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.
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