Matt (Jake Cuenca) is going on a biking trip from Manila all the way up to Mount Pinatubo. On the way, he's joined by his friend Sandy (Anna Luna). It's obvious that Matt still has feelings for Sandy, despite the fact that she's taken. What will Matt do?
The premise looks good on paper, but Requited is plagued with tons of problems from the very start. Matt isn't a very likeable character, and there's not much in the film that makes him sympathetic. He snaps at Sandy with cruel remarks that seem out of place. It's obvious that he's frustrated at her, but then he's all happy by the next scene. The man is a cipher and there isn't a lot of consistency in the way he's written.
Sandy isn't any different, either: the spotty sound design made her even more annoying, and she spends the film giving Matt mixed signals - she's either completely dense or has a double personality. (Seriously, who walks out of a bath naked knowing their male friend is outside?) There's a lot of sexual tension between the two but it really doesn't go anywhere - except for a scene that gave me traumatic flashbacks of Nuwebe (which, ironically, Jake Cuenca also starred in.)
And here I firmly believe this isn't the actors' fault. The film's script is primarily to blame. It isn't very good; it made these characters very inconsistent and hard to relate with. A major twist during the film's concluding act puts an interesting spin on things, but by this time I was so turned off by it all that I just groaned and wished for it all to stop.
The film also suffers from a number of technical problems. The sound balance is way off, and it's painfully obvious at times when sound effects are edited in. To be fair, the film is well shot, but that's about the only decent thing I can say about the movie. A movie needs a good foundation to stand, and in this case, it should have been the script. Without it, everything collapses.
On a moonlight night, there is a procession of candles. A crime of passion. A confession. Trapped within the night's darkness, the truth waits.
Perhaps the most curious thing about Iar Arondaing's Sa Gabing Nananahimik ang mga Kuliglig is the choice to shoot the film in a 4:3 aspect ratio. And yet, this boxy frame is but one of many curious things in this film. Within these frames, our characters are pushed to the periphery, the dead space in their wake bearing the weight of their secrets.
And Sa Gabing Nananahimik ang mga Kuliglig is a movie of secrets, whether it be secrets that are revealed or secrets that are concealed. The frame then becomes constricting, narrowing our eyes to the characters, perhaps the film's way of urging us to seek truth from within them. And visually, these characters try to escape our gaze by shifting to the far side of these frames.
Secrets become crosses to bear, and the characters of this film have these secrets take root deep in their psyches. I noticed that rarely do any of the characters speak face to face. Even when doing a shot-counter shot sequence where two characters are talking to each other, they are placed on the frame in such a way that when you overlap two frames on top of each other, the characters' eyes never meet - they are facing away from each other.
Visually the film is masterful, but that's complemented by great performances from the ensemble cast. The soundtrack is adequate, though it tends to oversell dramatic moments occasionally. The film takes a while to get going as well, and the slower pace may turn off some. There are some dream sequences that feel slightly overdone, but ultimately the pros outweigh the cons in this case.
If you are patient enough to get through the first half of the film, Sa Gabing Nananahimik ang mga Kuliglig can be pretty rewarding. And it's really enjoyable in a visual sense, perhaps one of my most favorite cinematography work yet this year. Considering that this film was made with only 750,000 pesos, which is a paltry sum even for independent films, the end result is pretty remarkable.
Nabubulok is directed by Sonny Calvento, the son of popular crime reporter Tony Calvento. Like the show his father hosted, this tale is also about a crime. Or at least, the shadow of one. When Luna, wife of an American Expat, disappears, the neighbors are worried, especially Luna's extended family members, who live nearby.
The film takes us through the mystery of the alleged crime, giving us the possible motives behind the crime, means of doing the crime and other such details. And all these clues are revealed by scenes of eavesdropping, whether it be a clerk overhearing a conversation, a curious internet cafe user peeking at the screen next to her, or a computer repairman finding illicit files on a computer under repair. The film deftly takes our natural curiosity for a ride in this film, and it certainly kept me on my toes until the climax.
