A review of Un/Happy For You

 

Note: I recommend watching the film first before reading this, as there are some small spoilers especially near the end.

Was there ever a time where I held the torch for too long? Oh yeah. Many moons ago, I was young, stupid, and hopelessly infatuated with this person. When she didn't reciprocate, those feelings had nowhere to go, and they turned into frustration, and that frustration turned into anger. As I tried to save a "romance" that was never there and had no chance of being saved, all I did was destroy our existing friendship. When I realized how stupid I was being and stopped, it was too late. That put me off relationships for almost a decade.

My case is not an isolated one; I've heard lots of stories of love becoming something destructive, with people unable to process their feelings maturely. Aside from a lack of emotional intelligence, these attitudes spring from a culture that over-romanticizes longing, while not doing the same to the act of letting go. Hugot, that oft-repeated term for unrequited love that has become an entire sub-genre of cinema, is what has emerged in contemporary cinema thanks to that obsession. 

That's why I enjoyed Petersen Vargas' Un/Happy For You, Star Cinema's latest romance offering. It's basically a film that repudiates hugot, or at least warns of its dangers when it goes out of control. The film sees two former lovers meeting again: Juancho (Joshua Garcia) and Zy (Julia Barretto) meet in Bicol after an abrupt end to their relationship years prior. Chef Juancho had previously followed writer Zy to Manila in order to establish a restaurant together, but stress and mismanagement eventually tore the two apart. To Juancho, he felt neglected by Zy, and they weren't operating as a team anymore. One day, Zy leaves for New York, tells Juancho in a phone call that she's met someone else, and ghosts him. This leaves Juancho understandably angry and distraught at the lack of closure.

There's an immediate tinge of sexual tension between the two when they meet again, tension that builds and eventually explodes in a sexy scene that surprised even me, considering Star Cinema romances are usually rather tame. There's the idea of rekindling the romance between the two, and true to formula, the film isn't shy with showing the two in all sorts of cute situations. The thing is, something feels off about the whole shebang. For one, Zy is engaged to Matt (Victor Silayan), her editor, and Zy is basically cheating on him. This idea drives Zy away from Juancho initially, but the two can't help but cross paths, encounters that Juancho actively tries to cultivate.

Juancho's hung up on a relationship left hanging, but he's also filled with the resentment that comes with love unsated and unrequited. When I saw his character, I saw that past version of myself in more uncomfortable ways than one: that sense of entitlement to love denied, that desperation that maybe, just maybe, I can make it work, even if all evidence shows otherwise. Juancho's probably one of the most pitiable characters in contemporary Philippine cinema. Like the dishes he cooks, Juancho's folly is that the love that he gives is too fiery, too all-consuming, to the point where it does not only ruin him, but his relationships with his friends. Seeing him try to be better, then relapse is very painful to watch, but it is unfortunately part of the long process to emotional maturity.

It's even made more evident when we see Zy's point of view near the middle of the film, where we see how much Juancho's love blinded him to everyone else, ironically including the person he claims to love the most. This is perhaps my biggest gripe with the film: Zy feels like an accessory character to what is supposed to be a love story, and it takes two to tango. Granted, Zy's equally conflicted in their relationship rekindling, though we don't exactly see much of her thought processes behind her decisions. It can be argued that the film would become even more bloated than it already is, but I feel that getting more of her perspective is important. Ultimately the film is more a character piece focused on Juancho than anything else.

Despite its flaws, the ending of Un/Happy For You drew me back in. In my view, it sends a message that too much love, too much spice so to say, ruins a dish; that hugot should be the beginning, but not the end, of a love spurned; and that while clinging on to love despite all odds may seem great, the most profound and deepest kinds of love are those where you know when to let it all go.

Cinemalaya 2024: The Wedding Dance

 

The last time I talked to my late uncle, the famed Tausug artist and painter Rameer Tawasil, we talked about film. He talked to me at length about his desire to make a film showcasing Tausug culture - something that depicts the many daily rituals and rhythms of Tausug life, from birth to death. Unfortunately, that film will probably never get made, but if it did, it might look like the first hour or so of Julius Lumiqued's The Wedding Dance. Based on the story by Amador Daguio, the film is about a husband and wife on the eve of the titular dance. The thing is, Awiyao (Arvin Balageo) is not dancing with his wife Lumnay (Mai Fanglayan), the two are separating, and Awiyao is being wedded to Madulimay (Christal Dagupen) because Lumnay is unable to give Awiyao a child.

