let me tell you about that time I went back to the cinemas in 2021

It's the end of 2021, and this is usually the time for the yearly wrap up. But this time, it's going to be a little different.  I write this because 2021 (and to an extent, 2020) wasn't the most normal of years in terms of film-going. There's still a virus going on, and if this blog survives long past my death (c'mon Google do your thing) it might serve as some sort of historical record of the time.

But before all that (the favorite and unfavorite lists will probably come out tomorrow at the least) I'd like to tell you about how I returned to the cinemas for the first time in 20 months.

First of all, let's talk about the end.

The community lockdown was to begin on the 15th of March, 2020. A little bit before that, cinemas started to close, and I managed to watch one final film before everything shut down. At the end of that movie, I started getting a little emotional - not (just) because of what I was watching, but because I know that this would be the last time I'd watch a movie for a long time. Considering the people handling the pandemic response, my hopes weren't high that this lockdown would end anytime soon. Boy, was I right.

Almost 2 years later, the lockdown technically hasn't ended. But something happened around November 2021: cases started going down. I'm not sure why, since people were going out more than ever, but it was a thing, and suddenly cinemas started opening again. Even then, cinemas were still a risk in my mind, as the risk of getting infected would never get to absolute 0%. If I were to watch a movie in cinemas I was going to be strategic about it.

Let's now talk about the beginning.

The perfect opportunity came when I learned of a little film called Caught in the Act, directed by Perry Escaño of Sikreto ng Piso and Ang Guro Kong Di Marunong Magbasa fame. I figured no one would be watching the film (I was right) so I wouldn't be catching any virus from anyone (if anything, I'd get it from the mall on the way to the cinema). I went into a completely empty cinema house and sat down at the very front, just like old times.

The movie sucked (I'll tell you all about it one day) but damn I missed this shit. I looked back at the projector room, then back at the credits. I've watched so many films in cinemas and for just a little moment it felt like before 2020 again.

Since then I've seen one more film in the cinemas, and I'll tell you about that in the next post. In any case, it feels good being in cinemas again. It won't last the way things are going right now. Heck, it might take us until 2023 before cinemas open again like this. But for now, I'm okay.

Okay, time to wrap this shit up.

Completing the Filipino Films of 2021, Part 3

 

Maxpein Zin Del Valle (Belle Mariano) gets admitted into an exclusive private school on a scholaship. Shortly after getting admitted, the feisty and plucky Max quickly runs afoul of the local gang, led by Deib Lohr Enrile (Donny Pangilinan.) Shenanigans ensue.

A condensed version of the TV series for people who don't have time, He's Into Her won't offer much if you've already seen the series. To be honest if you can stand 3 hours of the movie version, you might as well ditch this and watch the TV series, which is far better and has complete versions of key moments between the two leads.

The formula popularized by (and arguably originated by, but don't quote me on that) media like Boys over Flowers seems to still be effective in getting the teen (and feeling teen) crowd. I mean, why else would we see clones using the formula many years later? To be fair, this work in particular criticizes several elements of that formula, notably the part where the affluent (and collectively handsome) alpha gang of the school bullies the underprivileged student who fights back. The private school where all this takes place isn't a very good school if it allows people to harass and even assault students on a regular basis. If that happened to my kid imma transfer them out faster than a shinkansen.

It's cute, though this version of the story hardly does it justice, and it looks like we're being set up for season 2, so the story isn't even finished at this point. I have to reiterate, only watch this if you have no other choice to watch the series version.

P.S. STOP GIVING YOUR KIDS WEIRD NAMES. THESE ARE HUMAN BEINGS, NOT CHARACTERS FROM A SCI-FI NOVEL. SURE LETS GO NAME OUR BABY GIRL AFTER THAT GRITTY DUDE WHO USES BULLET TIME TO KILL GANGSTERS AND HAS A PERPETUALLY CONSTIPATED LOOK ON HIS FACE

"you named her after WHO?"

I can't fucking wait until He's Into Her 2 when Max meets her new classmates J'herahldh'ynneh X Æ A-Xii Fernandez, Gowron Darth Nihilus Mordor Versoza, and Zhachxsfughbsdylllllchrach (pronounced as Stacey) Mercado. But seriously though, He's Into Her is a fun series, I hope they make a new season soon.

Ino develops Achromatopsia (total color blindness) after an accident. His best friend Cara is in love with him just because, but Ino has a lot of hangups and can't exactly reciprocate. What comes next is your typical Star Cinema Thingy (tm) with lots of superficial kilig moments, some character drama and a relatively happy ending for most people concerned.

While love shenanigans ensue, Ino struggles to complete the centerpiece of his deceased mother's art exhibit, since he's lost the ability to see color. There's also the fact that Ino's mom (played by Eula Valdez) is a deeply troubled, possibly mentally ill person who tormented Ino and his dad, and because of this continuous trauma, Ino may have something to do with the accident that caused her death. I mean, Ino could've Jackson Pollocked the whole thing instead or painted in monochrome, but hey, we need some kind of conflict. In the end, he finishes the painting by overlaying black bars on it, which means... freedom? He's locking his mom away? He's staring out a window into his mother's unknowable heart?

As for said love shenanigans, it's mostly a bog-standard romance plot that would be resolved in 20 minutes if the main characters just went up and shared their feelings. The supporting cast seems to be aware of this and makes it clear (with time to spare) that yes, Ino and Cara can get together without any further interference from them. The main problem, as with many films of this type, is with Ino and Cara themselves.

Star Cinema films for the most part tend to be like the MCU (not the DCEU if that shit still exists lol) of local cinema: a relatively well made theme park ride that hits some emotional beats, and leaves you with a generally good feeling. All in all, a good time if you're up to it.

It also feels surreal that I'm seeing daughters and sons of actors and actresses in my own youth now playing parts in their own movies: Donny Pangilinan looks like a hunky Maricel Laxa, Arabella Davao looks like Jackie Lou Jr., and Angelina Cruz gets the best from both of her parents (mostly Sunshine, but also a little Cesar Montano). I'm old.

Bianca (Barbie Imperial) and Dex (Diego Loyzaga) are a couple. However. from the outset of Fifth Solomon's Dulo, it's more than evident that this couple isn't going to make it another day: they bicker and fight over the smallest things, and they've gone on a road trip in the hopes that they could salvage their relationship, but it ain't working.

Dulo reminds me of the 2017 film 12 starring Alessandra de Rossi. Both films are stories that deal with the inevitable end of relationships, and both are utterly exhausting to watch. But while that film was shrill and borderline unwatchable, this film doesn't manage to reach those levels of annoyance for me (though tbh it was getting ridiculous near the end.)

Perhaps the reason is its well written characters who are walking contradictions, speaking one thing and then another opposite thing in the span of minutes. And there's a reason for their self destructive actions: in particular, Dax is pathologically needy and controlling due to a very rough childhood, and his initial happiness at meeting Bianca becomes a clash with Bianca's independent-mindedness. It's grounded and messy and illogical in a way only someone who has gone through something like this can fully understand.

My only gripe would be the ending, which in my opinion diminishes what the film is ultimately trying to say. Up to that point, however, Dulo shows a lot of promise.

MMFF 2021 | Kun Maupay Man It Panahon (Whether the Weather is Fine)

 

Big, life changing disasters elicit a unique kind of trauma, in that it expands beyond the individual and becomes a collective experience of coping, grief, loss, and moving on. The scale of devastation in these moments looms so large that it becomes incomprehensible, even absurd - and the response to this devastation, partly thanks to systemic incompetence  - adds absurdity on top of absurdity.

Films that explore this kind of trauma do exist, and this pain takes some time to get translated from disaster to film (though there are a bunch of exceptions.) Filipinos in particular are no strangers to trauma - just look at the sheer number of films about the Martial Law era, and as for natural disasters, we have films like Brillante Mendoza's Taklub (2015) and Joanna Arong's To Calm the Pig Inside (2020) which dwelled on the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda. The former uses a realist style to try to show the experiences of the people on the ground, while the latter mixes the pain and frustration that people felt following the disaster with how people create their own mythologies.

