Stories featuring trans characters are not common in Cinemalaya, but there are some prominent examples. The strange thing about it is that both examples I'm familiar with happened in the same year. The most well-known is the late Eduardo Roy's Quick Change, whose general structure is not dissimilar to the film we'll be talking about today. The second one is the last segment in Adolfo Alix's Porno (2013), with its central character played by Angel Aquino. I have zero authority to speak on my trans brothers and sisters in terms of representation, though as someone who has viewed media depicting them over the years, I can make the following observation: on the surface it looks like we've been making strides towards better representation, but after watching Warla, I don't think we've changed enough. Corollary to that, I don't think we've significantly changed in the way we write about films with trans characters, though for both filmmaking and writing, trans filmmakers and critics are slowly and rightfully gaining visibility in that regard.
Warla is based on the real life criminal gang who kidnapped and extorted wealthy foreign nationals in order to fund their own gender affirming surgeries. Our POV character is Kitkat (Lance Reblando,) who comes to the gang after the death of her beloved mother figure. She finds family in these women as she is rejected by her own family: her traditionally macho father does not accept her identity, while her biological mother stays trapped in an abusive relationship with him. In the search for the love and support that has been denied her, Kitkat tries to cling to whoever is there for her, even if it's a criminal gang whose methods she does not necessarily agree with.
The ethos of Warla's gang is, in the midst of living in a world where your very personhood is denied, to return that same energy to that world, to deny it, to revolt. "Hindi tayo pinalaki ng sexbomb para bumawi," says Joice (Jervi "KaladKaren" Wrightson), the leader of the gang. When Barbie (Serena Magiliw) violently beats up one of their marks (Jacky Woo), she tells Kitkat that she's not doing this for revenge, though given what has happened to her previously (getting beat up by the potential stepfather of her child, for one) you get the feeling that might not be entirely the case.
That said, the presentation is a bit muddled, the film trying to get at a point that isn't as realized as it could be. The film takes a bit of time at the start by showing us slices of life from the Warla gang, but these sequences feel haphazard. By the third act the film feels like it's clumsily rushing towards a conclusion that needed some space to breathe. The film's thrust towards a certain social realist, melodramatic tone is not unfamiliar - I found myself remarking "yes, this is definitely a Cinemalaya film" - which will work for some, but is not really novel (though to be fair, I don't think it was aiming for that.)
There is no singular "trans experience," because the community is so varied, so diverse, that no singular film is representative of it. Perhaps that's why these stories flow and are structured so similarly - transformation as motivation, characters operating on the bounds of society and crossing it, the body as a canvas of suffering and/or death - they are attempts to articulate the collective pain of the community as a whole, which I guess is something shared and maybe even universal. Warla, and the canon of local trans cinema before it are noble attempts, even if they fall short. But in that regard, perhaps negotiating that articulation is better served by those within the community itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment