Present Confusion 2019 Rundown Part 1 - Philippine Cinema Favorites

So, who's top and bottom here?

2019 is coming to a close, and it's time to take a look back at the year that was. Compared to the absolutely fantastic 2018, 2019 was just... okay. It's not that there were a lot of really bad films this year; instead, average or mediocre films clogged the theaters and the tubes this year. Few films really stood out amid the noise.

Some film festivals took a break, leaving some space for moviegoers to breathe. The stalwarts of the festival circuit (Cinemalaya, C1O, QCinema) churned out some hits, though QCinema has now gone truly international with a mixed slate of local and international films. The MMFF is still (unfortunately) chugging along in its original state, victimizing four new films to sacrifice to the altar of capitalism. There are now talks of a "Summer MMFF," which is weird considering we already have the PPP for that. It looks like overly commercial filmmaking is poised to crush smaller mainstream productions and independent films in larger, mall complex cinemahouses.

Meanwhile, films are finding their second wind with microcinemas and streaming sites. iWant, Iflix, HOOQ and Netflix now all host a variety of Filipino films, and the collection is growing. The production of the first Filipino Netflix original, Dead Kids, as well as the emergence of streaming-only iWant originals, is a sign that streaming may be a potential major platform for many films in the future.

There's an influx of new blood, previous first time filmmakers are creating fantastic sophomore works, and previous indie darlings are finding themselves experimenting with mainstream studio productions. It's an uncertain world, more than it has probably ever been in the past five years, and the future looks uncertain. Who knows what 2020 will bring.

Like last year's rundown, this will be split into three parts: 1) my favorite local films of 2019, honorable mentions and my least favorite films of 2019, and notable international films of the year. This is actually a record year for Philippine Cinema: in one form or another, 132 films have been released in theaters or streaming. The number may differ depending on the inclusion criteria; mine excludes one time screenings and coproductions. Of those 132 films, as of this writing, I have seen 127, which is around 95-96 percent, a personal best.

I even saw 12 Days to Destiny. What's 12 Days to Destiny, you ask? EXACTLY.

Rules are: 1) must be a commercially released local film this year, 2) re-edits and re-releases are accepted, 3) favorites, not necessarily best. Strap yourselves in and let's get ready to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight.

Here is

John Tawasil's 

15 FAVORITE LOCAL FILMS OF 2019

15. Elise (dir. Joel Ferrer) - Elise is a polarizing film, for sure, but I really don't care. Its structure of vignettes and its depiction of a person's life as defined by other people is something rarely seen in contemporary cinema. Elise is a roughly hewn gem that deserves more attention.

14. Last Fool Show (dir. Eduardo Roy, Jr.) - The only Roy film on this list, Last Fool Show is an entertaining film that serves both as metafictional commentary and as exploration of an artist's struggle between his/her desire for art and his/her desire to earn money.

13. Babae at Baril (dir. Rae Red) - There is something tantalizing about Rae Red's solo full length directorial debut, specifically in its depiction of the genealogy of violence, a lineage of power and blood that leads men to wreak violence onto (other) (wo)men. 

12. Tayo, Sa Huling Buwan ng Taon (dir. Nestor Abrogena) - Abrogena's follow up to the surprise hit Ang Kuwento Nating Dalawa is on a completely different level compared to his previous film, depicting the inevitable pull others have on us, even over great distances and over long periods of time.

11. Sila-Sila (dir. Giancarlo Abrahan) - perhaps this year's best-written film, Sila-Sila is an intimate exploration of relationships that feels universal and inclusive. It also manages to be very profound and very funny at the same time.

10. Ulan (dir. Irene Villamor) - There's something powerful about narratives, in the stories we tell ourselves and others. Ulan explores the notion of narrative in ways we've rarely seen in local cinema. It's a departure from Villamor's previous two films, featuring the director at what may be the height of her creative experimentation.

9. LSS (dir. Jade Castro) - Perhaps the most feel good film in this list, LSS is a pleasant exploration of what art, and the mutual love of art, can do to people. As it turns out, it can bond people together, help people mend, and even change lives for the better. In a sea of crushingly depressing films, LSS is a breath of fresh air.

8. Verdict (dir. Raymund Ribay Gutierrez) - No contemporary local film, even the films helmed by Raymund Ribay Gutierrez's mentor Brillante Mendoza, has managed to capture the massive structural failings of the justice system as well as Verdict. It deservedly got the blessing of the FAP to represent us in next year's Oscar Best International Film race.

7. John Denver Trending (dir. Arden Rod Condez) - One of two Cinemalaya 2019 gems, John Denver Trending is a hard watch, because it is so heartbreaking and because it parallels real life events. In a time where the internet can ruin anyone overnight, it's also quite terrifying, because the same thing can happen to you.

