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Saturday, March 31, 2018

Dispatches from HKIFF (++) 2018, part 1

It's time for some international cinema with this year's edition of the Hong Kong International Film Festival. One of the last (or the earliest, depending on your point of view) festivals in the festival cycle, this year's lineup consists of some of the best movies of last year and a number of new films from around the world. I'm a bit late to the party, unfortunately, but that doesn't mean there still aren't a few gems left lying around.

Ever since I saw it last night, Sweet Country has ben steadily growing on me. It's the kind of film that sticks with you because of its bleak and uncompromising world view. There's something in the Western aesthetic of the film that lends Sweet Country a deep darkness that fails to relent even up to its very last moments.

But the context and setting of Sweet Country, 1920's Australia, provides additional layers to the story. The characters of Sweet Country have just survived a devastating war - The Great War - serving the interests of England, and there's a feeling from the townsfolk that the crown is meddling in their affairs. The greatest shadow cast upon the film is the relationship between the White Australian "whitefellas" and the Aboriginal "blackfellas", with the former treating the latter much like slaves, in a manner not unlike (maybe even exceeding) that of the antebellum south. 

The movie makes it clear that the Aborigines have more knowledge of the lay of the land compared to their white counterparts, especially during a futile manhunt for Sam. Ironically, despite this, the 'whitefellas' have taken the land for themselves, the dark legacy of colonialism. One Aboriginal  character laments this, saying that this place is no longer their country. 

The film transforms in its last third, morphing into a sort of courtroom drama. A makeshift courtroom is built in front of the local pub, perhaps the film trying to create a space of civility within a hellish wasteland, finding justice in an unjust land. And in its final frames, it juxtaposes the image of ropes hanging from a wooden frame in two instances, both with different yet related meanings. The first - a makeshift gallows, symbolic of day to day injustice from colonizers to colonized, and the second, symbolizing something far more systemic: institutions of hegemony and oppression that normalize these day to day injustices.

And now, for something that isn't part of the festival. If the poster for The Night is Short, Walk On Girl reminds you of the excellent anime series The Tatami Galaxy, it shouldn't come  as a surprise: both are made by the same animation studio and director, and both are based on novels written by the same author (they even share characters, though their stories are mostly unrelated). But even without knowledge of the Tatami Galaxxy, The Night is Short, Walk on Girl is a strange, lovely film.

It's hard to describe what the film is exactly about: it's part comedy, part musical, part stream-of-consciousness philosophical rumination. It takes place on a night that never seems to end, and it's filled with a ton of colorful characters. It's tinged with surreal and mystical elements, and the film frequently flits between realism and magical realism.

It's all whimsical and meandering, but it's the fun kind of whimsy, not unlike a pub crawl with friends. It's better to just give in to the sheer insanity of the film and let it take you on a ride.

And, occasionally, when one looks between the lines, the film talks about pretty profound stuff: the relative whimsy of faling in love, the futility (or benefit) of grand gestures of love, and the illusion (or reality) of fate. It's fascinating stuff, and one that's worth a watch in my opinion.

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Simplicity is a movie. I think.

Maria (Mary Joy Apostol) is an aspiring singer who "works" in her dad's burger place. Now I put work in quotation marks because she and her friend Beth slack around with their friends more than anything else, and the place doesn't get a single customer who is not a friend or family member. That business must be hemorrhaging money. When opportunity knocks in the form of a singing and dancing contest, Maria and Beth round up their friends to join the competition as a girl group (unsurprisingly called Team Simplicity) and achieve their dreams.

It's evident from the very start of Simplicity that it was made to showcase the talents of Primeline talent agency, et. al. To be fair, the girls who make up the main cast are relatively talented (one look at Apostol's work in Birdshot ought to do it, and some of the other cast are pretty good dancers). The problem is, and there's no getting around it, Simplicity is a terrible movie.

First off, the movie isn't very funny. None of the jokes really land. The technical work is really rough: at one point in the story, Maria's boyfriend Brett Primo (that really is his name, Jesus Christ) breaks up with Maria, and the camera follows Maria as she walks repeatedly from left to right. That scene literally gave me motion sickness. The editing is horrible too. The characters are written inconsistently. One of Maria's friends is a taong grasa named Angel (Kelly Welt) who is, to put it mildly, a few cards short of a deck. Miraculously, with no explanation at all, she gains her sanity towards the end of the film. Maybe Maria slipped in a little Lithium in her bacon or something. One of Maria's other friends, Shelly (Alexa Miro) is a traffic enforcer who runs around wearing a "sexy cop" outfit someone probably bought from Ebay. She also doesn't do a lot of traffic enforcement, with an attendance record that would probably make General Bato cry. The film has a bit of star power in the form of Rhian Ramos and Solenn Heussaff, who spend most of their time maiming each other on screen. I was worried they'd both be dead by the end of the film.

As a showcase of talent the film fails at that, too. The film decides to show the other contestants in the idol group competition, but only for 10 seconds at a time, using really weird camera angles and shots. It's as if the filmmakers didn't want the audience to see what was going on, and with the exception of some of the Simplicity Girls (Nami Onuma and Alexa Miro in particular), what was going on was mostly terrible, so it's not really a loss. 

A baffling parade of decisions from beginning to end, Simplicity is barely a movie. It feels like getting shot in the penis.

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

March comes in like a bunch of short reviews (Magbuwag Ta Kay, My Perfect You)

It also comes in like a goddamn sledgehammer, but that's a story for another day.

Cebuano speaking netizens who watch viral videos on FB or Youtube may be familiar with the works of Rowell Ucat, aka Medyo Maldito. For everyone else, the film Magbuwag Ta Kay (Let's Break Up Because...) may be their first time watching*. The story revolves around a couple (Ucat and Akiko Solon) in the final stages of their relationship: the girl is about to make a big move to Canada and  they mutually decide to break up in advance to preempt any sort of heartbreak. Of course, heartbreak ensues anyway.

The level of presentation may not be as polished as other films made by large corporations (Star Cinema, I'm looking at you) but the story Magbuwag Ta Kay tells is bittersweet and relatable. Ultimately, even though it takes a strange turn near the end, it makes a point that things don't last forever, and there are some things in life that one should cherish exactly because of that fact. 

*Fans of Medyo Maldito may find more than a few easter eggs in the movie, including a running gag where one of his video co-stars, Snake Princess, has an extended cameo role.

NOTE: THESE SHORT THOUGHTS CONTAIN SPOILERS AND IS RECOMMENDED FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE WATCHED THE FILM.

Why.

This is just one of many questions I asked myself while watching Star Cinema's latest, My Perfect You. After watching, I genuinely could not make heads or tails of it. Perhaps reading the film as a relatively straightforward (if a bit tonally dissonant) romantic comedy makes things simpler. But for me, the dissonance ripples out and affects the whole film, which really made me wonder what the filmmakers were thinking when they made this thing.

What is the film trying to tell us regarding mental health? Does it offer "just smile" as a solution, which is not only wrong, but also irresponsible? Or does framing these suggestions as delusions negate the suggestions in the first place, with the real solution being therapy and counseling? Why does the depiction of symptomatology feel so wonky and inaccurate? Burn's condition feels more like Schizoaffective disorder. Catatonia is not strongly related to schizophrenia, and delusions in schizophrenics do not work in the way they were depicted in the film, in my opinion (they're more paranoid delusions than confabulations in reality.) Why does the film promote acceptance while making fun of its characters' speech impediment, stature or disability?

Why is the film so wacky in the middle? Does this fact make a statement on how romantic comedies in general are unrealistic delusions of a sick mind? Does it inadvertently make a connection between escapism and mental illness?

It's nice to make a movie that advocates for mental illness (or any illness, for that matter), but it has to be done right. And I'm not completely sure that this one did the job.

Saturday, March 10, 2018

Sinag Maynila 2018 Festival Report

The first hour or so of Ralston Javer's Bomba is more immersion than anything else, content to show us that the world is a dark, unforgiving place. The entire film is filled with morally grey characters and death, both rooted in contemporary social realities. That also means that for most of the movie, Pipo (Allen Dizon) is a passive character; things happen to him instead of the other way around. But that fits perfectly with the question the movie poses: what causes a man to explode with rage?

