QCinema 2018 | All Grown Up

We end this year's QCinema competition coverage with what is probably one of its bravest and boldest films, Wena Sanchez's documentary All Grown Up. I say this because Sanchez bares her life story to all of us, with all of the baggage and naked, raw emotion that comes with it. It's such a bold thing for a filmmaker to show her vulnerability in such a profoundly frank way that I  have to give Sanchez and her family props for doing so. It's deeply personal and also deeply affecting, because it draws on real hopes and fears.

And what are these hopes and fears? They are the kind that linger in many of us. The fear of a parent worried about the future of their child as they grow ever older. The fear of a child thrust into adulthood too fast, too soon. The fear of a daughter who feels she has disappointed her parents. The fear of a parent who thinks he or she hasn't done enough - or too much.

Sanchez tries to articulate these feelings, and you can hear the doubt and fear in her voice every time she makes an important decision for herself, her child or her family. There is the feeling of trying to save everyone, but failing, and there is the feeling of frustration that follows it.

But there is also the decision to persevere despite these problems. "Pain is inevitable," said Haruki Murakami, "Suffering is optional." There is love here in this family, and life goes on. There are regrets, sure - there's one scene in particular near the end that articulates these regrets and fears so well that it left me in tears - but all we can do is keep on walking.

QCinema 2018 | Billie & Emma

There's a lot being talked about in Billie and Emma, the latest film by Samantha Lee. It's a film that talks about the inherent rights of women over their own bodies. It's a film that talks about the dissonance of the words and actions of religious institutions.  Like Rubyfruit Jungle - the novel that figures prominently in the film - it is a coming-of-age tale. But most importantly, and above all that, it's a love story between two girls who are only beginning to carve out their place in the world.

It's a sweet and relatable tale. Anyone who has been in a catholic school (especially an all girls school) will identify with these two girls. Everyone who has had an awkward transition fitting into a completely new environment can relate. And there are also relatable things that warm the heart: the stirrings of a newborn love. Being emotionally moved by a piece of art. A first kiss. The comfort of someone who truly loves you.

The film eases into its groove gently and tenderly, using the tropes and form of teen romance to tell a story that has been relatively underrepresented in contemporary Philippine Cinema. Perhaps one could fault it for being too on the nose at times, but it ultimately manages to avoid cliche. It's quiet and understated, but brave in the points it tries to make, and if only for that, we are all the better for it.

QCinema 2018 | Cold War, Itoshi no Irene

When we start off Pawel Pawlikowski's film Cold War, we are treated to a barren wasteland: Poland during the postwar period. The country has gone through major upheavals: its population was ravaged by the war and the holocaust, its borders were changed by Churchill, either for his own political gain or to appease his wartime allies, and its people are scattered and recovering from this trauma. The film then posits: what kind of love can blossom from this ruin? The answer is, it seems, the tragic kind.

Zula (Joanna Kulig) and Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) are both rebellious and free, though they work as cultural performers in a Mazurka troupe. They quickly fall in love with each other, though it's clear that they're both profoundly broken in the inside. The rest of the film plays like tracks in a record, skipping forward in time and showing scenes and vignettes of their life together, as they try to reconcile their broken selves. It's a tumultuous, tragic tale, told beautifully through Pawlikowsky's mastery of the mise en scene. It's further accentuated by the film's boxy frame, as if to trap them together for life, unable to act against forces beyond their control. And in a way, their love story is the story of postwar Polish identity: a struggle to heal and reconcile conflicting ideologies in the postwar recovery period, struggling to gain their own sovereignty under Soviet influence. The greater political cold war that goes on around them reflects their own, internal cold war.

The film goes through its bleak yet fascinating motions, accompanied by a soundtrack of jazzy beats and folk music. Later in the film, these folk songs are reinterpreted through jazz, a reimagination of songs that define the Polish ego. The film eventually endsdecades before the end of the People's Party, but there is the promise of something greater. There is the promise of togetherness, but only through rebirth, revolution and further upheaval.

Cold War works on many levels, as a bleak love story, or as a greater examination of a country in healing.

One particular curiosity with the live action adaptation of Itoshi no Irene is its English title: Come on Irene. It's a play on words, coming from the title of Dexys Midnight Runners' 1982 single Come on Eileen (the two are pronounced virtually the same in Japanese.) In that song, a man continually asks a woman named Eileen: 'You in that dress/My thoughts I confess/Verge on dirty.' In the context of this film, it takes a different, and slightly disturbing, turn.

