everything from the latest by Wim Wenders (Pina (2011), about famed dance choreographer German Philippina "Pina" Bausch--in 3D, at that) to the latest by Park Chan Wook (Night Fishing (2011), a 30 minute short shot entirely on an iPhone). Plus films by Lav Diaz (Siglo ng Pagluluwal (Century of Birthing, 2011), Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011)), and Chang Dong Lee (Poetry (2010)).

There are retrospectives on Dario Argento (Suspiria (1977)) and Nora Aunor (Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos (Three Years Without God, 1976), Himala (Miracle, 1982), Bona (1980)), both of whom are to receive lifetime achievement awards; films by Jaffar Panahi (Offside (2006)) including the latest he did while officially prohibited by the Iranian government from directing films (This is Not a Film (2010)); the latest by Raya Martin (Buenas Noches Espana (Goodnight Spain, 2011)); by John Torres (Mapang-akit (Seductive, 2011)); by Kim Jee Woon (I Saw the Devil (2010)); by Takashi Miike ((13 Assassins (2010)) and by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)). The latest in independent shorts, digital films by Southeast Asian and Filipino talents. And many, many more.

Pick a title, any title...possibly the most audacious aspect of Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins (a remake of Eiichi Kudo's 1963 'jidaigeki' (period samurai) film, about twelve samurai plus one hired to kill a shogun's psychotically sadistic son) is its unapologetic invitation--dare, almost--to be compared to Akira Kurosawa's three-hour epic Seven Samurai (1954).

Does Miike measure up to Kurosawa's definitive statement on war and violence? Certainly jacks up the numbers--from seven to thirteen heroes, facing at first seventy, then two hundred soldiers, their battle involving not just swords and arrows but slingshots, guns, booby-traps, bursts of flame, huge explosions, giant sliding fences that block off the action and redefine the battlefield again and again. Unlike Kurosawa, Miike doesn't strive for strict realism; the sliding fences look impossibly high, and digital effects help simulate a stampede of burning bulls (no, really). Unlike Kurosawa, Miike doesn't even bother to keep the battle's village setting spatially coherent--he has a main avenue where most of the killing is done, then opens up all kinds of back alleyways and side passages and courtyards for heroes and villains to run through and die in as, if, whenever necessary.

Like Kurosawa Miike follows the classic form, or at least gives passing acknowledgement--there is a recruiting sequence, and some of the characters recruited stay in mind (two that do are drunken nephew Shinrokuro (Takayuki Yamada) and forest hunter Kiga Koyata (Yusuke Iseya)); a preparation sequence that doesn't really explain much (but is fitfully entertaining); and a showdown that takes up almost half the picture (you can tell where Miike's priorities lie). The endless scenes of close combat are long, carefully choreographed (if outwardly chaotic) affairs, with coherent camerawork and editing in the classic Kurosawa manner (Miike may be crazy but he isn't stupid); the final showdown is as operatic and overblown as anything one might wish for from Kurosawa, or Sergio Leone, or any of the classic Western (in both sense of the word) filmmakers.

What makes this exercise in relatively straightforward jidaigeki most distinctly Miike is his villain, Lord Matsudaira Naritsugu. Naritsugu enjoys plenty of screen time, enough to establish him as one of Miike's more baroque creations--a hedonist with limitless appetites, a sociopath who finds absolutely no value in human life, a sadistic pervert with (and this may be the most shocking detail of all) no real experience of the real world, completely unaware of how other people think or feel (one speculates that he's lived a sheltered life where his every whim is obeyed, no matter how unreasonable). Played by the blandly handsome Goro Inagaki--it's the nondescript prettiness covering a seething nihilistic innocence that makes the character so unsettling--Naritsugu dominates 13 Assassins in a way that no character in Kurosawa's film ever did; he galvanizes the picture, gives it urgency and a sense of impending doom (the man is on his way to receive a high position from his younger brother, the present Shogun; once promoted the man would be untouchably, monstrously powerful). More, he provides a detached god's eye view of the battle, relishing with greater and greater appreciation his enemy's increasingly desperate tactics (viewing a particularly bloody struggle, Naritsugu asks Hanbei his chief samurai:

“You think the age of war was like this?”

“Perhaps.”

“It's magnificent. With death comes gratitude for life. If a man has lived in vain, then how trivial his life is. Oh, Hanbei; something wonderful has come to my mind.”

“Huh?”

“Once I'm on the Shogun's council, let's bring back the age of war...”).

As Naritsugu's chief samurai Hanbei Kitou, Masachika Ichimura makes for the perfect foil, a noble samurai who doesn't hesitate to protect his lord, even if his lord is crazy. Theirs (as the poem goes) not to reason why, theirs but to do or die--you can feel Hanbei's distaste, yet he's warrior enough to swallow his sentiments and stay true to his master. Partly because of the loyalty (fanaticism?) of men like these monstrous governments, administrations, kingdoms are made possible, are granted bloody birth.

Perhaps the worst criticism ever leveled at Kurosawa's masterpiece was that it provided little insight into the forty bandits facing the samurai. Miike addresses that lack many times over with his Lord Naritsugu; he manages to give the man his own inimitable point of view, one that survives a final confrontation with the assassins, even affords him a morsel of sympathy. A great action film? I don't know; Kurosawa's shadow looms large over the landscape. But Miike does throw a few clever ideas in, giving the material an interesting spin.

Of Dario Argento--what else can be said that hasn't already been said? Don't consider Suspiria his best work but it's easily his best known: a parody of Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) where instead of a massive Oedipal complex we have a malevolent witches' convent; instead of austere black-and-white we have an operatic palette of colors, hue, textures. The shadows are as deep and velvety as outer space, the sound and music (compliments of the band Goblin) as eclectically precise as a collection of surgical instruments; you find yourself strapped metaphorically to your chair with Argento bent over gazing at you, scalpel in one hand. Screaming at this point would be a blessing.

Jafar Panahi is by turns politically astute, irrepressibly satirical, restlessly experimental; to the edict that he be forbidden from directing a film, for example, he responds with a work titled This is Not a Film.

Offside is about a group of girls trying to sneak into an Iranian soccer game (where women are banned). Not just any soccer game--it's the game where Iran qualified for the 2006 World Cup. Comedy this sharp is almost impossible to describe, the way a beautiful kick past a goalie can be impossible to describe: there are no words there are only the motions as the filmmaker sidesteps all restrictions in his production (He can't film the girls in the game, for one thing, he has to hope for the purposes of his script that Iran wins, and for budgetary reasons (not a lot of money for extras) he has to shoot during the actual games). The ending, a victory for the record, is both exuberant and bittersweet.

If there isn't much to add to what's been said about Argento, there's even less to add to the considerable amount of ink that has been spilled over Nora Aunor, on her umpteenth comback with a successful 'teleserye' (Mario O'Hara's Sa Ngalan ng Ina (In the Name of the Mother) recently wrapped and a major film (Tikoy Aguiluz's Manila Kingpin, a remake of The Asiong Salongga Story) coming soon. Aunor in this retrospective can be seen in at least three different aspects, as handled by three major filmmakers: as object of adoration and religious icon (Ishmael Bernal's hallucinatory Himala); as downtrodden maid in an urban melodrama (Lino Brocka's Bona), and as provincial lass turned Japanese collaborator in Mario O'Hara's period epic (Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos).

Aunor broke the tradition of using light-skinned screen stars with Westernized faces; hers is the face and figure of the masses, dark-skinned and diminutive, and they love her dearly for this, love her success because it's their success too. She's not only an accomplished actress in the silent-screen manner (those dark eyes!) but an accomplished producer as well--one of her own projects, O'Hara's Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos is arguably and in my book possibly the finest Filipino film ever made.

So; go see. Have fun...

First published in Businessworld, 10.10.11

Sa Ngalan ng Ina (In the Name of the Mother, Mario O'Hara, Jon Red, 2011) fourth week

2011-11-14T01:30:00.000-05:00

Some last thoughts on Sa Ngalan Ng Ina

(With revisions in the 12th, 13th and final paragraphs)

Been a week since Sa Ngalan ng Ina has closed, and have written many an article on the series, but have yet to fully digest the total experience.

Won't stop me from trying.

Did it achieve all that it set out to do? I don't think so. I think it set out to be a groundbreaking teleserye that married recent political mythology (the fall of the Marcos clan and rise of the Aquino clan) to full-blown Filipino melodrama. Along the way the political thread was dropped (at about the time both prodigal children (Alfonso (Alwyn Uytingco) and Andrea (Nadine Samonte)) Deogracias reconciled with their stepmother Elena (Nora Aunor)); villainness Lucia Ilustre (Rosanna Roces) started to focus on extralegal means to exact revenge on Elena; and political figures Apo (Leo Rialp) and Dorinda (Raquel Villavicencio) faded into the background.

It was a pity, I thought; the political element grounded the melodrama, kept it linked not just to everyday reality, but to familiar everyday reality, freshly taken from headlines (the financial scandals; the leaked tape recordings; the deliveries and collection activities of drug gangs). I thought Elena--a naif when it came to political reality and proudly so--was starting to come into her own when she collaborated with her drug-lord stepson. Yes she was making arrests right and left, but this was at the expense of the empire Alfonso had carefully built; if he was to give all that up, he had to have demanded some kind of price, and I would have loved to have known just what (A sum of cash? Concessions to various lucrative but legal activities?).

The reconciliation between Alfonso and Elena was beautifully done, and I as much as said so; I even hoped that despite the noble sentiments expressed Alfonso would struggle with temptation and perhaps experience a relapse, and Elena struggle with the prospect of arresting her son yet another time. But Alfonso's turned out to be a genuine change of heart, even a lasting one; Uytingco remained a consistently fine actor for the rest of the series but didn't ignite the screen the way he did the previous four weeks.

Elena's character suggested bits of ambivalence especially during the third and fourth week; besides running to Alfonso she delivered a particularly menacing threat to an underperforming police officer ("Remember I had my own son arrested--think what I'd do to someone outside my family!"); beyond that, the only indication that she was a less than perfect woman was when she admitted to fathering a child with Pepe Ilustre, played by Christopher De Leon (but then apparently half the women in the Philippines seem to want to do that--why should she be any different?).

Then there was the way Elena broke up Andrea's marriage to Ramoncito--I thought then that that was a masterstroke of hidden puppeteering, the loveliest touch being that Elena meant well, and acted exactly like a concerned, caring mother. But nothing more was made out of it, and Andrea never suspected, apparently; she became and remained till the end of the series a staunch Elena Deogracias supporter (here's to hoping she doesn't read this blog).

It wasn't quite (as I'd hoped at first) the Filipino equivalent of Robert Altman's Tanner '88: too many opportunities missed, too many plot threads simplified instead of rendered more complicated. Elena started out humble, ends up heroic at worst; Alfonso has the dramatic heart ripped out of him when he realized he wasn't eating his Aunt Pacita's humba.

Likewise Lucia--I would have loved to have seen her develop as a character, but then she decides to take the for me least interesting route: jealous housewife gone totally insane. Pretty much tossed her sometimes ingenious manipulation of media and law to the side when she decided to kidnap Elena; after that, her options were strictly limited, more of the Norma Desmond After Shooting Joe Gillis variety ("I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille!").

The series' great theme, I thought, dealt with establishing boundaries: how one separates politics from family relationships, and vice versa. I had hoped the series would delve deeper into this issue, show how the various figures (Elena, Andrea, Pepe, Lucia, and in retrospect Amang) negotiated this division within their work, within themselves.

Not really; in the final weeks the series devolved into a struggle between two women (Elena and Lucia) for the love of a good man (Pepe Ilustre). Not a bad struggle to depict, but--it could have been something more (see paragraphs above).