Bomba is elevated above other films of its ilk thanks to amazing performances by Allen Dizon and Angeli Sanoy, who play the films two main characters Pipo and Cyril. Pipo is a deaf-mute who has trouble fitting into society, even at the margins, while Cyril is his daughter. The dynamic between the two forms much of the film's center.

One thing Bomba does really well is inculcate a sense of ambiguity, much like in Jover's previous film Hamog (2016.) The film inserts small clues here and there that call into question character motivations that the audience might have taken for granted. Is Pipo a good, kind hearted man, or is there something dark and sinister behind his actions? What exactly is Cyril's deal, and what is the nature of her relationship with other characters?

There are other things talked about in Bomba, little moments pushed to the margins of the frame, but visible enough to be noticeable. In making us passive observers to this darkness, the film uses these moments to paint a picture of a society quickly growing apathetic, a society that ignores the humanity of other people, where piling corpses in unmarked graves are as casual as eating dinner.

Tale of the Lost Boys finds an unlikely friendship between Alex (Oliver Aquino), a car mechanic, and Jerry, (Ta Su), a medical student. Their relationship is not romantic (Alex is straight, while Jerry is gay); instead, these two find a deeper connection with each other, one that finds its roots in culture, family and identity.
This connection, perhaps ironically, is fueled by a reluctance to connect, with both characters unable to share their true feelings with others or with themselves, lost in more than one sense of the word. Jerry has a hard time coming out as it is, but in addition to his gender, he is also part of the Atayal people, and his responsibility to his family is also compounded by his responsibility to his tribe. Alex has his own issues with parents, so much so that it's unclear what these issues are until the very end of the film.

Despite being very uncommon in personality and life choices, they are bound by their hidden similarities, even at a physical level - it's noted at one point that the Aboriginal Taiwanese may have found their way to the Philippines, making this connection bound by blood. Even with culturally diverse backgrounds, the film makes a point that we are all bound by the emotions we all experience - love, regret, resentment, catharsis.

That said, while the film deftly explores Jerry's side of things, it glosses over Alex as a consequence. Aside from a nice monologue and a short scene, his story arc feels relatively unexplored. Add that to a random plot thread that goes nowhere and an abrupt ending and the film largely feels incomplete. While interesting enough, especially in its middle third, the film meanders towards an unsatisfying conclusion.

Rachel Rivera (Tippy Dos Santos), a young teen from some nondescript Americatown, wakes up in a dark alleyway and is sent to a hospital. However, once there, weird things start to happen. Apparently Rachel has been dead for two months, and nobody believes she is who she says she is. How is she alive? Why doesn't anybody believe her?

The central mystery of Yam Laranas' Abomination is occasionally intriguing. The film does its best to keep details out just enough to make us wonder what the hell is going on. Tippy Dos Santos does a capable job of portraying a troubled girl living in a world she doesn't completely understand, and to be fair the film does have its share of good dramatic moments about teenage struggles with mental health, parental issues and the opposite sex.

Now my problem isn't with the mystery of Abomination, but its eventual resolution. When the truth is finally revealed, I found myself saying, 'that's it?' For all the buildup, the solution to Abomination's mystery was completely underwhelming.

That's not the only problem with the movie. The production is decidedly low budget, despite the fact that the film takes place in America and has an all English speaking cast. Some shots are better left to the imagination rather than be depicted in wonky CGI, and the overall aesthetic feel of the movie is distinctly direct to video. Points for trying, definitely, but ultimately Abomination is a disappointing experience.

Over the past four years I've come to expect a certain kind of film when watching Sinag Maynila: films set locally, dealing with social issues, with a generally conventional narrative structure. Melodrama/Random/Melbourne! is definitely unconventional, like it was cobbled together by a group of film students who met one day and wondered "what's the wackiest thing we can do while still managing to create a conversation?" And the end result, surprisingly, works really well once the pieces fit together.

The film is filled with all kinds of random characters from different facets of Australian society, but arguably its center is Aries, a documentarian out to make her latest film. It could also be argued that this very film is her eventual output, as the conversation gets a little meta later on in the last act. The rest of the film is filled with short sequences following one character after another as they traverse the neon lit streets of Melbourne, searching for something nebulous. Connection? Sex? Revenge? Who really knows? It's all accompanied by music, as if the entire film was a recording of a karaoke session, each vignette and segment serving as just one more song in the night's repertoire.

