Cinemalaya 2009: ASTIG

Lego blocks are awesome. I had a lot of them as a kid, and extorted every OFW relative I had for a new set every time they came home. (For the record, I love those guys) So anyway, this stuff called Megablocks comes in. They were compatible with the Lego stuff, and had their own range of toy sets. They looked like Lego blocks, played similar to Lego blocks, and so on. But the thing is, they weren't Lego blocks. So, I didn't bother to buy em. The point of this story? I'll explain later.

Even before this year's festival began, there was one film that was being hyped as good. It was co-produced by Boy Abunda and has a number of respectable stars, including Glaiza de Castro, who if you remember from Still Life was amazing. The premise was okay: an interwoven story of four men living in the streets of Manila and their respective tales of survival. It was clear that the production value was going to be high, and the talent involved was going to be good. So on my only available day I set off to watch it.

I really, really wanted to like this film.

I'm a bit sorry to say I thought it really wasn't that good. It wasn't bad or anything, it was just mediocre.

So let's get to the film. The narrative moves back and forth in time over all four characters' stories, sometimes scenes overlap with each other, and some scenes reveal motivations of characters from other acts, which is kind of clever from a storytelling standpoint.

One person (Dennis Trillo) works as a male prostitute and as a counterfeiter, your all-purpose conman. He has no remorse for the victims he cons until he meets Elgine (Glaiza De Castro,) a student that he meets in a net cafe. Bada-boom, romance occurs (weirdly enough with little time to grow or develop,) but things are more complicated than they seem, and sooner or later shit hits the fan.

The second story focuses on a newly married man with a young pregnant wife. To keep things going and to earn more for his wife he sells shampoo and other kinds of goods, runs a little gambling thing on the side, and has a lot of other rackets going. However, the money is never enough (hospital stays cost a ton of cash) and he's soon grasping at straws. Soon, however he learns the big cash cow is this relatively rich gay man who gives money for blowjobs. He is then left with no viable alternative and does what he must for his wife.

The third story is about this guy who is of mixed Chinese and Filipino heritage (his mom's from Zamboanga city and there is some dialogue in Chavacano) who comes to the city to sell the one inheritance his father left him - a decrepit piece of shit building. It seems as if his father didn't give a damn about his son, but the son seems to genuinely love his father and wants to reconnect with his half siblings from the father's Chinese wife. He tries to sell the land, which is virtually unsellable, until this one guy (Gardo Versoza) offers him a deal he cannot resist.

The fourth and last story centers on Elgine's brother (Sid Lucero) who studies as a marine engineer to try to get a decent job to support his family. The doleouts from his OFW father have stopped coming and the family is in serious financial trouble. On top of that, he's not really that good in school and is in danger of failing his subjects again. His only consolation is his siblings, all of whom he protects fiercely from potential suitors, all to avoid the fate of his older sister who married a bum husband after getting pregnant.

Out of the four stories, the second was my favorite. It told the story in not many words, and made its point rather subtly. There was also a nice juxtaposition of sex scenes in a movie house in the second part. The scene being shown in the movie is a rape (was it from Ang Pinakamagandang Hayop sa Balat ng Lupa?) While the scene going on in the movie house was technically consensual, but you know it was forced by something else. Very nice. The first story feels incomplete (until the last part), the third story was a bit weird, and the fourth story was merely okay.

Production value-wise, the film is a slick production, from the rap music in the opening scene, mostly crisp visual presentation and good editing.

Now on to the stuff I didn't like. Remember that paragraph I wrote at the beginning? This encapsulates everything I felt about the movie. The whole thing feels too manufactured, as they took all of the things that people liked about a movie and mashed it together, without putting any new spin on things. The slice of life scenario, the interconnecting story, the curse-laden natural sounding dialogue, the soundtrack, you've seen it all before in some other movie screened in this festival before. Now by itself it isn't bad (it's actually good,) but the way it's all put together makes the movie exactly the sum of its parts, which shouldn't be the case.

The movie has many sex scenes, and although some are needed, there are some scenes that are questionable. Especially in the third act, where Gardo Versoza is involved. Although it makes his character (I'll talk about the acting later) more creepy, it was totally unnecessary and made the consequent scenes a little contrived. It comes out like they had an ending in mind and fit scenes to match that ending. It feels extremely awkward to watch the plot develop in that manner.

Now to the acting. Given the limited material, the actors have not much to work on, but they all do the best they can. Honors go out to Gardo Versoza for portraying a truly creepy character in the landlord, and the lady who played Sid Lucero's mother (can't remember her name at the moment) who was very convincing given the material. Glaiza de Castro was underused as her character wasn't given much to do except to fawn over Dennis Trillo and get depressed. There's something about Dennis Trillo that makes him very likeable; even if he did all the things he did in the movie I found it hard not to shun the good boy image he projects. Anyhow, good on him to act against stereotype, even though the stereotype still held somewhat in my final assessment of him. The other actors played their parts rather well, as the production is full of excellent talent. It's just that not even the great Billy Mays can pitch us a cleaner that doesn't clean anything.

Speaking of actors, there was a ton of cameos from various personalities from ABS-CBN and even from Boy Abunda himself in one very short scene. (Watch Ai-ai delas Alas without makeup in one scene, some of the theater goers didn't recognize her until the last moment) If they had one cameo, it's amusing; two and it's still okay. Three, and you're saying, 'well, they worked for next to nothing, I appreciate the effort they made in appearing.' Ten times and it gets annoying. There were at least ten cameos. Even Kuya Kim Atienza joined in on the fun.

My friend found some faults in lighting in the last scene, that it was too dark, that he could not see anything. Somehow I think it could have worked, but ultimately it didn't. I thought that the last scene could work if there was some more emotion in it. Then, that last scene would have worked even in total darkness. I noticed the same thing in the last scene of "Three Days of Darkness," which had appropriate emotion, but dragged on too long and had too much dialogue. There must be a perfect mix of emotion in the scene for it to work.

In the end, Astig is to Megablocks as every winner in this competition is to Legos. It's a combination of the best of the latter, but it isn't the latter at all. A laudable yet disappointing offering for this year's festival.