2021 in review: here are some of my favorite films of the past year

 

I've seen my share of non-Filipino films this year (a mix of films from film festivals and whatever I could scrounge up on streaming), but to be honest I'm not going to diverge a lot from popular consensus -  so if you are looking for edgy, out of the box lists, this isn't the place to go, I think.  Also, most of these films are going to be Asian films (particularly films from Japan), because look at the description of this blog, good sir or madam. 

Here are some of my

FAVORITE mostly japanese non-filipino MOVIES OF 2021

starting with no. 15:

15. The Power of the Dog (dir. Jane Campion) - there's a weird power to masculine authority that holds everyone in its sway, even if that power is a complete fabrication. While its plot is pretty straightforward, The Power of the Dog's characters contain multitudes.

14. Compartment no. 6 (dir. Juho Kuosmanen) - If there's one genre of film that I'm a sucker for, its the not-really-romance genre where two strangers meet in a state of transition and form a unique connection with each other. Compartment no. 6, Cannes' 2021 Grand Prix is IMO one of the most interesting examples of that genre.

13. The Con-Heartist (dir. Mez Tharatorn) - the most mainstream film in this list. I've always been impressed with the best Thai mainstream films: they're funny, they use the genre well and the actors are pretty decent. This film, a budget comedy version of 2017's breakout Bad Genius, is supremely entertaining in its own right - perhaps one of the most entertaining films I've watched this year.

12. The Falls (dir. Chung Mong-hong) - Much like his critically lauded A Sun, Chung Mong-hong's latest film is about families, moving on from painful traumas, and the fact that the process of healing never stops, and doesn't excuse one from an uncertain future.

11. Ride or Die (dir. Ryuichi Hiroki) - This film has its share of detractors (including a number of prudes who remain fixated on the film's sex scenes) but it's been half a year and this film keeps on haunting me. More than anything else, it's a story of two profoundly broken people who have an equally broken relationship with each other.

10. Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 Thrice Upon A Time (dir. Hideaki Anno) - saying goodbye is never easy, and for all its flaws, Hideaki Anno's grand finale to Evangelion manages to say goodbye so perfectly. If I were not as objective as I'm trying to be right now this would be number 1, easily.

9. Aloners (dir. Hong Seung-eun) - the 2010s and early 2020s have seen a world that, is more connected than ever before thanks to the internet yet is equal respects just as disconnected, its people occupying little isolated modern caves that lie isolated from anyone else. Aloners captures that world perfectly, a haunting portrait of loneliness and isolation in modern times.

8. Yuni (dir. Kamila Andini) - I've been seeing more and more films about women (and by women) coming from Indonesia these past few years, for better or worse, perhaps either a coming to terms or a call to change. It's eerie how much the story of Kamila Andini's Yuni feels like it could have come from the Philippines, as if we share the same traits despite our many cultural differences.

7. Memoria (dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul) - Memoria is a lovely, weird meditation on trauma, the creation and re-creation of memory, and cinema itself. It's not going to be for everyone, but when it clicks, it's magical.

6. We Couldn't Become Adults (dir. Yoshihiro Mori) - another film that's not going to be for everyone, but is totally my jam. Yoshihiro Mori's latest film perfectly captures a snapshot album of a city in flux, and the people who live in it that are swept along the tides, leaving behind a life filled with regrets.

5. It's A Summer Film! (dir. Soushi Matsumoto) - many films have been made about filmmaking, and Soushi Matsumoto's high school sci-fi comedy continues that proud tradition. It's a love story where cinema itself is the object of affection, a loving tribute to the people who love, make, and watch moving pictures.

4. Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (dir. Junta Yamaguchi) - one other way to express one's love if cinema is to create something that pushes the boundaries of what the craft can do. Yamaguchi's one-take marvel isn't just a gimmick made into a film - it's a film about creating your own future and not letting either the past or future dictate your present.

3. The Worst Person in the World (dir. Joachim Trier) - much like no. 6, Trier manages to capture the ephemeral, transitory nature of youth and how it passes us in the blink of an eye. It also sports one of the best performances of the year in Renate Reinsve.