That's basically the entirety of the story, and while the film tries to fill in the gaps with some rudimentary worldbuilding, a sideplot involving a Japanese soldier and a bunch of flashbacks, it's not very successful in fleshing things out. A few days after seeing the film, I don't remember anything remotely romantic about the two during this initial period. That's not to say the film's cast tries their best; Mai Fanglayan, perhaps best known for her lead role in 2018's Tanabata's Wife, does her best with the material.

With all that said, it doesn't mean the film has nothing to say: even now, in our deeply patriarchal Filipino society, there are societal pressures for couples to have children. Back then, the reasons for this are practical: as Awiyao says at one point in the film, without children, no one will inherit the fields, and no one will continue the tribe. Wedding merely for love goes against the community and can be construed as a threat to the community's survival. But as the film tries to tell us, that process leaves the wreckage of many dreams in its wake.

The film's odd structure is one thing, but the climactic confrontation (basically the first dozen or so paragraphs of the short story) gives way to its infamous ending, an interminable slog that should honestly have ended 30 minutes prior, which then bafflingly, abruptly ends with a drone shot that feels like a jump scare. Other reviews of the film are right, in my view: it just doesn't work.

Cinemalaya 2024: Kono Basho, Tumandok, Kantil

 

There is a lone pine tree in Rikuzentakata, Iwate prefecture. Locals call it the ippon matsu (一本松), which is just a direct translation of "lone pine tree". Before the tsunami of 3/11, the tree was part of a large and famed grove called Takata-matsubara, a small forest of seventy thousand pine trees on the town's shoreline. When the 2011 tsunami hit, destroying the town and killing hundreds of people, it was the only tree left standing. Standing before the tree, Ella (Gabby Padilla) wonders why so much money was spent on the tree instead of giving it to the survivors, despite the fact that much was spent surrounding the locale with seawalls and literally raising the entire town above the ground. Ella's half sister, Reina (Arisa Nakano) replies to her that "memories are important." And that seems to be the central theme of Jaime Pacena's Kono Basho, because the thing is, that lone pine isn't exactly the same tree that stood in 2011: it had died due to saltwater toxicity, was felled, preserved and replanted as a memorial. An anthropologist like Ella should know that memorials are there not only in service of the dead, but also the living: as a way to keep those who have passed to live on, if only as a memory.

Ella has come to Rikuzentakata to say goodbye to her estranged father who has recently died, and settle her affairs regarding her inheritance. His second family has taken her in, though for Ella there is still a tinge of resentment at the family that took her father away from her. 

Aside from its surface level family drama and slice of life elements, Kono Basho isn't only about "a place," it is also how people shape places and vice versa, and how that shaping creates history. It is only appropriate that the film takes place in Rikuzentakata, a place so profoundly changed that its previous self lives on only in the memories of the people who stay, whether by choice or not. In one scene, Ella muses on her sister's life before the tsunami: where could she have spent her idle time? in what places did she create memories?

It is also a film where culture shapes a person: for the Japanese, spirits live on beyond the corporeal body in a particular way. In the Shinto religion, people become kami (usually translated as 'gods' but in this case, spirits) who help the living and guard the land. They stay with us, forever, becoming part of a place. We rarely see or hear Ella and Reina's dad, but his presence is felt everywhere. The home where Ella stays and where Reina lives is a manifestation of his will. In contemporary westernized Filipino culture, souls go to heaven or hell. They do not stay, unless as ghosts. That dissonance can be seen all throughout the film, and is a source of the disconnect between the two sisters. 

Reina is at peace and grieves openly at the start, but it takes Ella more time to process that grief. Ella chose to disconnect herself with a painful part of her past and made herself, in a way, incomplete. A popular saying exclaims that we are every person that we've ever loved; Kono Basho argues that we are also every place we've ever been. "Think of this place as your home," Reina tells her sister near the end. However far, however detached through space and time, there are homes, gardens, small ippon matsu in all of our hearts.

