Okay, I've been more than a little late with these reviews. Better late than never, I guess.
Pagbalik is yet another OFW film, though it takes an interesting approach to its subject: its protagonist is someone deported thanks to Trumpian anti-immigration policies. After working for a long time abroad, our protagonist (Suzette Ranillo) finds herself returning to the family she left, a family that has virtually moved on without her. Most of the film is about these three characters trying to acclimate with each other's presence, a family reeling from its own newfound wholeness.
Though there are some okay dramatic turns, and the performances of Gloria Sevilla and Ranillo are quite decent, the overall package is quite amateurish. The film has a penchant for the fade to black transition, whose usage is quite inappropriate, the black and white treatment doesn't really contribute anything, and the plot is overall a mess. It screams "student film" from start to finish, and while I appreciate the thought behind it, it personally has no place in a nationwide festival (except if you're an actual student filmmaker).
There's something intoxicating about nostalgia, and in Adolfo Alix's Circa, there's a lot of it for Filipino film fans to enjoy: composed of anecdotes and vignettes about the good old days of Filipino cinema, the film is like an oral history of a time now gone.
But for a film touted as a tribute to or celebration of Philippine Cinema, there's a lot of looking back, but not a lot of looking forward. It even feels cynical by the end. All of the characters in this film, both young and old, hold little to no hope for the future. All of them are stuck in the past, unable to move on. Even the young filmmaker who perhaps represents the interests of contemporary cinema leans heavily on the past - in fact, his own storyline is unresolved at the end.
Perhaps that's the point, but I fear that if we last long enough to celebrate our second centennial, if this attitude stays, we'll still be looking back at the same golden ages and the same group of films that we look at today.
Verdict begs comparisons to other contemporary Filipino films: Last Supper no.3 (2009), which tried to shine a light on our convoluted legal system, or Joselito Altarejos' TPO (2016), a drama about a family that unravels thanks to a history of abuse. But Verdict takes those concepts and expands upon them, more concerned with the minutiae of legal procedure than depicting the loss of domesticity. What results is a remarkable film about failed social systems, as director Raymund Ribay Gutierrez channeling the themes and spirit of his mentor Brillante Mendoza. In a way, this is the best Mendoza film made in a long time, even though it's not made by Mendoza himself.
This crime procedural begins with a depiction of the crime itself: in seeing the reprehensible act laid bare, as if we were a witness to the crime, we are primed to see the case through. It's a clear cut example of domestic abuse, but then the film begins to show us that it's not as clear cut as it seems: there are several systems and hierarchies that muddle everything. It manifests as imbalances of class, in that justice can sometimes only be attained if you have enough money, or in imbalances of sex and gender, in that women are often hindered from attaining justice by sexist, patriarchal beliefs.
The film also addresses how we perceive and tackle justice as a whole: people are often guided to it by lawyers and other legal advisers, but most people, like the protagonists in this film, are often either illiterate or ignorant in the workings of the justice system, a system that may feel labyrinthine and indecipherable to the layman. It doesn't help that the system itself is bogged down in lots of paperwork and bureaucratic red tape. In their impatience, perhaps stemming from a desire for swift justice when justice is normally lumbering, the film leaves open the possibility of other, illegal, extrajudicial methods of getting even. I'm not entirely sure if it exists as an endorsement of such methods, or if it only raises the possibility of such recourses.
Pagbalik is yet another OFW film, though it takes an interesting approach to its subject: its protagonist is someone deported thanks to Trumpian anti-immigration policies. After working for a long time abroad, our protagonist (Suzette Ranillo) finds herself returning to the family she left, a family that has virtually moved on without her. Most of the film is about these three characters trying to acclimate with each other's presence, a family reeling from its own newfound wholeness.
Though there are some okay dramatic turns, and the performances of Gloria Sevilla and Ranillo are quite decent, the overall package is quite amateurish. The film has a penchant for the fade to black transition, whose usage is quite inappropriate, the black and white treatment doesn't really contribute anything, and the plot is overall a mess. It screams "student film" from start to finish, and while I appreciate the thought behind it, it personally has no place in a nationwide festival (except if you're an actual student filmmaker).
But for a film touted as a tribute to or celebration of Philippine Cinema, there's a lot of looking back, but not a lot of looking forward. It even feels cynical by the end. All of the characters in this film, both young and old, hold little to no hope for the future. All of them are stuck in the past, unable to move on. Even the young filmmaker who perhaps represents the interests of contemporary cinema leans heavily on the past - in fact, his own storyline is unresolved at the end.
Perhaps that's the point, but I fear that if we last long enough to celebrate our second centennial, if this attitude stays, we'll still be looking back at the same golden ages and the same group of films that we look at today.
This crime procedural begins with a depiction of the crime itself: in seeing the reprehensible act laid bare, as if we were a witness to the crime, we are primed to see the case through. It's a clear cut example of domestic abuse, but then the film begins to show us that it's not as clear cut as it seems: there are several systems and hierarchies that muddle everything. It manifests as imbalances of class, in that justice can sometimes only be attained if you have enough money, or in imbalances of sex and gender, in that women are often hindered from attaining justice by sexist, patriarchal beliefs.
The film also addresses how we perceive and tackle justice as a whole: people are often guided to it by lawyers and other legal advisers, but most people, like the protagonists in this film, are often either illiterate or ignorant in the workings of the justice system, a system that may feel labyrinthine and indecipherable to the layman. It doesn't help that the system itself is bogged down in lots of paperwork and bureaucratic red tape. In their impatience, perhaps stemming from a desire for swift justice when justice is normally lumbering, the film leaves open the possibility of other, illegal, extrajudicial methods of getting even. I'm not entirely sure if it exists as an endorsement of such methods, or if it only raises the possibility of such recourses.
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