Cinemalaya 2021 Indie Nation Shorts Short Reviews

 Set A

Maris is one of the shortest films I've seen all year, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have anything to say - quite contrary, in fact. A short lesson in subjectivity teaches that information can come from different sources and educational backgrounds, and there's much more nuance to learned information than meets the eye.

In I Will Die for You, a young boy dreams to be a policeman. But this is a time when our policemen are urged to be something other than the protectors of justice they're made to be. While the film is full of interesting concepts, it doesn't mesh all that well in the end. Points for trying, though.

The Kafkaesque Konsumatumes traps its protagonist in a nightmare he cannot escape. It doesn't make sense, and it shouldn't - forced disappearances and the oppressive regimes behind them aren't built on reason or logic. My problem stems from the film's musical cues, giving the very serious proceedings a silly tone that saps it of its power. 

Phone Call is pretty much an advocacy film, but the problem is the message it's advocating is stripped of any nuance. The ensuing message isn't very helpful and may even be harmful, as the problems behind mental health are not tied strictly to only one cause.

Basol Balos was probably made with a budget of a few hundred pesos (or it might as well have been), though it is still entertaining. It tells the story of a horrible kid who mistreats the househelp and would give Eric Cartman a run for his money, who then runs into the househelper from hell. What takes it down a notch is the completely unnecessary ending, which invalidates what happened in favor of a cliched twist.

Sol comes from Joanna Vasquez Arong, who directed last years' To Calm the Pig Inside. This film, in my mind, cements her as a filmmaker to watch. While To Calm the Pig Inside weaves myth and reality to express trauma, this film outright shows us the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda on three siblings - drawn to despair, crime or a desire to leave ghosts behind. It's a finely crafted character study that feels like a full length despite being less than half an hour long.

Set B

That Day is the kind of movie a lot of struggling students will identify with, and though the act of kindness at the center of the film is a good thing, one should hope that, eventually, we will live a society where it shouldn't need to happen in the first place.

Regta is about the Basi Revolt, one of the many uprisings against the Spanish occupation during the 1800s. What sets it apart from most other contemporary historical fiction is that it's a musical. Granted, it's quite possible that not all of the actors are trained in musical theater, and thus some of the musical performances don't exactly communicate the pain or struggle they are currently facing, but A for effort.

Paraiso is pretty straightforward, an environmental tale about a man destroying the very thing that keeps him alive. It's also a pretty horny film, which serves more as a distraction than anything else.

In 10,000 Errors, the English speaking denizens of heaven cater to journeymen (and women) on their way either to heaven or hell. Two of these people in particular, a politician and a mysterious person, are waiting their turn and share their lives to each other. What happens next is not surprising, but it's still entertaining either way. The film is nicely acted, but it goes on longer than it probably should.

Portraying the abuses afflicted against women is a tightrope act. One risks the problem of making the proceedings exploitative, and failing to give the woman at the center of the film any power over her situation (or at least, give her a little dignity over the whole thing) turns such a film into a miserablist affair, not unlike poverty porn. Unfortunately, Hija falls into that trap.

There is a moral to Maratabat, in that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. In the context of where the filmmaker lives, revenge is all too common. But that's all the movie has going for it. What is the film trying to tell about drugs, if at all? Overall, in terms of execution, the film doesn't feel substantial - all it is in the end is a montage of guys looking dramatically at their gunshot wounds.

I don't think Philippine Cinema will ever get over the tragic deaths of Alexis Tioseco and Nika Bohinc. Though I may not exactly agree with all of it, Alexis' words, though now relegated to magazine articles in dusty bins or defunct websites in digital oblivion, still ring true to every cinephile who lived during that time. Like this last short film's title says, Don't Worry, We Still Hear You. I wonder, though, what he'd think of the film being part of Cinemalaya, a festival that he criticized in one of his most-well known pieces. Is the festival finally "[putting their efforts] in service of Filipino Cinema?" We'll probably need a medium for that.

Set C

I don't want to spoil the conceptual richness of Rekwerdo (so I won't,) but the execution falls a bit flat, and there are tonal shifts that affect the final work.

One of my least favorite shorts in the program is Salidumay. Despite Mai Fanglayan's best effort, it's shoddy, corny, full of unnecessary music, and unable to articulate what it wants to say.

Yawyaw ni JP is very angry, and to be honest it should be. Presented from the perspective of an everyday citizen during the pandemic, it's a recap of everything that has happened so far, done through animation and clips of political cartoons. To anyone still on the fence (or anyone living under a rock for the past year,) it's a wakeup call.

The people depicted in Babu Jalhana are members of a Christian (or Christian-adjacent) community living in Sulu. This to me is a bit unusual considering the population is majority Muslim, and these people haven't been given a lot of attention in regional cinema (or cinema of any kind, for that matter.) That said, while it's an average COVID-era tale, there isn't any time to give the sociocultural milieu breathing room, and that's a bit of a shame.

I've reviewed Last 2, 3, 4, before in this blog. It's entertaining, but I couldn't help but get uncomfortable whenever the main character was subtly pressured to continue performing despite suffering an injury. It is a culture that creates winners, but leaves uncounted maimed bodies in its wake.

There's a hamminess to Pugon that would have otherwise ruined the film in any other circumstance, but its depiction of modern day debt slavery is fascinating enough that all that ham doesn't negatively impact the film overall. The film also sports a great performance from Soliman Cruz, whose slave master character is treated in the film sympathetically, or at least more than a mustache twirling villain.

Notes on Ikaw at Ako at ang Ending

 

How many days has it been since the pandemic started? March 2020 feels so far away, and there seems to be no ending in sight. And speaking of endings: many of the films I watched during those first few months were films about the end. Threads, The Day After, pandemic films in general, the bleaker the better. Maybe I was trying to contextualize what was going on with the world during those days that flowed into each other. Ultimately, I didn't find the meaning I was looking for during that time. In fact, I don't think I found anything at all.

Mylene (Kim Molina) and Martin (Jerald Napoles) feel like they're in similar dead ends. Mylene works as the staff of a resort hotel, but she doesn't feel fulfilled by her job. There are other things that affect her worldview, but she keeps those things to herself. Martin is a bagman for a wealthy politician, but because of previous unfortunate events, is just living his life one day at a time.

They meet each other and their relationship seems physical in nature (complete with a number of sexy scenes). But at this point in time, it feels more like Mylene and Martin need each other more than they love each other. They identify with their newfound partner because, perhaps unconsciously, they see something of themselves in each other. Some people who have watched the film note that the two characters take to each other quicker than expected, but to me this feels right. There's a bit of desperation in them meeting. When things seem so dire, wouldn't it be logical to find refuge in someone, anyone else?

While this is going on, the atmosphere is ominous, the tone uneasy and uncertain. Bad things are happening far away, but there's the notion that it can come at any moment. The apocalypse is looming. The "ending" in the film's title takes different forms: for the characters, and for the entire world.

What worth is there to a life that exceedingly feels meaningless? If the world is ending, what worth is it to live at all? This film's answer to that question reminds me of something Sartre said on existentialism: in an initial state where man is nothing, "he will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself." Mylene and Martin find that while there is no reason behind existing, there is no reason not to live either, and they find that drive to live on in each other, apocalypse be damned.

Present Confusion Reviews | Evangelion 3.0 +1.01 Thrice Upon a Time (2021)

 

Note: Spoilers for the final Evangelion film are present.

It's the mid nineties, and the television series Neon Genesis Evangelion has just finished its run. The series created by Hideaki Anno, one of the industry's greatest animators, has exploded into massive success. But the show itself had run into many problems during its production. Moved to another timeslot and faced with budget problems, especially towards the end of the series' run, Anno is exhausted. "He was ready to die for it," recalls Shinji Higuchi, Anno's friend and longtime collaborator, remembering the tumultuous production of the series. It's said that Anno would work without resting just to finish an episode. The director had finished working on another series, Gainax's Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, based on a concept from his mentor, Hayao Miyazaki. The production of that series had taken a toll on Anno's mental health, and he channeled his experiences, therapy sessions and psychological concepts learned during that time into Evangelion, perhaps as a form of self therapy.

Evangelion was revolutionary for its time: a deconstruction of the giant robot genre of anime, long dominated by hot blooded confident young men. In this case, the primary protagonist is Shinji Ikari, a socially awkward young boy with none of the hot bloodedness or swagger of his contemporaries. At the midpoint of the series, psychological themes of communication and loneliness were tackled and brought to the forefront. In fact, all of the characters in this series suffered from some sort of dysfunction. Their growth (and folly) is one of the things that made the series so fascinating to many. 

But the end of Evangelion's production had only served to worsen Anno's mental state. There was a sizeable backlash to episodes 25 and 26, thanks to the esoteric and introspective nature of those episodes. Anno recalls fans posting on forums that were discussing how to kill the director, and some extreme fans even went to Gainax headquarters and defaced the front facade. It's a symptom of a toxic culture that has only grown in recent years, thanks to the internet and the relative ease with which anyone can express their opinion. At this point, Anno had contemplated ending it all; perhaps jumping in front of a train or jumping off a building. In his recollection more than 20 years later, the only thing stopping him was the prospect of pain - in his words, he "didn't mind dying, but [he] didn't want it to hurt."

Once again, partially thanks to the urging of his peers, he channeled all that negativity and despair into a proper theatrical ending to the series: first the recap movies Evangelion Death and Rebirth, and finally, the 1997 film End of Evangelion, a bewildering, postmodern mindscrew that manages to be both unbelievably bleak and strangely hopeful at the same time. It is one of my favorite anime movies of all time.

It is the End of Evangelion that shares the most similarities to Anno's latest and perhaps final foray into the Evangelion franchise, Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 Thrice Upon a Time. The two films are two sides of the same coin, the same film exploring one concept in markedly different ways.

The film begins after the events of Evangelion 3.0 (2012); after the death of Kaworu and a thwarted Fourth Impact, Shinji, Asuka and a nameless clone of Rei Ayanami roam the desolate countryside, now barren thanks to Shinji inadvertently causing Third Impact during Evangelion 2.0 (2009). The trio then come across an oasis in a sea of red - an encampment of Third Impact survivors, whose members include some of Shinji's old classmates.

This first third feels very different from anything we've seen in Evangelion so far. Some who watched this part liken the proceedings to a Ghibli anime, which is not surprising given the fact that Ghibli gave assistance to the production of the film.  This part is also what differentiates it from its twin, End of Evangelion: in this particular sequence, Shinji is given the space to understand the feelings of others, process his feelings and come out of his depression. Here, Shinji contextualizes the confusion and disorientation he experienced during the events of the last film. He has a support system in place this time, unlike in End of Evangelion where he had no one to talk to.

Shinji is not the only one who comes to terms with his feelings: the unnamed Rei Ayanami clone, previously without purpose or existence unless ordered, begins to settle into the rhythms of daily life and befriends the townsfolk. Throughout this part we know that this idyll cannot last forever; the occasional floating train or wandering Evangelion in the distance is a reminder that all this can be wiped out at any minute. But the people in the community persevere and live anyway, tying into the theme of Ayanami's arc and the theme of this entire part in particular: that in a state of dread or meaninglessness, we create our own meaning and sometimes that's all that one needs for a fulfilling life.

*

It's late 2012, and Evangelion 3.0 has just come out. Anno is in a creative slump in terms of Evangelion and production for the final film is put on hold. Deadlines are pushed and for a moment, the prospect of a sequel becomes remote. Anno recalls his creative dilemma after making the third film: "I was broken, I didn't think I had the talent to pull it off." He was afraid he didn't connect to Shinji anymore as a character, identifying more with Shinji's father, Gendou, instead. He takes a long break, producing and directing Shin Godzilla (2016) instead. Anno has always been a fan of Tokusatsu; one of his earlier films was a fan film of Ultraman. Shin Godzilla ends up being one of the franchise's best entries, winning the 40th Japan Academy Prize for best film.

It's now around 2017-2018. Production for the final Evangelion film has resumed. Anno is talking to a reporter for a documentary crew who has followed the director since the resumption of production. He asks the reporter to focus on the other crew members, to give importance to them.