Two things struck out to me during my viewing of Richard Salvadico and Kat Sumagaysay's Tumandok. The first is a line spoken by one of the elders near the end of the film, to a local official from whom he is seeking help, and I paraphrase: you can order us to the ends of the earth, and we will settle there. But the people who take our lands may also claim the ends of the earth for themselves. 

The film depicts the struggles of the Ati population living in Sitio Kabarangkalan in Iloilo. They're part of a group of indigenous peoples who have lived in the Visayan islands for many centuries. For many years, these people have been systematically driven out of their lands by state forces, capitalist interests, or both. Hewing from real life experiences, the film follows a young Ati girl (Jenaica Sangher) as she tries to manage the affairs of her chieftain father, who has been ailing for a while. She and her father go up and down the mountain to the government offices to process the papers for them to own their own land, a process that will take their people an enormous amount of resources. But our bureaucracy is labyrinthine and rigged against them. At the same time, she tries to contact her brother, who is in a minor position in the military, to help them out.

Tumandok embodies the function of film as testimony: the film's cast consists of the actual inhabitants of Sitio Kabarangkalan, speaking in their own language, telling their stories directly to you. As testimony, films like Tumandok also help tell stories that would otherwise be ignored - for example, many may not be aware of an incident where the police killed several Tumandok leaders in 2020. 

Tumandok is also an embodiment of film as history and documentation: to tell one's story and shape histories. At one point in the film the residents of Sitio Kabarangkalan stage a performance for a public official's visit, and also to earn money for their land title. The song and dance is not theirs, not a part of their culture, and some of the people in the film decry it as such. That scene, (and metatextually, our viewing of it) reflects our own skewed view of these people in popular media, views that are distorted in "art" that is not made by the people it depicts. Art as a reflection of truth is art in its most powerful form.

The second thing that struck me during my viewing of Tumandok didn't happen during the screening, but in the talkback session after it: one gentleman, visibly moved by what he just saw, talked to the filmmakers, and related his own experience as part of an indigenous community in the Cordilleras. Films help people share experiences, and solidarity is formed in that sharing. Tumandok is a tremendous work, testimony and history combined, a film that reaches beyond the four walls of the cinema.

To help the people of Sitio Kabarangkalan regain their land, you can donate by clicking this link.

Paleng (Edmund Telmo) and Eliong (Andre Miguel) are lovers living in a small seaside community. Eliong is the son of the mayor (Raul Arellano), who is grooming the boy to be his successor. At the same time, the mayor seeks to evict the inhabitants of the seaside communities, including the one where Paleng lives. The community fights back, led by Mrs. Buhisan (Sue Prado) but the mayor has a retinue of goons supporting him. In one operation, said goons conduct a 'purge', and Eliong is seemingly killed. But when a fisherman (Perry Dizon) catches a mysterious rock from an ocean trench, things begin to change.

Kantil is a film that is admittedly unable to contain its creative audacity, though it puts up a noble attempt: it weaves together many stories and builds a world that feels alive and lived in. It feels very personal with its central romance but there is a feeling of something larger, something cosmic in scale, going on beyond these characters. 

Many little things pop out to me while watching: the sheer randomness and happenstance in which power comes to people, the lengths to which people hold on to that power, and the capriciousness of that power being taken away, as a sort of corrective action bestowed by the land itself. There is also the community who, when continuously faced with their own destruction, relies on its own solidarity, and the cliched (but in this case, welcomed) trope of love enduring beyond death, persevering beyond time.

Cinemalaya 2024: The Hearing, Shorts A

 

A young deaf-mute boy, Lucas (Enzo Osorio) lives a quiet life in a quiet seaside town. But that peace is upended when the local priest (Rom Factolerin) rapes him. Lucas' parents (Mylene Dizon and Nor Domingo) take the priest to court, but they are immediately met with backlash from the community. Meanwhile, Maya (Ina Feleo) is a sign language teacher who faces marital difficulties at home. She is eventually assigned to Lucas' case.

There's so much tension in the ensuing courtroom scenes in Lawrence Fajardo's The Leaving, partly because of Fajardo's expert treatment of point of view: much of the film, especially during crucial parts of dialogue, are filmed in Lucas' perspective, as if to make us feel his confusion and anxiety. Since Lucas doesn't have any formal training in sign language, relay interpreters are used: one translating the hearing parts of sign language, and another to translate that standardized sign language to something that Lucas understands. The anxious waiting in between his responses creates a sort of gap in between the unconscious tension that we feel through the filmmaking and what is created when we understand what the boy is saying.

Maya's sideplot in the film involves her being unable to speak out against her abusive husband. This sideplot doesn't entirely gel with the rest of the story, though the intent is to show that a disability is not the reason why people are unable to speak, it is courage (or the lack thereof) that prevents them from doing so. It is ironic that the one person who wants to speak the loudest is physically unable to do so properly with the world of whose who can speak and hear.

And what takes his voice away from him? It is a lack of institutional support (education, interpretation, etc) for deaf and deaf-mute people. Without support, attaining justice becomes exponentially harder. I've found one quote that sums this up quite well, and it comes from a support group for disabled people: the biggest barrier for people with disabilities is not merely their own disabilities, it is how society disables them. In our neglect, we are the ones disabling our own people. That's a chilling thought.

*

Shorts A Short Reviews

The first two shorts that I saw in the program dealt with grief; having gone through grief myself, I found myself connecting with these two shorts the most. In the first, Abogbaybay, three brothers deal with the untimely loss of their mother in different ways: one is firmly in denial, seeking the sea to find his mother, another takes the responsibility to bring her home, and a third lets his grief run wild, floating like ashes in the sky.

I'm not sure if it was Ayala Malls Manila Bay's overly loud sound system or something inherent in the film itself, but the sound design of All This Wasted Space immediately popped out to me: seemingly louder, made even more so in the cramped spaces of a house that is empty (no people) but not emptied (filled with memories). It reminds me of something I'm writing in my book about grief: that it speaks loudest in silence.

There's a lot of quirky fun in Ambot Wa Ko Kabalo Unsay I-Title Ani, in that during the creative process, sometimes you don't really know the direction a work of art is gonna go - that much is evident in the wishy-washiness of the title. It's gonna be relatable to anyone who's picked up a camera on a whim.

An Baga Sa Dalan reminds me a lot of Khavn's Balangiga, opening with a depiction (in this case, a recollection) of horrific violence, and then a journey to a mythical land as a means of emotional and spiritual healing. However, the treatment in this case isn't as well made, even though it deals a lot with pertinent issues that should definitely be addressed.

And finally, there is another kind of response to a kind of death that is not grief in Pamalandong sa Danow. In it, people fight with all they have to stop the end of their way of life, to push back the darkness so to say. It's a hard battle, but in the solidarity these three friends have, that fight is a whole lot easier than fighting it alone.

Cinemalaya 2024: Alipato at Muog, An Errand

 

In this country, Jonas Burgos is perhaps the most well known of the desaparecidos: the victims of enforced disappearances perpetrated by state forces. Ever since he was abducted in 2007, Burgos has not resurfaced, despite a supreme court resolution that holds both the armed forces and the police accountable for his disappearance. His story was dramatized by Joel Lamangan in 2013 into a feature film, Burgos, starring Lorna Tolentino.

Alipato at Muog (Embers and a Fortress) is a documentary delving into Burgos' case and his family's search for the truth, while also showing that Jonas Burgos' case is not unique: thousands of Filipinos have disappeared since the time of Martial Law, and many still vanish to this day. At the same time, it's a personal story, as the film's director, JL Burgos, is Jonas' brother.

"A tomb is the beginning of justice," JL notes near the end of the film. There is something deeply tragic about someone who just vanishes without a trace - in the space where that person once was, grief cannot easily fill it; in that uncertainty, there is little room to mourn. The truth and the search for justice are both forms of closure not just for the person who is gone, but also those he leaves behind. In the film's final moments, in front of a crackling fire, JL and his family show that the best response to the lack of closure is to live a normal and fulfilling life, to never forget, to keep the embers of a man burning for as long as memory allows, to honor a man who gave and gave and gave parts of himself until, in the end, there was nothing at all.

