Lav Diaz's Ang Araw Bago ang Wakas (The Day Before the End) is only sixteen minutes long, but contains the same imagery and themes inherent in the director's other works.
To me (as with his previous film Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis,) the film evokes images of art in a dying world; where the fragility of memory and history threaten to wash away the poetry of the world around us. There are scenes of Hamlet and Julius Caesar on the streets, witnessed by bystanders who may not understand the words or the deeper meaning behind them. Its central catastrophe sees our characters wading helplessly in the rain, threatening to erase art forever. But there's something hopeful about its 'post-post apocalyptic' last frames, where the films images invoke a sense of rebirth; for the creative mind to spread its wings once more.
My favorite entry in this year's Visions of Asia showcase is Sunny Yu's The Kids. It's a drama about two individuals who end up shouldering more responsibilities than they should.
The film juxtaposes the past and present lives of this young teenage couple: back to high school days and unbridled promise and optimism - and the present time, where the realities of adult life come crashing down on them. This clever non-linear presentation bears fruit when you see the innocence and optimism of their childhood and know that things aren't going to work out as well as things should.
The two main characters, Bao-Li and Jia Jia, are both surrounded by adults that either guide them through their adult responsibilities or take advantage of their predicament. Their vulnerabilities belie the fact that although they wear adult clothes and do adult things, they are still the same two children from the start of the film. They trudge through their emotions with (or without) the emotional support of parents and other adults, which makes their ultimate decision and the final sequences of the movie all the more bittersweet and heartbreaking.
The Kids is a lovely film, excellently structured and treated with a solid directorial hand. It's a promising addition to the emerging wave of new and original Taiwanese films.
From the outset, I knew Curiosity, Adventure and Love was a very personal film and a film I think I would like. It chronicles the life and philosophy of Jessie Lichauco, a philanthropist whose many deeds helped the lives of countless Filipinos - and it all started with an almost impulsive move to a completely alien country.
This is a woman who grew up with the Philippines, a woman who saw its growing pains as it gained independence from foreign powers for the first time in more than three centuries. It is as much a story of the country as it is the person.
And yet, it's very personal, as it relates to us Jessie's life and philosophy in her own words. Much of it is very charming and quite profound. It's the sort of advice that can only come from a person who has a century's worth of memories, a lifetime of valuable experiences. Its personal touch reminds me of the Canadian documentary Stories We Tell, whose family drama hit very close to home.
The movie does not extensively tell everything about the Philippines in the 20th century perhaps due to editing constraints, and due to the circumstances of Mrs. Lichauco's life at the time there wasn't much told about the Martial Law era and the subsequent revolution, which was just as tumultuous as the time of the Second World War. But what we do get are gems, perspectives that we seldom see, since they are often lost to memory and time.
Rosita's conceit sees its titular character as a mail order bride who falls in love with her future husband's son. But the film does not romanticize the prospect of mail order brides; the movie concedes that the process amounts to a game where people use other people for monetary and emotional gain. Instead of letting herself get used by the system, Mercedes Cabral's Rosita embraces the game and plays it to her advantage.
Its drama is grounded and not bound by flights of whimsy. Its characters move towards a natural conclusion that I thought was quite refreshing in the context of Hollywood 'happily ever after' endings. It develops its central three characters well - we've already mentioned Rosita, whose determination drives her to make a life for her family back home, no matter the cost; the father, who only wants some sort of companionship after the death of his wife, and Johannes, whose conflicting emotions begin a struggle between idealism and pragmatism. It's this conflict and his subsequent coming-of-age, that drive the story.
The film is pretty straightforward and the moments between these three characters I think are handled nicely. Exposition is scarce, but visuals and decent storytelling make up for it. The characters' desires, hopes and dreams of freedom are tempered by the reality of their situation. It's engaging stuff, and it made for good drama in this case.
Cinemalaya 2016 ends with Ang Hapis at Himagsik ni Hermano Puli, a film 21 years in the making. It was supposed to be a finalist for last year's MMFF, but the lack of producers to produce the film led to it being pulled from the festival (Erik Matti's Honor Thy Father replaced it, which in hindsight was the best thing that could possibly happen.)
The movie is part historical biopic, perhaps with a few fictionalized elements. It tells the story of Hermano Puli, who led a major uprising against the Spanish occupation of the Philippines due to the inability of Filipinos to train for and join the clergy, and later due to a desire to practice their religion, a strange mix of pagan rituals and symbology and Christianity. It's an interesting concept of fighting for religious freedom. Unfortunately, I didn't really like the film. You can skip to the last paragraph if you want to hear something positive.
Most biopics fall into the trap of being a hagiography, and I'd expected something like that to happen to this film, but instead Hermano Puli goes in the other direction. Instead of depicting its subject as a saint, it doesn't manage to make us care for our protagonist at all. (Unless, of course, if I were a huge fan of Aljur Abrenica.) Although we do know that we should be rooting for Hermano Puli, by the end of the film I was rooting more for the Spaniards to win. There really wasn't any driving force to support the character in the script and nothing much for Aljur to work on.
The pace of the movie is absolutely languid; most of the first half consists of meetings and announcements between several groups of individuals we barely know or care about. And as anyone who has been in a meeting knows, meetings are deathly boring 90 percent of the time. Once the action kicks in, things get even more muddled; a group of Aetas come to help Puli's insurgency out of literally nowhere - they just show up with no buildup or development whatsoever and begin fighting alongside the rebels because they want to. I guess. Heck, even the elves that helped out in The Two Towers had some sort of backstory to them.
While the film thinks it's depicting Puli as a saintly, Christlike figure, the film made me see him as a misguided leader who got in way over his head. He may have some sort of religious pull over his people, but the film seems to say he was a horrible leader (he has no control over his military leaders) and tactician (his army's only tactic seems to be to charge at the enemy and scream.) While we want to root for the rebels, their actions grow even more heinous towards the end, culminating in the very Christian (this is sarcasm) practice of beheading their defeated Spanish enemies. At this point I thought of Puli and his gang to be more like the ISIS of colonial Spanish times than anything resembling heroic characters.
The script is another problem. Certain scenes between Puli and a potential love interest, Lina, are awkward and hilarious at the wrong times, full of strange innuendos. When Puli and Lina are literally being chased by the authorities, a serious moment where Puli is at risk of being PUT TO DEATH, a random double entendre pops up. FOR HUMOR. While Aljur tries his best with the material, you can only do so much; other performances range from quite decent to ridiculously hammy or silly to the point of cartoonishness.
The movie is partially salvaged by excellent camerawork by Albert Banzon and a decent musical score. Aljur is pretty decent here so if you're an Aljur fan, just disregard everything I've said before this paragraph and watch the movie to support your favorite actor. But if you want to see a proper Filipino biopic about the rise of a group of people united by faith, even (and I can't believe I am saying this) Joel Lamangan's Felix Manalo is a better watch.
And that ends Cinemalaya 2016. For the last installment of this series of reviews we'll be talking about this year's festival as a whole and the awards night.
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