I have to admit that the 2023 edition of the Manila Film Festival, while well-meaning, wasn't the best of festivals - getting students to make feature length films, unless those students are already well versed in the art of filmmaking, is going to end in disaster. This time around, it seems like someone with their head on their shoulders is in charge of the festival. 12 shorts, four of them by established directors, eight by student filmmakers, compose the slate for this year's edition, and in my opinion, it's a massive improvement in quality.
As a short aside before I begin: this edition of the film fest takes place in Robinsons Manila (before going on a short sidetrip to Robinsons Magnolia). First of all, thank goodness this wasn't in SM Manila, literally one of the worst theaters in the region, and second, it brings me a lot of nostalgia to watch a film fest that's not the MMFF in Rob Manila again. I've been going to Rob Manila theaters for more than 20 years now, back to the time when a film was 100-150 a screening and you can watch movies multiple times across multiple screenings as long as you got your hand stamped. It's not the best theater out there, but it feels like home.
SET A SHORT REVIEWS:
At first, I thought Dwein Baltazar's Nananahan reminded me a lot of her films Mamay Umeng (2012) and Oda sa Wala (2018), with its seeming fixation on solitude, and the relief that endings, rest, and retirement collectively bring. In one scene the ambient sounds of a workplace dissolve into the ticking of a clock presumably nearing its end, or the heartbeat of a man who only wants to rest. But at the same time, there's a feeling of fondness towards Manila as a place, much like in Baltazar's Gusto Kita With All My Hypothalamus (2018). In most of the film, rendered in painterly frames by DP Kara Moreno, we see people standing still, backgrounded by (relatively) far away images of movement: cars in the street or a train in the distance. Not only can you feel the place this is set in (taste, smell, sight, hear), its repetition forms an idea of "home" or "stasis." Meaningfully, in a place where things are forgotten and left behind, to be picked up by customers looking for cheap things for themselves or their children, one wonders when it is their turn to leave. And in the final sequence of the film, that happens - with a man standing still yet also in motion, leaving towards another place.
I am fascinated by Una't Huling Sakay's fixation with facades - above anything else, this is the part of any building that the eyes catch first. It finds itself reflected in its characters, whose initial appearances are deceiving but full of complexity - a young, rookie motorcycle taxi driver (Gold Aceron) who struggles to provide for his pregnant girlfriend, tries to skirt the rules and gets punished, and a kindly, middle aged motorcycle taxi driver (Nonie Buencamino) who has hustled and worked all of his life to provide for his family, at the expense of his own self. In fact, the title can also refer to both Gold and Nonie's characters, one at the cusp of starting out a new life and family, and another at its end.
Large urban centers are also often where many in the provinces come to seek jobs, not because the work is any easier to find, but because the potential financial incentives of getting a job are more rewarding than the same job in their home province. For swimmer Igra (Zar Donato) and her mom (Louielyn Jabien), leaving the confines of the sleepy municipality of Jiabong, Samar in order (presumably) to train as an athlete will require financial support. The language barrier, however proves to be a relatively large obstacle. In entertaining and comedic strokes, An Kuan shows us one of the reasons why people move to Manila to find work, and the obstacles people face trying to get in. Case in point: without connections, it's going to be a little bit harder.
The definition of the family unit has changed (for the better, IMO) in recent times, as laws and societal attitudes towards previously deemed unconventional but otherwise loving families have diversified what a family truly is. In Happy (M)other's Day, Sab is an elementary school girl who has trouble getting a mom or mom-figure for her school's Mother's Day celebrations, because she doesn't have a mom - she has two dads. There's nothing wrong with Sab's family, in fact, it looks like a perfectly happy and stable family. But rigid definitions of 'motherhood' and ideologies still tied to "conventional" family structures stand in their way. There's a debate in what is the climax of the film, though even at the end both sides seem adamant in their positions. The problem seems to be resolved in the very next scene, though most of the details of that resolution happen off-screen, decided by committees and people we never see. It could have settled in much better, but it's still a very sweet film.
The nostalgia of Pinilakang Tabingi reminded me of Iskalawags (2013) and the recent Cinemalaya film Huling Palabas (2023), though this short delves more into boyhood fantasies in the (pirated) films its two protagonists watch in haphazardly recorded DVDs. In that respect, it's great. Eventually, however, the film devolves into what looks like an advertisement for the OMB, decrying piracy without acknowledging its role in film preservation and access (notably, the two kids in the film had to pilfer some money just to buy a pirated DVD. How the heck could they have afforded tickets?) Perhaps the film could have been better served preaching the benefits of small, independent provincial theaters, like the theater that was featured in the film, without immediately resorting to moralizing why piracy is actually bad, you know.
I very much enjoyed the atmosphere of JP Habac's Shortest Day, Longest Night: talky (sometimes to a fault), brimming with history, also kinda horny. In between words, the characters of this short try to find a safe space to call their own, when they are regularly and repeatedly driven out of spaces where they thought they belonged. This idea of "space" is metaphorical as well: space-as-category (healthy vs. not healthy, positive vs negative, out and happy vs. closeted and miserable), space-as-being (the safe 'space' being the arms of another.) In principle, I like it, though given the very talented people involved in the production, I would've wanted to see it visually, in the enclaves and spaces of Manila where these people gather, small islands in a large city.
SET B SHORT REVIEWS:
A cosmic, decades-spanning romance through time and space, May and Nila is brimming with ideas that the short form can barely contain, so much so that it feels more like a proof of concept or a supercut. It's 'whole' in the sense that yes, it does contain all the elements of the story it tells, but this feels like material that can benefit more when its ideas are left to sit. And the questions it asks - our long history of colonialism, of what freedom truly entails - are pertinent and valid. Let it cook, that's what I say.
3 for 100 (the actual title is pretty long lol) leans into surrealism, depicting the humdrum life of Nida (Thea Marabut) as she tries to sell clothes for her Chinoy boss. Notable that her boss' husband is dead, there are no heirs to take over, and Nida is ultimately replaceable. It can be seen as how people create stories: either borne directly from boredom, to stave off that boredom (and fail), or in the service of selling something (Nida complaining that she needs to make a backstory for each article of clothing she tries to sell). Or maybe things are just weird. Have fun with this one.
On the other hand, a vibe is all that Ballad of a Blind Man seems to offer. Its protagonist is a young woman who seeks to leave the confines of her home and the control of her disabled, abusive father (Joel Saracho). Perhaps it wants to comment on how abusive relationships linger, but how exactly does she break from the cycle? What drives her to leave? It doesn't feel whole, and to make it worse, a much better film in the same set does everything that it ostensibly wants to do, but better.
Ditas Pinamalas begins with its titular protagonist (Gillian Vicencio) stepping on shit. She isn't the luckiest girl in the world (an understatement) as her partner is recently distant, her academics are down in the dumpster, and her parents are having trouble financing her education. But in a twist of fate, she comes across several pairs of her grandmother's panties (not granny panties! a fashionable grandma?) that give Ditas an abnormal amount of luck. The moral lesson of the film makes it feel like a Dhar Mann skit, and the voice over isn't doing the short any favors. Still. Gillian Vicencio makes the material better than it has any right to be, and it's still one of the most fun shorts in either set.
My favorite short among the students' lineup has to be Miko Biong's Bahay, Baboy, Bagyo. It handles its subject matter (that of informal settlers) through the perspective of a child, concerned more with the constancy of a home and playmates (i.e. to live and play a child) than anything else. There is an omnipresent, looming threat always present, if mostly unseen: the creeping violence of urbanization, the removal of a warm home to be replaced by cold concrete. What right does anyone, here or abroad, in any position of power, have to take away one's right to be free from arbitrary interference with one's home, privacy and family? It's not talky and it best shows rather than tells, which elevates the material.
And finally we have Pepe Diokno's Lumang Tugtugin, which depicts the cycles of violence that consume multiple generations of a Filipino family. The title can either refer to the abuse that a family endures and inherits, or one's reactions (or rather, non-reaction) to it. Also, the brunt of that abuse is dealt to a family's women: mothers, grandmothers and daughters, all bearing scars direct and indirect. The film also speaks of the dangers of "utang na loob", and how, when weaponized, leads to the perpetuation of violence. "There is no debt to be paid," is the film's refrain, and the cause for some of its characters' emancipation. That's some good shit.
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