(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.
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