Though indeed Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 is a collaborative effort, it is a very personal film, an intimate look at Anno as a person and an artist. Because Anno identifies with Gendou more than Shinji, he is given an expanded character arc in the introspective second half of the film. Although his motivations are more or less the same, his character is far more fleshed out here. He is a tragic figure, consumed with the desire to face his loved one once again. This in itself is a noble ideal, but Gendou does it to the detriment of everything else - including his own humanity. This goes back to Shinji's actions in 2.0, where he decides to rescue the original Rei Ayanami at all costs, even if it causes Third Impact. Although audiences at the time may have seen the action as a heroic one - characteristic of the very characters Evangelion sought out to deconstruct - this last film shows that it's not a healthy mindset. The hot-blooded young man trope is inherently destructive and easily misunderstood. Had Shinji continued on with his actions in 2.0, he would have become just like his father. In a meta sense, it might even reflect the actions of a young, brash creator making whatever he wants without caring about the consequences, a brave yet potentially destructive act. What matters then for Shinji (and Anno by extension), is the kind of emotional maturity that he grows into over the course of these films. This is a major part of what sets apart this film from End of Evangelion, a point that we will discuss later.

Now all this is not to say that the film doesn't have its share of problems. It has a tendency to not explain important plot points, especially in the latter half of the film series. The films become almost impenetrable if viewed without the background of the other films and the previous series. Its a work that lends itself to multiple interpretations, and thus multiple viewings, because it is not an easy watch even for seasoned fans. Yet Anno seems to approach the finale as an experience more than a straightforward narrative feature, as the esoteric nature of the film's storytelling isn't as important as the message it wants to convey.

*

It is sometime in 2018. The same documentary crew that interviewed Anno earlier interviews Toshio Suzuki, main producer and one of the pillars of Studio Ghibli. This is not a surprise as Anno has a history with the company, having worked on Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind before Ghibli was even called Ghibli. At this time production on the final Evangelion film is continuing, but it is unclear when it will be finished. "Anno is an eternal adolescent," Suzuki says of his colleague, "He's almost 60 but he hasn't grown up."

Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 is a coming of age not only for its main character, but for its creator as well. This is hardly an isolated incident, as Anno's own colleagues and contemporaries have made works that tackle the abandonment of childish fantasy for the real world. Anno's protege Kazuya Tsurumaki directed the seminal anime FLCL and Diebuster, while his former Gainax colleague Hiroyuki Yamaga directed Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, both series featuring young protagonists who fear growing up and get into all sorts of situations in order to avoid it. In these works, nostalgia and homeostasis are the enemy, much like in the culmination of instrumentality in End of Evangelion where everyone is merged into a formless, unified existence, where no one can ever be hurt by others ever again. The problem is, what meaning is there to such a life?

End of Evangelion thinks inward, positing that one must keep on living in spite of how one is hurt by others, while Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 thinks outward, noting how we must live not in spite of, but because of others, to consider what one can give to others rather than what one can take from them. In both cases, instrumentality is rejected, but the outcomes are completely different. In the latter finale, the film seems to say that we derive our own meaning not just from ourselves, but from others as well.

And metafictionally, this film is Anno's emancipation from Evangelion, a creator's coming of age. A creator's desire is to create, but some do not want to be shackled into one thing forever. Anno's journey to re-create Evangelion in this film series, a journey that took him 14 years, is not unlike the curse of the Eva pilots - to be forever young and unable to grow up. The ending of this scene, filmed in the train station in Anno's hometown, is the point of the entire film - that sometimes, we have to leave our old fantasy worlds behind and cross into the real world. There is nothing wrong with wanting to change and take responsibility for your own life, and I think that acknowledgement is a beautiful thing. The "eternal adolescent" has grown up.

*

It's the late 1990's and I'm a high school student nearing his own graduation. The week before, during a trip to Greenhills, I decided to buy a VHS tape that included two episodes of a show called Neon Genesis Evangelion. It starts in the middle, at episode 15 and 16, and I have little to no context on the series itself, but I'm hooked. I decide to buy more tapes the next time I come back to the hotel, if I manage to save up the money. The rest of my days in between are spent making theories and speculating about the series. I have been a fan ever since.

