Querido Epic Review Part 5: Con Los Terroristas

In the last episode of our Querido Epic Review, the drama escalated up to eleven and the violence was kicking up a notch. Now it all comes to a head in this part, which I consider the climax of the entire film.

Still depressed after her talk at the end of Part 4, Mystica takes a fuckton of pills and downs them in one go.

these aren't Flintstones' Chewable Vitamins, that's for sure.

She lies down in her bed and quite obviously dreams that Troy is having sex with her. If you take this scene to mean that she is really dying and this is her dying dream, then this is a tragic event, and in a normal dramatic movie it makes the whole thing poignant in a way. But of course, this is Querido, not some normal dramatic movie.

Troy and Mystica proceed to do the horizontal mambo and are interrupted by none other than reporter guy... at gunpoint! While Mystica is horrified, Troy, not realizing the situation he is in, keeps on pumping his girlfriend. He FINALLY gets Troy's attention by smacking him in the head with the butt of the pistol (which he will do, repeatedly, as this scene goes on.)

*boop*

Troy is dragged off by the Mystic Champs and watches as news reporter guy tries to rape Mystica. He doesn't seem to be really into it as he doesn't kiss Mystica as you would expect a rapist to rape someone, he just kinda pecks Mystica lightly on the cheek and arm as he threatens her.

He does get more willing participants as the bald/shaven member of the Mystic Champs (alas his name is not Vince Bopis, he's Neil Nilaga) decides to do the rapey deed while news reporter guy talks if Mystica likes incest (remember that all of Mystica's talents call her mommy).

The rape scene goes on for like ten minutes and it's meant to be uncomfortable. At the end, news reporter guy decides that enough is enough and shoots Troy in the head!

VIOLENT END.

But of course this is just a dream and Mystica wakes up screaming, the numerous sleeping pills she ingested probably absorbed by her Mystic healing powers. She has a second chance.

Mystica then talks to her talents and tells them that she might have to let them go because of what happened with her foreign employer. They are in trouble for sure. The scene kinda segways into a moment where they're practicing acting again and are making scenes for the film.

After this Mystica meets with Neil Nilaga, the dude who raped her in her dream. She tells him that Troy was using her and that she's hung up on him about it. Neil tells her good advice: that she should move on and focus on herself and her family from now on. Relationships aren't just sex; they're when people love each other and share and do all of that hokey stuff. Mystica agrees, and decides that the whole affair was just a fluke and that she should focus on what is important.

Neil then takes Mystica out on a date and they go out ballroom dancing. From their dance moves they are in all fairness, good ballroom dancers:

So... this is the end? It's all over?

But then we go to a twist: we see that the whole ballroom scene is something that Mystica is watching on Youtube. She turns around to Patrick Bernard, her EMPLOYER (!!!) and tells him that she still loves Troy and loves the job, why can't she have both? Bernard, tired of her antics, says that she's made her point and just gives her this look that oozes "Oh, you..."

"oh you crazy bitch you..."

And the scene ends. This is a perfect ending to the movie, to be honest, but it leaves so many questions. So that movie that ends with the ballroom scene actually Querido? So what the hell is this movie that we are watching right now? When did this take place in the movie's chronology? Why is Patrick Bernard still here as he's supposed to be in the States with his wife?

Are we watching the end of the movie that shows scenes about the making of the movie while the movie of that movie is still going on? Have any of your heads exploded by now?

But there's around 50 minutes left to see. What could these 50 minutes possibly be about?

For starters, there's a performance by the Mystic Champs to "Jumbo Hotdog" and clips where Mystica gives out her own awards to her own people, which sounds like the biggest circlejerk in existence. But most of the remaining running time is occupied by an episode of a GMA 7 show about Mystica. Here she talks about several things that explain some of the questions we have about the earlier parts of this movie:

1) she's a part of a global company whose aim is reforestation, which explains the meetings she had with those foreign dudes about buying trees. Truly an environmentalist.

2) she has had three failed marriages abroad

3) she's managing a stable of talents who call her mommy

Why didn't they show this beforehand? I guess because it should have been common knowledge. The scene is actually  a perfect epilogue to the film we just saw, seeing everyone happy and doing well. It's also evident that this was recorded by placing a camera to the TV, because it's so avant garde to record a clip of a show instead of splicing it in from somewhere else. How do we know this is recorded from a TV?

Exhibit 1:

I guess the volume wasn't loud enough.

and Exhibit 2:

so this was recorded on two different TVs or was the hue out of whack?

There's also an unhealthy amount of Harlem Shake videos, done wherever she could do one. One in her house, two in Baywalk, in a school garden and in a gym. Also, in one of these Harlem Shake videos, Kid Lopez/Troy is wearing this weird green lizard/blonde wig combo:

It's the best he's looked in this entire film. And to his credit, he's wearing clothes.

The rest of the movie is nondescript except for this last part where the Mystic Champs and (gasp) REPORTER DUDE are hanging out. I guess they've made amends? The Champs want to go out or rest, and reporter dude suggest the spa everyone's been going to since the beginning of the movie. It's basically a product placement scene. And by the end we get the reminder that this little commercial was:

as if we didn't know already.

And that ends Part 5. To be honest I believe the movie really ended with that last scene with Patrick Bernard and the rest of the run time is fluff. Part six is more of the same environmentalist preaching, so there's almost nothing new about that part. The Epic Review of our little movie truly ends here.

With a bit of editing, this seven hour abomination could have been trimmed into something more sane, something more manageable. But it is the undiluted weirdness that makes this movie shine. The one thing that saves this movie in the eyes of an avid movie watcher like myself is how wonderfully bizarre it is. For the most part, the movie caught my attention. I now know more about Mystica than I did before I started watching. I now know the names of the Mystic Champs and many of Mystica's talents. I can tell the difference between Rex Adobo and Vince Bopis (and I still can't get over that name.) So, to my abject horror (or delight?) this movie has done its job.

May God have mercy on us all.

There's something I have to tell you about before we get into the final part of this review... there's ANOTHER CUT of this film and it's almost EIGHT hours long. Although most of the parts are the same, the ending is not. So I'll be talking about the relatively sparse last part of this film, and the last part of that cut, as we go into the last stretch!

In the last part of our Querido Epic Review... an Ang Dating Daan homage!? alternate cuts! the TRUE meaning of Querido!!! four weddings and a funeral (not really)! and... Jesus!?