notes on Just a Stranger and Mina-Anud

Jason Paul Laxamana's Just a Stranger barely squeezes into the burgeoning subgenre of contemporary cougar cinema, as its May December romance strains a bit of disbelief. To be honest, it looks more like a September-December romance, even if Anne Curtis' Mae is purportedly twice the age of Marco Gumabao's Jericho. Whether you believe the age difference or not, the other tropes defining the subgenre are definitely there: a mature, repressed woman, a guy who is equally attractive, lots of sex, and friction that threatens to tear their relationship apart.

The movie is framed through a confession, and the love story proper begins with a romantic tryst in an exotic location, as if to call back to other mainstream romantic movies. The affair is literally that for both, as Mae is married and Jericho has a girlfriend. So far, so good, as the film begins to meld its May-December romance with a kabit movie. There's some camp in it, but not too much to be distracting. The film elaborates on Jericho's life and past, but what about Mae? Her marital issues aside, she remains mostly an enigma, defined almost solely by her experiences with her young boyfriend. Her past is communicated mostly through dialogue.

Everything changes in the third act, where the film becomes a commentary on how men of our current generation (specifically middle-upper class men) are raised. The film makes it a point in one particular sequence to criticize the practice of infantilizing and emasculating these men, arguing that it leaves them ill prepared for any future relationships. It's an elaboration of the May-December romance dynamic where the female lead seeks to 'liberate' her young lover from societal expectations to her own financial and social detriment, yet in defiance of her own societal expectations.

It's definitely not perfect, as the film is still packed with melodrama and kabit cliches, not to mention the fact that Mae ends up feeling like a storytelling accoutrement by the end of the film, but in a roundabout way, it sort of works. Looking past that, the film as a whole could also represent a calling out of hypocrisy in all its forms - a sort of angst that's also visible in Laxamana's script for Too Cool to Be Forgotten. We are all made up of facades here - a rich and powerful couple deeply unhappy, a young man thought to be perfect, or a random stranger in a church. 

Mina-Anud was Cinemalaya 2019's closing film, and I'm glad I chose it as the last film of the festival. It's admittedly not for everyone, but to me it's a weird, quirky crime comedy/thriller that kept me entertained for most of its running time.

The premise seems outlandish, but is actually based on real, ongoing news. One of the most recent films perhaps inspired by the story is 2013's Kabisera, starring Joel Torre. But Mina-Anud takes that premise and mixes in stoner humor and a surfer vibe. It's irreverent, wild, and even funny. The characters of the film become rich thanks to their new occupation, but they obviously didn't read the part in the drug dealers' handbook where it says never to take your own supply.

Mina-Anud's fun lies in its unpredictability. The jig will be up in some way or another, but we don't know when. These are characters who have found an easy way to get out of their dire situation, but they are not aware that there's always a bigger fish, and that these dreams of easy money are a trap. In doing this, the film undergoes some rather drastic shifts in tone by the final act, and the end result will not sit well with everyone.

And like with many waves, a trough follows every crest. There's a bit of ambiguity in the ending, offering a glimmer of hope But it feels like the film is fighting the pessimism it established for itself, and any catharsis is thus left to wash away with the waves.

notes on SONS of Nanay Sabel, And Ai, Thank You, Indak and Parasite

The latest film to join the roster of Filipino Netflix Originals is not an award winning film, or a critically acclaimed local film. Instead, Netflix has acquired... S.O.N.S. of Nanay Sabel, starring Ai Ai Delas Alas and her (former) talents, hip hop collective Ex Battalion. This is a surprise for sure, considering Viva has tons of better content to distribute on Netflix instead.

The basic premise follows Ai Ai's most popular contemporary blockbuster, Ang Tanging Ina, but segues into its own thing. None of the titular sons are interesting, and their story arcs are hardly memorable. The film feebly attempts humor, but director Dado Lumibao, as decent as he is, is no Wenn Deramas.

The film is at its best when it is a hip hop musical, departing from its attempts to ape previous successes. There's even a scene where Ai Ai sings in autotune, which I guess is a welcome surprise. "Best", however, is a relative term, as the film is still overall mostly forgettable. This film is best off as something one would put in the background while doing household chores, though to be perfectly honest there are better shows on Netflix for that, too.

I've seen most of Joven Tan's 2010's-era filmography, and because of that I think I at least have the authority to say this: And Ai, Thank You is probably one of his better films. I hesitate to call it good, but there were parts to this film that were quite enjoyable.