6. Kalel, 15 (dir. Jun Lana) - Jun Lana has been exploring themes of sexual identity for years now, from Ang Dalawang Mrs Reyes to the more mainstream Panti Sisters. His latest film talks about the way we talk about sex (we don't), and the hypocrisies inherent in one of the few support systems we have. It is a film where silence is its greatest tragedy.

5. Edward (dir. Thop Nazareno) - Edward is one of many coming of age films that came out in 2019 (and one of a handful included in this list.) What sets it apart from the others is Thop Nazareno's own bittersweet storytelling flavor, poignant and heartbreaking in equal amounts.

4. Lucid (dir. Victor Villanueva) - Victor Villanueva steps out of his comfort zone and he, along with  screenwriter Nats Jadaone, makes this fascinating film about a very specific kind of loneliness. It's also Alessandra de Rossi's best performance in a really long time. Its only drawback is the limitations inherent in the creation of festival films, but if there were no limitations, this would be a film for the ages.

3. Cleaners (dir. Glenn Barit) - Few films have managed to follow its artistic vision and captivate even casual audiences in 2019 as well as Glenn Barit's Cleaners. It's well-made, relatable, socially conscious and a pure delight to watch.

2. For My Alien Friend (dir. Jet Leyco) - Jet Leyco may be familiar to mainstream audiences by way of his horror film Second Coming, but this is the film that made Leyco one of the year's best filmmakers in my eye. It's formally creative (perhaps one of the most creative films in this entire list), playful (thus avoiding the pretension some other experimental films have by leaning into their seriousness) and intimate at the same time. For My Alien Friend is simply a phenomenal work.

1. Isa Pa, With Feelings (dir. Prime Cruz) - When I tried to compile this list, I tried to recall which film hit all the right notes, was thematically lush, and had great lead performances. This film hit all the criteria for me. Isa Pa, With Feelings is a great romantic film, and it also serves as a call for empathy and understanding and for inclusion and acceptance, in a world that is quickly running out of those things. While far from perfect, Isa Pa, With Feelings is my favorite local film of 2019.

***

In the next installment of this rundown, we'll be talking about honorable mentions, special citations and my UnFavorite film list of 2019. Stay tuned.

Kalel, 15

Kalel is 15, and sex is everywhere. People around him are touching, feeling, fucking. He learned everything about sex himself, because his body should be a temple and frank discussions about sex never really happen. Even in the space where discussion should be open, as in a literal confessional, there is only silence. Why talk about sex as if it were a sin?

Kalel is 15, and he is keeping a secret. His HIV stands out not like stigmata, but like the sores of a leper. It is ironic, considering that his messiah walked with the sick and marginalized, yet his modern day followers do the opposite. Things not discussed become things not understood, and misunderstanding gives in to fear. With fear, empathy diminishes and even disappears.

Kalel is 15, and the system has failed him. From a bureaucracy that doesn't care about him, to medical support systems that look  at only the biological side of things and not the psychosocial side, he wants to speak out, but cannot. Silence is thus forced upon him, even though he wants to talk.

Kalel is 15, and he has no one to turn to. He is trapped, suffocating, constricted by frames and frames-within-frames. His family is shaped by the same prejudices that shaped him, and they are wrapped up in their own problems. His secret keeps him away from his peers. He turns to the last support system there is, his own faith, but the men who claim God's word for themselves shun him, as a problem to be swept away, a secret to be kept under wraps. He cannot live in the house of God, because he is a reminder of sin in more ways than one. He is alone.

Kalel is 15, and he should be living life, loving others, and doing things kids his age normally do. But we have failed him in so many ways, because we live in a world where we are not encouraged to speak.

Thoughts on The Rise of Skywalker, rewatching The Last Jedi and MMFF

If you've been following this blog since its inception in 2005 (or if you just enjoy backreading) then you'd know that Star Wars has been a part of this blog since the beginning. I care about the franchise deeply, as it is part of my childhood, my adolescence and now my adulthood. (Star Trek will always be #1 in my heart, but in terms of cultural properties, this is perhaps the only right time when a man can have more than two lovers.)

Before watching the latest installment of the franchise, I decided to rewatch the previous film in the series, Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi. Watching TLJ for the first time back in 2017 was a strange experience. I liked what I saw, but there was something about the film that I couldn't put my finger on. While former entries in the Star Wars mainline canon were endlessly rewatchable, I struggled to make myself rewatch this. When I looked at the film more closely, I saw the reason why: The Last Jedi is a good film, a deconstruction of the hero's journey, a democratization of the force, and self-critique of blockbuster cinema, the same kind of cinema that Martin Scorsese famously criticized as "not cinema." But as a franchise film, as popcorn cinema, as a delivery system for thrills and nostalgia, TLJ is a terrible example of that. The film is doggedly averse to providing the catharsis that audiences are used to, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but the vitriolic backlash to the film, not seen since the prequel trilogy, is understandable to a certain extent. The film is a bummer: a well made bummer, but a bummer still. It challenges the viewer, it disturbs them, but viewers are unused to disturbance. Viewers crave comfort, in as much as MMFF films in the Philippines provide similar experiences year after year for audiences willing to shell out their hard earned cash for it. It's hard to change audience expectations; blockbuster cinema has been out there for almost a century, and you can't overturn a century's worth of culture with one film.