But on that other complementary major theme--that the demands of politics and demands of family are often similar and easy to confuse, even interchange--I have to say the series is a howling success. Andrea and Lucia often personalize politics (Andrea by using her wedding as a promotional gimmick, Lucia by using her husband's emotional infidelity to justify her campaign against Elena), and I suppose it's to the credit of the writers (Dinno Erece, Jerry Gracio, Benedict Mique, Pamela Miras) that you see their gradual influence on Elena, on her eventual personalization of her politics (she bends the rules to forgive Alfonso, she learns to hate Lucia and call her a demon). Should the series have explored this further, shown how Elena may have changed her moral principles? Should there be a scene where someone tells her that she has changed her moral principles? At least one scene of self-examination, where she looks back and ruthlessly criticizes her brief career? Alas, we may never have that scene...

I might add that O'Hara adopted a similar approach in Bagong Hari, where the hero remained mostly heroic despite the darkness and corruption surrounding him. Possibly O'Hara didn't feel this was needed, then or now; that the plot was complex enough without adding complexities in the protagonist's nature. That the politician slowly corrupted by politics is too familiar a story, and what was needed was the story of someone fully engaged in politics but was not corrupted (as Marcos was), nor rendered ineffective by eventual circumstances (as Aquino eventually was). A middle way, if you like, with some necessary compromises made.

While the series largely dropped the politics in favor of melodrama, you had to admit it was superbly told melodrama--fast-paced, mostly understated, in its own observant way truthful. Lucia may have gone nuts, but she never devolves into anything less than human--she constantly touches on her primary motivation for doing what she does, her love of Pepe and daughter Carmela (Karel Marquez), her hatred of Elena (I keep thinking the hate tends to overshadow the love--or is it one face of the same coin?). When Lucia surrenders to the police, director Jon Red gives her a magnificent send-off scene worthy of (inspired by?) Gloria Swanson's similar scene in Sunset Boulevard. No--this is better; writer-director Billy Wilder had frozen Norma Desmond's face into a Kabuki mask of insanity, with little human left in her (the mask cracks only towards the end, and only to deliver a final childish cry of totally irrelevant, if passingly poignant, delight).

Rosanna Roces starts out the opposite of frozen, her Lucia broken and alone, utterly defenseless, totally devastated; she looks into the mirror (her only witness) and--this is the magnificent part--somehow finds it in herself to slowly pick up a brush and start building up her face, slowly (in effect) pick up the shattered shards of her life, slowly piece together the ever formidable, endlessly invincible persona she had created for herself: Lucia Ilustre, daughter of a storied political family, wife of the region's former governor, leader of a major drug cartel, powerful political force.

That's the drama, and excellent drama it is, too. What Mario O'Hara achieves with the Deogracias household (in contrast with the anguish in the Ilustre household) is, if possible even more impressive: he makes everyday happiness seem special. Kidnappings, killings and tortures; hair-pulling, shouting matches and confrontations--that's the very lifeblood of soap operas, what they thrive on. More difficult to do well are scenes of everyday life where nothing more dramatic is happening than, well, eating a meal. If, say, Lucia's surrender is the teleserye equivalent of an episode out of Victor Hugo or Dostoevsky, you might call the scenes in the Deogracias household--especially at this point in the series--the teleserye equivalent of Tolstoy, whose most unique achievement was the depiction of ordinary domestic life.

Nowhere is this better seen than in the shot where the Deogracias' manang (Lilia Cuntapay) is serving lunch. She pauses with the food, looks up, touches the arm of stepson Angelo (Edgar Allan Guzman); he looks in the same direction, touches Alfonso's arm; he looks in turn, touches Andrea's arm; she looks and smiles. The camera, which has been shifting from face to face to face, finally glides past all the faces to find Elena standing at one side of the room dressed in white, easily the first time she has done so in the series. The meaning is never spoken aloud but couldn't be more clear; she has stopped mourning the murder of her husband Amang (Bembol Roco) by Lucia; she's ready to move on.

If Lucia's surrender moves us to pity (for her despair) and admiration (for her strength and dignity), Elena's (which isn't even a scene really, more like a brief shot) moves us ineffably with its simplicity and grace. After all she's been through--after the death of her husband, the stress of election, the strain of running a province, the sharp sting of her stepchildren's ingratitude; after being kidnapped and beaten and tortured in various imaginative ways; after all that, it's almost painful to see Elena in white, smiling her shy Aunor smile, her incomparable eyes twinkling with wordless joy. It's not just happiness it's hard-earned happiness, it's sunshine after what seemed like a month of neverending tears. After going through all that to finally arrive at this we can, perhaps, allow ourselves to respond with a few tears of our own.

That final meeting between Elena and Pepe--I know it's a concession to their fans, to see Nora Aunor and Christopher De Leon at least act out their fantasy of coming back together; it's also the playing out of an even unlikelier fantasy, where two rival political families (the Aquinos and the Marcoses) settle their differences and come together in a harmonious marriage. But I see a third interpretation: of a filmmaker and his acting muse coming together after decades apart, marveling at how they have survived all these years, marveling even more at being given the chance to work together again, and at such a high (if not the highest) level. No, this may not be the ending of our dreams--it doesn't have the teeth, in my book, or the tragic grandeur (I would have liked very much to have some tragic grandeur)--but it is ending enough, a capstone to one of the most memorable collaborations in Philippine cinema...

11.11.11 (revised 11.14.11)

The Thing (Matthijs van Heijningen, 2011)

2011-11-12T05:20:00.001-05:00

Peter Maloney in the far superior 1982 verison

Stinks on ice

Far as I'm concerned, Matthijs van Heijningen's The Thing isn't a proper prequel, isn't even a proper remake--rather, it's a lame, lunkheaded effort at tribute that misunderstands everything that made John Carpenter's 1982 remake of Howard Hawks and Christian Nyby's The Thing From Another World (1951) a genuine horror classic.

According to interviews the filmmakers were interested in the Norwegian side of the story, what happened before their camp was demolished. Turns out 'what happened' isn't half as persuasive, or as entertaining, as what happened in the American camp; apparently the Norwegians are taciturn loners who seemed perfectly comfortable living for months in the deep snow. They don't have the Norwegian equivalent of 'copter pilot McReady trash-talking a computer chess-program, or men rollerskating down hallways, doing what they can to kill time. The enclosed conditions would drive anyone nuts, and in fact someone points to assistant mechanic Palmer (David Clennon) in one corner listening to his Walkman as an example of someone who's already cracked. The incongruity between nobility of the men's duties and pettiness of their actual actions recalls Kubrick's introductory shots of the bomber crew in Dr. Strangelove (1964)--another nightmare comedy about the possible end of the world.

Actually, this picture's characters slavishly avoid resembling anyone in Carpenter's film--to this end we are given paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), on loan to the Norwegian station to help with their new discovery. Winstead in interviews insisted that her character not experience any sexual or romantic tensions, this being “inappropriate”--but when you think about it, what other kind of tension can there be in an Antarctic ice station when women are present? Does the most tangible tension onscreen have to be the need to be politically correct? Hawks himself didn't avoid the problem; if anything, he faced it head-on, made it not just part of a scene but its liveliest, spiciest element--his women are known to be strong, provocative characters who didn't wilt in the face of male machismo, but responded with their own brand of proto-feminism, formidable adversaries for strapping men.

Carpenter didn't use women in his film, ostensibly because there were no women in John Campbell Jr.'s original short story (Carpenter's is a more faithful adaptation than Hawks'). That said, a homoerotic subtext can easily be read into the men's interactions, particularly in the simmering rivalry between the Caucasian McReady (Kurt Russell) and the African-American chief mechanic, Childs (Keith David).

No such interaction--sexual, romantic, homoerotic--to be found in Heijningen's movie; if anything, all we remember are Winstead's Lloyd and (a distant second) Ulrich Thomsen's Dr. Halversen (mainly because he is not Winstead, and after her is onscreen longest). More vivid in memory are the creature's various incarnations, many of which are digitally enhanced, and the way said incarnations kill or assimilate human fodder (xenoeroticism, anyone?).

Concerning treatment of the creature--Heijningen insists that mostly practical effects were used, the shots lit and framed to conceal them; the CGI enhancements are plainly visible, however, especially when the creatures leap and run after their prey. Heijningen's creature tips its hand early, when it uses its arms like living grappling hooks; later, in the movie's most effective scene, the creature fuses into its human victim, grows legs, crawls away. Carpenter's different; there was a progression in the way his creature revealed itself, a kind of strip-tease where each shadow fell away exposing dog-thing shifting to man-thing shifting to worse. And (as with the best of Carpenter) there are images of unmatched horror, tinged with an eerie lyricism--meteorologist Bennings (Peter Maloney) sitting in snow comes to mind, his hand unnaturally distorted, his cry an unhuman bellow.

Some sequences go beyond poetry into a kind of nightmare slapstick--the moment, for example, when the head of geologist Vance Norris (Charles Hallahan) drips to the floor and scuttles away, and Palmer looks on with incredulity: “You gotta be fucking kidding!” The effects, impressive enough for their time, have abandoned the realm of relative realism and strayed into the surreal/corporeal horror of Bunuel, Cocteau, Cronenberg; we need to express our indignation at Carpenter's effrontery, and Palmer's words are the perfect expression of that outrage. The whole thing isn't just for the sake of being grotesque, either--it's a crucial moment that plants the idea in McReady's head, of how they can beat the monster.

By way of contrast the most imaginative response anyone has in Heijningen's picture to the creature is to shoot and run--no funny exit line, no existentially defiant response to a patently unbelievable sight ("you gotta be--"). The humans take the creature as seriously as it takes itself, and we resist believing accordingly; the picture's too literal, too straightforward for its own good.

Frankly, it's easy to distinguish between Heijningen and Carpenter; you only need distinguish between novice and seasoned master. Heijningen's finest moments are perhaps the scenes where people are in a room reacting to an attack; he eschews quick cuts to keep the action coherent, and his staging is fairly inventive. Carpenter often opts for even simpler setups--like when McReady applies his test on the rest of the crew, and has the unproven ones tied up, including the corpses (a reasonable precaution). The creature's reaction immediately reveals a flaw in McReady's scheme, and they have to scramble to save the situation (it's just the sort of fast-moving, quick-thinking action Hawks might have staged, if he had the money and technology available).

For its finale the action moves out of the base and into the alien ship--and here the picture practically buries a pickaxe into its boot. The idea of an alien loose in fairly familiar surrounding--an Antarctic base--is at the very core of the original's appeal; even when earlier films set the action in outer space, they were careful to give their hallways an industrial-factory look, complete with pipelines and leaking steam valves (Ridley Scott's Alien, 1979). An alien ship by its very nature is exotic, threatening; you're so primed to see every odd shape, every dark shadow as disguised menace that when the creature itself finally appears you don't feel any sense of escalation (the best disguise, of course, being a simple shadow). You need the contrast.

By story's end the prequel attaches itself smoothly and effortlessly into the beginning of Carpenter's film--and here you wonder if you aren't seeing the core problem of the whole production. It's so obsessed with dovetailing with the better film, with 'reverse-engineering' what happened at the Norwegian base, that the movie's plot is seriously distorted, a case of confused priorities; it wants to be consistent when its first duty is to be entertaining, and imaginative. At best this serves as a case study of why one film is better than its successor; at worse it's like a monstrous outgrowth of the creature itself, more eager to mimic and meld than it is to develop its own identity, be its own creature.

First published in Businessworld, 11.3.11

Cinemanila 2011 (11.11.11 to 11.17.11), Market! Market! Cinemas, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig

2011-11-06T22:46:00.000-05:00

It's that time of the year--Cinemanila. Some announcements:

Wim Wenders’ Pina & Ridley Scott/Kevin Macdonald’s Life in a Day are Opening & Closing Films at Cinemanila 2011

Two documentaries by three great European filmmakers -- the 3D film Pina (2011) by New German Cinema master Wim Wenders, and Life in a Day (2011) by Ridley Scott & Kevin Macdonald (Oscar-winning director of films such as The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void, and One Day in September) -- will be the Opening and Closing Films, respectively, at the 2011 Cinemanila International Film Festival at Market! Market! in Taguig City.

Behold magnificent dancing in 3D on 11.11.11, when Cinemanila screens on Opening Night Wim Wenders’ 3D dance documentary, Pina, about one of the most influential modern dance choreographers, German Philippina "Pina" Bausch. The film was a hit when it premiered Out of Competition at the 61^st Berlin International Film Festival, and has been selected as the German entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84^th Academy Awards.