2. Petite Maman (dir. Celine Sciamma) - a far cry from the smoldering flames of Celine Sciamma's Portait of a Lady on Fire yet no less powerful, Petite Maman is one of the director's most tender films, a warm and quiet examination of grief, love and motherhood.

1. (Tie) Drive My Car / Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi) - For the longest time these two films occupied the #1 and #2 films on my list. I had a very difficult time choosing one or the other; ultimately I decided, why not both. A remarkable achievement for a director with an already remarkable body of work, Drive My Car and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is a showcase of Ryusuke Hamaguchi's different strengths. The former is an epic yet deeply personal exploration of grief, letting go, and the nature of performance itself. The latter is a collection of smaller, equally intimate stories of chance and second-chance that play out in wonderful, almost magical ways. 

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Thanks for joining me for another year (mostly virtually) at the movies. If the fates are kind, let's see each other again next year. Keep safe and take care.

2021 in review: here are a bunch of other things about Filipino Cinema, including films that aren't so good

Screw that SEO with that title baby last page of google search power hahahuhu this is why no one reads this lol

The esteemed science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon once said, "90 percent of everything is crap." I am admittedly not as absolutist as Mr. Sturgeon here; in the realm of yearly Philippine Cinema, for me it's more like 50%, crap, 30% okay, 15% above average, and 5% good. I like to balance things, I guess I live up to being a Libra.

Unlike previous editions of this roundup, I don't have a list of unfavorite films, ranked much like my favorite films of the year list. The reason for that is most of the not so good films in 2021 are boring and unremarkable. Very few films this year evoked the sheer brain melting insanity of entries from previous years. I guess I'm a little bit grateful that I didn't lose too many brain cells this time around.

In lieu of that list, let me tell you a few stories (some good, some bad, some maybe hilarious) concerning some local movies and movie scenes I saw in 2021.

Chapter 1: The Steward of Statistical Outliers

Joel Lamangan arguably made a couple of decent films in the nineties and very early 2000s, but he seems to be stuck in the melodramatic formula of the era that gets progressively stale year after year. Add that with what looks like a flatlining sense of filmmaking ennui and we get a lineup of strange, dated films with little thought or effort behind them. I find that people who still like him are more preoccupied with text than form, or are still stuck in the nostalgia of old Filipino cinema, or both.

That looked to have been the same with 2021, given films like the brain dead on arrival Silab, or the wretched but at least partially substantial Lockdown, but there was one film in particular that to be honest I genuinely enjoyed, and consider one of his better films since 2017's Bhoy Intsik. It's called Bekis on the Run, and although the title is a bit inaccurate (not a lot of Bekis, and if they are there, they aren't on the run that much).

Most of the good stuff lies at the beginning, when two brothers (Diego Loyzaga and Christian Bables) rob a construction site. The two ladies inside the office (Kylie Versoza and Tabs Sumulong) aren't having any of that today, and it becomes a comedy routine. Eventually the two ladies are convinced that they don't get enough money from this joint and decide to side with the robbers.

During their escape, Tabs distracts some would be pursuers by flashing her boobs at them. I have to reiterate, Kylie Versoza (the obvious choice, given this is Vivamax) doesn't flash the pursuers, and neither does the two brothers. Tabs Sumulong does it. Rian Johnson is shaking because he just got outsubverted. Not the T&A we expected, but probably the T&A we needed all along.

Chapter 2: Satan Take The Wheel

At first, I didn't know if The Horror and the Herald was a faith based film. I don't think it is anymore, as it seems to hint at a larger eldritch horror as the source of all its problems. That said, in my own words, it is "One of the most profoundly stupid movies of 2021 (not just in the Philippines, but anywhere, in all parallel universes, till the end of time)." I'm standing by that lol.

The film is about Moira, a woman who joins a charismatic prayer group (simps 4 Christ basically). She connects with one of those simps and brings him home. But she is possessed by a demon (???) who takes the form of a black shadow with a glowing chest.