It's a couple of days ago, seconds after watching this film. I realize that this is not only Anno's emancipation from Evangelion, but ours as well. The film is a challenge to all of us to move on from these fantasy worlds and go out into reality to live our lives and maybe create something beautiful as well. A work can stay in our hearts forever, but all works of art have their natural end. In my experience, trying to revive that old spark never quite works out. The hate that Anno and the Gainax staff received after the end of the original series reminds me of fans today that are unable to move on from the past. They are angry because nothing is the same, or nothing feels like it once did. The thing is, nothing ever will, as memories are like fireworks, dazzling our senses once then never again. This iteration of Evangelion is not the same as it was before, and that's for the best. And once we've all removed the (DSS) collars that shackle us to our youth, we have the rest of our lives to look forward to.

Cinemalaya 2021 Main Competition Short Shorts Reviews

It's that time of the year again - Cinemalaya time! This edition has 13 films on its slate - in my recollection, the most entries in any Cinemalaya edition ever! Here are a bunch of short reviews of all the films in the main competition section:

Shorts A

I've seen Maski Papano already at QCinema 2020, and it still holds up after all these months. It's a humorous film about finding ourselves (and others) in communal isolation. As the first short of Shorts A (and thus, the first film I've seen in this festival) it's a great way to start things off.

Crossing consists of a relatively simple conceit, where a man planning something nefarious during a bus ride comes into a bunch of complications. But it also shows us how despite the best of intentions, thanks to the economic systems we live in, people are forced into cycles of violence.

There's a lot about Kawatan sa Salog that is intriguing, but ultimately it might have bitten off more than it could chew. It's beautifully shot and lends itself to multiple watches, but I'm not sure of the overall effect (at least with the two times where I watched it).

An Sadit na Planeta's visual conceit is the best thing about the film; curving the surroundings into a small sphere in the center of the frame. Director Arjanmar Ribeta uses the most of that concept to tell a story about a man living in a space for 40 days. Given the limited time in this small planet, this confined space of self is liminal, a transition between isolation, self discovery, and, as the closing shot seems to indicate, freedom. Given such a strong visual concept, the film's one weakness is its tendency to overnarrate, but it doesn't distract from the overall experience.

There are a lot of richly textured layers to Jayson Fajardo's Looking for Raffliesias and Other Fleeting Things. The most overt in my view is the way the film makes connections between the search for queer identity and mythologic creatures, and how the perception of these mythological creatures is tied into how people are othered and misunderstood, forced to hide (literally and figuratively). But the film also explores how misperception allows people to misconstrue evil or malice to things or people that they do not understand, while true evil works silently in the background. The problem is that this is all hidden behind a thick layer of ambiguity that makes the film harder to parse.

On the other hand, Out of Body runs into its subtextual layers seemingly by sheer coincidence (but if these layers are intentional, then that makes this my favorite short of this particular set.) On one hand it can be surface-read as how women in the entertainment industry (or women in general) are made into targets of violence by men, often by coercion and a toxic culture. In fact, the ending is an obvious metaphor for how men treat these women only as bodies (one character even notes that "(they) already have everything that (they) need" while discarding everything else.) It is, for all intents and purposes, a depiction of the loss of these women's agency. But the film can also be read as the disorientation one feels when they are governed by people (again, mostly men) who use misdirection, obfuscation and a lack of transparency to get what they want, whether the governed want that or not - something a lot of us are feeling right now.

And finally for this set of shorts, Ang Pagdadalaga ni Lola Mayumi would feel right at home at Virgin Labfest, as it fits the one-act play structure perfectly. But this is not merely a play on film as director Shiri de Leon deftly uses the tools of cinema to depict a woman's search for her sexual liberation and how sexuality can be repressed and shaped by old traumas. Certainly one of the most entertaining shorts of the entire lineup, and a strong contender for audience choice.

Shorts B

Another alumnus from QCinema 2020 is Namnama en Lolang, a story about frontliners in the time of COVID-19 and the people they leave behind. It's technically simple, but it packs a strong emotional punch, even months after I watched it the first time.