The movie tackles themes of race and gender in Australian society, which has become a melting pot of different peoples and ideologies. It might not be cohesive from a storytelling standpoint at the start, but by the end, the film's eventual shape communicates emotion rather than denouement, feelings of loneliness, isolation and even courage during hardship.

It's definitely not for everyone, given the unconventional and at times over the top way the movie decides to present itself. But for people patient enough to stay with the film to the end, Melodrama/Random/Melbourne is pretty enjoyable.

Pests disrupt daily life, either by being a general inconvenience or by causing legitimate harm through spreading diseases. In El Peste, the pest exterminator becomes a pest himself when Abner (Mon Confiado) falls for one of his clients, Viola (Jean Judith Javier), who is married to an abusive husband (Alvin Anson). Abner just can't stop coming back to Viola's house, even though there is the real danger of getting caught.

El Peste follows on the heels of the steamy social realist dramas of the early 2000s. But unlike last year's Baklad, which tried to extract inspiration from that time as well, El Peste manages to pull it off somehow. Abner is an interesting character, though not completely sympathetic. Having been separated from his wife, Abner is addicted to connecting with someone (connection being something of a theme for this year's films) to the point that he becomes something of a parasite in Viola's house. 

It's an appropriate role for Confiado, who is usually cast as an antagonist. Abner is something of an antihero, whose motivations are pretty selfish. But one can't help but feel for him sometimes because he does this out of loneliness and existential angst. To extend the pest metaphor further, pests do what they do because they have no choice; it's in their nature as pests.

The film's low budget shows, which can work for or against the movie in certain parts. The color grading for some scenes seems a bit off - while it makes other colors pop out, the frame is saturated with a weird yellow tint that makes everyone look jaundiced.

El Peste can be darkly funny in some parts, and it finds its greatest moments in irony. While some things about the film don't work, the positives just barely edge out the negatives.

Thursday, March 08, 2018

Ang Pambansang Third Wheel: Flawed, but Thoughtful

SPOILER WARNING: I am going to talk about the plot of Ang Pambansang Third Wheel in depth here, so if you do not want to be spoiled, don't read this.

Trina (Yassi Pressman) has always been the third wheel in all of the relationships that she's been in. Opportunity comes knocking in the form of Neo (Sam Milby), who feels like a perfect match. There's a catch, however: Neo is a single dad.

Romantic movies involving single parents are a novelty in Philippine Cinema, partly because the logistics of such a relationship are much more complicated than your typical vanilla romance. When in a relationship with a single mom or dad, one has to deal with both partner and child (and partner's ex-partner, if they are still in the picture.) In reality, couples deal with this setup in varying ways. In itself, this story setup is ripe with possibilities.

To its credit, Ang Pambansang Third Wheel avoids the pitfall of treating the child like a prop; a lesser movie would have made the child exist to make trouble for our couple for the sake of creating conflict. The child in this situation is shown to have his own thoughts on the matter, and Trina has a couple of heartfelt conversations with him, never content to leave him out of the picture. 

On the other hand, the story makes some unexpected turns that don't completely work out. Near the last third of the film, the tone changes dramatically. The whole "relationship with a single parent" angle is pushed to the side, and it is followed by the death of Trina's dad. This is actually a great idea in a way - it could have shown us that while Trina thought she was a third wheel in all of her relationships, that wasn't the case with her father, with this notion transforming the film into a tender examination of a father and daughter relationship. But the film backs away from that particular thread, opting for a conventional romantic movie ending instead, with the complications of the romance-with-a-single-dad having worked themselves out off screen.

To people used to the tone of Ivan Payawal's films, Ang Pambansang Third Wheel is par for the course, though this is more The Comeback (2015) than I America (2016). It can be loud, even obnoxious, but it can still be entertaining - it all boils down to a matter of personal taste. All three films feature a strong, relatively well written female character, and Yassi Pressman shines in this particular case; personally I think she's a talented actress and deserves more interesting roles. The film is well shot and scored, and the ensemble cast is decent, though Alonzo Muhlach spends too much time trying to be cute.

