Another set of reviews as the festival enters its fourth day. Expect the reviews to trickle from now on due to the weather and work, but I hope to get out at least one or two a day.
Director's Showcase
Hari ng Tondo
Hari ng Tondo is one of those films that has audience appeal, but stands on shaky ground once you get into the details.
Ricardo Villena (Robert Arevalo) is an aging businessman who suddenly finds himself bankrupt. He decides to sell his remaining assets and return to the house he grew up in. Along the way he invites his two troubled grandchildren (Cris Villonco and Rafa Siguion-Reyna) to live with him to help them sort out their problems. But his home is in Tondo, a tough part of Manila where the people are hardened due to poverty.
This fish out of water scenario sets up the entire film. The two grandkids settle in and begin to make friends. Meanwhile, Ricardo's children scheme to get the grandkids back as they aren't really keen on having them living in Tondo.
There's a bit of weird uneven characterization going on at the beginning where Ricardo feels inconsistent, even senile as he tries to get the two young adults to live with him. Cris Villonco does not sing for most of the film, and neither is it established that her character is a singer, but she blends like a pro near the end (say what you want, but Cris Villonco is a great singer). This spotty characterization all smooths out in the end, however. As for some of the lines, this is a film where the characters spout lines that would only feel at home in a play or some kind of cartoon. If you're okay with hokey dialogue in this context, then be my guest.
For the cast I'd have to give props to Aiza Seguerra despite her little role. Eric Quizon eats up the camera and revels in his evil evilness. Technically the film is clean and I have no qualms.
Of course, all this syrupy sweetness comes to a head with a great third act, where all that candy coating is washed away. Tondo isn't the same as it was, as Ricardo finds out, and things are more complicated than they seem.The plot wraps itself up rather quickly at the end; I wanted a bit more resolution from the characters and their story arcs. But life goes on, and that's okay.
Hari ng Tondo is an entertaining film, but it's too saccharine for my taste. There's some potential in the last third, but the overall film is a film that didn't make that much of an impression on me. 6/10.
New Breed
Sundalong Kanin
.JPG)
Sundalong Kanin reminds us that in war, no one wins. Especially the children.
It's 1941, and the Japanese have begun their offensive against America and Japan's Asian neighbors. Four kids, Nitoy, Benny, Carding and Badong, live a relatively peaceful life in their village, playing and fighting with rival kids.
Their idyllic life slowly unravels as the Japanese arrive and change everything. Their leader, Taniguchi (Art Acuna) hands much of the day to day affairs to Filipino collaborators. Soon, nothing is the same for these four children - but they have resolved to fight whatever the cost.
Sundalong Kanin is relentless in its depiction of war and the effect it has on those most vulnerable to it. Additionally, it depicts war where the emotional and physical damage can come from both sides of the conflict. It pulls no punches in the way we are dragged through the personal hell these four kids, and the people of the village go through. The heartbreaking scenes are reminiscent of those seen in WWII themed movies like Life is Beautiful, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and Grave of the Fireflies.
There may be human antagonists in this drama, but the true antagonist in Sundalong Kanin is war itself. War forces people to betray others. War forces people to do heinous things for the sake of country.
The film is interspersed with some light humor, both timed well and some timed not so well (the American speaking Filipino commander was funny, but it really broke the immersion a bit.) I also noted that the film used the Japanese flag we see today and not the Rising Sun flag (which after a bit of research, I find is still accurate as it was indeed used back in the day).
The acting is excellent all around, and props have to go to the four boys since they deliver great performances for children their age.
One major issue I have with the film is the sound design; some sound effects are completely unnecessary (why does there have to be a gun cocking sound EVERY time someone even lightly touches a gun?) with some dialogue not matching lip movements at all.
Otherwise, Sundalong Kanin is a great, albeit depressing film. It is, in my opinion, one of the top contenders in the New Breed category. I recommend you watch something fun after this. 7.5/10.
Special Screening
Norte: Hangganan ng Kasaysayan (The End of History)
Clocking in at a daunting 250 minutes, Norte is actually one of Lav Diaz's shorter films. It's a challenge to watch, not just because of the film's length, but because of its heady content. But those who stick with it towards the end gain a very unique experience.
The film follows three characters whose stories interweave: Joaquin, a good man falsely accused of murder; Eliza, his wife who struggles to keep her family afloat in his absence, and Fabian, the real murderer who descends into a dark spiral of guilt and madness.
Fabian is pretty much a piece of shit as a character goes. He squanders his education and wastes his time engaging in intellectual talks about the world in chaos, without society or god. Disillusioned with the state of, well, everything, he decides to act upon his thoughts and kills a money lender and her daughter. He is ridden with guilt, channeling Crime and Punishment's Raskolnikov, and deals either with the gravity of his crime, or with the fact that he committed it.
In the meantime, Joaquin uses his prison time to gain enlightenment, as he is a veritable saint in prison. He is the Jesus figure to Fabian's Judas; where the pure Joaquin takes the sins of the world on his back, Fabian is like Judas after the betrayal, unable to hang himself. Eliza stands between the two, longing for another moment with her husband as she struggles to make ends meet.
Fabian's eventual self destruction is almost fascinating to watch, like a suicide corpse is fascinating. The movie's sometimes glacially slow pace is punctuated by moments of swift, vicious brutality. During these scenes, the camera tends to glide slowly or stay in place (static shots and slow pans being par for the course in this film) fixing us into the violence, yet being disaffected from it as well.
The cast is superb; Angeli Bayani is restrained yet brimming with emotion below the surface. Archie Alemania perfectly plays an honest to goodness decent man who just happened to have the worst luck, and Sid Lucero as Fabian is unsettling, irritating and (sometimes) sympathetic at the same time.
The visuals are superb, as shots tend to linger and show the beauty of the land. As for the long running time, although a good chunk of the movie is indeed essential, other shots linger a bit too long or cross into an exercise in patience.
Norte is relentlessly bleak, even nihilistic, but has its relative merits. It's a film that every serious film enthusiast must see at least once.
I have no idea/10.
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