The film follows Aileen Dela Rosa, (Ai Ai Delas Alas) a successful actress about to receive yet another award for her performance in a film called "Basahang Salawal." She faints as she receives the award, and predictably, the news is not good. As she deals with her impending death, she takes on a variety of odd jobs and reevaluates her life.

Perhaps Tan and co. were going for something meta with this. The film's protagonist shares her name with the actress, after all, and Ai Ai is a very successful actress in her own right. Tan is best when he lampoons the entertainment industry, and for the first half of this film, that's exactly what he does. Some of it is actually quite hilarious.

But the satire quickly evaporates when the movie transforms into a melodrama about Aileen's impending death. It's probably unintentional, but by this point, the film also touches on topics of class. All of the people in her current life are hangers-on, people who benefit from her financially in some way. One wonders if she would have been held in the same high regard by people who are not financially supported by her. Aileen shares her wealth liberally, but is it out of altruism, or is it because without these hangers-on, she knows she is virtually alone? What if she didn't pay her employees? Would they work for her for free? Where does the "obligation" of help between master and servant lie?

The drama ultimately feels slight and unearned, but the film does raise a number of interesting questions. And the film seems to be going for the moral lesson of "if you go through life, you might as well be kind," and that's a sentiment I can somewhat support, even though the film's arguments in its favor are flimsy at best. And Ai, Thank You is hardly a good film, but at least its more coherent than almost any film that Tan has directed in the past decade.

NOTE: SPOILERS for Indak are present.

A viral video leads to an opportunity of a lifetime for Jen (Nadine Lustre), as she is invited to join a dance group called Indak Pinas for a dance competition. This sounds like an interesting proposition, at least on paper. The problem with Indak, unfortunately, is its execution.

Dance movies can either be self-aware but fun, or dramatic and profound. This film ends up being neither: it instead becomes a ludicrously self-serious drama (complete with dramatic voiceover) that narrates Jen's journey towards... self discovery? It isn't really compelling, at all.

For one thing, Jen isn't an amazing dancer. Sure she has natural talent, but almost everyone else in Indak Pinas is better than her. Vin (Sam Concepcion), the guy who discovered her, seems to be pushing her to be the center of the squad, even though she's the rookie who stumbles in practice and struggles to keep up with the rest of them. During the final performance, she even flubs her choreography at a crucial moment, perhaps costing the team a championship win. Not only that, she is indirectly the reason for several setbacks that seriously compromise the group's chances of even joining the competition in the first place. She doesn't even show up to practice once the group goes to South Korea for the competition proper, and during the big day, prepares in a completely separate room from her teammates. There is no solidarity, no camaraderie, no team spirit - the things good dance groups are built on. Her overly dramatic soliloquies end up feeling glib and self important, even selfish and arrogant.

There is no antagonist in this film other than Jen's own insecurities. The competition is all but a farce, and the competing teams aren't even given time to present themselves as a threat to Indak Pinas. The most exciting thing about a dance competition film is the dance competition itself, and without a likeable character to fall back on, the film doesn't work.

It's best to watch Parasite before reading these (very) short thoughts. It simply is one of the year's best films.

In Bong Joon-ho's 2014 film Snowpiercer, class divides are made evident through directionality, that is, the various factions in the film are segregated from left to right. In Parasite, he turns that horizontal visual analog and makes it vertical. The world of Parasite is an organism, where the head up top is heaven, composed of clean, spacious works of art, and down below is hell, intestines full of parasitic worms, born and bred in shit, wishing to be something more, but realizing that the world is stacked against them.

Sometimes, there is a breakthrough. There are attempts at understanding, at reaching a common ground: commensalism instead of parasitism. But the systems holding people in categories are too strong, leading one character to declare that there are some lines that shouldn't be crossed. There is animosity on both sides: disgust, resentment, envy.

Sometimes, that resentment explodes. 

Cinemalaya 2019 x Eigasai 2019: Lying to Mom, Still Human, Bamboo Dogs, Istorya ng Pag-asa

(No) thanks to inclement weather, I was only able to catch the last three films of Mga Istorya ng Pag-asa, a Humans of New York-ish batch of positive stories about our countrymen. It's refreshing stuff if all you've been seeing recently is bad news about the Philippines.

The three stories that I watched were varied and are not just about people overcoming hardships in life - they're about mental health, or discovering a craft for the first time even in old age, or being a trailblazer in a relatively unknown artistic scene.

The films are packaged in little five-minute sized bites, and I hope more people get to see them.

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Japanese dramas about grief are not uncommon within its cinematic landscape; films like Departures (2008) or The Long Excuse (2016) portray grief within the context of the individual bereaved. But Katsumi Nojiri's Lying to Mom expands its view a bit to encompass the larger family. What results is a quirky, touching family drama that stands out from its other Eigasai batchmates.

After the tragic suicide of the Suzuki family's only son Koichi (Ryo Kase,)  the Suzuki family deals with the tragedy in different ways. Patriarch Yukio (Ittoku Kishibe) tries to enter a soapland for an unspecified reason. Fumi (Mai Kiryu), Koichi's younger sister, has trouble articulating her feelings in a grief support group, and harbors resentment towards her brother. And finally matriarch Yuko (Hideko Hara) loses her memory of the events in question, leading her family to lie to her in order to shield her from the truth.

Koichi's death is sudden, tragic, seemingly meaningless. He's a hikkikomori (a term used for people who have willingly isolated themselves from society) and the reasons for his self exile are only hinted at and are not completely understood by the family. There's also a glimpse in this film of how Japanese families treat their hikkikomori: as an embarassment to be placed under the rug instead of something to be dealt with directly. The Suzukis are left to grope in the dark, searching in vain for meaning that eludes them.

It's funny, touching and poignant all at the same time, although the film had trouble finding its ending. As it is, Lying to Mom is a wonderful addition to the Eigasai roster. Catch it if you can.

The power behind Still Human, Oliver Siu Ken Chan's depiction of the relationship between a paralyzed man and his domestic helper, is in its capacity for empathy. It treats its two subjects with grace, without being cloying or mawkish.

This is a story of two people finding each other, both marginalized in a sense by their communities. Evelyn (Crisel Consunji) faces a lot of challenges as a domestic helper and has to give up her dreams in order to live a better life. Cheong-wing (Anthony Wong) has been more or less abandoned by his family, leaving him to fend for himself. Their relationship is professional, but soon evolves into a mutual kinship and an acknowledgement of each other's humanity.

That acknowledgement only serves to make the dramatic moments pop out when the narrative begins to move towards melodrama. It makes a lot of these moments utterly bittersweet and emotionally resonant.

Still Human also reflects on the perception of immigrant workers in Hong Kong, in that they exist here only to take advantage of their masters for monetary gain. But here, the rigid, societally-defined lines between helper and employer start to disappear, leaving only two people with their own dreams and aspirations trying to live life one day at a time.

In the post-screening Q and A of Khavn's Bamboo Dogs, he mentions that he is a fan of the films of Carlo J. Caparas. But while Caparas glorifies the crime and paints its criminals as inhuman demons, Khavn turns that around and portrays them as human beings. Like in his earlier Balangiga (2018) there is an emphasis not on historical truth per se, but on narrative, experiential truth - in both films, there is an imaginative reinterpretation of past experiences to lampshade current events and to deliver a message. Hermeneutics trump documentation, for the past, present and future are one.

Bamboo Dogs is mostly a van ride through the River Styx, and its passengers are people who do not know they are already dead. For the van (in real life, two vans) is the setting for the Kuratong Baleleng rubout, a high profile case that lead to the deaths of 11 people, allegedly members of a dreaded crime syndicate. It's restrained and subdued, mostly devoid of the twisted pomp and circumstance of the director's earlier films, but no less effective.

The film begins with a minutes long single take, and the edits grow shorter over time, the film itself growing increasingly anxious as the van careens towards its macabre destination. It finally gives way to darkness, disorientation, quick cuts and gunfire, then an abstract sequence of innocence lost, perhaps never gained in the first place.

Cinemalaya 2019: Vahay and Tataya, Iska, The Third Wife

Today's batch of reviews begins with two documentaries about Batanes - Vahay: The Ivatan House and Tataya: The Ivatan Boat. Both are comprehensive and talk a lot about the history, geography and culture of the small island province. Vahay is perhaps the most fascinating of the two because the film goes deep into the construction process of these houses, designed to withstand even the strongest typhoons, yet without the benefit of modern construction technologies like concrete.

The two films also pose an interesting paradox: the traditional house and boat are important cultural artifacts, but because of environmental laws meant to protect Batanes and its natural resources, these traditional things are getting harder and harder to make, since they require a decent amount of trees, stone and coral to build. The Vahay and Tataya are slowly becoming a thing of the past.