Ang Pambansang Third Wheel may be flawed, but its greatest strength is in its quiet moments, when the characters are left to confront their problems without the noise and bombast. During those times the film can be quite thoughtful, offering an insight into a seldom explored variation of romantic love.

Saturday, March 03, 2018

that post where I catch up on a bunch of movies: Meet Me in St. Gallen, Black Panther, The Shape of Water, Sin Island

There's something intoxicating about the idea of a perfect memory, and Irene Villamor's Meet Me in St. Gallen knows that. Split into three segments, it begins with one such memory: the very epitome of a romantic meet-cute. Bela Padilla and Carlo Aquino's chemistry is simply amazing, and the conversations are buoyant, funny and interesting. What happens next, however, helps deconstruct the very idea of the meet-cute, and the notion that chemistry alone is enough and everything will work out in the end. Perhaps it's foreshadowed in the names of our main characters, an obvious reference to Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012), a film that dealt with the on and off nature of love. There's a sense of hesitation in the way Celeste and Jesse act after the first act, in that their own insecurities bleed into the amazing possibility brought before them. In trying to lionize such a perfect  memory, they end up missing the possibilities that come with their meeting, and their relationship becomes one long goodbye instead.


Guillermo Del Toro's inspiration for The Shape of Water comes from a viewing of Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), in which he actively rooted for the monster while watching the film. The result, The Shape of Water, is perhaps one of his best films yet. It's a movie about monsters both supernatural and real, the latter ending up being scarier than anything wrought from fantasy. Its unlikely heroes are people pushed to society's margins, made even more evident given the film's 1950's setting. As much as it reflects Del Toro's own experiences as an immigrant living in a strange land, The Shape of Water can also be seen as a trenchant examination of nostalgia, and the good and bad implications that come with it. The film harshly takes down the notion of the "good old days," portraying the fifties as it really was: a society still  rooted in deeply racist and sexist ideologies. Never does it sugarcoat the setting, instead, our protagonists manage to find magic in this darkness  anyway through their own positive nostalgic feelings - such as Elisa's fondness for grand movie musicals. And given the fact that the film itself is tribute to a 1950's horror classic, that applies on a broader sense as well. To borrow from the ad people who did Superman (1978,) after watching this film, you will believe a woman and a fish-man can fall in love.

Much has been said about Black Panther's role in perpetuating cultural diversity in big blockbuster film, or its varied political ideas dealing with issues like isolation, colonialism and foreign aid, or how it created one of the most layered and interesting villains in the MCU. That said, the thing that makes Black Panther most notable to me is its Afrofuturist aesthetic, through its colorful costumes and its amazing soundtrack. It gives the film a distinct identity, contrasting it sharply with the bland sameness of every MCU film that has come before it. Sure, the action sequences were just okay for me, but my enjoyment stems from how the film joyfully plays with the superhero and secret agent genres. Heck, it's the first MCU movie in a long time that had me wanting to watch it again, and given that I've gotten sick and tired of superhero movies lately, that's something.






For a country so hardheadedly determined to not legalize divorce to "keep the sanctity of marriage," whatever the hell that means, we sure do love our infidelity films. Sin Island is a particularly trashy and stupid example, but it's trashy and stupid enough to be enjoyable on a drunken night with friends. The film may pretend to be this really hot, racy film, but it really isn't that sexy; pinku films on WOWOW on Saturday nights are far more racy to be quite honest. The film is also full of idiots, including what might be the worst lawyer in movie history. I wouldn't hire that guy to defend my cat, if I had one. From a pulpy, almost campy premise, the film devolves into a weird facsimile of Fatal Attraction, without the things that made Fatal Attraction good. If there's anything nice to come out of the film, it's Nathalie Hart's interesting performance, including a rampage scene at the end where she seems to channel Jason Voorhees or something. To its credit, the movie is really well shot and scored, but it's still not enough to overcome glaring flaws everywhere else. While it's probably passable for a drunk watch, horny teens will probably fast forward to their "preferred" scenes, if you know what I mean, only to find out that they still don't have enough material for a good fap.