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| Donald, Donald, Donald... |
The end of the year is fast approaching, and it's time to look back at the year that just passed by. 2017 is an interesting year for Philippine Cinema. 2016 was a great year, but there were only a few films that I found were truly outstanding. This year, on the other hand, had a lot of standouts. It won't be surprising if best-of film lists for this year vary wildly in which films are included, perhaps with the exception of a handful of truly exceptional films.
I've seen 80-85% of the local films that aired in cinemas this year, much more than previous years. I challenged myself to write something about all of these movies, and aside from ten or so films, I succeeded. I'm going to be honest with you guys, it isn't easy. Films disappear quickly in Philippine cinemas, so it's a bit difficult to catch every one. I salute the person who watched 100 percent of 2017's local films, but then again, cinephilia is neither a competition nor a race.
Big studio movies made their mark in 2017, mostly banking on star talent and love teams. As of this writing, most of the highest grossing local films were made by the Star Cinema juggernaut. But a quirky little film called Kita Kita surprised many by grossing more than 300 million pesos, making it the highest grossing local independent film of all time.
The usual film festival players came back to show quality films, although some fests like Cinefilipino took a break this year. My favorite film festival for the year is the 2017 edition of Cinema One Originals, whose lineup was nothing short of remarkable. Every film tried to push the envelope, and the documentary section was extraordinary. Even the worst film in Cinema One Originals' lineup was not that bad. QCinema was hot on its heels, expanding its coverage and delivering a quality lineup of films as well.
Cinemalaya, now on its 13th year, had a lineup that was mostly okay to passable, but it had two really great films that did a lot despite the fact that these films had smaller financial grants compared to their cousins from other film festivals.
The other minor fests had their day in the spotlight, too: Sinag Maynila kept chugging along, and ToFarm Film Festival, the most unlikely marriage of agriculture and cinema ever, had its share of interesting fare. (Unfortunately it looks like ToFarm will be taking a break next year.)
With progress comes regress, and the trainwreck that is this years MMFF is the best example. It's evidence that when faced with good but uncomfortable change, people tend to go back to the status quo, shitty as it is, because money and short term profit, not art, is their bottom line.
And did anyone notice we had a bunch of interesting genre experiments this year? 2017 had two found footage films (Darkroom and Salvage), a science fiction film (Instalado), two musicals (Changing Partners and Ang Larawan), a time travel film (Throwback Today), several crime dramas, and weird horror movies like Nay, Bloody Crayons and Pwera Usog. It isn't all romcoms and comedies this year, which I thought was a step in the right direction. Sure, it didn't all work, but hey, everyone gets credits for trying.
Even more than that, I appreciate all the new friendships I made with fellow cinephiles in 2017. I really like talking about these films, and I believe good discourse stems from a tightly knit community, so I wish all of you the best in the coming year and I hope to see you all at the movies.
Because I have so much more to say than normal, we will be splitting this year's yearender feature into three parts: Part 1 will tackle my 15 favorite local films from 2017, Part 2 will tackle special "awards" and the worst local films of 2017, and Part 3 will tackle the rest of the world.
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John Tawasil's
FAVORITE LOCAL FILMS OF 2017
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Honorable Mentions
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5. Tu Pug Imatuy (Arnel Barbarona, 2017) - seldom do we see films about the impact of militarization on Mindanao's countrysides and the marginalization of indigenous peoples that stem from it. In that regard, Tu Pug Imatuy (the Right to Kill) is an important film. It may be relatively simple compared to other films in this list, but it's no less powerful.
4. Love You to the Stars and Back (Antoinette Jadaone, 2017) - Fresh from JoshLia's debut in Vince and Kath and James (2016) comes this interesting romance, a romcom that seems to follow convention but subverts it in interesting ways. Joshua Garcia and Julia Barretto are the tandem to beat. Also, that's one of the best posters of the year.
3. Ang Larawan, (Loy Arcenas, 2017) - MMFF 2017's best film is a faithful, if at times safe, adaptation of Nick Joaquin's Portrait of the Artist as Filipino. A perfect foil to the creative stagnation of MMFF films, the very heart of the film celebrates a sense of rebellion against the world. Contra mundum indeed.