When I was a kid, my Catholic sectarian school (n.b. I'm not Catholic but that's irrelevant lol) gave us all a checklist-type questionnaire asking us about certain things. As a bunch of goody-two-shoes pre-teens that didn't know any better, we didn't know what "masturbation" meant and some of us took the explanation of the word in the questionnaire, "playing with your own" as "playing on your own", i.e. playing alone. So they ticked the checkbox. Cue several exasperated trips to the guidance counselor for about a dozen confused students. For some reason, that's the first memory I recalled when seeing the next film: Kids on Fire is one of my favorite Cinemalaya films of the year, a humorous exploration of pre-teenage sexuality and all the fire and brimstone that comes with it. Its conflation of sexual awakening with eschatological ideas and imagery makes a lot of sense, because our awakening into the world of sex is indeed an ending in a way: the end to innocence, the end to a naive understanding of our own bodies. AND: Mystica's in this film. Mystica in a Cinemalaya film, I didn't think I would ever say that in my lifetime.

Beauty Queen is an account of the life of Kumander Liwayway, famed guerrilla commander during World War II. While fascinating, it only serves as the origin story of her revolutionary career, choosing to eschew showing her exploits in battle in favor of showing her motivations behind joining the revolutionary forces. It's an interesting idea, ripe for further expansion, though even with the limitations of the short film, it manages to do things that other, longer, more expensive period films fail to do.

Ate O.G. explores the divide between classes and the experiences the 'servant class' of househelp and other miscellaneous workers have during this unprecedented event. The film makes them (and their problems) visible. The film doesn't aim for eliminating these class divides (at least permanently); but there is temporary solace and solidarity in mutual understanding, empathy, and, among other things, getting high together. I guess I can get behind that.

There is a quality to some conversations that make them fascinating to watch, but unfortunately that's more the exception than the rule. I wanted to like The Dust in Your Place, a story about a cartoonist-writing team as they try to sort out their relationship, but the end result left me wanting. It doesn't do anything with the cartoon idea - a missed opportunity given the richness of that visual format. Ultimately, its biggest weakness is its centerpiece -  the central conversation, which starts to become tedious after around 5 minutes. Perhaps I wasn't in the mood when I watched this, or it's a preference problem - the film just isn't my cup of tea.

And finally we have the only documentary in the entire lineup - Ang Mga Nawalan ng Pag-asa at Panlasa, a film that tackles the hardships of Ilocano food business owners during a time when owning a restaurant is harder than ever. It gains even more resonance considering the director of the film - a videographer who lost his job during the pandemic - faces similar economic uncertainties with the subjects of his film. If there's anything I can say to the film's credit, it is that it made me crave all that delicious looking food, and that's perhaps the best compliment I can give it.

*

Cinemalaya coverage will continue as the festival content is spread out over the month. Stay tuned to this space for more wacky reviews.

Notes on: Show Me What You Got (Cvetko, 2019)

 

I'm sure everyone and their dog has written about the fact that this is a movie about three people who love each other without judgement. That's definitely true, and there aren't a lot of examples of that. I could also go on about how I think the film makes a number of creative decisions that I don't necessarily agree with, or how it gets tropes and audiovisual elements from a certain genre of film (*cough*frenchnewwave*cough*) and reapplies it for this new story, or how the characters don't really have a lot to do except mope around or gallivant around the world until a major conflict in the third act. Or how the ending feels melodramatic and out of left field. The film is obviously flawed.

But instead, I'd like to talk about something else that I think the film is trying to say. Show Me What You Got is a film about displacement, a story that means a lot personally to its director, herself an immigrant: literally a person displaced from their homeland. It is a displacement not only of space; the entire film is also a recollection, a story that exists in the past and told in the present, a displacement of time. All the three protagonists are themselves displaced in a way. Nassim is the most obvious example, working as a fight trainer in the US, away from his family in Iran; Marcello's displacement is voluntary, having escaped his homeland to escape his responsibilities as well. Christine's displacement is physical and emotional: after the death of her grandfather, she is homeless and without an anchor. In one of the film's pre-pandemic moments, there are scenes of a pro-immigrant protest in the Trump Era, and in what is perhaps the one scene that stands out the most, the trio formalizes their relationship in a boat in a desert, itself a visual metaphor of displacement, of things not being where they should be.

And that gets to the heart of what I think the film is trying to say: in a state of displacement, one finds comfort in others, especially others who are undergoing the same thing. There is solidarity in that. And even if one is displaced, when you are with the ones you love, you are exactly where you need to be.

This review was originally posted on letterboxd: https://boxd.it/22AJY7

The film is available streaming on Upstream.ph, among other sources