Social media has irrevocably changed the idea of privacy, whether it still exists as we add more and more of ourselves to a curated virtual image, or whether other people are entitled to it or not. For Gemma Stone (Ashley Ortega), that doesn't even seem like a question: after going viral for a rant in a taxi, she has made herself into an influencer. But a rough breakup has left her career in the doldrums, that is until she meets James (Khalil Ramos), a struggling musician who takes to her immediately. The new relationship sparks a renewed interest in Gemma and her relevance in the internet sphere resurges.
I've seen various, often superficial takes on this film as yet another story of social media starring Gen Z millennials, and indeed there is no shortage of such films in the local milieu. I agree to an extent. However, the film is much more complex than it looks, owing to a fantastic usage of form that honestly left me tantalized as the credits rolled.
The fake flower Gemma takes home after her first date with James serves as a visual metaphor for their own relationship - a thing that takes the image of a rose, a symbol of love but one that (in this case) does not possess any of the elements of a real rose - a construct, an artifice representing the real thing. Yet there are hints that James is truly falling in love with his pretend girlfriend, giving her a level of trust that is more intimate than what is implied. But what about Gemma? Is she really only using James as a tool for her own needs?
At first I was sure of the film's outcome, but near the end this notion was put into serious doubt. If you've seen the film, you may have noticed that the soundtrack itself was starting to glitch out. What panache to do this in front of a very attentive Cinemalaya audience, who would question whether it was due to the theater or due to the film itself! Soundtracks are meant to evoke emotion, to guide us towards a certain feeling, as all the formal elements of film are meant to do. But here, it's like the movie is trying to make us question: what does this music want to make you feel? Why does this music want to make you feel? And is it congruent with what you're thinking of at this point in the story? Despite a rather conclusive feeling emotional climax, what follows seems to totally deconstruct it!
It's as if As If It's True wants to point out the facility of film itself in presenting a virtual image, a constructed reality where you aren't entirely sure what's right or not. This is a notion that's been explored before by the likes of Wells (F For Fake, for example) but a notion that feels very relevant today, when even "truth" feels pliable. It still gives me goosebumps every time I think about it.
This is a film that requires multiple watches, and in a world full of "turn off your brain" entertainment, hot takes and reductive criticism, maybe take a moment to think about what you've just seen. I may be in the minority here, but I think this film is a fucking breath of fresh air.
Sometimes we cannot find the words for the deepest kinds of pain. Sometimes, in our struggle to articulate profound trauma, something inside of us breaks and silence is the more comfortable option. Sometimes, when we try to rationalize things we do not understand, we lean into irrationality.
For Eric (Carlo Aquino,) that pain is kept deeply behind a veil of silence. It manifests in Carl Joseph Papa's Iti Mapukpukaw as the absence of his mouth, something that is achieved by painstaking rotoscope animation in the style of Carl Linklater's Waking Life (2001) and A Scanner Darkly (2006).
Eric lives as an animator and he lives a relatively quiet life. But when he finds out that his uncle has died, aliens arrive to "take" his body. It's clear that Eric's gone through something terrible, although we don't exactly know what. We soon learn what that is, and it is the kind of event that figuratively takes your body and your agency over yourself, an idea that is literalized thanks to the film's medium, one that allows us to see the world of Iti Mapukpukaw through Eric's own eyes.
Besides all that, what shines in Iti Mapukpukaw (and all of Carl Papa's feature lengths, to be honest) is the emotional core at the center of the film. His films make you feel a deep sense of empathy with their central characters, with all their flaws and wounds laid bare; his films often leave your heart heavy but also fill it with an unshakable sense of warmth and hope. What helps Eric on his journey of closure is a support system that tries to understand him even if his visions become harder and harder to understand. It all culminates in the scene depicted in the poster above, a scene that honestly brought a lot of people in the theater to tears. Love, in all its various forms, is also a central theme in Papa's films, love that can stave off death for just one more moment, make memories endure, and allow people to express and articulate deeply held pain.
Cinemalaya 2023 Shorts A Short Shorts Reviews
I don't think I've ever seen an audience so invested in the result of a horse race as I've seen in Mae Tanagon's Sota, a documentary about horse trainers and what happened to them during the pandemic. It's not particularly revolutionary storytelling, but it is an engrossing story. After this film you will believe in Success of Times (and that was not a typo.)
Arvin Belarmino's Hinakdal leans squarely into the absurd: it is about a family of zombies just living normally, eating vegetables and going to zombie school. However, when a normal human tries to steal a chicken, their (un) life changes profoundly. I'm all for absurdist comedies of this type, but when the film's tone veers sharply into melodrama, it feels a bit off, and I'm not sure what the film's trying to say (discrimination? unwarranted violence and dehumanization of the 'other?'), if it wants to say anything at all.
Kokuryo: The Untold Story of BB. Undas 2019 is bound to be an audience favorite. Two friends roam the city in search of a person who might be able to tell them the whereabouts of a sizeable amount of missing prize money won from a pageant. It manages to shed a spotlight on our trans sisters: bigoted attitudes towards them, limitations in terms of meaningful employment (and thus, the importance of any kind of income towards their survival), and the use of that income to fuel their goal of becoming who they truly are.
hm hm mhm would probably make a good double feature with a couple other films in this festival dealing with past trauma. It's interesting to see the interplay of "play" and the usage of dolls (often used to depict an idealized social structure) to depict trauma. Also, flowers with baby heads. I have not yet slept since yesterday. I kid.
The last shot of Januar Yap's Sibuyas ni Perfecto is one of scarecrows in the open field. I think it succinctly depicts how various middlemen and people at the top view common people - not really as people, but as vessels created to do a particular job. It's heartbreaking and sad in all sorts of ways.
While flawed, last Cinemalaya's Blue Room managed to paint a picture of the nature of privilege and how that privilege, drawn via class lines, leads to an unequal and unfair application of the systems and laws that govern us. Kevin Mayuga's When This Is All Over expands on that idea, adding the wrinkle of how class lines were made even more evident during the pandemic.
Stoner film, social drama and comedy all in one, When This is All Over tells the story of The Guy (Juan Karlos) who, pre-pandemic, worked as a fixer and dealers of sorts for all kinds of partygoers. That all came to a screeching halt when COVID lockdowns literally shut down even the slightest idea of a party scene. Now isolated in a condo provided by his mother (Ana Abad Santos), The Guy makes a living selling drugs to his wealthy neighbors. That is until said wealthy neighbors, bored of (their still very comfortable) quarantine, begin to plan a party of their own, and recruit The Guy to find a way to do it.
What follows is a funny, at times raucous comedy that shows just how fucked up we are as a society. The Guy's employers, a bunch of spoiled, vain, wretched individuals who think all things can be solved by power and influence, may just be some of the most evil villains in contemporary local cinema. If there were guillotines set up right now, they'd be some of the first candidates. And, it's not as if they don't know this fact; as one of them confides to The Guy, "yeah, I'm a bad bitch. So what?" it's made clear that they don't really care about other people, and maybe don't see those below them as people in the first place. Money and power have a weird way of changing people like that.
At the same time, The Guy comes across the many employees living in his condominium and befriends Rosemarie (Jorrybell Agoto), a kindhearted employee who is just trying to survive during a global, history-making event. The fact that we know this will not end well unless someone does the right thing is part of the tragedy of the whole enterprise.
The film's uncertain denouement is by no means revolutionary (unfortunately, we're not going to see any obscenely rich little shits get their heads chopped off by the end of the film) but there is the sense that at least to some extent, the law manages to affect everyone eventually (at least for a while). And there is the sense that while we cannot always change the world all by ourselves, we can take accountability for our own actions and make amends in our own ways.
There's just something so lovely about the word "comfort", about something or someone you can trust with all your heart and confide in without judgement, about something or someone that you can seek refuge in, about something or someone that makes you feel seen and heard. For a lot of people, Samantha Lee's Rookie is a film that embodies that sense of comfort. A sweet, feel-good love story about two people finding that comfort in each other, it's one of the most romantic local movies of the year.
Ace (Pat Tingjuy) is an awkward teen who loves playing basketball and wonders why the boys in her neighborhood aren't too keen on letting her play with them. When she transfers to a new school, she learns that there is no basketball varsity team. Instead, she's recruited by the school's volleyball coach (Agot Isidro). There, she meets the volleyball team captain Jana (Aya Fernandez) who doesn't immediately take to the unskilled rookie. But as Ace learns the sport, Ace and Jana begin to find that comfort in each other.
As a sports film, Rookie has its share of flaws. We don't exactly see why Ace would be a good fit for the volleyball team; the coach seems to only assess Ace's height though we don't see her see Ace's athleticism and she doesn't teach Ace the ins and outs of a completely different sport from the get go. Though we do see her improve, she becomes a starter very fast (though to be fair, anime does this all the time). There's a lot to cover here, but the material is perhaps better suited to something longer (and I would not say no to a Rookie series.)
As a youth romance, Rookie is simply exquisite, a natural evolution from Lee's previous works Baka Bukas and Billie and Emma. Aside from the romance, it also addresses several issues faced by the young women of today, the culture in which they are discriminated against and the difficulties of holding people (especially men) to account for their actions.
I call this one of the most romantic local films of the year because I haven't rooted for two romantic partners this much for a long time. These are two people, who, in finding comfort in each other, navigate a world that is far from perfect in terms of accepting who they are, and realize their eventual dreams regardless.
No comments:
Post a Comment