Carlo Francisco Manatad's Kun Maupay Man It Panahon (released internationally as Whether the Weather is Fine) approaches the material differently, in his own style. In this case, he's fit to tell a story like this. An editor by heart, Manatad has always been adept at communicating ideas through visual metaphor and depicting the absurdity in rigid or established institutions. In Junilyn Has (2015) and Fatima Marie Torres... (2017), personal desires manifest in the background of groundbreaking historical events. In Jodilerks Dela Cruz, Employee of the Month (2017) Manatad explores the value of conforming to a law-abiding social order and the counter-value of anarchy and even revolution; in films like Sandra (2017) he shows the chaos and violence ironically inherent in hierarchies and specifically in Greek letter organizations.

This film is far less abstract and more narratively driven than his other works, as it follows a family in the aftermath of Yolanda. Miguel (Daniel Padilla), his girlfriend Andrea (Rans Rifol) and Miguel's mother Norma (Charo Santos) are informed of an opportunity to leave the devastated town where they live and set off for Manila. All three react to the plan in different ways: Miguel and Andrea see it as an opportunity, while Norma is tethered to the town, or rather her ex-lover, who disappeared in the wake of the events that unfolded. All three actors give the performances of their careers: this is easily Daniel Padilla's best film, and former MNL48 idol Rifol proves she's versatile and has lots of potential.

In the background of their individual quests are people in different states: as scavengers, scraping and clawing their way to another day, or as corpses littering devastated landscapes. It's far removed from the romanticized depictions of resilience propagated in our culture, showing that to be resilient requires compromise, and sometimes ethics and law and order get in the way of that. It's an impulse towards entropy for the sake of survival that we can also see in Manatad's other works. The landscapes that they traverse are landscapes of dystopia, of dysfunction, of devastation and death intermingling with the mundane, reminiscent of works such as Sion Sono's The Land of Hope (2012).

What's probably most striking is how the film visually depicts the absurdity of the situation as mentioned earlier in this review, and also present in many other reviews of the film: zumba dancing in a background of ruins, or military men spewing gibberish as instructions, or disco dancing during an evacuation. These are expressions of trauma, of trying to understand that trauma, or trying to get over it. It may be because of the overwhelming incomprehensibility of the whole situation, or as a coping mechanism in and of itself, or as frustration against a deeply dysfunctional, incompetent system. This is not the first time this has happened, and this will not be the last: Ruping, Rosing, Milenyo, Ondoy, Yolanda, and now, Odette.

As we move towards the film's haunting ending, there is no satisfying sense of closure, but that is expected: the ideal of a quickly healing community sticking together with the government swooping in to save the day is unrealistic, idealistic, and even naive. What we get is a community coming to terms with a grevious loss, slowly hiding scars that will never fully disappear, left to their own devices by an overwhelmed, incompetent and indifferent government, and turning to false messiahs, a means of escape, or the trap of their own nostalgia.

Completing the Filipino Films of 2021, Part 2

 

Yael (Kit Thompson) gets attracted to a woman (Ariella Arida), only to find out that he's being catfished, and that the woman and her accomplice (Lassy) have sinister plans for him. 

I've seen a spectrum of reviews for this film, decrying it as yet another piece of tripe from a hated director. However, this is the part where I will diverge from the consensus: I unironically found this interesting and I think with his 12th film (according to the credits, anyway) I think Darryl Yap has stumbled onto something. Whether it's intentional or not is beside the point.

In my eye, there are two (two and a half?) main themes that are being talked about in this film: one is that of the virtual image, the personality we cultivate and project onto the world at large. The Greek chorus-like trio of helmeted dancers (called sumpong 1-3 in the credits) are stylized after Power Rangers, serving both as a symbol and metaphor for lost youth and a manifestation of false identities. In both their Western and Japanese iterations, the Power Rangers are people in suits, heroes that, when not using their suits, are played by someone else - sometimes even people of the opposite gender.

The film is keen to separate arbitrary labels and generalizations: predator and prey, victim and victimizer, religion and morality. In this film, it is a man, Yael, who is victimized (at least at first), preyed upon by a duo of catfishers (a woman and a gay man respectively), when usually these roles are reversed. But then the film turns it all on its head.

Yael has lived a history of violence thanks to a horrible quasi-religious upbringing. This upbringing perverts whatever noble intent the original religion has, and instead uses religious dogma as a means of control. But instead of inculcating morals and values, it is violence itself that is passed on from stepmother to stepson, and this manifests when Yael enacts his revenge against those who have wronged him. There's a palpably uncomfortable scene in the middle where Yael recalls his childhood trauma, done in Yap's signature irritating, shouty style and it feels intentional, because childhood trauma is often unpleasant like that.

