Present Confusion 2023 Roundup Part 2: Philippine Cinema Favorites

 

2023 was a year of regrowth for Philippine Cinema. 160 films were released in theaters, streaming or limited runs this year, surpassing output even in pre-pandemic times. A large chunk of these films were Vivamax releases of various levels of quality. While various other streaming services had their own productions (Netflix with a couple of romantic films and the Keys to the Heart remake, Amazon Prime with a slate of their own through collaborations with ANIMA studios and the Ideafirst Company,) Vivamax's streaming output was seconded only by the now defunct AQ Prime, who stopped releasing films near the middle of the year. Another streaming startup, Goblin films, started and stopped with only Jay Altarejos' The Last Resort as its sole would-be offering.

In the relative absence of new feature film-centric film festivals, feature lengths from the surviving post pandemic festivals (Cinemalaya, MMFF) had to step up. QCinema, despite being still the best film fest in the country, has not yet returned to holding a competition local feature films. The newly established Manila Film Festival (not to be confused with the MMFF) debuted with a slew of poorly made student productions which barely got any buzz from audiences outside of the filmmakers themselves.

Cinemalaya was by far the festival that stepped up the most. Buoyed by funding from the FDCP and a film lab to further refine the potential films, Cinemalaya fielded one of its best (if not the best) lineups in its 19 year history. The only downside would be the festival's move to the PICC as the CCP underwent renovation - a good decision for a festival for people to meet up and talk, but not so much a film festival, as PICC venues are not designed for film screenings. If it still takes place at the PICC, next year's Cinemalaya should be sponsored by Salonpas.

One of the year's biggest surprises was the MMFF, which, in the absence of films by either Vice Ganda and Vic Sotto, still managed to gross 1 billion pesos at the box office. Lines to the cinema are still long to this day, after the festival's run was supposed to end. While it looks like box office is still skewed towards a couple of high performers, the outcome of the festival may be a good sign that Filipinos aren't necessarily beholden to a few people - give them good stories that they can watch with their families and they'll come.

Admittedly, I don't have the stamina I once had, but I endeavored to watch every single Filipino film released in Filipino theaters in some capacity in 2023, and thanks to friends over at the Society of Filipino Film Reviewers (SFFR), I have actually managed to do so - with the exception of Crisanto Aquino's Instant Daddy, I have watched every 2023 Filipino film released in theaters. The operative phrase there is "released in theaters," as unfortunately, I have not had the time to watch all of the films released through streaming - a couple of colleagues have, however, watched way more Vivamax films than I have, and I recommend going to letterboxd to check out their reviews. By the time this three part writeup is finished, I will have watched approximately 120 out of those 160 Filipino films, which is a clean 75%.

Honorable mentions (in no particular order) include: About Us But Not About Us (dir. Jun Lana), the last two segments of Shake Rattle and Roll Extreme (various directors), Mallari (dir. Derick Cabrido), Essential Truths of the Lake (dir. Lav Diaz) and National Anarchist Lino Brocka (dir. Khavn).

Anyway, on to this list: any film, whether released on streaming or in a theater counts, and this is a list that belongs only to me, as you might have a very different list because everyone is different. Short films are not included here; they will be featured in a separate list in the third part of this writeup. Without further ado, here is

John Tawasil's

TEN FAVORITE FILIPINO FILMS OF 2023

10. Love You Long Time (dir. JP Habac) - Habac's timey-wimey romance of two lovers whose worlds don't exactly align stayed with me the longest, after its surprise ending recontextualized its entire conceit. Also, Habac manipulates the frame - further experimentation from his earlier Dito at Doon - to emphasize its characters' distance.

9. Kampon (dir. King Palisoc) - perhaps the weirdest Filipino horror movie of 2023, and I mean that in a good way. Kampon externalizes the various anxieties of parenthood into a malevolent, demonic force. 

8. Gomburza (dir. Pepe Diokno) - a history film that stands in contrast to Jerrold Tarog's duology (Heneral Luna, Goyo) where its focus on historical fact is a reflection of its stance on truth and truth telling; an interrogation of martyrdom and how simply believing in what is right or becoming a symbol for change reverberates throughout generations.

7. Nowhere Near (dir. Miko Revereza) - what starts with Revereza's continued exploration as a stateless individual, navigating neoliberal immigration policies in America (the rollercoaster scene still lives in my brain rent free) evolves into something entirely different once Revereza comes home, or rather, comes near a perceived ideal of "home" but never really reaches it. "Home" is a bunch of cracked, dilapidated steps - the last vestiges of history, eroded by colonial tides.

6. Ang Duyan ng Magiting (dir. Dustin Celestino) - discoursive, provocative - Celestino's latest navigates through all the complicated nuances of nationalism, and how it can be closely intertwined with violence of all sorts.