Based on Hideki Arai's 1990's manga series, Itoshi no Irene is about Iwao Shishido (Ken Yasuda), an unkempt, socially inept man whose life mainly consists of working in a pachinko parlor and jacking off to porn at night. It's understandable why he hasn't gotten far with any of his attempts at a relationship. In his frustration (mainly for sex), he heads to the Philippines where he scores a bride, Irene (Natileigh Sitoy), much to the consternation of Iwao's overbearing, elderly mother.

Most of the first half consists of this comedy of cultural incompatibilities. It's funny, and a little sweet at the same time. One could almost gain a little sympathy or goodwill for Iwao's character at this point. But an event near the middle, and the subsequent events that follow, takes all that goodwill away. Because of that event, Iwao acts out with infidelity and deviant behavior, making him truly one of the most unlikeable characters in contemporary cinema.

I was ready to dismiss the film until I realized that the true focus of the film is on Irene, and the film stands as a stark indictment of Japanese society, criticizing its rigid adherence to old ways, or its deeply ingrained sexism and racism, or the societal pressures on sex or marriage, or the international class divide that allows arranged marriages and mail order brides to happen. Irene is the sole sympathetic character in the film, who only wants to earn money for her family. She genuinely wants to fall in love with Iwao and make their relationship work. She is a far more complex individual than her husband or in-laws make her out to be. Though portrayed as an airhead, she's playing the long game, and is genuinely the kindest person in the film, forgiving horrible people for horrible actions. It's seen in the cultural differences between the Japanese and Filipino views on infidelity, or parenthood, with one culture putting filial piety above all else, while the other takes that piety to such pragmatic extremes that leaving parents to die on the mountain for the sake of the larger family is a reasonable option.

This film will likely not please everyone thanks to the direction it decides to take during its latter half, but there's a message behind the chaos of the film, and it's quite a ballsy thing to say, considering the Japanese are putting themselves on a stage, and the picture they paint isn't flattering at all.

QCinema 2018 | Dog Days

The first act of Timmy Harn's Dog Days is exciting stuff. There's a blood sacrifice that gives a half African-american child supernatural powers. There's sex and basketball and a crazy aunt. There's a magical, mysterious Mitsubishi Galant. It's all crazy, but not too crazy. The first act of Dog Days is worth the price of admission.

Then things get weirder. Once the second act kicks in, the plot goes in weirder and weirder directions. Or rather, you can say that the film decides to stay still and chill for a while. It's as if the movie itself took drugs and the high only kicked in during the second act. But this high is more weed than speed, and the film ends up meandering and bloated by the third act, becoming even harder and harder to engage with it.

There are some interesting ideas at play here, like how the Galant represents the main character's mother, or how it eventually ties into a sort of Oedipal dynamic, as there's a lot of sex in or near cars in this film. There are also thoughts about corruption in the drug trade, our inherent racism towards foreigners, the effect of a broken family, and the perils of nepotism. The ending even has an interesting turn where the mother-son dynamic (or rather the car-son dynamic) is pushed to extremes, with the son yearning to return to the mother's womb when all is said and done. But that's all kind of lost by the ending, where the high seems to have worn off and we are returned to some semblance of reality.

QCinema 2018 | Oda sa Wala

The silence of the opening minutes of Dwein Baltazar's Oda sa Wala is telling. It helps us settle down into our protagonist Sonya's routine, and it establishes her utter lack of social interaction. Her loneliness becomes palpable, mirrored in the drab grays and browns of the frame. She is positioned at the center of the frame, but at the same time she almost blends into the picture, as if she wasn't there, like a walking ghost. The title, then, becomes accurate: an ode to nothing, to the invisible, to the unseen. In that case, it shares themes with another film I saw this year, James Mayo's Kuya Wes. But while that film dealt with its themes through romance and comedy, Oda sa Wala takes a wholly different route.

The film takes Sonya's plight and makes it more and more absurd by the minute. As the proprietor of a funeral parlor, she deals with dead bodies on a daily basis. When an unclaimed dead body lands on her doorstep, she starts talking to it, feeding it, giving it clothes. As it goes on, she gains more confidence to interact with other people. She begins to interact with the taho vendor that she has a crush on. She interacts more with her customers. Her father (Joonee Gamboa) even joins in with Sonya's plan. But what is happening here? Is it folie a deux, is something ghostly truly going on, or are we concerned with nothing at all? What is real, and what is not? Indeed, when someone remains unseen, are they even real at all? The film's ambiguity becomes its strongest aspect, knowing that for many viewers, genuine enjoyment stems from trying to put the pieces together long after the movie has ended.

