Anino sa Likod ng Buwan starts innocuously with a conversation between a refugee couple and a soldier. The film quality simulates analog video, grainy and sometimes distorted. It is the nineties, and the conflict between the government and communist insurgents rages in the provinces. The couple are among the many refugees caught in the crossfire, while the soldier has become a close friend to them. Over the course of the next two hours, layers of deception are peeled off from all three characters, exposing their own personal shadows.
The presentation of the material is more similar to theater, with all of the action done in one long unbroken take (although the cuts could have been hidden by some clever transitions.) It's a treatment that was done before with movies like Remton Zuasola's Swap. The treatment does affect the realism of the movie's tone, but it does help concentrate on the character study that unfolds.
The movie tackles the often vicious cycle of violence between the military and the rebels. The military are seen as cruel oppressors by the populace and the rebels, which fuels the rebel's own acts of retaliation. The ideological reasons for both the communists and the military are not delved into or mentioned, instead the film explores the extent someone will go to compromise their own beliefs for their own selfish desires.
The film's final shot is a literal gunshot to the camera, ending our voyeuristic window into these characters' lives. If you persevere through the slow first half, the second half is compelling cinema.
I was lucky enough to be able to see the premiere screening of Mike de Leon's Kakabakaba Ka Ba? restored and remastered in glorious HD. I've been used to seeing de Leon's usual grim and socially relevant work, so seeing this movie, which is a madcap comedy-musical, was a pleasant surprise.
The plot seems tame at first but it gets crazier and crazier by the minute. It has yakuza, chinese gangsters, missing tapes and a love story in the middle. It's loud, wacky and many of the jokes are funny.
This is also a movie that is very much a work of its time. Along with the technology of its day, such as rotary telephones and cassette tapes and recorders. At the same time, it has many of the marks of culture during the early eighties and the late seventies, such as the death throes of disco, recreational drug use and psychedelia. For its time, the movie was pretty subversive. Some elements in the film are unlikely to be reproducible now. The caricatured presentation of the Japanese and Chinese antagonists, for example, would be unacceptable by our overly politically correct standards.
While it functions mostly as a comedy, there's a subtle jab at the church as the film reaches its climax where fake members of the clergy plot to take over the Philippines through an insidious distribution method. And jabs aside, the climax is simply amazing in terms of both choreography and audacity, culminating in an experience that has never been replicated in recent cinematic memory.
In terms of preservation the restoration job is pretty solid. The upscaled picture looks really good with some shots retaining their crispness. There was one very short moment during a split screen scene where I saw an artifact but it couldn't have been more than a few frames. The climax looks gorgeous in HD and compared to versions of the climax on TV or Youtube the difference is lightyears away.
I'm glad work like this is being done to restore our past films. I only hope that efforts like this to restore gems from the Golden Age of Philippine Cinema and other lost films continue.
And finally, we turn back to Hollywood and one of 2015's most pleasant surprises. A Rocky movie, of all things.
Creed mirrors the plot of the original 1976 Rocky, although this time, the late Apollo Creed's son Adonis takes up professional boxing and seeks the tutelage of a retired Rocky Balboa. Like the original film, boxing is at the periphery of the story; the film focuses more on the protagonist's journey to find himself.
In many respects, Creed is also a film about finding family. Adonis looks for the father figure he never had, and Rocky has pretty much lost all the family he has: his brother, wife and trainer are all dead, and for all intents and purposes, he has no family left. Both find the comfort and guidance they need from each other, creating an unconventional father-son relationship.
Michael B. Fox, who also appeared in Coogan's 2013 debut Fruitvale Station, blows it out of the water as Adonis, who struggles to move out of his father's shadow. His chemistry with Sylvester Stallone (who brings out one of his strongest performances since Rocky) is palpable, and their shared trials feel emotional and real. This is their movie, and their duo makes it succeed.
The movie is beautifully shot. The one big highlight is Adonis' first professionally sanctioned fight, with a combination of closeups and a 'referee's eye view' vantage point done in one long take that is simply breathtaking. It's similar to the camerawork done in a similar scene in Paul Soriano's Kid Kulafu and it's a step up from the cinematographic work from the previous Rocky films.
While it mostly captures the spirit of the original film, Creed pays homage to all of the previous Rocky films, even the sillier entries of the series (let us not forget Apollo dies in Rocky IV, the one with the Russian and the robot) as well as the poorly regarded Rocky V.
In the end, Creed isn't about the destination, but the journey. Life may be a series of knockdowns, but it's way easier if you know you have someone by your side. It's a lesson that was imparted to us in the first film, and it's a lesson this movie takes to heart.
The presentation of the material is more similar to theater, with all of the action done in one long unbroken take (although the cuts could have been hidden by some clever transitions.) It's a treatment that was done before with movies like Remton Zuasola's Swap. The treatment does affect the realism of the movie's tone, but it does help concentrate on the character study that unfolds.
The movie tackles the often vicious cycle of violence between the military and the rebels. The military are seen as cruel oppressors by the populace and the rebels, which fuels the rebel's own acts of retaliation. The ideological reasons for both the communists and the military are not delved into or mentioned, instead the film explores the extent someone will go to compromise their own beliefs for their own selfish desires.
The film's final shot is a literal gunshot to the camera, ending our voyeuristic window into these characters' lives. If you persevere through the slow first half, the second half is compelling cinema.
The plot seems tame at first but it gets crazier and crazier by the minute. It has yakuza, chinese gangsters, missing tapes and a love story in the middle. It's loud, wacky and many of the jokes are funny.
This is also a movie that is very much a work of its time. Along with the technology of its day, such as rotary telephones and cassette tapes and recorders. At the same time, it has many of the marks of culture during the early eighties and the late seventies, such as the death throes of disco, recreational drug use and psychedelia. For its time, the movie was pretty subversive. Some elements in the film are unlikely to be reproducible now. The caricatured presentation of the Japanese and Chinese antagonists, for example, would be unacceptable by our overly politically correct standards.
While it functions mostly as a comedy, there's a subtle jab at the church as the film reaches its climax where fake members of the clergy plot to take over the Philippines through an insidious distribution method. And jabs aside, the climax is simply amazing in terms of both choreography and audacity, culminating in an experience that has never been replicated in recent cinematic memory.
In terms of preservation the restoration job is pretty solid. The upscaled picture looks really good with some shots retaining their crispness. There was one very short moment during a split screen scene where I saw an artifact but it couldn't have been more than a few frames. The climax looks gorgeous in HD and compared to versions of the climax on TV or Youtube the difference is lightyears away.
I'm glad work like this is being done to restore our past films. I only hope that efforts like this to restore gems from the Golden Age of Philippine Cinema and other lost films continue.
Creed mirrors the plot of the original 1976 Rocky, although this time, the late Apollo Creed's son Adonis takes up professional boxing and seeks the tutelage of a retired Rocky Balboa. Like the original film, boxing is at the periphery of the story; the film focuses more on the protagonist's journey to find himself.
In many respects, Creed is also a film about finding family. Adonis looks for the father figure he never had, and Rocky has pretty much lost all the family he has: his brother, wife and trainer are all dead, and for all intents and purposes, he has no family left. Both find the comfort and guidance they need from each other, creating an unconventional father-son relationship.
Michael B. Fox, who also appeared in Coogan's 2013 debut Fruitvale Station, blows it out of the water as Adonis, who struggles to move out of his father's shadow. His chemistry with Sylvester Stallone (who brings out one of his strongest performances since Rocky) is palpable, and their shared trials feel emotional and real. This is their movie, and their duo makes it succeed.
The movie is beautifully shot. The one big highlight is Adonis' first professionally sanctioned fight, with a combination of closeups and a 'referee's eye view' vantage point done in one long take that is simply breathtaking. It's similar to the camerawork done in a similar scene in Paul Soriano's Kid Kulafu and it's a step up from the cinematographic work from the previous Rocky films.
While it mostly captures the spirit of the original film, Creed pays homage to all of the previous Rocky films, even the sillier entries of the series (let us not forget Apollo dies in Rocky IV, the one with the Russian and the robot) as well as the poorly regarded Rocky V.
In the end, Creed isn't about the destination, but the journey. Life may be a series of knockdowns, but it's way easier if you know you have someone by your side. It's a lesson that was imparted to us in the first film, and it's a lesson this movie takes to heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment