Balut Country
Directed by Paul Sta. Ana
Sometimes there are movies that just let us exist in their world - and the experience itself is the point of the whole movie. Balut Country is like that - but at the same time, it also deals with issues about land ownership in the Philippines, as well as the plight of various families who make a living on the land from trust gained over generations. While it could have been preachy or heavy handed, Balut Country tells its story by never imposing on its audience. By making the experience paramount, the message behind the experience eases in gently.
Balut Country is set in Candaba, Pampanga, where Jun (Rocco Nacino) is in the process of selling a piece of land. The sale of the land, however, would impact the lives of one family living on that land, who use a part of the land to maintain a duck farm. In other words, they'd most likely get thrown out. Jun then goes on his own quest of self discovery to sort out his life and find out if there truly is No Place Like Home (TM?)
This feudal-like system has been in place in the provinces for a some time now. Some relatives of mine are or were land owners who maintained their land under a similar arrangement. Should the system be changed? The film leaves the answers in our hands via an open ending. Although the movie leans towards a specific kind of ending, it doesn't force the issue. You can be as pessimistic or optimistic in your interpretation of the ending as you like. This viewer choice can either skew your interpretation as a subtle critique of the system, or an endorsement of it, or neither.
But the point here is the journey that takes us to that ending. Although I am not a fan of Balut, I found most of the exposition quite interesting. The soundtrack helps and it reminded me of younger days when I would run around my grandfather's farm and play. I guess that element of nostalgia charmed me and made me like the film more. I recommend watching the film and making your own conclusions and asking your own questions about the themes the film is trying to portray.
Imbisibol
Directed by Lawrence Fajardo
THIS is the movie that should be called "Ninja Party." ...because Ninjas are from Japan and they are supposed to stay invisible. Also, there's a party in the movie somewhere. I kid.
When I was on my way home after a short holiday in Japan, I met a lady at the terminal gate who was once a "TnT" more than thirty or so years ago. (TnT - an acronym for the Tagalog phrase 'tago ng tago' - referring to illegal aliens who stay in Japan to earn money for their families back home.) Eventually she managed to marry a Japanese native and was, at the time we had the conversation, a full fledged citizen. The story intrigued me, so I took a look at the curious plight of our countrymen in Japan.
Japan has a very strict set of immigration laws, but every year a number of people from China, South East Asia and other places try to make it to Japan to work as undocumented immigrants. The number has declined in recent years thanks to stricter laws, but the problem persists. These people work difficult jobs, sometimes menial in nature, at times without benefits. Some take jobs in places normally undesirable such as the sex industry. Employers, on the other hand, take these workers in (despite the threat of penalties) to supplement a workforce for a declining population that had previously subsisted on using their own unemployed or the elderly as a manpower pool.
While the plight of our overseas workers has been caught on camera before (most notably 2013's Transit,) Imbisibol ('Invisible') is a fantastic take on the premise. Based on a play from the local theater festival Virgin Labfest, Imbisibol delves into the lives of four Filipinos living in Japan's Fukuoka prefecture. Each of them has their own problems either with work or their own self-destructive impulses that drags them towards an inevitable meeting.
Imbisibol lacks the jumping narrative technique used in Transit, but the film works regardless. The atmosphere of the film is quite bleak, thanks in part to the snowy weather in Fukuoka at the time of shooting. The cinematography is exquisite, at times framing our characters behind curtains or through windows - a subtle nod to their invisibility. The soundtrack fits the loneliness and isolation well, especially in the film's final moments.
As an ensemble cast all of the actors involved deliver noteworthy performances. There's struggling host Allen Dizon as a host with a gambling addiction (who with all of the old sexy movie posters on the wall seems to be playing a bit of himself). There's elderly Bernardo Bernardo as a man who is tired of it all but must struggle on (whose act, in my opinion, was one of the best in the film.) There's JM De Guzman whose character arc forms the crux of the final act, and at the center is Ces Quesada, whose well-meaning intentions to help her countrymen conflicts with her duty to her Japanese family.
It is the final act, and its final sequence, that makes this film remarkable in my eyes. Perfectly shot and edited, with its final frame a fantastic shot of footprints in the show that encapsulates everything this movie is about, it is a perfect end to a great film. Imbisibol is my favorite film of the festival thus far, and if this level of quality is the kind that we will expect from Sinag Maynila, I have great hopes for its future.
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