Moviegoers who enjoyed excerpts of Pina Bausch’s work in Pedro Almodovar’s Talk to Her (2002) will be delighted as some of the most noted dance pieces by Bausch in the Tanztheater (“dance theater”) style appear in the film.

Bausch was preparing the documentary with Wenders when she unexpectedly passed away. Wenders cancelled film production, but the other dancers of Tanztheater persuaded him to make the film anyway. The result is a work that has been described by critics as “Thrilling and revelatory.” (Nick James, Sight & Sound Editor, writing for The Observer), a “Must-see.” (Leslie Felperin, Variety), “Beautiful and moving.” (Dave Calhoun, Time Out), and “Beguiling magic.” (Tim Robey, The Telegraph).

This is the first time the 13-year-old festival will screen a 3D film.

Meanwhile, Life in a Day by Ridley Scott (producer) & Kevin Macdonald (director), a crowdsourced documentary showing respective occurrences from around the world on a single day, July 24, 2010, will bring Cinemanila to a close on 11.17.11. The film is an arranged series of video clips -- with Scott, Macdonald, and film editor Joe Walker as editors -- selected from 80,000 clips (4,500 hours of footage from 140 nations) to the YouTube video sharing website.

The film, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, earned generally rave reviews: “Moving and insightful.” (Helen O'Hara, Empire); “A profound achievement.” (Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post); “Undeniably real and incredibly inspiring.” (Peter Howell, Toronto Star,); “Brims with intimacy and urgency.” (Angela Watercutter, Wired); “The best time capsule in the history of the world.” (Josh Levs, CNN Newsroom); and “Breathtaking…riveting.” (Ian Buckwalter, Washingtonian).

But perhaps CNN's Mark Rabinowitz articulated best the critics’ sentiment: “A rousing success of an experiment: quite possibly the first large-scale, global use of the Internet to create meaningful and beautiful art.”

Superstar Nora Aunor to Receive Cinemanila’s Lifetime Achievement Award on 11.11.11

The 2011 Cinemanila International Film Festival, in cooperation with the City of Taguig under the leadership of Mayor Lani Cayetano, will pay tribute to one of the Philippines' most accomplished actresses, Nora Aunor (born Nora Cabaltera Villamayor on May 21, 1955 in Iriga City, Camarines Sur), by bestowing her with the Lifetime Achievement Award on 11.11.11, during the festival’s Opening Night. Aunor is popularly regarded as the Superstar for her stellar achievements and enormous contribution -- as actor, singer, TV host, and producer -- to the entertainment industry.

As part of the homage to the multi-awarded Aunor, a short video tribute will be shown during the presentation of the award. And throughout the festival, Cinemanila will screen (with English subtitles) classic films showcasing Aunor's legendary acting talent, including Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos (1976), Minsa'y Isang Gamu-Gamo (1976), Bona (1980), and Himala (1982), winner in 2008 of the CNN APSA (Asia Pacific Screen Awards) Viewers Choice Award for Best Asia-Pacific Film of all Time.

Indeed, Nora Aunor is a world-class artist as shown by the list of international organizations which gave her a Best Actress award, including the Cairo Film Festival (The Flor Contemplacion Story, 1995), East Asia Film and Television Festival (Bakit May Kahapon Pa?, 1997), Brussels Festival of Independent Films (Naglalayag, 2004). She was also nominated in the Berlin Film Festival for Himala and awarded the Certificate of Honor in the Cannes Film Festival for Bona.

With the Cinemanila Lifetime Achievement Award, Aunor will join an exceptional group of individuals who received the same award, such as US filmmakers Quentin Tarantino (2007) and Paul Schrader (2009), Indonesian actress and filmmaker Christine Hakim (2003), film programmers Aruna Vasudev and Philip Cheah (2006), Pusan International Film Festival founding director Kim Dong Ho (2005), and fellow Filipino artists Vilma Santos (2003), Eddie Romero (2004) & Dolphy (2010). Aside from these personalities, other special guests who graced Cinemanila in the past include Jafar Panahi (The Circle, 2000) and Fernando Meirelles (City of God, 2002).

Cinemanila’s Horror Picture Show: Halloween in November

The 2011 Cinemanila International Film Festival extends Halloween when it screens from 11.11.11 to 11.17.11, at the Market! Market! Cinemas in Taguig City, four horror/thriller films guaranteed to scare the wits out of you in its Horror Picture Show program.

Grab on to your theater seats as filmmaker Kim Jee-Woon tells you a violent tale of murder and revenge in I Saw the Devil (Akmareul boatda, South Korea, 2010). Find out what happened to a teenage girl and a 7-year-old girl who both disappeared in the woods in Ryuta Miyake’s Vanished: Age 7 (Nanatsu made wa kami no uchi, Japan, 2011). Try and hide in The Tunnel (Australia, 2011) by Filipino director and Cannes Film Festival winner Carlo Ledesma. And if you haven’t had enough spooks, startles, and screams, investigate the mysterious goings-on in a dance academy in Suspiria (Italy, 1977), the surreal horror classic by the Master of Horror himself, Dario Argento, one of this year’s Cinemanila Lifetime Achievement awardees.

Cinemanila Launches New Section: The Beautiful Game

For cinephiles and sports fans alike, the 2011 Cinemanila International Film Festival, happening from 11.11.11 to 11.17.11 in Taguig City, is an event not to be missed. The 13^th edition of Cinemanila will inaugurate a new program called The Beautiful Game, featuring the world's most popular sport -- now played by around 250 million players in over 200 countries -- football or soccer. To be screened in this new section of Cinemanila are films as diverse as the nationalities and styles of the athletes playing the game.

This year’s cinematic line-up will include documentaries about the world’s football heroes. Journey with a young American who struggles to reach his dreams of playing in the elite European leagues and the World Cup in Rise & Shine: The Jay DeMerit Story (2011). Immerse yourself in the intensity and flow of a single soccer match as 17 synchronized cameras follow French footballer Zinedine Zidane in Zidane, A 21st Century Portrait (2006). Then open your eyes to the relationship of crime, sports and politics in the gripping The Two Escobars (2010), the intertwined story of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar and Colombian football star Andres Escobar who paid dearly for scoring an “own goal” in the 1994 World Cup.

Of course, soccer has always been great fodder for fiction as well, and Cinemanila has a feast of films to offer depending on your mood. Get a dose of social reality in Jafar Panahi’s Offside (2006), about Iranian girls attempting to watch a World Cup qualifying match despite their country’s law forbidding them to do so because of their sex. Then laugh as two young football-crazed Tibetan refugee novice monks in a remote Himalayan monastery in India desperately try to obtain a TV for the monastery to watch the 1998 World Cup final in The Cup (1999) by Bhutanese director Khyentse Norbu. And if you want drama, witness the rise and fall of a football star in The Striker with Number 9 (1989) by Greek filmmaker Pantelis Voulgaris. But if you fancy a combination of comedy and drama, enjoy -- in one of the festival’s outdoor screenings -- the critically-acclaimed and international hit Bend It Like Beckham (2002) by Gurinder Chadha, and starring Parminder Nagra & Keira Knightley. Finally, if you like coming-of-age stories, watch Happyland (2010) -- by the Philippines’ very own Jim Libiran (with a cameo by Azkals star Phil Younghusband) -- about a group of street kids who form a soccer team.

Taguig is no stranger to banner headlines about football in their city, as the popular Azkals team has a close relationship with Taguig, and its leader Mayor Lani Cayetano, having trained and having held football clinics there in the recent past. With Cinemanila’s new The Beautiful Game program, the Taguigeños -- together with the rest of their countrymen and international visitors -- will have another soccer event, certainly as exciting as the World Cup, to look forward to.

Cinemanila 2011 Announces Young Cinema Short Films (Competition and Exhibition)

The 2011 Cinemanila International Film Festival recently announced the finalists for its Young Cinema program, which is divided into two categories: Shorts in Competition and Shorts in Exhibition.

Cinemanila’s Young Cinema is one of the centerpieces of the festival, showcasing short films from up-and-coming filmmakers. Two awards will be given: the Ishmael Bernal Award for Most Outstanding Young Filmmaker, and Best Short Film. Filmmakers who screened their first or early shorts in Cinemanila and won the Ishmael Bernal Award include Mes de Guzman (2001), Raya Martin (2004), John Torres (2005), and Remton Siega Zuasola (2009). They have since done films that have been shown and won awards in prestigious festivals abroad like the Cannes, Rotterdam, Pusan and Berlin International Film Festivals.

SHORTS IN COMPETITION

123 by Carlo Obispo

Ang Gugma ni Olivia (Olivia’s Love) by Christian Linaban

Canto III by Keith Sicat

Inosensya (Innocence) by Mikhail Red

Kapatid (Brothers) by Steven Flor

Saranghae My Tutor by Victor Villanueva

Sirip (Glimpse) by Kim Camelo

SHORT IN EXHIBITION

Agos (Waves) by Samantha Lee

Bleached by Jess dela Merced

Dadi by Ilsa Malsi

Huling Araw ng Pagsisilbi (Last Day of Service) by Bienvenido O. Ferrer III

Leaving Home by Epoy Deyto

Manenaya (Waiting) by Richard Legaspi

Pangako (Promise) by Sari Raissa Lluch Dalena

Sydney-Manila Express by Bor Ocampo

Cinemanila 2011 to Hold Short Film Seminar by International Short Film Festival Oberhausen Programmer

The 2011 Cinemanila International Film Festival, in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Manila and Taguig City under the leadership of Mayor Lani Cayetano, will hold at the Bonifacio Global City on 11.14.11, from 4 to 6 pm, a short film seminar by Herbert Schwarze, programmer and member of the selection committee for the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, one of the largest short film festivals in the world. The seminar will precede Young Cinema Night, which is the premiere of the films in competition and exhibition of Cinemanila’s own short film program, Young Cinema.

Schwarze will screen 90 minutes worth of some of the best and prize-winning shorts in Oberhausen’s International Competition, including works from Uganda, South Africa, Portugal, Canada, France, and Poland. He will then talk about the Oberhausen Festival and its history. The following day, on 11.15.11, Schwarze will participate in a meet and greet with the participating Young Cinema filmmakers.

The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, founded in 1954, is one of the oldest short film festivals in the world, and one of the major international platforms for the short form. It is unique in the range of forms and genres it presents to the public, and particularly well-known for its spotlight on experimentation. In the course of more than five decades, filmmakers and artists ranging from Roman Polanski to Cate Shortland, from George Lucas to Pipilotti Rist, have presented their first works in Oberhausen.

The festival organizes an International Competition, German Competition and International Children’s and Youth Film Competition as well as the MuVi Award for best German music video and, since 2009, the NRW Competition for productions from the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Oberhausen is also known for its strong line of thematic programs such as “From the Deep” in 2010, which presented early films from before 1918, or “Shooting Animals” in 2011, a program about the history of the artistic and scientific animal film. The festival also operates a well-stocked Video Library, a non-commercial short film distribution branch, and a unique archive of short films from more than 50 years of festival history. The 58th edition will take place from April 26 to May 1, 2012 with the big thematic program focusing on the 50^th anniversary of the Oberhausen Manifesto from 1962.

Herbert Schwarze is one of the program curators and members of the selection committee for the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen since 1997. He is also a filmmaker, dramatic adviser, script consultant, and author.

This is the first collaboration of Cinemanila and Oberhausen.

Cinemanila 2011 Launches Moonlight Series with Soccer Film Bend It Like Beckham

The 2011 Cinemanila International Film Festival, in partnership with the City of Taguig, will launch the Cinemanila Moonlight Series on 11.14.11 with the screening of the critically-acclaimed and international hit Bend It Like Beckham (2002) -- by British filmmaker Gurinder Chadha, and starring Parminder Nagra & Keira Knightley -- on the lawn of Bonifacio High Street at Bonifacio Global City in Taguig.