Marietta Subong, 'debuting' here under her real name, emerges as a force to be reckoned with. She captures the pain of isolation and loneliness perfectly, and her performance here (along with her performance in Sol Searching) belongs among the year's best. A clever script also complements the story with humor, and Subong manages to make the most of it as well.

For all the film's absurdity, at its core we have a story of a woman whose only desire is to be seen and heard, an invisible shooting star in a dark sky, a moth drawn to a flame, ephemeral and short lived, bound by invisible forces wrought from culture and society at large that conspire to leave her behind. Though the film thrives in mundane affairs, there is magic between these frames, and that is why it is one of the year's standouts.

QCinema 2018 | Masla A Papanok

Watching Gutierrez Mangansakan II's latest film, Masla A Papanok, reminded me of his earlier film, Qiyamah, in that both films involve an apocalypse. While the earlier film's apocalypse is much more literal, this one involves the ending of something quite different: the destruction of cultures, kingdoms, and memory.

The film takes place in the 1890's, during a period of transition from Spanish to American hegemony. Bai Intan, a princess, is taken in by a convent and converted into Christianity. She has difficulty acclimating to the new environment and culture, but eventually settles in. There is an attack at the convent, then a retaliation for that attack. A mythical bird, a harbinger of doom, signals the start of bad things to come.

The film shifts between the perspectives of the tribe and the Spaniards, switching from monochrome to desaturated color, like in a colorized photograph. The filmmaking style also seems to shift: from something from the early days of cinema to something that feels a little more modern. But the color soon fades into night, as entire cultures are wiped away by colonial ambitions. They remain in fragments and fever-dreams in the mind of Bai Intan, years later, the last vestiges of her cultural memory. And like her country and her people, she has been irrevocably changed by the experience. The papanok ("bird" in Maguindanaon vernacular) fortells this tragedy, yet it reappears in modern times, perhaps signifying a continual destruction of cultures, or something even darker.

The film takes it slow, even at a leisurely 85 minutes, and it's dense with meaning. Though I'm not totally convinced with some of the aspects of its presentation, Masla A Papanok is a film worth poring over.

QCinema 2018 | Hintayan ng Langit

Based off of Juan Miguel Severo's Virgin Labfest play, Hintayan ng Langit takes place in "the Middle," a purgatory-like space where the souls of the recently deceased wait for their eventual entrance into heaven. Manolo (Eddie Garcia), who has recently arrived, is roomed in with Lisang (Gina Pareno). It turns out that the two were ex lovers, and old feelings begin to surface once more.

The film expands the play and tries to establish the world it is set in, showing the various things souls-in-waiting do in the afterlife. The film also tackles issues of death and dying, of moving on from the perspective of both the bereaved and the departed. It leads into several poignant moments, including a rumination on one's second death: that moment where one is forgotten by the living.

Yet all that is secondary to the central love story, a story of two people who missed their chance to be together in life, now reunited, exploring that single, nagging question: "what if?" It's an opportunity that I don't think either character would have seriously considered in their lives, but now, in the afterlife, all bets are off. The film is carried by the excellent performances of Eddie Garcia and Gina Pareno, full of humor and charm. The film posits a choice between heaven and something far less perfect, and the outcome of that choice may not resonate with everybody. In fact, it is during the denouement where the film stumbles a bit: it hurries towards its conclusion, leading to implications that end up poorly explained and are prone to be misunderstood. Thanks to the strong performances, it ended up having an emotional impact on me anyway, even though I'm not completely on board with how the film sorted itself out.

Hintayan ng Langit is charming, well acted, and awfully sweet, but one's mileage may vary.

QCinema 2018 | Pag-ukit sa Paniniwala

 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." - Genesis 1:27

There is a scene in Hiyas Bagabaldo's Pag-ukit sa Paniniwala that deconstructs and inverts the bible passage above: there is a shot of a master wood sculptor working on his latest creation. a statue of the crucified Christ. Yet there is a drawing on a nearby table, perhaps a reference drawing, showing the face of Christ not as an Aramaic Jew, or as a Caucasian man as seen in many contemporary western art pieces, but as a man with vaguely Filipino features. The finished product is even more telling. God creates man, man beholds God, and man (re)creates God in his own image.

The film documents religious celebrations in Paete, Laguna, following two threads relating to the intersections of faith and art. In the first, we see the creation of religious iconography from tree-stump to finished product, and in the second, we see stage presentations of bible stories presented during the town's fiesta. There is no narration, the film deciding to show us these things as is. It's a riveting experience, similar to last year's Bundok Banahaw. In his quest to glorify his god, man creates art, making God's image, recreating God's suffering, reliving his life and telling his stories. It's a mix of traditions that are either native or brought over by our Spanish colonizers.