And that leads into the second of the two themes that the film seems to discuss: the nature and quality of vengeance itself. In fact, the title itself is an expression of that desire for vengeance: "Ang Sarap Mong Patayin." But for whom is this pleasure? Masarap siya para kanino? Is it pleasurable for the people watching, or just for the character enacting that violence?

Yap questions this notion by making all of the characters unsympathetic, and by removing the catharsis baked into the film's genre trappings. Yael gets revenge on those who have tormented him, but his methods are excessive and distasteful. He's taking revenge against his rapists, but does it feel good to watch? When Yael is killed in turn by the very person who raped him, does that feel good to watch? Why or why not? When Lassy is killed in the end by someone he wronged (the pleasure of the violence of vengeance here is literally compared to an orgasm), is that cathartic?

The same question has been asked before and even deconstructed in films like Babae at Baril (2019), the approach is only slightly different. This is not to excuse the sloppy filmmaking at play in Sarap Mong Patayin, but at least the ideas are there. Yap may have a reputation of interpreting his ideas in unfiltered ways, but for once I could not dismiss his ideas on violence and vengeance off hand. Although the film does not offer a solution to it, this film manages to put in perspective a state of perpetual retributive justice that we have suffered for decades.

After a botched robbery, two would be thieves (Diego Loyzaga and Cindy Miranda) spend their time hiding in the house they tried to rob, in the most pito-pito version of Kim Ki-duk's 3-Iron I've ever seen. Maybe some of you were thinking Parasite, but the Combantrin kind instead of the Bong Joon-ho kind, but I'll be the outsider this time lol. That said, the Parasite parallels are understandable and looking back, parts of this aren't that bad.

Like in Roman Perez's earlier film Taya, the film's protagonists are down-on-their luck members of the lowest rungs of the social hierarchy looking to score something, quick. Something drives the protagonists of both films to try to make it to the top: while in Taya it was the prospect of sex, here it's cold hard cash (and a little sex too while we're at it.) To be fair the film tries (operative word is try) to flesh out the two female leads of this story in terms of their motivations, but the film's treatment of them as objects is a definite point of contention for many. That said, even with the material it has, the film decides to tell instead of show, especially for Sunshine Guimary's character, who spends more time getting pounded in the butt butt with only one or two lengthy monologues to her name detailing her entire backstory. And that's it. She snores too, I guess. At least the characterization here is a little bit more nuanced than Taya.

There's a colorful, exaggerated world built around House Tour's central story, full of corrupt politicians and bumbling policemen (who stage a crime reenactment just as well as a group of kindergarteners would.) The disconnect between the world of the haves and have nots is more than evident: where the former bask in absurdity in their large mansions, the latter flit about around these large monuments to opulence like flies. This is a theme that is quickly emerging among Perez's recent body of work. Although the Olympic medalist husband - turned corrupt customs official dies in the first 15 minutes of the film, his presence (and the money he has illegally accrued over the years) looms over the rest of the cast. In this world, like ours, the rich hold most of the money, while the rest of us get scraps, if anything at all.

With all that said, the film suffers from a bunch of narrative inconsistencies. Did absolutely no one pick up the fact that Elle and Raymond are still in the Cy house because THEY STREAM THEIR PRESENCE THERE EVERY DAY? Social Media is literally the FIRST PLACE policemen or any sane, reasonable individual would look. They were taking literal baths and having sex, and absolutely no one noticed? Is the mansion THAT large? Is Raymond so unbelievably horny that he could do the horizontal tango despite having a gunshot wound and probable internal bleeding?

House Tour is the kind of conceptually interesting yet tonally inconsistent, cheaply made schlock that would not be out of place during late nights on WOWO... Hollywood Channel. Points to the readers who still remember Hollywood Channel. lol But I wouldn't completely discount it compared to the other offerings on Vivamax.

In Lockdown, Paolo Gumabao plays a moron who doesn't understand what quarantine is or how it works. Hell, it's very possible his character couldn't even spell quarantine. He'd probably put a lot of h's in there or something, I dunno. He escapes the quarantine facility because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯and heads home, spreading COVID like that one kid from Larry Clark's KIDS, but with the self awareness of a paramecium. Maybe he's a Republican or something.

