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.
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