An immediate peculiarity upon watching Dominic Bekaert's An Errand: DP Steven Evangelio frames the film's protagonist, Moroy (Sid Lucero) inside side mirrors and reflective surfaces, as he eavesdrops and listens in to the conversations of people who ride in his car. It's as if we are in the car, listening in with him... or looking back at him listening to us. It is a strange kind of intimacy: one whose obtuseness creates emotional distance despite being physically immediate. At times, the camera slowly zooms into his face, as if to search for meaning that isn't quite there. 

The central conceit of An Errand is a mundane, if absurd, task: deliver a gaudy t-shirt and a tin of viagra via a roundtrip from Manila to Baguio. The titular errand itself doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, as it is merely used to frame its central character's deeply personal search for meaning.

Its treatment eschews many conventions of narrative, the finished film more like a tone poem that evokes a mood rather than a story that brings us from A to B. If you're not in the mood, it's not going to work as well as it should. But to me, the film's (alleged) abstruseness is a feature and not a bug.  

Moroy is living a life as fake as the watch he sports: one modeled after his boss, his idylls filled with fantasies of a life that is not his. When he tries to say that he and his boss aren't so different and gives a justification of his relatively humdrum life to his boss mistress (Elora Españo), she points out the artifice in his words. 

One thing that occupies most of the goings-on of drivers like Moroy is waiting: seemingly endless stretches of time in stasis, in strange, unfamiliar places, or in transit to them, silently, in a vehicle. His journeys are rarely ones he takes for himself. Moroy's eventual emotional journey is one that tries to find itself out of homeostasis, to take a detour, if not a completely different path.

Cinemalaya 2024: Love Child, Gulay Lang, Manong

 

Adapted from his short story of the same name, Jonathan Jurilla's Love Child begins in a period of transition: Pao (RK Bagatsing) and Ayla (Jane Oineza) are in the process of moving to the province with their young son Kali (John Tyrron Ramos) in tow. Kali has just been diagnosed with autism and is currently non-verbal; in order to cut costs and rent and provide a healthy environment for their son, Pao and Ayla move to a relative's home in Negros Occidental. Kali was born out of wedlock, and both Pao and Ayla have issues with their parents that either abandoned them in their childhood and are trying to reach out, or are not fully accepting of Pao and Ayla's present situation.

Parenthood entails sacrifices, and some parents sacrifice more than most: in one instance Kali shreds one of his mother's certificates. Ayla, a talented debater and promising lawyer, had to cut her career short, while Pao, an equally promising filmmaker, is relegated to screening his award winning films as a side attraction of his coffee cart in order to make ends meet.

The film leans on the casting of Oineza and Bagatsing, both a love team and a couple in real life, by presenting the film as a sort of epilogue to a rom-com. Both characters question themselves throughout Love Child if their decisions prior to the film, to choose the idea of love conquering all, have culminated in a life they would have wished for themselves. While they see colleagues flourishing, they're stuck. It's presented sometimes with cheesy, clunky dialogue, as if to use the conventions of the genre ironically, because this is nowhere near any idealized fantasy version of their life.

It's a bit of a paradox to me, because I see the film as both a tragedy and an incredibly romantic film, without a doubt this couple's most romantic outing ever. It's a tragedy in that these two shouldn't be struggling in the first place - to meet the needs of a special needs child should not be a luxury reserved only for the rich. Had Pao and Ayla not had the privileges of their middle class status, Kali might not even have the capacity to go to school at all; in fact, without the resources needed for specialized care, he might not even get diagnosed in the first place. The film offers a parallel to the story of Ayla and Pao, where both of the parents of an autistic child work abroad, leaving the child in the care of their grandparents, but that is itself an indictment of the material realities such parents, special needs children or not, have to face to take care of their families - to keep it together, families sometimes have to be split apart.

And while it flouts the structure of a rom-com, Love Child still operates on something like an 'ideal' romantic setting: Pao is laser focused on his family, while parents of autistic children tend to divorce or separate at rates higher than the general population. The love fostered by Pao towards his wife and son isn't one borne out of meet cutes or kilig moments, it is borne out of a conscious, everyday decision to love and cherish something bigger than yourself. As I've gotten older over the years, I've found that that is the greatest kind of love you can give.

Long demonized by sensationalist and conservative media (1936's Reefer Madness immediately comes to mind), Marijuana has been looped into harder and more dangerous drugs in the public consciousness, even if it is not as addictive or harmful, and even if some of the active components of the plant have proven useful for a plethora of neurological disorders. The latter isn't even breaking news; studies investigating the benefits of compounds like THC and CBD have existed since the nineties. I'm of the opinion that at the very least, Marijuana should be legalized and regulated for medicinal use (to ensure consistency in dose, etc). And personally, I don't see why it shouldn't be legalized for recreational use, either - if we're going to compare, alcohol, which is legal and widely available in the country, is far more dangerous and detrimental to public and personal health.

BC Amparado's Gulay Lang, Manong! is a spirited argument for the legalization of Marijuana, at least for medical use. Pilo (Perry Dizon) is a farmer in Benguet living with his grandson Ricky (BJ Forbes.) When, by sheer coincidence, Ricky is caught by policeman Ariel (Cedrick Juan), the officer recruits Pilo into a scheme to expose the entire drug 'cartel' in the province.

What follows next is relatively loose and occasionally trippy as Pilo, Ariel and right hand man/marijuana grower Razer (Ranzel Magpantay) deliver a stash of specially cultivated Marijuana called Super Jane to a big and influential client. This is where, in a cliched setup, Ariel learns the error of his ways and changes for the better, but this film's ending is far more complicated. What eventually happens reflects the deeply seated prejudice towards Marijuana in society, a prejudice that has been sustained across generations due to misinformation, a religious culture and an accompanying deeply seated moral anxiety. The shift towards acceptance and legalization takes a paradigm shift, but that shift is slowly taking roots. 

That holds true for this film as well: by the end, the seeds (metaphorically and literally) have already been planted. A sideplot in Gulay Lang, Manong! concerns Pilo's struggle to stay financially afloat. He constantly faces exploitation from middlemen and inconsistent demand from shopkeepers. All throughout the film we see farmers dispose of wasted harvests and food left unsold. In one particular scene, out of desperation, Pilo sells two crates of perfectly good vegetables at a huge discount. The film makes an argument not only for Marijuana's health benefits, but also its economic benefits - to farmers like Pilo who are consistently taken advantage of by an unfair system. In its own way, to grow it is to protest that very system.

Cinemalaya 2024: Balota, Shorts B

There's been a bit of discourse going around, especially in the context of the upcoming US presidential elections, about the utility of elections themselves - especially when you consider the fact that for some people, voting for either candidate offers little material difference as many of their policies (for example, in the ongoing genocide in Palestine) aren't so different. For others, it seems obvious that voting against the clearly unhinged candidate with immediate detrimental effects towards minority groups should be the imperative choice, even though they don't exactly like the seemingly saner alternative. It boils down to a question of elections as a moral choice versus a utilitarian action, and whether the two concepts could coexist.

There's a tinge of frustration that can be felt all throughout Kip Oebanda's Balota, perhaps some of it borne from the results of the recent national elections. This sentiment is felt most palpably at the end. It's easy to fall into the trap that the movie is cynical about our state of affairs, but I believe it offers a more pragmatic look at the situation at hand.

The film follows Emma (Marian Rivera), a teacher in a small town not unlike any other in our country. In the Philippines, most of the grunt work of the elections falls on the shoulders of teachers like Emma, and they are tasked with maintaining the integrity of the vote. As the gaudy political ads in the beginning of the film show, neither candidate running for mayor is appealing: Hidalgo (Mae Paner) is firmly in the establishment, and her promises of "continuity" means the continuity of her own financial and political interests. On the other hand, the unsubtly named Edraline (Gardo Versoza) promises change, but the ominous macho symbolism and the aforementioned name that evokes past dictators doesn't exactly inspire much  confidence in his integrity either.

When Emma and her fellow poll worker are ambushed in order to seize the votes and declare a failure of elections, Emma barely manages to escape with her life. Now followed by goons that she believes are in the employ of the incumbent Hidalgo, she decides to go to Edraline in order to protect the vote. Emma seems to be the most dedicated to protecting these votes, while most of her fellow townspeople, well aware as to the farcical nature of the election season, are seemingly more concerned with their own survival. Two of those fellow townsfolk, Ehrmengarde (Esnyr Ranollo) and Babe (Sassa Gurl) find themselves campaigning for either candidate, even though their actual political affiliations are different - they're just working and hustling for their own benefit.

What happens next with Emma is a tense and fairly entertaining genre exercise where it's a cat and mouse game between Emma and her pursuers. At least for a while, it's made ambiguous as to who exactly is behind it all, but ultimately, does it matter? The film's climax focuses not on either candidate as a solution to the problem at hand, but on the capacity of the people themselves to enact change. As one character states in the film, change doesn't happen overnight, in the course of one election. Even in an electoral system where each detail is controlled by those in power, it's important to continue to participate in democratic processes like elections, make utilitarian decisions if needed and elect pro-people candidates into power, but it is also equally important to participate in mass actions, protests and other such movements to hold people in power accountable. The frustration at the very end of the film is understandable, since this is a never-ending process and one that taxes the mind and soul, but that doesn't mean we should give up. 

Balota isn't subtle in presenting its thesis, and it's a lesson that (hopefully) doesn't go over the heads of the relatively progressive or liberal-leaning crowds at Cinemalaya, though the true test is going to be with reaching audiences outside of the fest.

*

Cinemalaya 2024 Shorts B Short Reviews

Thanks to conversations with other people who have seen the set at different times or in different theaters, I've found that the order of these films varies depending on the screening. From a programming and thematic standpoint, there is an optimal order for watching these films and that's not going to be the case if they are randomized, and in my case, the order wasn't the best. Either way, here are some reviews:

Ryan Capili's I Was Walking on the Streets of Chinatown touches on similar ground as contemporary JT Trinidad's the river that never ends and like people, they change too, in that both films metatextually comment on the utility of memory (and to an extent, nostalgia) on ever-changing urban topologies. We create films with memories about places that no longer exist, paradoxically rendering them immortal and lamenting their death at the same time. Though Trinidad's films include the detrimental effects of capitalism on physical and temporal spaces in their films (especially the river that never ends), Capili's approach is still pretty mesmerizing, it's final frames showing spaces without the people that dream of them. 

To elaborate on my previous short review of Sam Manacsa's Cross My Heart and Hope to Die, the film's title and structure is built on promises, either by unscrupulous employers or by aggrieved individuals. The point is that promises, once meant to be social contracts, unbreakable and set in stone, are now used to exploit people, dangling unmaterialized rewards above desperate people's heads in order to gain their fealty (or at least, their begrudging support.)

Alexandra Brizuela's Mama intersects much with last year's Maria, with both films tackling similar concepts. I feel that the former is a much better presented film than the latter, if only for the fact that its shorter runtime helps it laser focus on the topic instead of meandering towards other subjects. Candles are used as a sort of motif in this film - in funerals, candles are used to signify the continuation of the deceased in spirit, and the continuation of their life, in memories, after death. But in birthdays, these same candles celebrate the burning of a life that lives on, despite hardships and suffering, one that stays aflame even when time relentlessly marches on.

Mariposa is relatively straightforward as documentaries go, and lets its powerful central story speak for itself. It is filled with powerful and indelible images - in one scene, various victims of abuse vent out their anger and frustrations, perhaps the most striking visualization of trauma I've seen in a while.

And finally, the casting of Meryll Soriano as the lead of Sonny Calvento's Primetime Mother is an inspired choice - her father, for one, is best known for hosting the types of shows the short film criticizes, and at one point, in 2006, 73 people died in order to gain a spot at one of his shows. Much like his previous Excuse Me, Miss, Miss, Miss, Calvento's film is about an exploitative culture that leads into that exploitation's absurdity, where people are dehumanized and treated as replaceable, their main commodity being their 'stories' and their ability to use their pain as entertainment.