The Cinemanila Moonlight Series are twice-a-week (Thursdays and Fridays) outdoor film screenings taking place from 7 pm onwards at the cozy green spaces of BGC. Scheduled to coincide with the Philippines’ dry season, the series will run from January to May, starting in 2012.

The Moonlight Series will bring together contemporary, classic, and cult films from all corners of the globe to entertain and delight the entire family. Before each screening, there will be DJs or musicians to set the mood as well as competitions with prize giveaways. And to make sure no one goes hungry, there will be on-site food vendors.

Joining the ranks of other international film screening events such as the NoMa Summer Screen festival in Washington D.C., the Cinemanila Moonlight Series aims to become Southeast Asia's premier outdoor cinema event. In this regard, Taguig Mayor Lani Cayetano expressed their city’s enthusiasm for the project: “The government and people of Taguig are delighted and honored that Cinemanila has chosen our city as the venue for the Moonlight Series, which is aligned with our thrust to promote education, culture and the arts.”

And what exciting and enjoyable education the citizens and visitors of Taguig are going to get. So on 11.14.11, get a taste of the fun and the Philippines’ new and unique outdoor screening season. Just bring your blankets and low lawn chairs, and picnic with friends and family under the moon and the stars.

Cinemanila 2011 Announces Finalists for Digital Lokal

The 2011 Cinemanila International Film Festival recently announced the finalists for Digital Lokal, its competition for Filipino feature-length films in digital format:

Sakay sa Hangin by Regiben Romana
Señorita by Vincent Sandoval
Sa Kanto ng Ulap at Lupa by Mes de Guzman (Philippines)
Lawas Kanpinabli by Christopher Gozum

The following prizes will be awarded:

Digital Lokal Lino Grand Prize

Digital Lokal Best Director

Previous winners of the Lino Grand Prize include Manoro by Brillante Mendoza (2006), Autohystoria by Raya Martin, Imburnal by Sherad Anthony Sanchez (2008), Anacbanua by Christopher Gozum (2009), and Di Natatapos ang Gabi by Ato Bautista (2010). Most of these works went on to win more awards here and abroad.

Cinemanila 2011 Announces Finalists for its International & Southeast Asian Competitions

The 2011 Cinemanila International Film Festival recently released the list of finalists for its International & Southeast Asian (SEA) Competitions.

International Films in Competition:

Gangor (2010) by Italo Spinelli (Italy)
If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle (2010) by Florin Serban (Romania)
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey)
Poetry (2010) by Chang-dong Lee (South Korea)
Siglo ng Pagluluwal (Century of Birthing) (2011) by Lav Diaz (Philippines)
Sun-Beaten Path (2011) by Sonthar Gyal (China)
Toomelah (2011) by Ivan Sen (Australia)

Southeast Asian Films in Competition:

Boundary (2011) by Benito Bautista (Philippines)
Eternity (2010) by Sivaroj Kongsakul (Thailand)
The Mirror Never Lies (2011) by Kamila Andini (Indonesia)
Water Hands (2011) by Vladimir Todorovic (Singapore)
Golden Slumbers (2011) by Davy Chou (Cambodia)

The following awards will be given in the International Competition:

Lino Brocka Prize

Grand Jury Prize

Best Director

Best Actor

Best Actress

Previous Lino Brocka Prize winners -- since Cinemanila’s inception in 1999 -- include Garin Nugroho (Indonesia), Colour of Paradise by Majid Majidi (Iran), Firefly Dreams by John Williams (Japan), Atanarjuat by Zacharias Kunuk (Canada), What Time Is It There? by Tsai Ming-liang (Taiwan), Uzak (Distant) by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey), Vibrator by Ryuichi Hiroki (Japan), The President's Last Bang by Im-Sang Soo (South Korea), Kubrador by Jeffrey Jeturian (Philippines), The Edge of Heaven by Fatih Akin (Turkey), Hunger by Steve McQueen, Sketches of Kaitan City by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri (Japan).

In the Southeast Asian Competition, a Best Film prize will be awarded. Past awardees of this relatively new category -- launched in 2007 -- include Mukhsin by Yasmin Ahmad (Malaysia), Confessional by Jerrold Tarog and Ruel Dahis Antipuesto (Philippines), Talentime by Yasmin Ahmad (Malaysia), and Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria by Remton Siega Zuasola (Philippines).

Shutter Star Ananda Everingham Back in Cinemanila

Fans of Ananda Everingham, best known for his lead role in the 2004 horror film Shutter, will be delighted to learn that the Thai actor will be arriving on 11.11.11 to attend once more the Cinemanila International Film Festival. Last year, Everingham was at the 2010 edition of Cinemanila for the screening of Wisit Sasanatieng’s The Red Eagle (2010) in which Everingham played a Thai superhero. This time, he is back in support of his film Eternity (2010) -- directed by M.L. Pundhevanop Dhewakul -- a story about a young man having an adulterous affair with his uncle's wife.

Aside from Shutter, Everingham also starred in 2007 in the romantic dramas Me...Myself, and Bangkok Time. In 2008, he was cast in Nonzee Nimibutr’s Queen of Langkasuka and in Sabaidee Luang Prabang, the first Laotian commercial film shot since it adopted communism in 1975. Everingham’s mother is Laotian and his father is Australian.

Oldboy Director’s iPhone Film Night Fishing to Screen at Cinemanila 2011

The 2011 Cinemanila International Film Festival will screen the 31-minute fantasy-horror iPhone film Night Fishing (2011) by South Korean Park Chan-wook, famously known for his The Vengeance Trilogy -- Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), Oldboy (2003), and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005). Park, co-directing with his younger brother Park Chan-kyong, shot the film entirely on the Apple iPhone 4. It was financially supported by KT, South Korea's current exclusive distributor of the iPhone, which supplied the duo with US$133,447.

Released in January 2011, Night Fishing went on to win the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival. It was then invited at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival because the organizers “recognized the significance” that the film -- the world's first iPhone film ever released in theaters -- held “as a marketing campaign” for KT’s iPhone 4.

Night Fishing will be screened at Cinemanila 2011 as part of the festival’s focus this year on South Korean Cinema.

The 13^th Cinemanila will be held from November 11 to 17, 2011 at the Market! Market! Cinemas in Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City. Around 80 international and local films will be screened in a span of 7 days, from the current toasts of the local indie scene to the award-winners and favorites of prestigious festivals such as Cannes, Berlin, Rotterdam, Sundance, and Pusan. The festival will also feature workshops, seminars, and master classes. For more info, or jpegs for a release, please contact cinemanila.press@gmail.com and cinemanila@gmail.com or go to www.cinemanila.org.ph.

For updates, join the Cinemanila International Film Festival Facebook Group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/246306172084819/ and follow Cinemanila on Twitter at http://twitter.com/CinemanilaIFF .

The 2011 Cinemanila International Film Festival is presented by the City of Taguig under the leadership of Mayor Lani Cayetano, and the Cinemanila International Film Festival Foundation, together with Market! Market! Cinemas, in cooperation with Fully Booked, Bonifacio Global City, Cinema One, Manila Bulletin, Business World, TBWA\Mangada Santiago Puno, Outpost Visual Frontier, Solid Video Corporation, Scenema Concepts International, Click the City, Pep.ph, Spot.ph, Web Philippines, Goethe Institut, the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, the Embassy of Italy in Manila, the Australian Embassy, the Film Development Council of the Philippines, Jeonju Film Festival, Asiatica Mediale, and Murray n D’Vine.

Sa Ngalan ng Ina (In the Name of the Mother, Mario O'Hara, Jon Red), Week 4

2011-11-04T02:44:00.001-04:00

Love in a Tupperware

Continued from Part 3

On wondering how Mario O'Hara and Jon Red's Sa Ngalan ng Ina (In the Name of the Mother, 2011) is unique to Philippine television--or to Filipino cinema, for that matter--one thinks of the expansive format (an hour every weekday, for one month, roughly twenty hours' running time), and the set limit (one month exactly, though recently there has been word that the series will run for an extra week). The format guarantees us complex storylines, rounded characters, a royal flush of grand performances, confrontations, dramatic climaxes; the limit assures us that the series will not go on and on recycling story plot points, stretching running time with pointless or repetitious dialogue, adding climax after climax after climax till the series has worn out its carefully cultivated sheen of credibility. If the series ends as originally envisioned, it should crescendo at the proper time, swiftly wrap everything up in a grand and intricate knot, leave us wishing for an extension however limited, not its swift and painless death.

Easier said than done.

I've talked about how the series took recent political history (Marcos' powerful wife Imelda; Ninoy Aquino's martyrdom and his wife's rise to power) and used this as a jumping-off point to weave its own unique mythology: that of Elena Deogracias (Nora Aunor), widowed wife of Amang Deogracias (Bembol Roco), running against incumbent Pepe Ilustre (Christopher de Leon) for the office of governor of the province of Verano and somehow winning, the Cinderella of the ballot box.

I've noted how for all its patriarchal trappings and show of Filipino machismo (the brothers Alfonso (Alwyn Uytingco) and Angelo (Edgar Allan Guzman) Deogracias, the shadowy Zaldy Sanchez (Ian De Leon, Aunor's real-life son), the show has really been a struggle for domination between two diametrically opposed women: Elena Deogracias and Lucia Ilustre (Rosanna Roces), wife of Pepe and true instigator of Amang's death. That this is really a duel between two actors with differing styles--Aunor with grim mouth and lustrous eyes, Roces with feline growl and eloquent body language.

Aunor is the more experienced actress but cannot act in a vacuum; Roces, faced with a formidable opponent, steps up her game, proving time and time again to be a worthy adversary--one only has to cite their various confrontations, from the free-for-all on muddy fields to the catty remarks during a ribbon-cutting ceremony. More impressive are the various fulminating soliloquies Lucia delivers with regards to her diminutive foe. "I'm the hero of this story," she insists at one point, making explicitly metaphysical what she has been implicitly suggesting for the past fifteen or so episodes; Aunor replies with one of her eloquently intense glares.

Word has it that Aunor's vocal cords were damaged in a surgical accident, and that's a shame; you can hear the damage in the occasional hoarseness of her voice. But the directors of her scenes (mostly O'Hara, I hear) uses that hoarseness to her advantage--at times the voice suggests a woman tired beyond endurance, having lost a husband and gained an entire province to care for; at other times the voice suggests a woman so choked up by emotion it comes out rough, grated, as if torn from her throat.

The voice problem also suggests how the director can handle her in large crowd scenes--by posing her against a background of heightened emotion (a sea of wailing faces, say) against which she often serves as dramatically still center (see Amang's death, or Alfonso's surrender). This also shapes her approach to her character--that Elena is a woman constantly suppressing her feelings, biting her tongue, the classic stereotypical Filipina with superhuman self-control, who often lulls other into off-balanced complacency thinking she won't fight back (see Apo (Leo Rialp), the party leader; Dorinda (Raquel Villavicencio) the vice-governor; later Lucia herself). Her Elena delivers few soliloquies, but her actions time and time again (her handling of the tape-recording scandal; her response to the death of Pacita (Eugene Domingo), her sister and close adviser) speak pages of a political challenger willing and able to match Lucia's veteran chess master.

I've also mentioned how the writers (Dinno Erece, Jerry Gracio, Benedict Mique, Pamela Miras) have cleverly weaved into the storyline allusions from series' star Nora Aunor's own film career, from the classic tandem of Bembol, Christopher, and Nora (the same casting used in O'Hara's own Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos (Three Years without God, 1976)) to her own uncomfortable yet affectionate dealings with De Leon's Pepe Ilustre (a sly nod to the actors' own failed marriage and complicated shared past).

I love how the characters actually undergo change over the course of the series, perhaps the most dramatic being Uytingco's Alfonso Deogracias, Elena's drug-kingpin stepson. What makes his narrative arc so satisfying is that he makes both a convincingly defiant prodigal son and an equally passionate repentant sinner. Nadine Samonte's Mayor Andrea Deogracias hasn't been able to make her villainous mayor all that distinctive in her villainy, but the young woman does hurt and vulnerability very well--when she calls out for her stepmother, it sounds and feels like a true crie de coeur.

