Five films are part of the MMFF's New Wave lineup. I managed to catch two of them over the last day, and the results are not bad.
Island Dreams takes place on an island resort (the name of the resort is never revealed, but the film was shot in Batangas). Zach (Alexis Petitprez), an American (with a vaguely French accent) that comes to the resort to find a place recommended by a mysterious girl. Meanwhile, Julie (Louise Delos Reyes) is a plucky girl hoping to make it big by joining a talent search in the city. To make the money to go there, she tries to moonlight as a tourist guide, even though she isn't accredited.
Romance movies rely heavily on the actors and the concept. Island Dreams is pretty much a by the numbers romance flick, and it gets pretty predictable after you get through half of it. The trailer pretty much gives away most of the story, so if you plan on watching this film (whenever it becomes available) don't watch the trailer.
As for the acting, both of the leads have chemistry, but are overall a bit spotty. Petitprez's accent is sometimes a bit hard to understand, and he flip flops from being deadpan and emotionless to being fun and wistful, and Delos Reyes sometimes crosses the line from being cute and perky to being loud and annoying. The broken English doesn't help, either, but is understandable.
When the chemistry works, however, it really works. The movie doesn't rely too much on "kilig" scenes and that's good. It instead makes us ponder the nature of the relationship of the two leads. I would also have liked to see what happened to Julie's character to make her resent the concept of true love that much (other than just mentioning that her ex cheated on her,) but sadly it wasn't emphasized too much in the film.
There are a few unbelievable scenes in the script, but I'll leave that to your judgement. Also, the film suffers from some weird sound editing choices. Some songs sound like they were just recorded too near a microphone; others sound like they were recorded too far from the mic.
Island Dreams ends up being a fairly entertaining romance film, but if you've seen one of these, you've seen them all. That said, it's still probably going to end up better than most of the films in the main category.
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Saka Saka is about two brothers (Ejay Falcon and Joseph Marco) who end up being private assassins for a corrupt governor. At first, as children they immerse themselves in the killing life, but as time goes on, their viewpoints on killing change.
Saka Saka feels very low budget from the time it starts, and it shows. At some parts, notably near the start, the movie feels like a telenovela on film instead of a real film. During others, the production design is really good.
The movie tackles corruption in the government, but doesn't really delve into it that much. Much like On the Job, it treats corruption as a systemic sickness, integrated into our way of life. There are some really nice scenes (the one with the convoy is a particular favorite) which reminds me of a certain political event from the past five years, but there are some scenes that seem unnecessary (is the romantic montage really necessary?) The movie delves into violence and brutality, but the budget sometimes rears its ugly head in these scenes.
Throughout the movie there are some really nice action sequences, but sometimes the action feels like a blurry/mis-edited mess (especially when there's an exchange of punches). There are some action tropes lifted from the most inane Filipino action movies (goons can't shoot straight, etc). The climax of the movie is one big action scene with a run through rooftops. It's nice to see the action genre slowly being revived.
The two leads act their asses off, and to their credit their performances enhance the film. The guy who plays the mayor deserves a bit of praise as well.
It's a nice film with a lot of great concepts, but the execution leaves much to be desired.
p.s. Why does Baron Geisler have that darkening makeup (too much IMO) while his sons, who work in the sun all day like him, don't have darkening makeup? Was sunscreen somehow available to them in the interim?
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