5. Huling Palabas (dir. Ryan Machado) - metamorphosis, coming of age, a record of transition from one era to the next, Huling Palabas shows time, place and person all in a state of flux, with at least the latter settling into a sense of knowing, in some capacity, one's place in the world.

4. Iti Mapukpukaw (dir. Carl Joseph Papa) - our entry to the Academy Awards' best foreign film is one of the best choices in this year's lineup of films: an examination of trauma that isn't afraid of going to dark places; a tender and loving testament to how understanding (or at least, the attempt to understand) ultimately leads to healing. One of the best endings of any Filipino film this year.

3. Third World Romance (dir. Dwein Baltazar) - sadly overlooked by mainstream audiences, Third World Romance finds common ground with another exceptional film from world cinema: Aki Kaurismaki's Fallen Leaves - where two people, chained to the unfair demands of a capitalist society, try to find happiness in each other.

2. As if It's True (dir. John Rogers) - to me, As if It's True is an essential film that captures the nebulous state of truth in online spaces, the creation of virtual images and online personas, and the creation of subjective realities in the backdrop of a post-truth society. Its manipulation of form to further blur that distinction between what is true and what is not is unmatched by any other film that I've seen this year.

1. Gitling (dir. Jopy Arnaldo) - anyone who knows me will probably figure out my choice for favorite 2023 film of the year. In my opinion, it's not even close. Wrapped in a familiar, romantic package, Gitling is an exploration of language, in how language shared helps us form bonds and share experiences, how the structure of language itself shares its DNA with how we deal with metatextuality in film, in the process of how we intuit the construction of sentences is not all that different in how we intuit the endings of films made many times before. Its final frames are haunting, layered with meaning, so much so that instead of watching a few more of those 160 films, I opted to watch Gitling one more time - and it's time well spent.

***

Usually the remaining segment of this roundup is spent on documenting the weirdest and worst moments in Philippine Cinema, but this time let's do something different. For the final part of this 2023 roundup, I want to tell a few stories about movies that I saw this year (both good and bad), and, a few words about the future of this blog. Stay tuned.

Present Confusion 2023 Roundup Part 1: World Cinema Favorites

 

Another year of great movies done. Hi. regular readers of this blog. It's time for me to tell you about all the films I liked in 2023.

Let's mix it up a little. In previous iterations of this roundup, we've put the world cinema selections for last. This time, let's make it first. Why? I just want to. And give that I have an announcement at the end of part 3, there's a bit of a reason for this specific order.

I think in terms of movie watching, 2023 is the first year where we truly found ourselves free of the coronavirus pandemic. And by "free", I mean the virus is totally still everywhere (transmitted even more in its entire history by some accounts) but most of us pretend it isn't there because we're all tired of this shit. People returning to the cinemas categorically includes annoying people, and predictably, twoish years of isolation in our homes messed us up in ways we are still beginning to discover. I have also been guilty of this at times, I am no saint, sometimes I even annoy myself.

Something also shifted the moviegoing public's preferences this year. For some reason, Hollywood tentpole franchise films are no longer the guaranteed financial successes that they were before the pandemic. Disney was hit hard by this shift, with many of their releases (including several movies from their vaunted MCU) barely making a fraction of their budget, and a pittance compared to their past box office glories. Audiences found themselves drawn to biopics such as Oppenheimer and relatively well constructed commercial products like Barbie.

Streaming in festival spaces died down as more festivals returned to face to face screenings, with hybrid setups rare or even gone in some instances. Various film industries geared up their production, but only time will tell how the landscape will change from here on in.

This list includes all my favorite 2023 films that I saw in the past year; any 2022 film is counted; and ranking is relatively loose and based more on vibes than anything else. I used to say "favorites, not best" but heck, my favorite films are the best to me. This list does not include Filipino films, that's in a separate list. Also because I'm a weeb (or something), a lot of these films are from Japan. Go figure.

here is a list of

John Tawasil's

25 WORLD CINEMA FAVORITES 2023 EDITION

25. Shayda (dir. Noora Niasari) - many of the films on this list are hewn from personal experiences. Based on the director's personal experiences in a women's shelter, Shayda is a prayer for breath in a suffocating world where freedom feels like a distant dream.

24. Animalia (dir. Sofia Alaoui) - Animalia is also about seeking freedom - this ambitious, imaginative mix of science fiction, horror and Islamic eschatology depicts metaphorical birds in metaphorical cages, where the end of the world ironically gives them what they need, though not necessarily what they want..