The rest of the movie is shit ang hirap hirap ko miserablist tripe that seems to take place in a bizarro universe where people still go around willy nilly despite increasing levels of ECQ (presumably this was during the start of the pandemic). It's so ridiculous that it plays out like that one parody scene in Babae sa Septic Tank where the mom sells off her kid to Joe McForeignerdude, but with a sausage factory's worth of dicks and a level of unsexy gyrating that would give even the most experienced pirate seasickness.

To be fair, if we ignore the lazy, crude filmmaking on display and the numerous story inconsistencies, the film comments upon the commodification of bodies in a capitalist society and the violence inflicted upon them, built upon corrupt structures and some sort of metaphorical and literal rape of the people by the state at the end. Or maybe cop dude was just really frisky with that baton; the subtext (or even the text for that matter) isn't exactly popping out with this level of filmmaking.

Moral of the story: follow quarantine rules or else you jack the one eyed bandit for a bunch of horny men, get subjected to police brutality AND spread COVID around like a spoonful of Cheez Whiz.

Janis (Lovi Poe) and Ronnie's (Joem Bascon) relationship is on the rocks. He's cheated on her before, and she's worried that he might do it again. He meets with a childhood friend (Rhen Escaño) and Janis thinks he may be having an affair with her.

An enjoyable, well-acted little genre exercise that's fun even when (for the most part) it technically doesn't bring anything new to the table, The Other Wife is one of Vivamax's finer offerings and my favorite Lovi Poe performance since Sana Dati.

I love the way the film uses the paranoia that comes with infidelity and transforms it into a literal monster (of the figurative green-eyed kind.) The uncertainty also extends to us as well, as we are left in the dark to whether Janis' suspicions are real or not. It's an interesting dynamic which extends to the end of the film, and director Prime Cruz understands the genre quite well. 

Perhaps the only nitpick I have against the film is how a large chunk of character development comes at the end. Because a lot of exposition is dumped at the end, it feels contrived, though by no means does it impact the final product in a major way.

Completing the Filipino Films of 2021, Part 1

By the end of 2021, 80-81 local films will have been released in the Philippines, either in cinemas (like the mysterious and enticing Ilocano Defenders: War on Rape), on streaming platforms (any one of Vivamax's 69 offerings), or in alternate forms (I'm counting Erik Matti's On The Job: The Missing 8 since it debuted in film form somewhere in the world.)

As of writing, I've watched 52 of these 81 films. Certain films are no longer available (even illegally), or have suffered the first day last day curse in cinemas, which started opening up early last month. Sorry Ilocano Defenders, I can't watch your film anymore pero ano ba ang tunay na layunin ng Ilocano Defenders ano ba ang Ilocano Defenders nasaan na ang Ilocano Defenders why is Ilocano Defenders.

I intend to complete as much as I can before the end of the year; luckily I've watched a few films before they disappeared completely, including Lemuel Fangonon's faith-based indigenous-ish romance-ish film Deeply in Love, whose Youtube channel suddenly disappered a few days ago.

Here are some reviews (originally on Letterboxd, expanded here) of my journey towards 79/81. Enjoy watching my mental state unravel.

Joven Tan kinda disappeared during 2020, his last film being the biopic Suarez the Healing Priest, apparently made before the pandemic started. He returns to the movie scene doing arguably what he does best - lowbrow, cheap comedies.

One of the biggest casualties of the COVID pandemic is the comedy bar scene, and I guess I don't mind that Joven Tan gave our local comedians something to do. And by something, I mean nothing: in this cheaply produced film which consists of several comedy skits stitched together to create a rough narrative, nothing of consequence really happens. There are some dramatic arcs (or should I say one or two) that are okay, but overall disjointed from the rest of the film.

Like most of Tan's other films, the meaning is relatively hard to parse, but basically there's something in there about how government officials should take responsibility and properly care for their constituents. The thing is, it's hard to take seriously sometimes considering what happens during the rest of the film. In one scene, the Barrio Captain (Gardo Versoza) lectures a bunch of quarantine violators about the importance of health and safety protocols... while not properly wearing a mask. It's done for filmmaking purposes (to see his face properly, Versoza NEVER wears his mask properly during the entire film) but it comes off as a bit inconsistent.

That all said, there were some funny parts, and I'm stealing some of those jokes, so while it's amateurish at best, it isn't unentertaining if you're okay with slipshod filmmaking.

In the span of a year, Mel Magno has cemented himself to be an alternative to the late GA Villafuerte. If you know the body of Villafuerte's work, you know what I'm talking about.

So it's like fucking 4am and I'm just gonna ramble here and I'm going to tie this with my review of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Memoria. Yes, I'm not kidding.

Like I said in that review, in the nineties, my cousins and I played around with a tape recorder, where we recorded various things and used the recorder to do a number of activities. One such activity was to create our own radio drama. This untitled drama series was about Sugar Jones, an ordinary person whose family would invariably get brutally gunned down and killed by a man named McBane (whose only line of dialogue was "McBane!") in every episode. During the death and mourning scene, we'd use the music of the 1991 Sharon Cuneta Album, Sharon Sings Valera as the background music in the most overwrought, dramatic fashion. We would repeat this exact formula several times, with Sugar Jones managing to find love again, and raise a family again, only to lose it all to a gun toting maniac.

No one has known loss more than Sugar Jones.

Listening to Sugar wail in despair over their lost loved ones to the tune of songs like Sharon's Sorry Na, Puede Ba, whose lyrics have nothing to do with what is happening, is unintentionally hilarious looking back. It is silly, tripey schlock that only a couple of fourth graders would think of. Or at least that's what I thought.

This Mel Magno film is exactly like that. Magno, himself dabbling in both the film and music industries as a director and composer, fills this movie with an album's worth of songs, often playing in the weirdest times (and sometimes back to back!) as characters get, you know, like reaaaaallly sad huhu. There are so many songs that sometimes the whole affair feels like a musical (I'd even bet that it has more songs than your typical hollywood musical adaptation). It's okay for a scene or two, but it gets pretty repetitive after two hours. Other than that, it's a stupendous film of unintentional hilarity. The mind boggles at the fact. I've never been so jubilant watching a film this year.

Gene is... running away from his homophobic soldier dad. He manages to run very far, which is quite impressive tbh. He comes across Mark, a pedicab driver who he bonds with almost immediately. A tragic romance begins.

"Para akong naglalakad na tae!" says one person in this film. Poop seems to be a sort of hidden cinematic motif, as the two lovers (JR Versales and Keann Johnson, both of whom have starred in far better films) meet each other and bond through farts and a rather painful looking bowel movement, as if JR Versales was trying to shit out a bowling ball from his ass. But why should I complain, one of the characters in the film muses, "bakit, mabango ba ang tae mo?" No, in fact the poop poop in my butt butt is stinkiest when I eat the new and delicious Jollibee Chick'nwich!!! available solo at 130 pesos and at 175 with fries and drink. It's a fucking steal.

The two bond (really quickly, it seems - like after five minutes you'd swear the two were married) and are assailed with a number of problems, including an obsessive (?) girlfriend with a dying son whose heart disease subplot disappears after one mention. Despite the lapses in continuity, there are some moments where the film is particularly anal (no pun intended) about it: during a scene where the two leads are bathing, they both relate their life stories to each other and try to resolve every dangling plot point, including an unpaid debt to an eatery.

Eventually, our protagonist's homophobic dad catches up to the couple and reveals why he's so angry, and although the dude is categorically a horrible person, he does have a point that you shouldn't record yourself doing the horizontal mambo 'cause that shit gets out and people are horny as heck.

Anyway this review is getting more unhinged by the minute but it's fun! It's cringe! In terms of tone it's exactly like the radio dramas my cousins and I made in like 1992, and if that's appealing to you, then ride that horse to the prairie then! or whatever you people say these days

Despite what you think about him as a person, Darryl Yap is the most prolific Filipino director of the year, releasing ten films in 2021, all released in Vivamax's streaming service. It's arguable how many of those films are actually any good (in my opinion, that number is one, though that is a minority opinion, as the consensus is zero) but hey, props for trying and these movies have their audience. 