Both documentaries are informative, engaging and tailored to educate even the most clueless viewer. 

Theodore Boborol's Iska follows its titular character as she tries to survive the circumstances of her life. She takes on multiple jobs to stay afloat, she has to deal with a layabout, philandering husband, and she also has to take care of an autistic grandson abandoned by his mother.

The film deftly balances misery with dignity. Compared to this year's deathly bleak Jesusa, Iska has some humor in it, and for most of the film it doesn't feel like the fates are mercilessly trolling our poor heroine for the fun of it. The misfortunes that happen in Iska's life have roots; they are a product of the system failing her in so many ways. It is exactly a film that shows how hard it is to be poor, because it really is hard to be poor; with the proper storytelling, it doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing.

There's one scene where Iska has just faced a major setback, and she sits in the middle of a group of UP students. One assumes they could just actually support her, maybe give the poor woman some money. Instead, they chant their activist slogans, lampshading her plight. There's a disconnect here between theory and practice: these students are fighting for the bigger picture and to fight systemic problems, but to the poor person just trying to survive, such words feel empty. Both perspectives are valid, and it's interesting to see it play out here.

Ruby Ruiz is exceptional in this film. Owing to her skill as a veteran character actress, Ruiz breathes life into Iska's character and turns her into someone we can empathize with, someone whose trials and tribulations we come to understand deeply. I have problems with the ending perhaps devolving into irony or pure miserablism, but it also helps show what happens when social support systems are gone. It's a call for empathy for our fellow man in a way, and I can get behind that.

For the characters of Ash Mayfair's The Third Wife, the lush, beautiful mountains surrounding their small village might as well be a gilded cage. Because of the rules and conventions of the time (the film takes place in 19th century Vietnam), women are married off or become servants while men do the work.

The film begins with one such girl, 14 year old May (Nguyễn Phương Trà My) as she is married off to a wealthy husband. The first few minutes are silent and devoid of dialogue, a means to immerse and to express the rhythms of everyday life. She figures out the social structure in the household and begins to lead a relatively quiet, idyllic life. But behind that idyll May begins to experience a sexual awakening of her own, and a desire for true freedom begins to form. 

However, those ideas are no more than a pipe dream at this point. May soon finds out that the women in this house (and in society in general) are no better than breeding stock, no better than cattle left to die when they are of no more use. In this world, these women have no other comfort but with each other, and a sort of sisterhood forms between them. On the other hand, while she forms such a relationship with fellow wives Ha and Xuan, it soon becomes clear that they are in a race to produce a male heir for their husband. 

The film gives these women a voice to speak, relegating the males to the background (in fact, the husband probably doesn't have more than 10 lines in the entire movie.) May and the other women in the film fight and struggle in their own small ways, but entrenched traditions and patriarchal systems are seldom toppled overnight. When the artifice is peeled away, the cage is stifling, and death seems like a viable option. But the film does offer a bit of optimism in the end in the form of a literal light at the end of the tunnel, a promise of better things to come.

Cinemalaya 2019: Children of the River, F#*@BOIS

Maricel Cariaga's Children of the River follows the lives of four children who live in a quiet rural town. For a good chunk of the movie, they do stuff that kids normally do: play around and have fun, fall in and out of love, and deal with other mundane concerns. However, there's something in common regarding these four friends that feels a bit different: they all wait for phone calls in the morning from absent fathers.

The film takes its time and moves along at a leisurely pace. For the most part, it focuses on the coming of age of Elias (Noel Comia Jr.,) as he deals with his burgeoning sexual awakening. There really isn't much conflict to the whole enterprise, and any problems are actually quickly resolved. The film seems to be taking a gentle approach to the whole thing.

The film then unloads its central revelation on us, and reveals the secret behind the peculiar setup established at the beginning of the film. It may prove to be emotionally resonant to some, but to me it felt a bit slight compared to everything that went on before.

Children of the River reminds me of another Cinemalaya film about childhood and the loss of innocence, Carlo Obispo's Purok 7. But there's a sense of wonder in the older film that this film doesn't quite have, and that trickles down to the rest of the film.

Eduardo Roy Jr.'s filmography is shaping up to be more diverse than it started out to be. His follow up to the introspective and meta Last Fool Show begins like yet another of Roy's social realist tales, but ends up being a tense politically flavored thriller that ends just before things get really interesting.

There are many small details in F#*@BOIS that hint at a bigger world going on behind the scenes: a political conspiracy, cogs turning, people doing shady things. But since it's told through the perspective of these two... well, fuccbois, they are mostly oblivious to what's going on.