Perhaps a subtler metamorphosis can be found in Christopher De Leon's Pepe Ilustre. His wheel-chair bound political veteran at first seemed meant to allude to everything from the sinister Dr. Strangelove to the heroic Ron Kovic, but the figure he eventually resembles is Carlito Brigante--like Carlito he finds himself nose-deep in politics; like Carlito he seeks a way out, here finding it embodied in his political opponent.

One can do a psychological case study on the man: from energetic campaigning as electoral contestant to hurt sullenness as defeated candidate to quietly heartfelt supporter of his nemesis the character of Pepe Ilustre feels many-faceted, patiently drawn, complete. Every time he gives Elena help it's made explicit what the consequences will be to his own political power and long-amassed family fortune, and he dismisses the issue with casual cheer; he has a heavy debt to pay. De Leon manages to suggest a man fully aware of the burden imposed by his many sins in a too-long political career; one senses in his introverted, understated performance a man who has felt trapped in the maze-like hallways of power, and has finally sniffed a way out--not easy, not quickly realized, but something he can work on with patience and determination.

Then there's the notion of food--in particular Filipino comfort food (we like Hobbits do love our meals--from agahan (breakfast) to tanghalian (lunch) to merienda (afternoon snack) to hapunan (dinner)). I've complained since time immemorial that food is one major aspect of Filipino culture that has been sadly ignored by our films; at most the scriptwriter throws in a few lines: "Eat that, I prepared that, it should be delicious," or a mother will say: "have you eaten, child? I've prepared your favorite dish..." not of course bothering to mention what dish has been prepared and how, and what relevance all this could have on the film's story.

Not quite so with Sa Ngalan ng Ina. Almost every major scene has either the Deogracias or Ilustres talking over a meal; a crucial scene has Alfonso bonding with Pacita over a meal of humba (pork in pineapple sauce)--one major reason Alfonso is so fond of her (as opposed to his stepmother Elena) is that she makes the humble yet delicious comfort meal exactly the way he likes it. Later, when Pacita is killed and he goes into hiding in defiance of his stepmother, his young brother brings him a small Tupperware container from Elena. Alfonso plucks out a piece of pork and tastes it. "Ah," he says, "so she's learned to cook like her sister. This is just like Pacita's cooking."

Angelo laughs. "Elena has been cooking this for you all along. Pacita is allergic to pineapple." Alfonso looks down on the container of pork and--love this gesture--whips off his sunglasses to take a better look. He has this brief twisted expression--as if the piece of pork he had just eaten had turned into a lump of live coal in his belly--and informs Angelo that he wants to surrender.

So there you have it--a major turning point has just occurred, and over a piece of pork! Crazy? Nonsensical? When you think about it, aren't we Filipinos driven not so much by our hearts but by our stomachs, the strongest emotional call being from our favorite childhood dishes? Isn't a mother's care most clearly expressed through her cooking, and isn't her most secret, most powerful ingredient the love she puts into her dishes? And isn't this sentiment the kind found--unspoken, unremarked, but nevertheless securely, unmistakably there--at the heart of every Filipino?

Alfonso's spectacular surrender--a major setpiece by Jon Red--has all of the series's major dramatic guns firing. Dozens of extras; a fleet of police vehicles with flashing lights; TV vans and reporters; a brief statement from the fugitive as he is handcuffed; a heartfelt hug of reconciliation with his mother. What makes the scene, however, is a throwaway gesture from Elena where she turns away and mostly unnoticed by everyone (except us) wipes away a tear. Again Aunor, doing what she does best--with all the turmoil around her she performs a quiet little gesture and simply but surely steals our hearts.

Later is a scene almost as moving--and Aunor doesn't even do a thing. Andrea has had a miscarriage; a series of dissolves (faultlessly timed by O'Hara, I'm told) shows Elena faithfully watching over her as she sleeps in a hospital bed. She wakes up and finds Elena, exhausted, asleep by her side. Simplest of gestures, really, for Andrea to lift up her hand and stroke Elena's sleeping head--but it's easily Nadine Samonte's finest, most tender moment as an actress.

Then there's the confrontation between the incarcerated Alfonso and Elena, sitting together in a near-bare set (one wonders if it is a set--looks like an everyday room dressed at the last moment to stand in for the city jail's visiting area). The scene starts simply enough, with just ambient sound in the background (none of that teleserye music they're so fond of pouring over almost every scene): Alfonso, standing, tells her that one of his men will keep feeding her office information. They both act shyly, unable to look at each other; unnoticed by Alfonso, Elena lays out a Tupperware container.

Alfonso asks about Angelo (he had shot his younger brother by accident, while aiming for Pepe Ilustre); Elena says he's fine. You hear the krikk! of Tupperware lids being fussed with. Alfonso turns at the sound and for the first time looks at Elena "You're ruining my reputation," he tells her, referring to the way he's being pampered in prison. At this point Red (with the help of composer Carmina Cuya) introduces music with a few hesitant notes from a piano (a welcome change, that--using actual instruments instead of a generic synthesizer).

Alfonso informs Elena that he knows Pacita was allergic to pineapple. She seems to accept the full implication of this (that he knows she's been cooking his humba all along). Red (with diabolical timing) starts the theme proper when she says the line 'it's your favorite dish"--a cliche thing to say, but here somehow perfectly appropriate (she's earned the right, so to speak, to use the line). When Elena tells him she loves all her children including him, Alfonso's face twists and he asks in an agonized whisper: "Why?"

Two things come to mind when viewing this scene. One thinks of the voluptuous sense of dread a torturer creates in his victim--sometimes it's the anticipation of pain rather than actual application that feels not just agonizing, but exquisite (pain so intense it's perceived as pleasure). I'd have sworn O'Hara directed this, but Red--well, my respect for his abilities has multiplied, tenfold, after this.

One also thinks of the moment in Akira Kurosawa's High and Low, where the kidnapper (Tsutomu Yamazaki) declares himself unafraid of the possibility of hell--but is terrified at the prospect of heaven. Uytingco's Alfonso is in a similar bind; he's perfectly willing to go to hell for his sins, but the possibility of being loved unconditionally churns inside him like a knife in the gut. Aunor's dark eyes accept what he expresses absolutely and without judgment--they are a vast bottomless lake, as awesome (and frankly terrifying) a vision of mother's love as anything I've ever seen.

I say 'terrifying' because this love while pure, isn't purely goodness. Alfonso has many crimes under his belt, crimes that Elena seems perfectly willing to overlook in her zeal to welcome him back (he's responsible for the torture and death of Amang's bomb-thrower for example--and later we learn that the man wasn't as guilty as we first thought). There are implications to Aunor's heroic motherhood, some of them not as saintly in nature as we might initially assume--her capacity for inspiring fanaticism, for one (particularly in Alfonso, the most violent member of her clan); her insistence on professionalism in governance being another, of separating family ties from government affiliation (said principle having apparently been watered down or compromised, if not fallen by the wayside).

If the series ended here or not long after (and in the next episode there were indications of where the series might have been headed prior to concluding), this could easily have been declared a major work not just of Filipino entertainment, but of art; politics and family fused into a popular art form, one illuminating its complex, corrupting influence on the other--that, it seemed, was this teleserye's grand theme. Elena's kidnapping and subsequent torture by Zaldy and Lucia seems to derail all that--suddenly Lucia isn't as plausible a monster anymore; suddenly the episodes are saddled with scenes of Elena's children weeping and gnashing teeth, praying for her safety. Were the writers caught off-guard when the extension was announced? Did they have to inject some makeshift work, add filler to meet deadlines? I don't know; all I know is if the series ends as is, capped with this inconsistent hiccup, it'll merely be one of the better teleserye yet produced, when I'm hoping it's the best thing--on TV or on the big screen--I'd seen all year.

Well, they have another week to recover. Here's hoping for the best.

11.3.11

The Killer Elite (Gary McKendry, 2011)

2011-10-29T07:21:00.000-04:00

Deadly bore

Jason Statham doesn't do much acting; in every one of his pictures you see a sullen mouth under a pair of seriously peeved eyes, well-hidden by an imposing crag of a brow. Hero or villain, there's something pure about Statham; you can always rely on him to move into action with all the agility (and lack of humor) of a menopausal Jackie Chan. And you can count on him to do it with the graceless lack of enthusiasm of a bored anthropoid--that's Statham in a nutshell.

That view of Statham was seriously challenged in The Bank Job (2008), an ostensibly routine crime thriller-slash-true-story that under the hands of veteran director Roger Donaldson turned out better than anyone expected--Donaldson captured the gritty reality of '70s London, and in Statham captures the chip-on-the-shoulder class resentment felt by many blue-collar workers at the time (still do, I suspect). Statham's acting here was a startling bonus; who knew he could play low-key smolder well, without once resorting to his larger-than-life action-movie persona? He's so good one actually worries for him when he's being threatened--unlike in his other pictures where a threat is usually prelude to broken wrists, shattered kneecaps, cracked skulls.

Come the rest of his career (Death Race (2008) and all the Crank and Transporter sequels) and no, apparently this breakthrough role didn't signal a significant change in the actor's career--he's still out there breaking wrists and cracking skulls. He did deliver a touch of irony while starring in The Expendables--compared to actors like Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren he's still relatively young and flexible, and his usual sullen expression suggested he didn't deserve to dawdle with such over-the-hill company.

Otherwise--nada; nothing. By the time of The Killer Elite (2011), that intense burst of lower-class realism has pretty much vanished into memory, and there is little apparent hope watching him enter this picture that any of it will be recovered here--he's still Statham, he's still fast and flexible, but there's precious little going on beneath those brows save the trademark annoyed glare, the implied threat that he's going to screw you up seriously if you keep staring at him.

The only ghost of an interesting drama or romance or anything occurs when Statham fetches up against Clive Owen who, unlike Statham, can actually act. Owen's glare suggests genuine danger, complicated by intelligence and a sense of humor; once in a while you catch his mouth edging towards a grin, but it doesn't soften his glare--if anything, it makes him look a tad psycho, as if he'd not just break your wrist but laugh long and loud in the process. Owen--who can upstage Statham with the bat of an eyelash, is apparently too threatening; the producers must have decided to dampen his charisma by gluing a dead caterpillar to his upper lip (you don't for a moment feel like wondering why he looks so glum). Said offending facial hair almost does in Owen's performance--almost. All he has to do is glare a little wider and twist that grin a few millimeters higher, and he's as intimidating as ever.

It's not a bad film, per se; Gary McKendry, an Aussie director making his feature debut, does not strictly adhere to the Paul Greengrass-style of handheld footage cut chop-suey style (case in point: the Jason Bourne movies); he is especially adept at chase sequences and the one major car chase he stages late in the picture ends with a startlingly crunchy surprise. The endless first encounter between Owen and Statham, however, is too closely shot to be coherent; it starts feeling seriously dull when you don't know what's going on--haven't for some time. McKendry does seem to have a feel for the kind of British military machismo (well, Aussie--the picture was shot Down Under) you find hanging out in expatriate bars, and the like. You can imagine the crowd consisting of old friends who have worked together as a team for years, in far less friendly locales...

The veracity question I can't care less about. The movie is based on all-around adventurer and novelist Ranulph Fiennes' The Feather Men,” which he describes as a “factional” work where it's left to the reader to decide what is fact and what not. Frankly, I find the coyness annoying.

Overall it should have been a terrific thriller; if I'm less than enthusiastic that may be because the whole enterprise has the aura--or stink, rather--of a by-the-numbers effort. Even Sam Peckinpah's less stellar films brim over with personality, case in point being his late picture of the same title (borrowed, apparently, without proper attribution).

Peckinpah's The Killer Elite (1975) if anything makes even less sense, a wildly unlikely mix of rival CIA factions and gratuitous martial arts--if I prefer Peckinpah's over this picture that's because Peckinpah's for all its flaws (it's an ugly-spirited late work) seethes with hate and fury (at what you're not quite sure: corrupt government factions? Equally corrupt film studio bosses?), and that hate is reflected in the martial arts fight sequences, the blows lovingly extended to savor their impact on human flesh. Statham's movie doesn't have that kind of emotion; when I try remember any part of it I come up with a long, undistinguishable blur.

