As the title implies, Mac Alejandre's Tagpuan concerns itself with meetings: its three main characters talk about love and other things in pretty locales. These locales reflect their respective personalities: Shaina Magdayao's spunky OFW character reflects Hong Kong, a messy but charming mix of two cultures. while Iza Calzado's artist reflects the busy, bohemian streets of New York.
The concept of meeting also implies traveling, and in this case, the travel involved is immigration. Shaina and Iza's characters leave the Philippines either to find themselves or just through circumstance, but the results are varied, and the results are tied to their socioeconomic standing.
And all meetings imply a parting, as all three characters' paths diverge after a certain point. It's all very interesting, at least in theory. However, there's one thing that prevents Tagpuan from capitalizing on all these ideas: its central character.
The central character of Tagpuan, a businessman played by Alfred Vargas, is one of the blandest characters I've ever seen in a movie this year. His childhood desire is "to be a businessman," and not of any specific business either. He just wants to do some kind of business. Other than that, he hates Ipads, and that's it - his character doesn't exactly stand out, and that isn't helped at all by Vargas, who has the emotional range of a block of pinewood. His character weakly reacts to every revelatory statement the two women throw at him by weakly approximating an emotion every so often.
While this is a film with lots of talking, a lot of the talking feels clunky and too expository for its own good, at times overexplaining things that would probably better be shown subtly. Perhaps this is due to personal preference, but the dialogue doesn't flow like a normal conversation should.
In any case, there's a good film to be found in Tagpuan, but it's hiding under some big problems.
Fernando Suarez was a priest who claimed he had miraculous healing powers from God. He was accused of a number of different things, including money laundering, collecting funds for a Virgin Mary statue that did not materialize, and sexual molestation of minors (he was acquitted of that last thing by the Vatican; as for the other two, who knows.) He was preparing to return the work when he died playing tennis at the Alabang Country Club.
Suarez: The Healing Priest is a strange film. It feels oddly defensive, as if the film is obligated to defend the man at every turn. Why defend a man already proven innocent? While Suarez (played by John Arcilla) is supposed to be the main character, much of the screentime is occupied by people talking about him, as if their testimony will exonerate him from his alleged crimes. What happens instead is that things look a lot more suspicious. Suarez the character spends most of his time in the movie moping around while other people provide commentary on how innocent he is.
Suarez's money problems are not touched upon in this story; instead, the film focuses on the molestation allegations (allegations that, shortly before his death, were thrown out.) Joven Tan uses his usual meta tricks, during a sequence where two journalists (?) prepare to interview Suarez about said allegations and question his motives, as if to serve as stand-ins for the audience. But you know their minds have been made up. All the characters in this movie (save for some villainous priests) exhibit a kind of hivethink that surely, this man can do no harm, even though the film hasn't made a decent effort to let the man's actions speak for themselves. Eventually, whatever controversy about him is left unresolved, as if to say "hey guys, believe us, he's innocent because we said so."
There's a line between biography and hagiography, and this film has clearly crossed that line. But even then, in trying to portray Suarez as some kind of saint, without managing to do the legwork to achieve that, the film fails there too.
While it functions as a perfectly run of the mill MMFF Horror Movie (TM), Easy Ferrer's The Missing has some interesting ideas.
Iris (Ritz Asul) lost her sister to kidnapping and has developed PTSD because of it. She is contacted by her ex, Job (Joseph Marco) for work in Japan with her former teacher. She agrees to do the job (a house restoration and remodel) but strange things begin to happen inside the house itself.
The film tackles the very real fear of losing someone important to you, and in different ways. Iris' sister was kidnapped in the Philippines and never seen again, destroying her family in the process. Another character lost a family member in Japan, and desperately seeks to fill that void. And yet another character has not lost anyone yet, but the fear of losing a loved one drives that person to extremes.
Another theme in the film is how commodified labor for export can be exploited for gains that are either at the personal level or on a wider scale. In a way, the film's concept of Hitobashira (literally, 'human pillars') fits in to this theme, as foreign labor becomes the foundation of foreign economies, often to the detriment of those laborers (and indirectly, their home countries as well,) becoming a figurative sort of human sacrifice.
But back to the film at large. Unfortunately The Missing struggles to land its conclusion, as it deals with most of its plot threads in the last 15 minutes, leading to an overload of information. While it is visually impressive, the soundtrack is conventional horror fare; it might have been better to build the atmosphere and let the audience discover the horror by themselves instead of lampshading it with ominous audio cues. The script is full of weird insertions, such as a yoga scene that does nothing except to set up a jump scare. Like with Tagpuan above, this is a film that could've been more, but hinders itself because of its own glaring flaws.
I still don't know how people are going to sell Mang Kepweng Returns, which seems to be geared for a trilogy. The only people who know Mang Kepweng and the lore behind the character will be adults, who may be turned off by the kid friendly nature of the movie, and kids will have no idea what or who Mang Kepweng is, why he has a scarf, and so on. But I'm just a guy who watches movies, not a movie producer, so what do I know? Either way, Mang Kepweng: Ang Lihim ng Bandanang Itim is a perfectly serviceable MMFF film, and much better than the first one.
After the events of the first film, Kiefer (Vhong Navarro) is still doing his thing as an albularyo, or folk healer. However, he notices that the source of his power, his magic scarf, is losing energy. He is then alerted by denizens of a magical domain that another scarf has been stolen, a scarf that gives its wielder the power to bestow diseases. He then sets out with four of his friends to stop that from happening.
There's nothing particularly deep or profound in this film to talk about, so you get exactly what you come for. Some (or should I say, a lot) of the jokes in the movie at are the expense of someone else, so if you're not a fan of this Vice Ganda-style comedy, this movie isn't for you. The film doesn't do much in terms of visual effects, and the costuming is fine, but compared to Magikland, the differences soon become apparent.
I'd personally like to see what the reception to this film is. If Star Cinema thinks this is worth investing, they might know something I don't. From a purely film standpoint, this latest installment of Mang Kepweng isn't horrible, but it doesn't exactly stick in one's memory either.
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