This decision is met with derision from Moira's father, a brain dead potato with the IQ of a banana, and her grandmother, whose past time seems to be calling her daughter in law and granddaughter whores because they... like holding hands? Jeez grandma you need to eat grass or something. Moira's possession leads her family to consult a local priest for an exorcism. Said local priest is pretty much incompetent.

While the other characters run around the house like headless chickens, Moira gains some cool powers, which mainly entails shining a really bright light on people that kills them somehow. They probably also order squid buffet along the way because everyone starts vomiting black liquid.

Anyway, everyone fails because no one has the mental capacity to solve the problem. The world presumably ends. I cheered tbh. Best film 5/5

Chapter 3: Would You Like To Develop My App?

If you have been following my blog for any extended period of time, you might have come across this post, which details my (albeit temporary) return to the cinemas. In retrospect, that post isn't as substantial as I would've wanted and I guess I shouldn't have posted it in its current form. I guess I just wanted to share.

It's time to talk about the film I watched during that magical moment: Perry Escaño's Caught in the Act. Let me preface this by saying: this, in my opinion, is not the worst local film of 2021. I don't even think it's bottom 5. It's quite entertaining, actually, if you consider the fact that (to paraphrase game developer and writer of many video game things Tim Rogers) it is a movie made entirely of failures.

To describe the film in its most simplistic, reductive form, it is a film about four students who want to develop an app. The app is a crime prevention app, and most of the film is about the development and conceptualization of this app. But if one considers to look at the details, the app (like most of the rest of the film) doesn't work as intended.

The app works by user-contributed crime reports, which are then sent to the police for further investigation. That's as simple as it gets: citizen sees crime, app collects data (location, etc) then sends it to the police. Simple, right?

WRONG lol. The students do not coordinate with the police beforehand, and the user report they do manage to send (with difficulty, mind you, as they witness the crime in an area with poor mobile internet) arrives at the police as an anonymous message, with the clueless policemen thinking someone hacked their computers. That also points to serious security vulnerabilities with the police network.  Not only that, one of the policemen is in cahoots with the criminals and would've deleted the message if he had the chance! Also, the students actively search for actual crimes instead of just doing a dry run with police coordination just to see if the app works. Who wrote this? Was this even written by thinking, sentient humans or some AI algorithm that simulates human thought? What if that scriptwriting AI was the app all along?

If the movie was intended to be propaganda for certain individuals who "eliminated crime" in the areas they govern, then that's also another failure on the movie's part, as literal drugging and kidnapping take place in that same area (some of it even perpetrated by the students!) In fact, the crime likely would not have been solved if not for the fact that one of the students is horny for teacher.

Chapter 4: I am beside myself with shock

With two memorable films this year, Mel Magno's hit it out of the park with Run and Sin: The Movie (no, not the 2000 anime film of the same name lol), both films about gay men who run away from unaccepting parents only to find themselves in romantic relationships that are ultimately doomed in some way or another.  In Run, it's a homophobic dad isn't above killing people to get what he wants. In Sin: The Movie it's something else entirely.

In Sin: The Movie, a hotel clerk who can't seem to do his job properly falls in love with a customer who is, by most accounts, an asshole. That assholery seems to be hereditary, also said guy has a lot of hangups because he's closeted and he uses hotel staycations as a means of escape.

The usual Mel Magno tropes apply here: ridiculously overwrought music, various non sequitur scenes that don't contribute anything to the story (a couple are quite creepy). But what sets this film apart from Run is the twist at the end. It's been done before, but not like this. Let's just say it takes calling your partner 'bro' to a whole new level.

When that scene came, I literally had to rewind just to make sure I heard it correctly. I've never been as flabbergasted by a film this year, and I think that counts for something.

There are so many other stories about 2021 Philippine cinema that I can share, but I don't want to waste your time any more. Up next, my favorite (non-Philippine) films of the year. Most of them are Japanese, 'cause I'm a weeb.