First published at Businessworld, 10.20.11

Sa Ngalan ng Ina (In the Name of the Mother, Mario O'Hara, Jon Red, 2011) Part 2 of 2

2011-10-28T01:15:00.001-04:00

Best of the year, arguably (Part 2)

Cont'd from previous part:

Then Alfonso accidentally wounds Angelo, and is wracked with guilt; Andrea is abandoned at her wedding, and the mayor's steely facade suddenly shatters; Lucia berates Pepe for his secret trysts. The villains show different sides to themselves, are suddenly made more human to us. It's not magic; we are merely shown their hidden reasons for being who they are. Alfonso (the volatile, intensely watchable Alwyn Uytingco) does what he does partly because he hates Elena for supplanting his mother; Andrea (Nadine Samonte, who as an actress seemed dull and inadquate, but ever since her failed wedding has stepped the intensity up considerably) is all about ambition, but is not beyond being hurt. Lucia (a variation on 'Lucrezia,' not to mention having some assonant resemblance with the name 'Imelda') for all her venom and hate genuinely loves Pepe, and will do almost anything to keep him and her daughter. An especially lovely scene has her and her lover--a trusted flunky in the Deogracias family--asking him for details: is Elena a good person? Do the children love her? Was she happy with her husband? We realize that she's trying to compare notes, trying to find out just how much better the homelife of the competition is, just how utterly she has failed as wife and mother.

We learn that those who fight on the side of angels have their own warts. Angelo the dully perfect police officer hero seems to be playing Carmela against Elsa, and refusing to entertain only one girl. Pepe--possibly the most richly written and ambiguous of characters--is emotionally unfaithful to his wife (who to be fair can hardly be considered the model for marital fidelity). Pacita shows a bit of temper (Alfonso who loves Pacita and not Elena, who treats the younger sister as his adopted mother, seems to have inherited this trait, though the two are not blood relatives). Even mild-mannered Elsa shows fangs, as when a death in the family causes her to assault an innocent visitor--to Deogracias or Ilustre family is all, though Elena the elected official may insist otherwise.

One cannot entirely escape one's instincts, however; in the final minutes of the final episode of this week Elena, backed into a metaphorical corner, decides: “We need Alfonso.” Even if he's a refugee from the law guilty of any number of crimes she can't ignore family, not always, not entirely.

Saint Elena has her less-than-saintly moments, and a good thing too--adds dimension to her character. She can seem insufferably self-righteous, constantly demanding that people live up to her high standards, and it rubs others the wrong way. She doesn't seem at all familiar with the idea that politics is the art of compromise (a crucial survival skill). And there's this: just before Andrea gets married, Elena is visited by Ramoncito. Not a long visit, but long enough for Elena to have a heart-to-heart talk with him. He abandons Andrea at the wedding aisle shortly after.

Did Elena poison Andrea for her future husband? The question she asked--if Andrea really loved him--wasn't she aware of the possible effect those words would have on him? Granted we saw the exchange, and we could clearly see that Elena was talking out of sincere concern--isn't that the best, most unimpeachable way to strike at one's enemy, from a position of moral superiority? Suddenly Elena doesn't seem all that innocent; suddenly she seems more capable, more believable as governor, and you wonder if maybe not all the accusations Andrea, Alfonso, and Lucia have leveled against her are blatant lies.

Directors Mario O'Hara and Jon Red, working on scripts by Dinno Erece, Jerry Gracio, Benedict Mique, and Pamela Miras, have in effect re-told Philippine history of the past thirty years. The Deogracias and the Ilustres, like the Aquinos and Marcoses in real life, come to represent Filipino society at its worst and finest, a trick of perspective O'Hara has used before in his noir masterpiece Bagong Hari (The New King, 1986), where an alternate-history province stood in for the real Manila, its classy governess for Ms. Marcos (who at one point was governess of Metro Manila), its often baroque and at times unwatchable violence lifted directly from anecdotes of the era.

Television is reportedly a writer's medium, and the aforementioned writers did an astonishing job, telling the story of around a dozen characters over a period of several months (not an especially wide scope, but the level of detail involved is intimidating); it helps that O'Hara doesn't attend the story conferences developing the plot lines but does rewrite the script when it arrives on the set, helping keep the dialogue effective and real (or as real as possible within the confines of melodrama). All that said, the two directors helming the project do an amazing job of keeping the series visually distinct. O'Hara's classic style (John Ford by way of Gerardo de Leon) makes for an interesting contrast against Red's young-punk style (Leone by way of Johnny To, I'm guessing, with the occasional homage to Paul Greengrass). Red deals mainly with the younger cast, and his restless, flashy camera reflects their restless, flashy acting style; O'Hara's stoic understatement, on the other hand, perfectly complements Aunor and de Leon--in their scenes together you sense a serenity and quiet intimacy that comes from years of having known each other, worked with each other, at one point even loved one another.

Best television you're likely to see this year? I don't know; I haven't had a chance to watch much Filipino TV (asking around, people do tell me it is). I can say this much: it's the best storytelling I've seen this year to date, and that includes everything released this year on the big screen--Hollywood, independent, international.

The series continues for one more week in October at TV5; the previous episodes are available for online streaming (there are roughly ten episodes to catch up with). If you're at all interested in what Aunor or O'Hara (arguably the two finest Filipino artists alive, in their first major collaboration in over twenty years) are up to, or if you only want some sharp and intelligent storytelling--in this case an imaginatively entertaining re-telling of our history of the past three decades--you could do worse than to watch this. Highly recommended.

Next: Week 4

First published in Businessworld, 10.27.11

Sa Ngalan ng Ina (In the Name of the Mother, Mario O'Hara): third week

2011-10-25T00:40:00.001-04:00

Best of the year, arguably

(Cont'd from Part 1)

It had been some time in the making. Nora Aunor, on self-imposed exile for something like eight years, was rumored late last year to be coming home. The rumors persisted for months, to the point that no one quite believed she would be flying back till she actually stood there in August, on Philippine soil.

Things moved fast after that; TV5 had a deal with her to do a miniseries, or in the local jargon a teleserye; Mario O'Hara was rumored to direct. A large cast was assembled; this was TV5's first attempt at such a creature, and they apparently were to spare no expense. About a month before its October broadcast, Jon Red was attached to the project as co-director. Unlike other similar efforts, this apparently was to end after a month--it would come, introduce its storylines, and end. No extensions, no outstaying its welcome (the main reason why quality drops, apparently,).

The series opened October 3 to loud media fanfare; it was to be nothing more and nothing less than a sprawling political melodrama, not unlike--well, it's difficult to think of something, anything, it even remotely resembles. I remember hearing of Peque Gallaga's Cebu back in the '90s and in the mid-2000s--the shows were reportedly memorable for the dialogue, acting, production design (most if not all of Gallaga's films have excellent production design); I heard of Chito Rono's Davao, which does for that southern city what Gallaga's does for Cebu. Both are oft compared to Dallas or Dynasty--well-written potboilers done in high style.

Politics often lightly touches Filipino melodramas, and occasionally there'll be a character running for office, but never to my limited knowledge has an entire series been devoted to an election and its elected official's subsequent administration. One thinks not of Dallas, but of Altman's Tanner '88--sophisticated satire where Altman veteran Michael Murphy poses as a political candidate that, in his deadpan seriousness, comes uncomfortably close to resembling the posture of actual candidates (what's pose and what's real then?). Sa Ngalan ng Ina on the other hand is a full-speed-ahead melodrama, all tears and screaming and hair-pulling mixed with backroom intrigues and lurid affairs, plus the occasional assassination attempt. A garish mix of pathos and the grotesque, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus crossed with a small-town fiesta--much like a real Filipino-style election, when you think about it (the series' spirit if not tone connects it to Altman's work more than might be expected).

The series won high praise, but only modest ratings--it didn't pull in the general audience. Watching it, you wonder if it ever could, or was even meant to. Politics despite its tendency to inspire eccentric or even obsessive behavior, has never been popular television fare in the Philippines (or anywhere else, actually); leastwise, people seem to prefer practicing than watching it. For all its plot twists and tearjerking moments, this teleserye does keep a careful eye on the actual politics, the endless fundraising and shifting alliances, the nuts and bolts of administering a local government--one subplot involves the siphoning of provincial treasury funds into a rice stockpile; another traces money meant to buy farm equipment handed over to local mayors.

The series is different because it's about something--the struggle between rival political dynasties; how personal life affects public life; so on and so forth. TV audiences possibly aren't used to this much substance and complexity in prime time--it whizzes over their heads. Or rather, I suspect, it doesn't; they know exactly what's going on. They've seen too much of the shenanigans of real dynasties (the Aquinos, the Marcoses, the Macapagals) to want to watch it realized, however brilliantly, on the small screen (call it “The Tanner Effect”--low ratings due to inspired mimicry).

The first week followed a classic story: aspiring gubernatorial candidate Amang Deogracias (Bembol Roco) is assassinated under orders of Lucia Ilustre (Rosanna Roces), wife of incumbent governor Pepe Ilustre (Christopher De Leon); Amang's wife Elena Deogracias (Nora Aunor) runs in her husband's place, and wins the election. The story is fairy-tale fantastic (a housewife for governor?) and by all rights laughable, only it closely follows the actual career of Corazon Aquino, who ran in place of her husband Ninoy against arch-rival and long-time president Ferdinand Marcos (alongside his infamous wife Imelda), and won. Aside from transposing national events to the size and scale of provincial politics (the province of Verano standing in for the Philippines, the town of Salvacion standing in for the country's capital Manila, the office of governor representing that of president)--so far so faithful.

Then the real creativity comes in. Elena has to run her administration the same time she has to administer her four children: stepson Alfonso (Alwyn Uytingo), a hotheaded drug lord; younger stepson Angelo (Edgar Allan Guzman), a police officer; stepdaughter Andrea (Nadine Sarmonte), a local mayor, and Elsa Toribio (Eula Caballero), Elena's daughter out of wedlock. Alfonso is arrested under Elena's orders, and escapes with the help of Andrea; Elena orders a manhunt for Alfonso and an investigation of Andrea, earning their unending enmity.

Angelo and the Ilustre's only daughter Carmela (Karel Marquez) are sweethearts, though Elsa is also in love with Angelo; Andrea plans to marry Ramoncito (Joross Gamboa), who pretty much acts like her heroic manservant / wash rag. Lucia despite being married is conducting an affair--her husband Pepe is paralyzed from waist down, and is confined to a wheelchair, unable to perform his marital duties. Of all the major factions Elena stands alone, with only her daughter Elsa, her younger stepson Angelo and her sister Pacita Toribio (Eugene Domingo) giving moral support and (on Pacita's part) the occasional commonsense advice; against her stand Pepe and Lucia's politically powerful family, two of her own children (Andrea and Alfonso) with their own respective groups and resources, and eventually her own political party (investigating fellow party members for corruption (the farm equipment scandal) did not win her friends). With her is a secret ally--former governor Pepe Ilustre, who as it turns out was Elena's former sweetheart.

The situation is akin to housewife Cory running against the Marcoses' powerful political machinery, only Ferdinand has been harboring a secret crush on her all along. The idea seems to play off on the implausible nature of Filipino politics, where personality counts far more than policy, a man's ties--social, familial, amorous--and not his time or actions in office define him, and theater--a good storyline in particular--is all. Your stepson a drug lord, your other stepson a cop? A former lover your secret ally? Why not? We're taking Filipino politics to the next level: politics intensified, to the speed and complexity of television melodrama. Call it Filipino hyperpolitics.

Likewise with the characterization. Many of the characters' names are thuddingly obvious--'Angelo' for for what seems to be the province's only good and honest cop; 'Dorinda' (a 'komiks' name if ever there was one, usually a villainess at that) for Elena's vice-mayor; 'Deogracias' meaning 'grace of God' (Elena is only a novena short of sainthood status, it seems). For the first week all the characters play classic types: Alfonso is a hot-headed wild card, Andrea a bitchy manipulator; Lucia is a larger-than-life villainess complete with cunning machinations and chilling monologues (there's a memorable moment where a man is tortured and killed and she sits in her vehicle not a hundred feet away, murmuring lazy sentiments about snakes, and the satisfaction of crushing their skulls underfoot). She's like a cross between Lucrezia Borgia and her immediate inspiration, Imelda Marcos (whose native-style gowns and high-seated hairbuns she deliberately imitates).

Next week: Best of the year arguably, next part

First published in Businessworld, 10.24.11

A Band Apart's 130 Greatest Films

2011-10-23T21:38:00.001-04:00

Now on the film blog A Band Apart, a poll of the 130 Greatest Films.

(#1) 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)

2. Pulp Fiction (1994) Quentin Tarantino, USA (57 mentions)

3. Taxi Driver (1976) Martin Scorsese, USA (53 mentions)

4. Stalker (1979) Andrey Tarkovskiy, Soviet Union (51 mentions)

5. Persona (1966) Ingmar Bergman, Sweden (50 mentions)

6. Mulholland Dr. (2001) David Lynch, USA (49 mentions)

7. Zerkalo (1975) Andrey Tarkovskiy, Soviet Union (48 mentions)

8. City Lights (1931) Charles Chaplin, USA (47 mentions)

9. The Godfather (1972) Francis Ford Coppola, USA (47 mentions)

10. Apocalypse Now (1979) Francis Ford Coppola, USA (46 mentions)

From a list of about a hundred participants, many of them bloggers, some under pseudonyms.

Won't waste breath complaining about what's not there; I know the list by its statistical nature (see Mark Twain about statistics) is an aggregation of opinions and its true value as an indicator of quality (not that the titles are no good--it's a good list overall--but that there are in my opinion better titles left out). Beyond its veracity, though, which I feel is questionable at best, there's a chance to promote lesser-known titles, including a #1 that's not Citizen Kane.

My list of a hundred great films is included; check the link to 'participants,' and click on my name. That's all I'm really looking for; a venue that features (however modestly) all participating lists, and a chance to let my biases be known. This to my mind is the real value of the exercise--that my preferences be known.

When Mao Tse-tung declared "Let a hundred flowers bloom!" it was historically ironic; his declaration was a trap meant to lure dissenters into revealing themselves. I repeat his words in an unironic sense (unirony I feel being underrated nowadays): let a hundred lists bloom!

10.23.11

Moneyball, Contagion, Drive, Straw Dogs, Conan, Apes & more...

2011-10-22T03:40:00.000-04:00

Notes on recent films and classics, and others in between:

Moneyball

The film avoids almost every cliche in sports movies, is the first sports movie I've seen where an actual overall strategy that makes sense is consistently used, as opposed to "hitting one for the Gipper" or somesuch heroic sentiment.

I liked it; I like the clever mix of video footage both archival and re-enacted, I like the overall low-key tone and obliqueness, I like the loose way Miller has with dialogue--the way people talk over each other, sit back and stare at each other in exasperation, have quite moments of interaction. I think Miller's got a magic touch with actors. Unusually perceptive commentator on imdb points out the sound ambiance in the film is unusually layered and complex. It does sound more like a documentary film than an ordinary mainstream film. Miller's first film, The Cruise, had a similarly layered soundtrack (I thought he kind of lost it in his second one, Capote, glad to see he's recovered here). I'd go so far as to call it the best mainstream movie of the year--considering Malick's isn't quite mainstream, nor is Drive, and I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. Well, there's...

Contagion

Basically Outbreak for the intelligently levelheaded. Soderberg exchanges cheap thrills for coherence in this well-told, well-organized docudrama of a film that, far as I can tell, pretty much gives us the 'what could have been' of a serious epidemic outbreak, and how authorities would mobilize to deal with it. Two especially chilling points about the movie: this is what could happen if we were very, very lucky (many of the movies done by authorities are in fact based on government policies already in place); and I had to spend most of the picture trying to suppress a cough. I couldn't afford to deal with the stares from my seated neighbors.

Drive

Stylish for the most part; Refn shows a gift for staging intelligent car chases and action sequences. Where Drive sputters is in the romance angle--a bit of attraction to a neighbor a la In the Mood for Love, without Wong Kar Wai's swoony romanticism. Ryan Gosling is nicely self-contained, Albert Brooks a keen delight; Carey Mulligan and the always fun Ron Perlman are distinctly wasted.

Straw Dogs

A remake in the truest sense, in that it takes off from Peckinpah rather than from the source novel The Siege of Trencher's Farm, Rod Lurie's remake borrows many of Peckinpah's shots, a good portion of his staging, whole swaths of dialogue, and for good measure, snips out every bit of business that made the original the outrageous provocation of a masterpiece it is today. Not just unnecessary, it's maddeningly, infuriatingly bland.

Conan the Barbarian

Incredible film, in that it actually made me pine for the Gubernator's laconic wit and subtle acting skills. The director shoots and cuts the action sequences from poverty, with plenty of ideas stolen from oh, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, Once Upon a Time in the West, and Alien, among many others, not to mention you can tell that the budget was all spent on fake blood and prosthetic limbs instead of irrelevancies like a good script, or talented directors. The villain is forgettable, though his daughter does look hot in bald white makeup and extension claws. The 'pureblood' is hot-tish; nowadays it takes more than a pretty face to turn me on, it takes funny lines, delivered with at least an awareness of comic timing, timing the lead squeeze doesn't seem to have.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

The best moments are Cesar's rise and assumption of control over the apes, the most chilling moment when the apes move out of their cages and meet Cesar's eye, and you realize: this isn't a gang of primates, it's an army acknowledging their commander. The subplot about a virus taking over the world is far less persuasive--Outbreak redux, really? Soderbergh manages to present a more persuasive case (see above). John Lithgow is moving as the slowly fading father.

8 ½

People call this a fantasy when actually I think it's one of the most sobering films I've ever seen. The overriding emotion pervading this three ring circus of a film is fear--fear of inadequacy, fear of mediocrity, fear of failure and of admitting to one's failure before the general public. This is the flip side of man's ability to fly high on imagination--at a certain point, you notice the ground far, far away. Fellini put a note on the camera, reminding him it's a comedy (he needs the reminder, it's such grim material), but it's not just a comedy, it (along with Keaton's Sherlock, Jr.) is one of the most beautiful comedies ever shot.

Apollo 13

Is this Ron Howard's best-ever work? It's not a great film, but it is a great story, and Howard almost but not quite ruins it. He's got the stylistic distinctiveness of a Big Mac, and the melodramatic touch of an elephant, but when he sticks to the technogeek talk of the astronauts and their ground crew, the movie becomes compelling. Then he cuts to Kathleen Quinlan pining away back on Earth or to a CGI shot so flat and blatantly fake my teeth grind again. Almost a tolerable two-plus hours.

Wild Rovers

Possibly Blake Edward's masterpiece, a sometimes comical, sometimes violent, mournfully tender film about two cowhands who decide to rob a bank. Not perfect--the bits that seemed borrowed from Peckinpah look exactly that, borrowed--but you might call this Edwards' reply to Peckinpah, that a film can be unflinching and still be concerned about things other than machismo and mayhem. Edwards has a surer, gentler grasp of comedy than Peckinpah (bits of the funny stuff in The Wild Bunch is hard to take), his view of his characters feels more rueful, more subdued (an arguably more difficult achievement I submit), is as densely textured and detailed as a Larry McMurtry western. The widescreen photography is not shallowly gorgeous: Edwards has a gift for filling all that wide space with interesting compositions.

I Walked with a Zombie

Easily the most startling and stylish adaptation of Jane Eyre ever made, Jacques Tourneur's quietly unsettling film answers the simple question: what if Rochester had never left the Caribbean--if Jane instead were to meet him there instead? In less than seventy minutes Tourneur's balletic camera describes a world of dreamlike languor and voodoo magic, a world where not just Rochester's wife but all the main characters are, in fact, only half alive, caught between passion's drive and society's demands. The film itself is equally divided in nature, alternating between long, beautifully lit and photographed sequences almost entirely without dialogue (Betsy's first encounter with Jessica, the trek to the Home Front) and monologues from people describing their struggle with passion's consequences with all the fervor of recovering addicts (Tom Conway, Edith Barrett). The ending has been described as abrupt; I can only call it inevitable, lyrical, breathlessly tragic. A great film.

In a Lonely Place

(Warning: ending discussed in close detail)

Reportedly when Ray translated the source novel to the big screen he did something altogether different: he ditched the serial killer angle, turned it into a more grounded drama. Maybe it's a condition of the times, but serial killers just don't do it for me anymore; they're cartoon villains, an easy answer when asking questions about the nature of evil (it's like Ultimate Evil is supposed to be Heath Ledger in clown makeup--can be unsettling for oh, ten minutes, then you want something more substantial). Funny how Ray turns proof of Dixon's innocence into a moment of high tragedy--not an easy feat, I would imagine. I admit, you do lose the intensity and terror, but for me making him NOT guilty is ultimately more unsettling. "Serial killer" would have been an easy answer for what he does; for Ray he's a man who has to live with himself and what he's capable of doing--and I say that's a harder fate to deal with than life in a mental hospital dungeon decorated with plexiglass. Sunset Boulevard for all its pleasures, is a portrait of a grotesque; In a Lonely Place the monster can be any of us.

It's a Wonderful Life

(Warning: again, ending discussed in detail)

The most supremely depressing movie ever made. Just think, after torturing George Baily for a day and confronting him with the prospect of a wrecked banking career, they send him to an alternate world for about twenty minutes, terrifying him short of shitting in his pants. When they bring him back, he's so blubberingly grateful he accepts the miserable situation allotted to him for the rest of his pathetic life. All done in bright, Hallmark Greeting Card cheerfulness as only Capra can. Can you think of a more pessimistic ending? I'd say only Eyes Wide Shut comes anywhere close, and I don't think Kubrick has Capra's purity of intent and execution.

Black Girl

Sembene's hour-long first feature is, when you really stop to think about it, a deadpan comedy. She's a fish out of water, a nanny asked to move to Paris who on the day of her arrival is asked to work as launderer, cook, and live-in maid. Basically the girl and her employers spend the film talking past each other--she thought she'd grab the chance to enjoy a glamorous Parisian vacation, they thought they would save her life and acquire an all-around drudge on the side. The results are hilarious, but with hidden fangs.

10.21.11

Sa Ngalan ng Ina (Mario O'Hara, 10/3/11 - 10/14/11)

2011-10-17T04:43:00.000-04:00

In the name of the artist

Filipino actress Nora Aunor works best with Filipino filmmaker Mario O'Hara.

There, I've said it. Oh, Aunor--a multimedia, multi-awarded giantess in the '70s and '80s--has done excellent work with other directors (Bona (1980) with Lino Brocka, Himala with Ishmael Bernal, 'Merika (1984) with Gil Portes), but arguably her finest films were with O'Hara (Condemned (1984); Bulaklak sa City Jail (Flowers of the City Jail, 1984); the great Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos (Three Years Without God, 1976)). If Brocka had his favorite actors (Philip Salvador, Gina Alajar) and Bernal his (Vilma Santos, Maricel Soriano), O'Hara's is possibly Nora. More than a filmography they share a quiet sensitivity, a kind of shyness; they would rather avoid the spotlight if they could help it (but when it falls on them, they step up with the confidence of veteran professionals). In temperament they could conceivably be brother and sister, having practically grown up together as workers and artists in a pitilessly changing industry.

Talk about pitiless, O'Hara and Aunor have not worked with each other for some twenty-four years, and time has taken its toll--O'Hara has gained a mane of white hair, Aunor''s expression has grown solemn, even careworn. The actress has spent almost eight years out of the country, in seeming exile, trailed along the way by stories of bankrupt finances and a drug possession charge. Now she's come home, and judging by all the media fuss she seems bigger than ever, and we (at least those who've never really forgotten) wait with bated breath for the results of their first collaboration in decades. Will lightning strike yet again? Is the magic still there?