The visuals can seem surreal at times; with workshops strewn with body parts and finished works. The process seems unending, cyclical, one iteration giving rise to another. It's a remarkable cinematic work, one of the best local documentaries of the year.

QCinema 2018 | Shoplifters, Burning

One of the most powerful moments of Hirokazu Kore-eda's film Shoplifters occurs near the end. It is a statement made by Nobuyo Shibata (Sakura Ando) that is an affirmation of her family's dignity as people, as flawed as they may be. The Shibatas may have been thrown away by society at large, but they have picked each other up, finding love and acceptance with each other. And it is this notion of kazoku - 'family' - that is at the very heart of this film.

Shoplifters documents the life of this unlikely family as they go through the motions, supporting their household through the Shibata matriarch's pension and through petty crime. It's warm and fuzzy, light and humorous, a slice of life approach similar to Kore-eda's Umimachi Diary (2015). Both films also deal with a new addition to the family: this time, it's little Yuri, who the Shibatas find alone in the cold. She's obviously gone through some level of abuse, and instead of returning her to her parents, the Shibatas decide to keep her. Nobuyo instantly takes to the little girl, and in one scene they find that they have similar scars on their arms - bonding them through shared trauma.

And trauma and disconnection defines the Shibatas in a way - Hatsue (Kirin Kiki) is a lonely pensioner, her only wish not to die alone. Aki (Mayu Matsuoka) works in an establishment that skirts the limits of fuzoku, yearning to find connections with her customers. Osamu (Lily Franky) and Nobuyo have a deep history together, and Osamu tries to connect with his son Shota. The film doesn't fully spell these things out, and there is a certain joy in fitting the pieces together.

But there are cracks in the Shibata household that astute viewers will note from the start. And when a a sudden shift in family dynamics occurs, the film changes into something completely different. While together the Shibatas are framed in cramped spaces, but comfortable and warm, Kore-eda frames them with tons of dead space when they are not. Here comes the challenge to Japanese (and even universal) notions of family, in that the ties that bind don't need to be made out of blood. Yet the outside world doesn't see it that way, and the latter half of the film is utterly devastating, similar to one of Kore-eda's best known films, 2004's Nobody Knows.

There is a lingering melancholia in the film's final moments, a waiting to exhale, in a sense. Kore-eda masterfully crafts this moment for us, making us love a family whose existence is most unconventional.

In a way, there are thematic similarities between Shoplifters and Burning, Lee Chang-dong's first film since 2014's masterful Poetry, in that they both depict people in the invisible fringes of society, people who could disappear right at this moment with nary a ripple from the world at large.

It is an adaptation of Haruki Murakami's short story Barn Burning, a tale about desire and the vast between classes. Though perhaps it is more appropriate to call it an expansion of Murakami's work. Lee expands the story even further, turning it into an examination of class divides in Korean society, contrasting protagonist Jongsu (Yoo Ah-in) and his aimless, blue collar life and the wealthy Ben (Steven Yeun), whose Gangnam lifestyle is enviable. It is perhaps best exemplified in a concept introduced in the middle of the film: the Little Hunger of the working class, and the Great Hunger of those no longer burdened by basic needs. In that regard, the powerlessness of the lower classes is evident; a scene where Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo) performs in front of Ben's wealthy friends becomes more disturbing - like watching a dog perform tricks in front of a curious audience rather than a friendly gathering. Keeping this in mind, the ending may either be cathartic or completely empty and devastating.

The film also uses Murakami's penchant for mystery and turns the central puzzle into its own thing.  Lee leaves it to us to figure it out (or not) and the inevitable dissection of whether certain things really happened or not is part of the film's charm. Lee has been known for a certain level of ambiguity in his previous films, and in this sense, Murakami and Lee are kindred spirits. Curiously, there is a speech by Donald Trump during one of the film's scenes, strengthening its statements on class and perhaps tying the film's search for truth to today's post truth world.

The film is both tribute to and deconstruction of Murakami's body of work. There are elements in the story that can be found in some of his other works: there is a person trapped in a well, referencing The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, and an invisible cat figures prominently in the film, as cats are one of Murakami's favorite motifs. The film also takes Murakami's penchant for vivid, male-centric descriptions of the female body and criticizes them, putting them into the context of Korean society, known for plastic surgery and double standards in the way women are perceived.

This is a relatively slow burn, but it smolders with tension, riveting to the last frame. Burning is a masterful piece of work by a director at the top of his game.