Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for that most wonderful time of the year, Christmas, and with it, the Metro Manila Film Festival. After the mess that happened last year, the festival has gone through a complete overhaul. So far I've seen six of the eight films featured, and I have to say I haven't been disappointed yet. Overall this one of the most consistent festivals this year in terms of output. So how did each movie fare?
Sunday Beauty Queen, the first documentary in MMFF history, is probably my favorite film of the festival so far. It tells the stories of a number of domestic helpers working in Hong Kong. The work is definitely hard. Most work six days of continuous labor, often living in with their employers in less than ideal conditions. Domestic helpers who have their own place to live do exist, but are the exception rather than the rule. Sunday is often their day of respite, albeit with a strict curfew - and yet many spend their time engaging in beauty pageants.
The documentary shows both sides, good and bad with regards to stories of employment; we see domestic helpers who have truly bonded with the family they serve, and at times we see helpers stuck in limbo at a halfway house that helps those who have been terminated for some reason or another. These helpers become surrogate parents, caretakers, crutches and confidants. In a way, we serve as the backbone of these economies; we work for these people so that they can focus on their work.
And often this work for others leads to something bittersweet and moving. While one child has someone who walks him to school, we see a mother watching her child's graduation through a patchy cellphone signal. While one child has someone feeding her home cooked meals everyday, we have another parent struggling to send a package back home. It's certainly not normal, and it's part of the strange relationship of employer and employee that has emerged over the years.
The beauty pageants serve as their escape, a place where they can truly celebrate being themselves. This is their Cinderella moment - that one short time when Cinderella's gown shines and a horse and carriage await her. And in a way, it's a display of the spirit of these people who have sacrificed so much just to give their loved ones a better life.
I've been waiting for Saving Sally for the longest time, and although its premise is pretty conventional, I think it was worth the wait.
Marty is a comicbook artist. He falls in love with Sally, a spunky inventor type. Marty is a huge beta male who can't confess his feelings. Whatever will he do?
The premise is something you've probably heard before in some other form, but the difference with Saving Sally is that it's presented in such a neat visual package. The world of Saving Sally is populated by monsters, steampunk-ish elements, pirates and all kinds of imaginative things. It's not a stretch to call this film a landmark achievement in local animation, following the heels of recent films such as Manang Biring.
There are also some nice geeky touches in the film. The universal greeting and identifier for all geeks is a geeky pop culture reference, and this film has it in spades. It's quirky and nice without being too annoying for its own good.
The film does end a bit abruptly for my taste, resolving a lot of its plot elements during the end credits. An after credits scene, however, becomes the highlight of the film, as it nicely encapsulates the story and its themes for us one last time. Saving Sally is not perfect, but it oozes with charm and it pushes the boundaries of what we can do with the animated medium.
We now shift into dramatic territory with Alvin Yapan's Oro. It's about a small community of miners in the Caramoan islands. Soon, their mining operation is placed under threat when a group of armed men take over and cause trouble for the population at large.
Much of the movie is filmed at a Dutch angle, often used to indicate an imbalance, tension and uneasiness - and the whole film soon seems like a bomb rigged to explode. But it replaces release with a bit of melodrama, something that didn't sit well with me at first.
The villagers find themselves subjected
to different kinds of oppression under the threat of a gun. Oppression
breeds rebellion, and I was half expecting the villagers to come out in
open revolt against these people. But instead, many are helpless to do
anything about it, and the end result may prove frustrating for those wanting to see
some sort of retribution.
I think, in some respects, the movie puts the
onus on us to do something about these systems abused for the sake of
oppression. It wants us to feel these injustices and act against it by denying us any sort of catharsis. For that alone, these narrative decisions work overall for me, and I think Oro for the most part does its job.
We now come to the requisite Star Cinema rom com, Vince and Kath and James. Though the story is pretty conventional and mostly sticks to formula, the movie has moments that are genuinely charming and cute, and is buoyed by good performances by the three main actors.
The film plays out like a weird 21st century Cyrano de Bergerac where Vince (Joshua Garcia) plays matchmaker with his friend Kath (Julia Barettto) and his alpha male cousin James (Ronnie Alonte.) Vince falls in love with Kath and plot ensues.
The leads are pretty charming and they have interesting chemistry together, thanks to a decent script. Joshua Garcia in particular really gives a great performance here, and I think the kid has a bright future ahead of him.
The film does deal with a few gender stereotypes with engineers - like why do the male OJT students do the grunt work while the females act as glorified secretaries? The film, to its credit, makes it a point to show that Kath is just as capable, if not more so, compared to the other students. The film's last part is kind of clunky as it tries to adhere to the formula, but it's not a big hit to the overall experience.
This film is the lightest of all 8 films so far, and it's actually quite nice. It's evidence that you don't have to be a gritty socially focused "indie" (this term has lost all its meaning to me) to get in the festival - all you need is a good film.
What makes a life meaningful? Are they the things you've accomplished in life, the things you achieve after it, or both? Die Beautiful examines the life of Trisha, a transgender woman who suddenly died after she suddenly dies after winning a beauty pageant. The timeline is loosely connected, jumping from past to present, each jump providing another glimpse into Trisha's life and legacy.
As more and more mourners and well wishers join Trisha during her wake, we learn that the path she has taken has not been easy. Because of who she is, she has endured both emotional abuse and sexual violence. She is treated as a sideshow by some, a curiosity at best by others. Her own family disowns her, never quite accepting of her life decisions even in death.
But her mere presence has changed the lives of so many people, and you see that in the way her life was celebrated by those who truly loved her as a person. Paolo Ballesteros radiates in this film as Trisha, giving us an award winning, unforgettable performance. The film's loose structure may not have worked without the performance to tie it all together.
A life well lived is a life well spent, and in the end Trisha sets out what she wants to do in life, doing the things she loved and being the person she wants to be. It's almost like a picture perfect answer to a beauty pageant question.
And finally we come to Seklusyon, this year's sole entry to the MMFF. While the story can easily be interpreted as a horror film warning us about the dangers of blind faith, its subtext stands out as the scariest thing I've seen in years, because it rings true with regards to events that have happened to our country (and the world for that matter) for the past year or so.
Set after WWII, four deacons go to a secluded place to spend a few days in seclusion before they are ordained as priests. At the same time, a priest investigates a number of mysterious occurrences with a nun and a girl who can perform miracles.
Some of the best horror flicks out there, such as this year's The Wailing, are scary not because the evil is overt, but because it's difficult to see what is truly evil or not. It's hard to fight against supernatural evil, but harder to fight against ourselves justifying it as something good.
That's where Seklusyon draws its power - not in its jump scares or its darkly lit frames - it's in the darkness of our own selves, that we'd rather accept a convenient evil rather than an inconvenient good. And its scary because looking at the world right now, it's true. And the people who have embraced these false prophets will convince you that their cause is right and just, and you might just start to believe them.
The film sometimes ends up too dark to see anything, though this may be a projection problem rather than something intentional (the trailers were relatively well-lit in comparison.) The film does end a bit abruptly, but follows its concepts to the bloody end. Seklusyon continues Erik Matti's examination of faith, power and corruption from his earlier works. It's interesting to consider where he'll take it from here.
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