2021 in review: here's a bunch of local films that were pretty good

 

Well, that went by quicker than expected. If we're talking about local full length films, 2021 is a generally unremarkable year. However, short films made a big mark here and abroad, doing most of the heavy lifting for Filipino cinema. Most of the year's releases were released through streaming services, and a good chunk of them were just okay. The closure of cinemas for most of the year made the industry rethink where and how to deliver their films to the viewing public, with varied results. 

Vivamax was clearly the winner of this year of experimentation, I think it's due to a number of things. To get people to subscribe to a streaming service, one needs a large library of content and a reason for people to return. To date, Viva has produced the most feature length films of the year and have quickly built up a library of new films to complement their existing library of classic films. Some may consider the pito-pito style of filmmaking negatively, but it's a sound economic decision. The downside to that is with an abundance of content made quick and on the cheap, there are inevitably going to be a lot of subpar movies. Taking into account all of Vivamax's offerings for the year, I find that limitations on production and budget aren't as detrimental to the films as a seeming mandate for these films to create sexy content. Mandates like this have been done in the past and can be done well, sure, but the amount of dreck that this produces is usually substantial. However, in Vivamax's case, the people behind the service know what drives people back to the service - as long as the content is entertaining, it doesn't matter if others perceive it as quality or not. Also, sex sells.

Other streaming services competed with Vivamax for their share of the business, while all these services stood in the shadow of giants like Netflix. KTX and ticket2me provided services with release windows that tried to emulate the cinema experience, while services like Upstream stuck to their pay per view model. Methods for payment also became easier. You can pay for a month of a library of movies and series with only a few clicks.

Film festivals largely went online, like in 2020. Cinemalaya kept chugging along, albeit with a drastically reduced lineup, and other smaller festivals kept operating. Other film festivals, because of production issues, budgetary problems and the general unavailability of cinemas, were nowhere to be found. This trend continued until QCinema near the end of the year, just in time to herald the reopening of cinemas. Its hybrid format with offerings both online and in theaters (with some going theater-only) may be used as a model for future film fests. I'm not privy to any attendance numbers, but not even a mortal threat could get cinephiles out of those cinemas.

Several filmmakers went by the year without making any films, while others probably broke records making theirs - Darryl Yap (like him or hate him) made ten films this year. And here I thought Joven Tan making four films in a year was already a lot. As for the quality of those films, let's just say quantity over quality prevailed in this case. Staples of the film circuit made a number of films as well - Lav Diaz made the reflexive and introspective Historya ni Ha, while Brillante Mendoza took a break from drug war content to make the sexy film Palitan for Vivamax and sports drama Gensan Punch (later released on HBO). Gensan Punch in particular, a paradoxically quiet sports movie about a man struggling to reach his dreams despite the restrictions of an unbending bureaucracy, may be one of his best in several years.

The BL genre that flourished in 2020 evolved with a number of series, though to a casual viewer like myself, I didn't notice a lot of series in the mainstream consciousness (I could be wrong, of course). A number of movies and series got sequels, series adaptations or second seasons, while two series in particular - Ideafirst's Gameboys and Black Sheep's Hello Stranger got full length movie adaptations. Both break out of their zoom cinema forms into more conventional cinematic structures since production has picked up since the pandemic began. Gameboys feels like the fuller, more realized film and a bridge to a still-in-development Season 2, though Hello Stranger isn't without its charms.

And once again, the MMFF reared its head, with (for once, since 2016) a pretty decent lineup but (as always) a marketing policy that is all but non-existent on the MMDA's part and a foolish decision to keep the festival only in theaters. It's unfortunate that it all backfired on their faces (for a multitude of reasons) since there were really a bunch of good films in MMFF 2021's slate. As it is right now, the MMFF is a dinosaur that can't keep up with normal trends. I'm not confident, but I hope they've learned their lesson for 2023... if they're still around.

All in all, it was a year in transition, still in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, with no end in sight... yet. As more people become vaccinated and as the virus evolves to become endemic instead, hopefully that ending will come. For now, I'm okay to stay in my little bubble for the time being.