One film in particular is a sequel to a film also released this year: Pornstar 2, Pangalawang Putok, the sequel to Paglaki Ko, Gusto Kong Maging Pornstar. Let that sink in. For this sequel, Darryl Yap seems to have doubled down on the idea that Filipino sexy films are porn, even though arguably only the pene films of the eighties technically qualify, and everything else (even this film) is softcore.

This film continues shortly after the first film, after the failure of our four legendary sexy actresses to launch the career of a new sexy starlet. This time (set to a lateral panning shot of boobs and with the help of sexy actress Lara Morena), we get not one, not two, but FOUR new starlets to launch, maybe even as a new Viva Hot Babes.

Unfortunately, this sequel has the same share of weaknesses as the first film: it's not a very substantial film. Even though this is meant as a showcase of new talent, none of the four "katipuneras" are interesting (except maybe Cara Gonzales, who at least has some degree of screen presence) and the four are mainly used as decorations or filler whenever Viva needs to uphold their sexy scene quota for the day.

The main conflict, which happens during the final third, comes off as more than a bit shoehorned in and even hypocritical considering the pasts of some of the women involved, and it also seems like the protagonists didn't learn from the lessons of the first film.

In the end, this is more a film for Alma, Maui, Ara and Rosanna, and the best parts of the film involve the four of them candidly sharing anecdotes from their sexy film past. In fact, one such scene was so interesting it drew in the S.O. to watch along, even though she usually hates Yap's films. If Yap were ever to make a part 3, I'd be all for it as long as it consists purely of these conversations.

For better or worse, Sigrid Bernardo's 2017 film Kita Kita started a new subgenre of local cinema - one where the pretty lead falls in love with a plain yet charming man. Ikaw is a familiar riff on that, featuring Dee (Janine Gutierrez), a Manila-based real estate agent  who returns to her hometown and reconnects with her former classmate (Pepe Herrera, who at least isn't as stalkery as Empoy Marquez's character in that other film.)

What follows is an unassuming, quiet, cute little romance drama that's perfect for a lonely Christmas watch. It would have been interesting to explore the relationship and dynamics, both social and financial between Dee's family and her classmate's, both being land owners in the province. However (and rather disappointingly) I don't feel the film's equipped to address that.

Ultimately the film opts for dramatic moments that I'm not completely on board with, but otherwise I think Ikaw is an okay watch.

Whenever I think about the conception of My Husband, My Lover, I imagine a dark Viva conference room. The head honcho asks the director: how much cheating is going to go on in this film? Perhaps he's excited for something cheaty and sexy for Vivamax. The director, with full confidence, answers: YES.

Alice (Kylie Versoza) lives in luxury with her husband Noel (Marco Gumabao.) However, she's either afraid of the sun or the prospect of osteomalacia, so she cheats on Noel with a mango farmer (Adrian Alandy) to get that extra dose of Vitamin D. Not from the mangoes, but from his one eyed python. That's just the beginning.

A highly entertaining, trashy clusterfuck of a film, Don't be fooled by the (admittedly pretty arbitrary) score of 1.5/5 (in Letterboxd) for Mac Alejandre's My Husband, My Lover: it's a pretty fun film as long as you aren't taking it seriously. It manages to take the idea of cheating and minmaxes it to absurd levels, to the point where a woman cheats on her paramour with... her husband!?

Other than the meme-worthy "P**i mo swapang" line (which, in the context of the movie is 100% accurate) there's another line in this film that's memorable: When asked by the husband why she cheated on him, cheating wife Alice tells him that having sex with her paramour is like dancing. By that point, I was more surprised someone didn't get suplexed into the coffee table after that line.

While there are several scenes to fulfill Vivamax's sexy scene quota (there's one every 10-15 minutes, which is not an uncommon frequency in, say, pinku eiga) the sex isn't very sexy, and I keep on getting distracted by Adrian Alandy's hideous back tattoo. Is that supposed to be an angel? Why's an angel strapped to your back? You think you can fly with those wings? I kid.

I guess my primary frustration with the film has to be Kylie Versoza's character, who instigates the whole affair (that is a pun lol) and gets away with little to no repercussions other than wearing a hideous wig during the film's epilogue.