Nevertheless, certain events in the film lead to its central conflict, which sets up a series of very tense scenes. The tension begins to build a half hour in and doesn't stop. It's made even crazier thanks to a committed, demented performance by Ricky Davao. 

The film's greatest weakness is that it just ends after a certain point. It leaves open a universe of speculation, and it would've been interesting to explore what happens to the titular fuccbois after the credits have rolled. What we are left with is the very entertaining, prematurely cut first half to what could have been a great film.

One final competition entry on Wednesday. In the meantime, a couple of classics (if schedule permits.) See you guys at the movies.

Cinemalaya 2019: Malamaya, Edward, Pandanggo sa Hukay, Mystery of the Night, Shorts B

Although Malamaya shares similarities with fellow competition film Belle Douleur in that both are films about May-December romances, Malamaya takes a different, artful approach compared to Belle Douleur's conventional route. It's also a film about artistry, originality and how pain translates to art.

The story itself is pretty straightforward. There's an older, beautiful woman and a hunky younger man. The woman looks young for her age, but she feels stagnant, held in place by her own biases. When they meet and sparks fly, sexual energies consume them both. Ideologies of old and new start to clash. Three films in, contemporary Philippine cougar cinema is starting to form its own tropes.

But the movie adds layers to the simple story, making this also a generational divide between artistic schools of thought, the old guard taking inspiration from the new, and vice versa. It challenges ideas of appropriation, which is itself incompatible with the idea of remix culture. Art does not need to be created de novo, it can be molded from other things to create something new and meaningful. In this film's case, art can be created by filling in deep wounds, weaving in pain and turning it into beauty, filling its boundaries with the color of ash - the ashes of a relationship that once was.

Thop Nazareno seems to have mastered the art of simple, grounded stories that prove bittersweet at the end. In the Philippines, patients are not the only people admitted into hospitals; they bring with them a bantay - a family member or helper that helps with miscellaneous things, buys equipment or medicines, and helps the overburdened medical staff do their thing. It's an experience I know all too well, having served as a bantay myself, and having worked in hospital wards much like the one in the film.

The heart of Edward is a sweet and simple story. Its titular character is a prepubescent boy who spends his time in the hospital messing around with friends, watching patient drama in the ER and morgue, and so on, while his father is admitted for an as-yet unknown disease. He then encounters Agnes, a new patient in the ER who is just his age, and forms a friendship with the girl.

Edward's story is a coming of age story, in that he learns a lot of lessons about family, friendship and life. It's poignant and some of it is quite emotionally affecting. Granted, the ending could have been paced out a little bit more (and certain aspects of the ending may not be to everyone's taste) but it it works out as it is.

And when one looks at the bigger picture, Edward the film shines the spotlight on several other things that contribute to the struggles of Edward the character: an ongoing shortage of medical personnel, a brain drain where medical professionals are lured abroad, lack of adequate laboratory equipment leading to outsourcing, crowded wards full of patients, intrahospital corruption and illegal practices.

Edward is a film with a very human core, where the full spectrum of the human experience is laid out before us: happiness, joy, sorrow, filial and romantic love, grief. It's a definite standout and a film to watch out for.

note: Medical nitpick: A Sputum AFB usually takes a day, but a Sputum Culture can take weeks.

Note: Spoilers for this film are present.

Speaking of the plight of medical workers, Sheryl Andes' Pandanggo sa Hukay shines its spotlight on our nation's midwives, unsung heroes who help bring new life into the world every day. While it starts strongly, a sudden shift in tone in the film's second half negatively affects the rest of the film.

The film follows a midwife (Iza Calzado) as she prepares for an upcoming interview in order to leave the country and better provide for her young son. The first half of the film is a light comedy. Like fellow competition entry Edward, the film uses the comedy to look at various systemic problems plaguing our country's overall reproductive health: lack of knowledge, making children beyond one's means, the exodus of health workers due to dwindling domestic prospects.

The second half of the film does a complete 180 and transforms the movie into a kidnap thriller. It's jarring and although it has some comedic elements, the results are pretty disturbing and off-putting. Sexual assault also figures into the script which felt contrived and unnecessary, making most of the film's antagonists into cartoonishly evil villains instead of people. There was an opportunity here to further shine a spotlight on the plight of our midwives, but the film takes the most garish option available in the service of an ending that tries to say "these people have gone through so much for their families, how noble." Perhaps we should stop using sexual assault as character development like this, guys and gals.