This all leads to the ending, which is both the film's greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The ending resolves a major plot point through a few lines of text, which can feel unsatisfying. In general, the plot threads are loosely tied together through the ending, and there's no sense of true resolution (which to be fair may be the point.) On the other hand, the ending says some pretty interesting things about what we have become in the past decade or so. Nabubulok ("decaying" in Tagalog) may not only describe the rotting flesh of a corpse, but also the systems that run and protect our society from wrongdoing. Often, people are pushed to take the law into their own hands, frustrated at the fact that the systems that keep them safe no longer work.
It's a very keen insight, and one that is very relevant in contemporary times. While it has its faults, Nabubulok ends up pretty enjoyable as a whole.
And finally, for the feature length films for today, we have Zig Dulay's Bagahe. A baby is found abandoned inside an airplane garbage can. All signs point to Mercy, a returning OFW, as a culprit. Soon after, she is taken by the NBI for investigation.
The first half of Bagahe finds Mercy undergoing procedure after procedure as she finds her way through the legal system: first to several doctors who poke and prod her, then to the NBI, who interrogates her, then finally to a women's shelter where she tries to pick up the pieces of her life. The whole process is surreal, even dehumanizing in a sense, as Mercy is reduced to a few pieces of paper, a clinical abstract, an envelope filled with papers, a sensational case for the world to judge. It's slow and a bit tedious, but it's meant to be that way. In many ways it's a reflection of the second half of Dulay's earlier film M: Mother's Maiden Name, where the tedious bureaucracy of the health care system is explored.
Through these slow, tedious procedures, other people (whether it be in the justice, health care or social welfare systems) make decisions for Mercy; not once do these people ask Mercy what she wants. They mean well, and for the most part they are trying to help, but they are all trapped in a system that may be broken, and it's often uncertain whether Mercy is being helped for her own sake or being helped to serve the agenda of others.
Mercy may seem small, dwarfed by the wishes of these other people, but she eventually manages to say what she wants to say, and Angeli Bayani really brings it home with a terrific performance. Perhaps the film's only fault is that the first half may be too long, too tedious, stretching a story that we've guessed from the start. Nevertheless, it's a startling tale that helps shed a light on the mental toll on our workers abroad.
***
WE WANT SHORT SHORTS CINEMALAYA 2017 SHORT SHORTS B REVIEWS FROM SHORTS B PINEAPPLE INTERGALACTIC CRUISER 56
Cinemalaya Shorts B is a pretty varied collection of shorts, now with different stuff mixed in with the usual narrative features. I think it's a pretty strong lineup.
Juana and the Sacred Shores is a thesis film submitted for the UPFI. It mostly two people dancing on the shore, which you may partly have surmised from the title. What's interesting is that there is hardly any music to accompany the dancing; one feels the rhythm and the lyricism of the film's invisible 'music' through the expression of the dance itself. Such a venture would fail had the dancers been less than skillful, but that's not the case here - both dancers are quite impressive. The camerawork is really impressive as well, and the visual style of the film is no joke either.
I've seen Maria before at last year's Cinema One Originals festival, and it still holds up pretty well. Like I said before, it does somehow feel ridiculous until you realize this is based on a real life story. And I'm no stranger to patients with 12, 13, even 15 children, far more than most people can comfortably support, so this is not an uncommon story either.
Nakaw was shot in one take, which is as impressive as the fact that it does so much with so little. As the title implies, things are stolen in this short film, and not just money - a woman, a bet, a life. Its colors are gray and desaturated and at least technically is worth a watch, even if one thinks the themes descend into cliche.
Hilom, about a pair of twin brothers in a sleepy seaside town, can be quite sweet and genuinely affecting. I had concerns that there would be weird overtones between the two brothers but no one else got those vibes so it's probably just me. Out of all the films in this set, this is the one that's staying in my mind the most.
Bawod ends at an uncertain place, which may make the film feel too open-ended. But what comes before is genuinely good and charming, and at the end of the day the film is my favorite of the Shorts B set.
If we speak purely in technical aspects, Nakauwi Na is the weakest link of Shorts B. It's awkwardly edited, it's plagued with a lot of technical issues and the film descends into overtly manipulative territory by the end. But its themes are very relevant and the film's ending is just a perfect way to cap off this deeply flawed film.
---
Tomorrow: More Shorts, Kids With Guns (but not in WWII), Walong Milya, and... Bacon!?
No comments:
Post a Comment