QCinema 2021 | The Worst Person in the World

 

Age seems to be slowing me down lately, and I'm only coming to grips with that fact. I haven't written as freely or as often compared to five years ago, and the days between reviews are getting longer and longer. In my case (and, I'd bet, in the case of many around my age,) it's less a fear of missing out than it is a fear of getting left behind.

This restlessness manifests itself in Julie (Renate Reinsve, in one of 2021's best performances), a medical student in Oslo who changes careers three times (or more) in the span of The Worst Person in the World's first five minutes. She's impulsive, fitful in a sense, imbued with the feeling that she has to find the one thing that defines the rest of her life, unaware that the search itself will become the rest of her life if she's not careful.

The rest of the film follows Julie as she flits from place to place and from relationship to relationship, though two stick out: Aksel, a cartoonist who brings the promise of stability, and Eivind, a barista who brings the promise of something new and adventurous. Much like Eivind's first meeting with Julie, where they experiment with the idea of being intimate while not technically cheating on their respective partners, Julie's own life is about getting into something and testing it until it breaks in some way.

But that's part of what life is: figuring things out, often with great difficulty, pain, and crushing regret, until something sticks. Regret is the biggest thing here, and is reflected in the film's title: if you still live your life with such abandon while time moves forward, the world decays and people die, does that make you a bad person, even the worst person in the world? No, it does not. You cannot be everywhere at once and live all your lives in the span of one. For Julie, and in fact, for all of us, that one life that you do end up living is what ultimately matters.

QCinema 2021 | Drive My Car

 

Ryusuke Hamaguchi's works have been closely intertwined with the medium of theater and performance art in one way or another; the climax of Touching the Skin of Eeriness (2013) is interpretative, soul-bearing dance in the vein of Ang Sayaw ng Dalawang Kaliwang Paa (2011) and the metacinematic Intimacies (2012) (with whom his latest film, Drive My Car, shares a lot of DNA) explores the transformation of words on a screenplay into meaning and emotion on the stage. This latest film, an adaptation of Haruki Murakami's short story of the same name, is definitely inspired by those past films, with Hamaguchi injecting alterations big and small that enable the film to transcend the source material entirely.

Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is an actor and playwright. He's asked to head a staging of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. He hasn't gotten a lot of work since his wife's untimely death. But for now, he accepts, and begins a journey of reflection and grief.

Nishijima is perfect for the role of Kafuku, his deadpan face conveying a surfeit of hidden emotions bubbling beneath the surface. Like in Murakami's short story, he's troubled by the fact that he doesn't completely know the wife he loved for many years, and is unable to fully grieve for her or let go. He knows that she has engaged in many affairs, but he does not know to what extent, and he does not know the secrets she has shared with them. That certainty of being uncertain exists as a blind spot, functioning much like the glaucoma that prevents him from driving, As he rides in his car, he rehearses the lines from Uncle Vanya, while the voice of his dead wife responds to him. He says these lines as if he were speaking to her, but there is no emotion or meaning to them; they are just words. His wife's name is also made doubly meaningful by Hamaguchi; while unnamed in the original story, her name here is Oto, the Japanese name for sound, and also a homonym for "auto." The car is a safe haven from the reality of her death, a tether that keeps him inexorably bound to her memory.

Accompanying Kafuku is his driver, Misaki Watari (actress/singer Toko Miura), an equally deadpan, hyper-competent driver's driver who serves as a sounding board for Kafuku's trauma. She has her own baggage to bring, however, and in the climax, the two form a connection because of that. Her existence, and Kafuku's relationship with her as a driver and confidante of sorts, mirrors Kafuku's relationship with his own wife. Despite not knowing one's entirety, he eventually learns to place his trust in them nevertheless, and only then can he move forward.

This also plays into the major change that Hamaguchi imposed onto Drive My Car; his elaboration of Kafuku's staging of Uncle Vanya. Here, the principal actors all speak different languages: Japanese, Korean, Sign Language, Chinese, Tagalog. They are not given translations for their co-actors' words; instead, they intuit the meaning from their co-actors' performances. The words are like a prayer, or a sutra: ultimately meaningless, but filled with the intent of those who supplicate to the gods. Here Hamaguchi ties the theme of Murakami's original text: that sometimes it is important to look inward as much as one looks outward. Emotions have more heft than mere words, as a lifetime of emotions spent with a loved one is more important than whatever secrets they took to the grave.