And that's what the second half of this film felt like: a setup for an ending that felt like it was written before everything else. It's supposed to be serious and/or profound, but it ends up being ridiculous.

That's not to say the film was great before that: it's well acted, well shot, and held a lot of promise. But one rotten apple really does spoil the bunch.

Let's now move on temporarily from the competition entries and look at Adolfo Alix's Misterio de la Noche, a horror fantasy film starring Solenn Heussaff. The film tells the story of the first Aswang and ties it in with ideas of colonialism, sexual power and even feminist ideas. The film's central legend has been done before with films like Corazon: Ang Unang Aswang (2012), but while that film took place during the Japanese Occupation, this film uses the Spanish occupation as its backdrop.

This time, the film is about a woman (Mercedes Cabral) whose rape by a member of the clergy drives her insane. She is captured and brought to the forest, where she gives birth to a child. Said child is then raised by spirits of the forest. The child, now an adult (Solenn Heussaff) encounters Domingo (Benjamin Alves), the son of the mayor who banished her mother previously, and the two of them form an intense relationship.

Their encounters are charged and sexual, though the man predictably leaves her for the forest. The film becomes allegory: for the destruction of wildlife and indigenous cultures by western powers, for the usurpation of the female role as equal with a western patriarchal equivalent. It is notable that the depiction of women as the embodiment of traditional-non western ideals is a trope that is repeatedly seen in many Filipino films. In this particular case, the woman wreaks supernatural revenge on the man and his ilustrado family, a rejection of western influence. The Aswang in this film is not evil per se, but driven both by feelings of desire and betrayal.

The film does have a few imperfections. It ends up a bit silly at times, it feels stretched out, and the story is predictable to a fault. It's balanced by wildly imaginative shadow play, decent, committed performances by both Heusaff and Alves, and impressive CGI and practical effects work. The film embodies Alix's trademark weirdness and Alix manages to create something interesting out of it.

WE WANT SHORT SHORTS SHORT SHORTS B REVIEWS

Hele ng Maharlika is inspired by the Marawi Siege. In it, a child soldier encounters another child in a now dilapidated house. It's largely symbolic, but it manages to show us that deep down, without all the labels of religion and nationality, we are all children of God.

I saw Don Senoc's Sa Among Agwat when it was a thesis film at UPFI last year. Even now it proves to be emotionally resonant, even though the story is well worn. It's proof that with the right director, cast and crew, simple stories can be elevated into something greater.

To the T'boli, threads are everything. They serve as lines from the world of the living to the world of spirits. In Tembong, a T'boli is haunted by dreams after his mother's death, and challenges the gender norms of his own tribe by using those dreams to weave a T'nalak, a sacred cloth whose creation is reserved only to women. It's conceptually rich, well made, and it shows how threads between mother and son are stronger than the threads that bind one to societal expectations.

In Kontrolado ni Girly ang Buhay N'ya, Girly just wants to work to provide for his family. However, discrimination and sexual harrassment gets in the way. It's heartbreaking and a little hard to watch, but if it lets viewers experience, in even a small way, how members of the LGBTQ+ community are oppressed every day, then the film has done its job.

The excellent Shorts B ends with Sheron Dayoc's The Shoemaker, a cute and lovely tale about an old shoemaker (Sherry Lara) reconnecting with her first love (Soliman Cruz.) It's funny, crowd-pleasing and packs an emotional punch at the end.

Three competition films left. See you later at the movies!

Cinemalaya 2019: John Denver Trending, Tabon, Belle Douleur, An1: The Harvest, Shorts A

A missing iPad is the catalyst that sets in motion the events of John Denver Trending. We are shown these events, unfiltered, and we know that the person in question is innocent. However, a confrontation occurs, and a classmate takes a video that leads to a harrowing, Kafkaesque nightmare.

When the video goes viral, the actual investigation is overshadowed by a trial by publicity. Everyone believes that John Denver is guilty of a crime he did not commit, and no logical argument or lack of evidence can tell them otherwise. Of course, the strain takes a toll on the poor boy, and while he may have been guilty of misbehavior previously, the public lynching is not commensurate to his misdeeds.