Let's go to the films. All in all, I've seen more than a hundred Filipino films this year. Apologies for not giving an exact number, since I neglected to log all of the shorts I watched and some don't even have entries on letterboxd. Of those films, I have seen 75 full length feature films out of approximately 83 that were released this year. Six of the films that I haven't watched belong to the MMFF, one isn't available anymore (that would be Ilocano Defenders: War on Rape) and one that's a remake and I've seen the original (Roman Perez Jr.'s The Housemaid.) Otherwise, I've seen them all, even super obscure ones that probably no one else has seen. Have you seen the all-OFW psychological thriller Lamentasyon? Do you know that among these 83 films there's an apocalyptic local horror film called The Herald and the Horror, and that it's the only local 2021 film that's on Amazon Prime of all places?

This woman is supposed to be on the side of the protagonists. I cheered when her character died.

The list doesn't count films like Yellow Rose (though I've watched that too), or restored classics, but it DOES include Joven Tan's singular offering this year - Ayuda Babes starring Gardo Versoza, and it does include Joel Ferrer and Miko Livelo's barely feature length Ero (hero without an H, not ero as in erotic).

Before we go on to the feature length list, here are some

2021 shorts that were pretty good, if not excellent though by no means comprehensive since I saw like what, 30 shorts this year? Out of possibly hundreds?

Okay here we go.

Ampangabagat Nin Talakba Ha Likol is one of the year's most visually and conceptually creative shorts, and one of the highlights of QCinema 2021. It touches on feelings and emotions both personal and very universal - anxiety, fear, frustration and anger.

Filipiñana is pretty amazing, a short form examination of the absurd gap between the haves and the have nots, of power, control, and the desire for that control.

My favorite short of QCinema 2021 is Kaj Palanca's Henry, an (IMO) underrated short that's filled with many small details that pop out the more you watch it.

As someone who has some experience with these kinds of retreats, Kids on Fire resonated with me in a weird sort of way. Also, Mystica in a Cinemalaya movie, I can finally say that's a thing.

After the wonderful To Calm the Pig Inside comes Sol, a narrative companion piece to Joanna Vasquez Arong's 2020 film and a solid film about the many ways tragedy shapes us and the people we love.

There are many more films that deserve mention (Ang Pagdadalaga ni Lola Mayumi, City of Flowers, Don't Worry, We Still Hear You, Black Rainbow to name a few) though like I said, I haven't seen enough shorts to make a comprehensive list.

On the other hand, in no particular order here are five

2021 full length films that I think were pretty good 

Age of Blight (various directors) - okay, this is more of an omnibus rather than a full feature, but I'm counting it. It's a very interesting look at the slow nightmare that was last year. There are individual segments that stand out among the rest (the above picture included) but overall I think it's a solid work.

Big Night (dir. Jun Lana) - MMFF 2021's best picture is one of the most interesting takes on this current administration's drug war, a kafkaesque labyrinth of absurdity that is equal parts funny, frustrating and terrifying.

Dito at Doon (dir. JP Habac) - While many other films this year went the conventional route in terms of romance, this romance-but-not-really caught my attention. It's a disaster film of the saddest kind, showing how this pandemic has changed our relationships in both subtle and profound ways. But at the same time, through its rejection of the zoom format it's a bit of a defiant stand against that idea as well.

Kun Maupay Man It Panahon (a.k.a. Whether the Weather is Fine, dir. Carlo Manatad) - a strange, phantasmagorical depiction of coping, loss and grief, it's also a film about how some tragedies are so profound that we cannot make heads or tails of them, and how the systems that are made to govern or protect us are so fundamentally dysfunctional that they might as well be gibberish.

On the Job 2: The Missing 8 (dir. Erik Matti) - I have cheated yet again, since this was not released in the Philippines as a movie, but as a series (edited together with the first On the Job.) It's a genre-flavored fun (yet also depressing) little snapshot of the country as it is today.

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More to come when I discuss a couple of films that were, to be honest, pretty bad. Stay tuned.