It is. Sa Ngalan ng Ina (In the Name of the Mother) is that rare creature in Philippine television, the political melodrama. Longer and more complex soap operas have been mounted on Philippine television before, and politics has been touched upon before, but far as I can recall there has never been a series (the exact name of the genre is, I believe, the teleserye) fully driven by politics, hinging upon the election into office and subsequent administration of the main character. This particular production will run for only the month of October--meaning the production budget (which is lavish) can and has already be measured out, and the storyline guaranteed, more or less, not to run out of gas (a common complaint, apparently about many a teleserye--that they have overstayed their welcome).

It's a whirlwind of a melodrama--without much wasted breath O'Hara and co-director Jon Red (brother of independent filmmaker Raymond Red) take material written by Dinno Erece, Jerry Gracio, Benedict Mique, Pamela Miras, and establish the dozen or so characters of the story, their often conflicting motivations, the tumultuous milieu in which they operate.

Philippine elections have traditionally been a chaotic affair, to put it mildly; I'd call it a cross between an endless town rally and a three-ring circus, with the occasional rival-gang shootout interrupting the festivities. The idea of setting a melodrama during a province's gubernatorial elections is, to put it mildly, genius--the marriage of tone and substance makes such perfect sense it's a wonder no one's ever thought of it before. Complex machinations and even more complex plot twists? Nefarious treacheries and lurid sex? Vicious confrontations among political rivals, long-time friends, blood brothers? Torture, car chases, assassination attempts? Either you're watching a lengthy melodrama (with a Hollywood-sized budget I'm guessing The Godfather, Part 1 and 2) or it's election season in the Philippines, baby; don't forget to wear a raincoat (for the mudslinging and spittle) over your bullet-proof vest.

This is familiar territory for O'Hara; his Bagong Hari (The New King, 1986) is set in a large and powerful (if fictional) province, where two rival factions vie for the position of governor of the land. The fictional province is Manila, the office of governor a stand-in for the office of President of the Philippines; the relatively small-scale struggle (relatively; I thought O'Hara had wrought a rarity among noir films--the noir epic) served as metaphor for the nationwide struggle to wrest power away from former president Ferdinand Marcos.

Sa Ngalan ng Ina while lighter in tone (Bagong Hari received an "X" rating from the censors board for its extreme violence) is broader in scope, ranging from housewife-turned president Cory Aquino's rise to power (she was chosen to run against Marcos for the sentimental value of her husband Ninoy's death--presumably assassinated under orders from Marcos' wife, Imelda), through her struggles as naive Chief Executive (both traditional politicians (trapos) and the military (here represented by the province's police force) alike constantly underestimated her). The series even throws in a subplot involving secret recordings--a reference to the "Hello, Garci" tape scandal that marred former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's administration.

Easy to equate the characters to their real-life inspirations: Elena Deogracias (Aunor) is the Cory Aquino figure, her husband Amang (Bembol Roco) the martyred Ninoy; wheelchair-bound Pepe Ilustre (Christopher de Leon) is Ferdinand Marcos, the voluptuous Lucia Ilustre (Rosanna Roces) his ruthless wife. The script introduces several interesting changes to the actual story: turns out Elena and Pepe were once lovers (as Aunor and De Leon were in real life), and their children also romantically involved (a la the late Bienvenido Noriega's comedy musical Bongbong at Kris). The script cunningly links not just to recent political history (Aquino vs. Marcos, with a touch of Macapagal-Arroyo) but to recent popular movie history (Aunor vs. De Leon, both having once been married to each other).

So--topical relevance; high production values; a royal flush of excellent actors (along with the main stars there's Leo Rialp, Raquel Villavicencio, Alwyn Uytingco, Eugene Domingo), a solidly constructed, intricately plotted script. Not a bad vehicle, overall--but a television melodrama? How to reconcile this with O'Hara's reputation as one of the Philippines' better filmmakers?

Actually there's nothing to reconcile; O'Hara has always embraced melodrama--it's where he comes from. He got his first break in a Proctor and Gamble radio show in 1963, years before meeting Brocka, and Filipino radio is nothing if not melodrama. He acted on the theatrical stage; wrote scripts for and acted in Brocka's TV series Balintataw. His script for Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos was originally written for the drama series Hilda, a dramatic showcase for Brocka protege Hilda Koronel. At one point he was the director of the hit series Flordeluna, starring Janice de Belen in the 1980s--you might say he improved the series. On occasion I've caught him directing the odd episode of Lovingly Yours, Helen; he did one of the better instalments for Eddie Romero's 1896 TV mini-series, Alitaptap sa Gabing Madilim (Firefly in the Dark Night) based on a Lualhati Bautista script. Far as I know he's still acting onstage, and on radio.

In short O'Hara does not put on airs, and has not lost touch with his roots--he takes this project seriously, and has lavished it with his distinct visual and narrative sensibilities. You see it in the camerawork--though O'Hara has always maintained that video is a less expressive medium, you wouldn't think it looking at the film's extravagant lighting scheme (all those large-scale night scenes with their need for floodlights are always more expensive to shoot).

You see it in big ways--the many parties, rallies and large crowds; in several of the action sequences, the biggest to date being the safehouse assault. O'Hara in films like Kastilyong Buhangin (Castle of Sand, 1980) and the aforementioned Condemned and Bagong Hari has proven time and time again he's a competent action director, and he proves it yet again here. The assault is realistically staged, cleanly shot and edited, and not a little suspenseful (can't help but think that the gang leader's last stand on the mansion's highest alcove is a little bit inspired by the finale of Kurosawa's Throne of Blood (Kumonosu-ju, 1957)).

(As it turns out, I am wrong--Red directed this. In which case, kudos to the man; it's a very well done setpiece)

You see it in subtler ways--the first meeting between Elena and Pepe in an old church, for example. Pepe in his wheelchair sits up and turns to look at the camera; he is limned in light against a dark background. Reverse cut to Elena, a dark silhouette against brilliant sunlight, contrasting light and shadow used to contrast two physically and temperamentally different actors (the dusky, quietly intense Aunor, the mestizo-looking, more easygoing De Leon). Later you have party leader Apo Lucas (Leo Rialp) approaching Elena in a gazebo, and the sequence is shot and framed like a stage production not unlike A Midsummer Night's Dream. Which makes all kinds of sense--Apo will offer Elena the candidacy for governor and it's meant to be a quietly moving moment, the episode's dramatic high point. But Apo's intentions are false; he means to use her as a puppet figure. He assumes Elena has visions of power, and that her ambitions are a mere fantasy he can grant or cause to vanish at any time, much like dreams--or much like, as Puck suggests, most of what happens in Shakespeare's play (If we shadows have offended / think but this, and all is mended / that you have but slumbered here / while these visions did appear).

I can't help but play this game, who's directing what scene--I keep thinking most of the sweeping crane shots are Jon Red's (really beautifully done, some of them), and some of the high static overhead shots are O'Hara's (he occasionally likes to assume a God's eye view of the action, to remind us how small and helpless we really are). I'm guessing all the church scenes are O'Hara's, mainly because they have the feel of his work (locked-down camera, simple setup, sharp mis-en-scene).

I'm guessing some of the sound editing and music cuing are O'Hara's work--as he likes to put it, they're so radio. Conversations from the next scene often overlap the images of the previous scene; at one point the conversation on television runs on in the background while the scene has already cut from studio into the Ilustre's bedroom--a nice way of telling us that, despite all of Lucia's protestations, she does have something to do with what they're talking about on TV.

Perhaps oddest of all is a trick used at least twice, where the image suddenly slows down while conversation runs on ahead. You get a sense of events moving past you, past the characters, past everyone's control, while you're left staring at slowed-down people struggling to catch up. It's easily the series' most disconcerting audio effect.

Easily O'Hara's simplest yet most powerful device would be his musical cuing. No one else I know can cue like O'Hara (he had to help Brocka with the soundtrack of Maynila sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Neon, 1975), for example). He'll keep the scene mostly quiet, the acting mostly subdued, and at a key word or phrase or carefully timed moment he'll sneak in the music--and just like that you're trying your level best not to tear up.

Actingwise, there's very little to fault. Eugene Domingo as Pacita presides over Elena's household and governor's office like a born second-in-command; her salty down-to-earth wisdom makes one think of Sancho Panza, supporting the fragile Don Quixote. Leo Rialp as Apo has few scenes, but what few he has stands out (his charming old patriarch act very much caught me by surprised, as I was at one point thinking this political party seemed too squeaky-clean for its own good--Rialp quickly put paid to that misconception). The lovely Raquel Villavicencio as former Vice Governor Dorinda Fernando doesn't have a consistent presence--the script writes her out of entire episodes--but her character when actually there is wonderfully bitchy, a real power-climber and seasoned survivor. Alwyn Uytingco as Elena's stepson Alfonso has the showy role, the prodigal child, and plays it to the hilt; he knows, however, that when called to play differently (as in the aftermath to the assassination attempt gone wrong) that that is his moment, and he comes through wonderfully. Christopher De Leon as Pepe Ilustre reportedly refused to take direction from O'Hara when they did Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos over thirty-five years ago (though for the record I liked him there); he's apparently learned enough to listen now, as his is a largely restrained performance. His scenes with Aunor have a beautiful delicacy to them, as if the two veterans know they only have to do very little to suggest page upon page of intense feelings between them. Rosanna Roces plots and rants and fumes as Pepe's evil wife Lucia, and you can tell she's having the time of her life with possibly the role of her life, as the melodrama's chief villainess. If Ray's Johnny Guitar (1954) is basically a confrontation between two powerful women, so is Sa Ngalan ng Ina (fact is, I think we're ahead of the United States in depicting women taking power onscreen--our women have now reached the level of achievement of Ray's film, in reducing men to pawns and trophy husbands); Roces steps up to the plate across Aunor and delivers an over-the-top performance worthy of Joan Crawford herself.

It's a spectacular success, but what stays in one's memory are the quieter moments. There are the scenes of Aunor and De Leon in church, of course, but then there's the very quiet, very fine scene of Pacita feeding Alfonso, and Alfonso wishing she and not Elena were his stepmother. It's more than just killing time; it helps show us a more motherly side to Pacita, and an altogether more human side to Alfonso--when he does what he does later in the show, we can't forget having seen that side, and it makes his later anger all the more unsettling. Later Lucia confronts Pepe, and we realize that for all her evil machinations and adulteries she does love him, very much; if anything, she does it all out of a sense of love, not hate. You realize you're watching not a virago but a woman after all, flesh-and-blood and full of helpless anguish at the treacheries of the human heart.

As for Aunor--what else to say about her? When Amang dies on the treatment table the room bursts out in a symphony of grieving. Aunor knows she has to play against that, she has to pull your eyes down, down, down to her diminutive level so you're aware that, while everyone else is being far more demonstrative, the news has hit her the hardest. Later, she has a simple scene with Domingo putting away Amang's clothes where it's her effort not to cry, instead of the usual histrionics and tears, that makes the scene so quietly moving.

It's not perfect work, and perhaps the most serious flaw in it is Elena's sainted goodness, which is almost too good to be true. But we're only halfway through the series, and hopefully O'Hara, Red, and the rest of the filmmaking team will manage to show us more sides to our heroine, give us the clay feet as well as the halo.

O'Hara helps out; he has Aunor flash out in steely anger more and more often, and I remember a line she delivers to an underperforming police officer that deserves to be an oft-quoted classic ("Remember I had my own son arrested--think what I'd do to someone outside my family!"). Most of O'Hara's work seems to consist of modulating Aunor's glamor, of having the camera treat her thematically, according to the demands of the narrative, instead of protecting her as befits the star of a big production. Often Aunor looks harried and exhausted, and it's heartrending to see her like this (you feel all the problems of the series weighing down on her). Once in a while though O'Hara relents, finds a certain angle...and suddenly she's gorgeous to look at, our Superstar forever, the literal face of Philippine cinema.

(Cont'd in next part)

10.17.11