This is the first Cinemalaya movie that truly addresses the beginning of the age of fake news, where people are easily manipulated to believe whatever they want through social media and sensationalism, their decisions fueled by emotion rather than reason. It's been touched upon before in films like Jason Laxamana's So Connected, but not as deeply as it is here. Something in the Filipino psyche is primed to believe fake news, itself an evolved form of chismis. In this new era where anything and everything can be filmed, context is thrown out the window, and narrative is king. One's narrative does not need to be truthful, it only needs to be plausible, believable and emotionally resonant. The implications of this are scary, and the film delivers that feeling of dread with a very stifling, tense atmosphere all throughout.

John Denver Trending is an exceptional first film for director Arden Rod Condez, and so far my favorite film of the festival entries.

A mystery also forms the center of Xian Lim's Tabon, but in this case, the mystery holds on to its secrets too tightly, and by the time everything is revealed, it is too late: one's investment in the movie is virtually non-existent. While some say that it is better to show and not tell, this film does neither. It does not show, and it does not tell. 

In Tabon, a man (Christopher Roxas) is investigating the death of his father. We learn that his father is some sort of religious figure. There are three suspects that claim to not have committed the crime, and Roxas is invited to witness their interrogation.

The actual meat of the story does not occur until at least 45 minutes in; the first half of the movie is a slow, dull slog that does little to reveal anything or to build an atmosphere of dread. If there was any atmosphere built during the first half of Tabon, it would be an atmosphere of boredom.

Once things really kick off, things get weird, and not necessarily in a good way. It's supposed to look disturbing, but it ends up bizarre, kitchy and even silly. A number of revelations punctuate the work, but the film holds on to its secrets so tightly that we are given no context or suspense, and the twists that come feel like they were pulled out of nowhere.

Dull, inconsistent and at times ridiculous, Tabon is this year's Cinemalaya dud. Tread carefully.

The May-December romance is a popular topic in this year's Cinemalaya (as we will find out later), a trend in contemporary cinema that was perhaps kickstarted by Connie Macatuno's Glorious (2018). Based on a true story, Belle Douleur is about Liz (Mylene Dizon), a woman in her forties who falls in love with antiques connoiseur Josh (Kit Thompson). 

The characters are layered and quite interesting, and it's clear a lot of work has been put into making them fully fleshed out characters. Liz is a child psychologist, a profession that deals with dealing with younger people. Josh is an antique and loves old things. Liz has just come off from losing her mother, and expresses the sudden loss of the caregiver role by trying to care for her new boyfriend. Josh, on the other hand, grew up without a mother, although he does not exactly want another mother figure in his life. The character dynamics that skirt on Oedipal notions are my favorite part of the film.

The film also tackles the various issues older women face when dating younger men. There are conflicting perceptions, differences in generational thinking, differences in ideas regarding raising kids and childbirth. Liz begins to realize that such relationships involve a lot of compromise, and that she may be preventing Josh from realizing his dreams.

The romance itself is cute, tender, nuanced, and intense. The film was co-produced by streaming service iWant (who also produced Glorious) and it's something I could see reaching a wider audience. 

Belle Douleur is an enjoyable romantic film, and proof that romances don't need to always be about young, beautiful people. Although the ending feels truncated without a major climax (pardon the pun?), the road to get there is pretty satisfying.

Ani is a ridiculously ambitious film. Set in the year 2050, it is the festival's first science fiction film. It follows a young boy (Zyren dela Cruz) as he comes of age and meets a robot companion named Ani. But Ani is a warbot, used by government megacorporations to control the populace, and despised by the farmers that live under the corporations' hegemony. 

It is no question that the film is a marvelous technical achievement. The VFX may not be perfect, but when it works, it's marvelous, an unprecedented achievement in Philippine cinema. The world of Ani is a fully realized, living, breathing world, built on effective production design and special effects.

That said, the film has its share of problems. There are pacing issues at the start of the film. These opening scenes pay off later, but may have been better used as flashbacks. The titular robot does not appear until almost an hour has passed, which may be due to technical limitations. And the editing could have been made a little tighter to make the film a little more accessible to kids, which seems to be the film's target audiences.

This brings us to the film's perspective. As a kid's film, it's written in a kid's perspective, and that perspective limits the world that we see on screen. It masks some of the larger social issues the film is trying to touch upon, such as the plight of farmers and systemic oppression by capitalists and governments (a staple of sci-fi wherever you look), and it limits the film's resolution. It isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the best children's films often give you a sense of wonder, and unfortunately Ani struggles to deliver that in places.

Ani is a great idea, and given time and a little more effort it could be the film that it wants to be. In its current state, however, it ends up a bit short of that goal. Personally, I'm happy that people took a chance on this film and it got made in the first place.

