QCinema 2015: Apocalypse Child, Sleepless

Now on its third year, the QCinema International Film festival is bigger than ever, with 200 screenings at three venues in Quezon City. This year's lineup looked interesting, so I took a bit of time off to get to watch as many competition films as I could. Today marks day one, and day one is all about baggage - emotional baggage, literal baggage (more like a balikbayan box, but still)  and all other sorts of baggage.

Apoocalypse Child takes its name from Francis Ford Coppola's seminal war film Apocalypse Now, which was partly shot in our very own Baler. Legend has it that a surfboard or surfboards left by the cast and crew led to the townsfolk mastering and making surfing their own thing.

Ford (Sid Lucero) is a surfing instructor who lives a very humdrum life, surfing and teaching by day, fooling around with his not-quite girlfriend Fiona (Annicka Dolonius) by night. He's pretty much lived his life drifting along the waves. He's also part of a strange urban legend: his father is allegedly a famous movie director who once shot a film in Baler...

His boring life runs into some rough waves when his childhood friend Rich and his fiancee Serena return to Baler. Apparently Rich's governor father, who was also a father figure to Ford, has just passed away. Soon, demons from the past come back to haunt all of them.

The movie is one big character study, focusing for a large part on Ford and Rich. Both of them have their own messed up pasts, and both deal with their demons (or to put it more appropriately, avoid them) in completely different ways. Ford uses Baler's tranquility to float away from these demons and he reacts to any kind of confrontation with his past with violence or drinking. On the other hand, Rich hides his demons within himself, with his emotions exploding in brief, tense moments.

The rest of the cast have their own issues in life as well. Ford's mother Chona (Ana Abad Santos) is a family friend of Rich's, and her own obsession with Ford's parentage draws deep from her own past traumatic experience. She is a bit off kilter, having grown up too young to be a single mother, and over the years has forged a strange but workable relationship with her son. Fiona is just riding the waves of life like Ford, but she soon has to make the decision to keep riding the waves or go somewhere else. And Serena is far more than just a distraction for Ford - her own struggle and need to please her future husband is real.

The film digs deep into all of their psyches as each character has their own desires and emotional needs. The tranquility of Baler, which is beautifully shot, is as much a drug as any joint they smoke or beer they drink. It hides their problems under its sands and extinguishes the fires of the past under its waves. Still, the film manages to be quirky enough that you need to pay attention to notice its tragedy unfolding underneath.

The film ends with its characters moving on from their problems, although many deal with their pasts in far different ways from the norm. In a way, it fits the atmosphere of the island and the overall tone of the film. Apocalypse Child is a quirky, strongly acted, well directed film that is awash in raw emotion, whose sting will linger like sea water in your ears after you take a long swim.

The premise of Sleepless is simple: two insomniacs, Gem and Barry, connect through their shared sleeplessness, and form an emotional bond that is more than friendship, but not quite romantic.

It's evident that Barry and Gem's insomnia stem from deeper emotional problems. Gem has nowhere to truly belong to; her (new) family feels unfamiliar and alien to her, and her current relationship with wealthy and handsome Vince is unconventional to say the least. Meanwhile, Barry struggles with the fact that he hasn't seen his son in two years, and is trying to reconnect with him.

This kind of movie thrives on chemistry, and Glaiza de Castro and Dominic Roco have it in spades. Their conversations about a wide variety of topics and their general interactions are natural and breezy. There's nothing forced about it. While the movie sports an impressive supporting cast, the movie is built on the two main leads.

Sleepless paints the nighttime landscape of the city in soft colors, mostly devoid of people. Its soundtrack is a bit sparse but reflects on itself during the times it does come on. There are a few scenes that meld cel shaded 3D animation that ranges from a bit clunky to charming.

The film also has some marvelous shots, such as Gem and Vince's conversation in the restaurant. Bith are in the same frame but are separated by a barrier; on Gem's side the shot is made to look like she is asking herself the zombie questions, and on Vince's side there is only a barrier and nothing else, signifying his growing emotional detachment.

That's part of the reason why Sleepless works as a movie - it's not a movie that generates artificial kilig moments and delivers a shallow story, trying to bank on the popularity of its leads. Instead, it builds up a believable story of friendship from small intimate moments that help us connect with the characters - making the inevitable resolution all the more heartbreaking and/or profound. It's part of a growing trend of local romantic comedy movies that respect the art of crafting a story that also respects its audience, and I'm thankful to the people involved for it.