23. Past Lives (dir. Celine Song) - this was dangerously close to not being included in this list, but I do so after a rewatch where I fixated on John Magaro's character, where I read the film not necessarily as a story about fated love, but a film about endless regret; a film not necessarily about immigrants, but a film about trying to understand them; not necessarily a film about those who leave and those left behind, but instead about the people who choose to stay and the people who keep those people where they are. 

22. The First Slam Dunk (dir. Takehiko Inoue) - Slam Dunk fans have been waiting years - even decades - for a final conclusion to the story, and this is a near-perfect way of doing so, Inoue proving he has a grasp of film as skilled as his grasp on manga. And even for non-fans, The First Slam Dunk is a wonderful, exhilarating film that will keep you on the edge of your seat up until that final buzzer.

21. Concrete Utopia (dir. Um Tae-hwa) - in the space of two hours and ten minutes, through propulsive, compelling filmmaking, Um Tae-hwa creates a microcosm of the human condition, and shows humanity in all its flawed glory: equal parts civilized and barbaric, equal parts enlightened being and savage animal all in one.

20. Lonely Glory (dir. Keitaro Sakon) - I enjoy a good villain story - or rather, a story about a protagonist so ruthless in their design, so doggedly stubborn in their desire to achieve their goal, that only in retrospect do they see the wreckage (both human or otherwise) in their wake. With a career-highlight performance by Kokoro Morita, Lonely Glory surprised me in ways I didn't expect.

19. Poor Things (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos) - Yorgos at perhaps his funniest and most twisted, Barbie without the corporate paradox and flawed iconography, a claiming of self drenched in sex and violence, messy and flawed and even problematic, but ultimately a blast to experience and autopsy its various little parts.

18. Ryuichi Sakamoto Opus (dir. Neo Sora) - one of my most personal picks in this list. Opus is my favorite concert film of the year, a solemn yet powerful goodbye to a peerless artist who gave and gave to his art until, in the end, there was nothing at all. 

17. Seventeeners (dir. Prithvi Konanur) - a harrowing portrait of two people who otherwise mean well and want to do the right thing, but whose hands are tied because of a society more concerned with appearances rather than what is right.

16. Killers of the Flower Moon (dir. Martin Scorsese) - not the best Scorsese, but still a cutting exploration of race, guilt, of perspective, heck, of storytelling itself. Dismantles its source novel's mystery setup and transforms it into an indictment of shameless white American greed.

15. The Taste of Things (dir. Tran Anh Hung) - I never expected to cry to food (in a non hangry context, mind you) this year, but I did, and for good reason. It made me happy, it made me sad, it made me hungry, and it's such a lovely depiction of the many ways we express our love.

14. Blue Giant (dir. Yuzuru Tachikawa) - I've been disappointed by many "jazz" films that only use the medium as a platform in the service of another story, but I've never seen a film that embodies Jazz itself: a chaotic yet somehow synergistic mishmash of creative energy and technical skill. In its musical sections and through a mix of 2d and 3d animation, Blue Giant captures in cinema form the essence of what Jazz is and what it means to fans of that musical genre. Remarkably, it gives up on the fight of proper adaptation - aware of the medium's shortcomings to cover everything, it depicts its source manga in an appropriately jazz-like fashion by riffing on the text. It shouldn't work, but it does, and the result is amazing.

13. Abang Adik (dir. Lay Jin Ong) - an astonishing, gripping film about what it means to be an unseen son of Malaysia whose loudest, most powerful scene is drenched in silence.

12. Shin Kamen Rider (dir. Hideaki Anno) - introspective Hideaki Anno is best Hideaki Anno. Anno frames this legendary tokusatsu hero's story as a meditation on loneliness, our desire to form relationships with an 'other', and how people are both heaven and hell in turn.

11. Io Capitano (dir. Matteo Garrone) - I expected this film to be bleak, and in a way, it is: in this oddysey, many people are left by the wayside. But what blew me away in this film by Matteo Garrone are the small glimpses of humanity, kindness and hope despite it all.

10. Jigarthanda Double X (dir. Karthik Subbaraj) - I admit, even for a slight romantic such as myself, Karthik Subbaraj's manifesto for the power of cinema to change society is a tad too idealistic, but it's presented with such enthusiasm and love for Tamil Cinema (and cinema in general) that I couldn't help but get swept away in it all.

9. River (dir. Junta Yamaguchi) - Junta Yamaguchi has shown with his two feature films how much he enjoys playing around with the medium, telling fantastically structured stories that transcend their gimmick and are legitimately a fun time at the cinema. It's way more fun than many movies with ten times the budget, which is proof that a good movie just needs a good idea executed wonderfully.

8. Do Not Expect Too Much From The End of The World (dir. Radu Jude) - this uncompromising, biting satire of the state of Romania (in both senses of the word) and how its lessons stay unlearned in the course of generations made this one of the most surprising films I've seen this year.