WE WANT SHORT SHORTS SHORT SHORTS A REVIEWS CINEMALAYA EDITION (bakit walang Gardenia sa labas? huhu)

Gatilyo deals with PTSD and is decently acted, though it feels a bit loose and could have made its point in half the time. 

This year's crowd pleaser is Heist School, where two students plan to steal test papers from their teacher's desk. It's written like a heist film and it's a fun ride from start to finish. One wonders whether Bad Genius influenced the making of this film in any way.

Sa Gabing Tanging Liwanag ay Paniniwala's English title is Belief as the Light in Darkness, and it shows, as the film is literally very dark (the projectors at TNA didn't do this film any favors, either.) It's a bit too obtuse and overlong for me. This one needs a rewatch somewhere brighter.

Disconnection Notice follows two brothers living in a small apartment: it's not clear what the older brother does outside the house, but he is left to clean and look after his younger brother, who is studying either nursing or medicine (either way, both mentally and physically exhausting courses.) The film implies a lot of things, but wisely lets us figure those things out ourselves without resorting to sandbagging (still looking at you, Tabon). It's technically well made (perhaps the best made short in this set) and very poignant.

'Wag Mo 'Kong Kausapin was part of Cinema One 2018's lineup of short films, and my feelings about it have not changed. It's still a lovely little film about regrets and confronting inner demons.

See you later at the movies!

Hello, Love, Goodbye

One constant variable in Star Cinema's romantic moviemaking formula is the idea of the romance in an exotic location. It serves as a sort of escapist fantasy; while our two lovers play out their romance, the movie's less than bourgeoisie audience lives vicariously through them.  Cathy Garcia-Molina's Hello, Love, Goodbye turns that variable on his head and deconstructs it. Hong Kong is not (just) a wonderful fantasy land where people fall in love, it is a place where dreams are broken, it is a place people want to leave behind, and it is a place where people are stuck, and not entirely by chance.

The film follows a spate of other films depicting the Filipino diaspora, most notably Rory Quintos' 2000 film Anak (which gets a little cameo) but also the 2016 documentary Sunday Beauty Queen, 2015's Imbisibol and last year's Signal Rock. Although it is hardly seen in this film, the Philippines itself is deeply felt in all of its OFW characters. To them, the Philippines is a lost cause, its dwindling/nonexistent economic prospects wholly inadequate to fulfill the needs of their respective families. Note that only one of the characters, the most naive and inexperienced one at that, considers returning to the Philippines.

The Philippines' failure to provide for its own citizens becomes the impetus for the diaspora itself, tearing families apart, destroying individual dreams and creating much of the conflict in this film. And this isn't entirely the fault of these characters, either: Joy (Kathryn Bernardo) in particular is a qualified college graduate, but she struggles to find a job that fits her credentials. Only the rich get to choose what their work will be, Joy says. She observes a (presumably well off) classmate, sees them treating Hong Kong as merely a tourist destination, and she leaves them to their business.

And despite the promise of a better life that Hong Kong offers, the freedoms it gives its foreign workers are limited. Like its predecessors, Hello, Love, Goodbye shines a spotlight on the awkward relationship between domestic helpers in Hong Kong and their masters, as well as workers in general. Tied to only one job, workers often take sideline jobs that are technically illegal. They are free, but not really free - an idea that, in the light of recent events, inadvertently gains resonance with the plight of a territory operating under "one country, two systems."

The job is often thankless, exhausting, all-consuming. But, like in last year's Sid and Aya, there's a growing resentment at the idea that putting one's own welfare above others is selfish. In my opinion, these films tell us that it doesn't have to be selfish, and that familial (or love-borne) obligation has its limits. Under traditional Filipino values this is a radical idea, but times are changing.

While the romance is the most heavily promoted part of the film, it proves to be the film's lighter, more conventional part. It still follows a lot of the romantic tropes these kinds of movies are made for, and it even plays the exotic location part straight in its last minutes, just to give its two lovers time to breathe. It's cute and all, and Bernardo and Richards are both decent in their performances, but their love affair merely serves as a small part of the bigger picture.

The film shows us the inherent tragedy of many of our brothers and sisters abroad, but it's not all doom and gloom. While the film is firmly tied to a place, it shows us that home is where you make it, and happiness and love can be attained wherever genuine human connections are made, even if it is in a strange land far from one's place of birth. Joy is Here, indeed.