2. Balangiga: Howling Wilderness (Khavn, 2017) - the Khavn film that finally won me over, it's his most accessible film, and perhaps one of his most polarizing. This film isn't in the top 10 only for the fact that I've come to learn that it isn't finished and reflects only a part of Khavn's ultimate vision for the film. Sure, I had my problems with it, but I really enjoyed it and I'm eager to see future iterations of the film if it ever gets polished a bit more.
1. Nervous Translation (Shireen Seno, 2017) - nostalgia is a powerful thing, and I'll be the first to admit it helped in my appreciation of Nervous Translation, but aside from that, it's just a very well made movie about the strangeness and innocence of childhood and how children perceive the world around them. Of all the films this year that try to capture a child's perspective (there are a LOT), Nervous Translation is one of the films that does it the best.
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TOP TEN FAVORITE FILMS OF 2017
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10. Salvage (Sherad Anthony Sanchez, 2015/2017) - Salvage is a film that seems to take the found footage route but later evolves into something stranger and more profound. Its final 15 minutes count for some of the most haunting filmic images I've seen this year.
9. Birdshot (Mikhail Red, 2017) - Mikhail Red released two films this year, and I prefer this one a bit more. It's a tense thriller about corruption and its insidious effects on society as a whole. Technically it's one of the year's most skillfully made, showing a director whose skills belie his young age.
8. The Chanters (James Robin Mayo, 2017) - I love The Chanters. It's a film about old traditions and new, cherishing both without rejecting one or the other. It makes an interesting case for the symbiosis of tradition and technology, a melding of old and new, past and future, into something lasting and beautiful.
7. Kiko Boksingero (Thop Nazareno, 2017) - There is sometimes merit in simplicity, and Kiko Boksingero manages to succeed where other, more complex films, baggage and all, do not. It's not the sports drama I expected it to be; what I got instead was something far more interesting: a little coming of age film that proves to be genuinely affecting in its last few minutes.
6. I'm Drunk, I Love You (JP Habac, 2017) - It's easy to forget a film like I'm Drunk I Love You among the slew of romantic films released this year, especially since it was released way back in February. But JP Habac's film is more a coming of age film than it is a romance, and I gravitated toward it more than I expected. Maja Salvador was a revelation, delivering one of the year's best performances.
5. Smaller and Smaller Circles (Raya Martin, 2017) - I still haven't fully read F.H. Batacan's original book yet, but that doesn't really matter in this case. Smaller and Smaller Circles as a film in itself transcends the crime genre to make observations on our society and the darkness that seeps into it.
4. Changing Partners (Dan Villegas, 2017) - Dan Villegas' best film so far. While in itself Changing Partners is a capable musical production, Villegas uses the elements of cinema to further enhance the experience, creating a movie that is more than just "theater on film." The four leads are perfect for their roles, with Jojit Lorenzo and Agot Isidro delivering career-best performances.
3. Paki (Giancarlo Abrahan, 2017) - Abrahan's sophomore feature, Paki, was made with a certain aesthetic and sensibility that I just love; I guess I'm just a sucker for films like this. It has one of the best ensemble performances of the year, and Dexter Doria's performance makes me emotional just thinking about it.
2. Motherland (Ramona Diaz, 2017) - This year's best Filipino documentary is about a topic that is very close to my heart: reproductive health. The film says something we health professionals, patients and health advocates have been saying for years: women need access to and education regarding their right to bear (or not to bear) children. Anything other than that is a violation of their human rights. Diaz elects to show reality as it is without narration or judgement, revealing fundamental truths about how we treat (or mistreat) our women in society.
1. Respeto (Treb Monteras II, 2017) - in the dozens of Filipino films I've watched this year, not one film has matched the emotional resonance and intensity of Treb Monteras' Respeto, especially its last few minutes. It's a film that broke all my expectations by doing something amazing: it takes the hip hop film genre and connects the past to the present in ways I didn't know were possible. In this era of trashy, condescending movies about the Philippines in the middle of a disastrous war on drugs, this is one of the only films that does it justice.
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Up Next: Favorite Comedy? Most Surprising Film? Most Brain-Meltingly Bad Local Films of the year? We got it all in part 2 of Present Confusion's 2017 Year in Review.
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