7. A Man (dir. Kei Ishikawa) - one of my early favorite films of 2023, Kei Ishikawa's A Man interrogates the notion of identity through Japan's 'disappeared people,' or Jouhatsu. At times strange and obtuse yet very compelling, it is in a way a spiritual brother to Shohei Imamura's A Man Vanishes (1967).

6. Abnormal Desire (dir. Yoshiyuki Kishi) - Another film that unexpectedly blew me out of the water (was that a pun? lol) This film deals with a sensitive subject in such a tender, human way that I found it quite remarkable, showing its human characters in all their dimensions, good or bad. Also, such an unexpected turn from Yui Aragaki.

5. Perfect Days (dir. Wim Wenders) - no film has wanted me to clean toilets in Japan like this one (I may have visited one of those fantastic toilets a few days ago and left a game of tic tac toe). Wender's latest is a solemn look into the life of an ordinary man who chooses to stop as the world moves around him; a rock quietly sitting in a raging stream.

4. Godzilla Minus One (dir. Takashi Yamazaki) - my favorite franchise film of the year that is frankly light years beyond anything Hollywood has produced in 2023, if only because it recognizes spectacle unto itself does not make a good movie, that metatextuality has ruined the notion of American blockbuster filmmaking, that good characters always elevate a decent movie into an excellent one, and that people aren't exactly tired of franchise films - they're tired of bad ones. RRR showed Hollywood that lesson last year, hopefully they'll get the message this time.

3. Not Friends (dir. Atta Hemwadee) - In the past few years Thailand always had a place in this list, usually for a film that reaches beyond its mainstream bounds and achieves something quite lovely. What starts off as a fun love letter to filmmaking shifts in its second act into an examination of friendship itself, and how we move and inspire each other in small yet profound, invisible yet deeply felt ways. I can only speak for myself, but I found it all deeply moving.

2. Evil Does Not Exist (dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi) - Hamaguchi's examination of human nature, on the nature and perception of 'evil', and the violence imposed by capitalist interest on indigenous and rural spaces is riveting cinema that lives in my mind rent free ever since I watched it a few months ago.

1. Monster (dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda) - what is a monster? A parent who acts out only in loving service to their child? An education system that devours well-meaning educators and strips them of the ability to express their empathy? Misunderstood people who only want the opportunity to love? Or a society that shuns anyone who strays from the norm? In gentle yet devastating strokes, Kore-eda paints a picture where everyone is seen as a monster in their own ways, but are only human beings trying to live out their lives the way they want.

***

Next up is a list of 10 of my favorite Filipino Films so stay tuned for that.

MMFF 2023 | Becky and Badette

 

Becky (Eugene Domingo) and Badette (Pokwang) live relatively humdrum lives as janitresses for a corporation. On the side, they try to pursue their dreams: Becky makes music and Badette goes to various auditions. But success is elusive for the duo, and they are mostly left either unrecognized or looked down upon by their peers.

That changes, however, when during a class reunion, Becky makes a drunken statement saying that she and Badette are in a relationsihp. Their story inspires many and the two gain the stardom they've always wished for - but success based on a lie eternally teeters on a precipice, and some people begin to plot their downfall.

First and foremost, Jun Lana's Becky and Badette is a comedy, and in my opinion, a good one - ever since I saw Pokwang and Eugene Domingo together earlier this year in Lana's Ten Little Mistresses, I wanted a film with these two. It works, though perhaps the comedy would be better served if Lana let go of his restraint a lot more (Wenn Deramas' absence is deeply felt here.) Nevertheless, there are references to many films both old and new, especially Danny Zialcita's T-Bird at Ako, from which this story draws inspiration.

There is a little quirk as the film reaches its climax, where Becky realizes something about herself, though sadly the thought isn't explored as much as I would have wanted.

But the film also asks a question of us: who should tell the stories of queer people? The obvious answer is that queer or LGBTQ+ people should be able to tell their own stories. In faking their relationship, not only are they profiting from this lie, but they contribute indirectly to the erasure of queer stories. Aside from that, Lana emphasizes the importance of accountability for such actions - otherwise, without it, people may be emboldened to do it again.

The ownership of stories is important. When one owns a story and when the work of art that emerges accurately portrays one's lived experiences, that is representation, and nothing is more important. My thoughts stray back towards T-Bird at Ako. It's writer, Portia Ilagan, is a member of the LGBTQ community. Even in the eighties, despite the limitations of a conservative and creatively limiting society, we gave spaces for queer and LGBTQ creatives to tell their stories. In a candy coated, 'mainstream' comedic wrapper, Becky and Badette reminds us that that idea will always be important.