That said, defenders who call TLJ the best film of the series only see the thematic richness of the film, and not its storytelling lapses. The Last Jedi is a film of contradictions, where character actions belie the themes it purports to champion. The film criticizes heroic sacrifices, but at the same time its biggest climactic moments are heroic sacrifices. The film is about rebellion, but at the same time it (inadvertently?) supports an authoritarian power structure that is not transparent. I still like The Last Jedi, almost as much as I did when I first saw it, but it's not a perfect film.

With that, The Rise of Skywalker should've been doomed from the start. It's clear that there was no overarching vision for the film, with Abrams and Johnson playing an intergalactic version of Telephone. Carrie Fisher's death changed the nature of this installment even before it was set to be made, and the original director assigned to the trilogy's conclusion was unceremoniously fired. The fact that this movie was even made in the first place is something of a minor miracle.

Yet as it is, it's not a film I can hate. Abrams "wins" the game of telephone by stepping back into safeness and by mostly ignoring Johnson's film. But ultimately, there are no winners. The trilogy's ultimate sin is its lack of cohesiveness. In giving its directors carte blanche without the collaboration or coordination necessary to make these tentpole franchises work, the whole thing falls apart. While it manages to tell good or at least passable individual stories, the overall work is a convoluted mess. Say what you will about Lucas' Prequel Trilogy, but that film had a concrete beginning, middle and end because one man stood at the helm of all three films. Who knows what would have happened if Johnson or Abrams had taken the reins of this trilogy from the start; arguably we would've gotten something far better out of it all. The Rise of Skywalker would've been a perfect sequel to an Episode VIII, but not the Episode VIII we got, In effect, we got a trilogy without a second act: The Rise of Skywalker is a sequel to a film that does not exist. Johnson was ambitious to lay out his ideas in that way, but given what happened to films like Solo: A Star Wars Story, it's not hard to see how his ideas would fly in the face of a megacorporation like Disney whose bottom line is to appease as many consumers as possible.

That said, somehow the film feels good. The catharsis, shallowly constructed or not, comes in waves. And that's where I realize that there is comfort in sameness, in safety, in the realization that you know the good guys will save the day, that we know the good guys will save the day, but that's okay. It's a feeling that harkens back to the serial films that Star Wars is inspired by. It also helps that the film does not exist in a vacuum, it is supported by the experiences of a lifetime: by seeing your first Star Wars film, whether on VHS, Betamax or in the cinema, by holding your first toy or lightsaber, by meeting friends with the same fandom interest as yourself, by learning that a beloved cast member has passed away.

The release of this film continues an ongoing conversation about the ownership of cultural properties like Star Wars, as well as commercial cinema vs art. There's obviously a divide between fans who just want to watch a new Star Wars film versus people who want more from it - comfort versus discomfort, a theme park ride versus a road trip to the unknown. Do fans own these cultural products? Should they be the ones to dictate what art should be put out there, or do they not know any better because of some cultural standard or vanguard? Is limiting the artistic freedom of a creator when dealing with these megafranchises an insult to artistic integrity, or a necessary evil?

I don't have the answers to these questions, and it remains to be seen what the sequel trilogy's legacy will be. Time has a strange way of changing things around. Back then, the Prequel Trilogy was hated, but now it lives on as a cultural artifact through memes, and the films are being reassessed. As it is, the Sequel Trilogy is an entertaining trio of films, an interesting experiment to see if the franchise could survive without the creative mind that birthed it. Right now, it comes off as more of a noble failure than anything else. But if the trilogy inspires even one child to look up to the stars, to challenge authority, to save the people they love, to be more than their name and heritage, then in its own special way, it has worked.

I don't have a decent title for this post but it contains a lot of "reviews"

You ever get that feeling where you used to love to do something, and technically you still do, but lately you just don't have the time? Yup, that's pretty much me for the past month or so. Not writing about film feels a bit weird after doing it regularly for the past five or so years, and semi-regularly for far longer than that. That, however, hasn't stopped me from watching lots of movies, and I guess this is my chance to catch up with the writing thing. Get ready for a long one.

A recent film that's been getting a rather cold response is Veronica Velasco's Nuuk. It was marketed as a psychological thriller, and fellow reviewers and/or critics held on to that notion, calling the film a bit too drab to be thrilling, too unremarkable to be engaging, and with a twist that only seems to exist for the sake of existing. That's fair, if one reads the film in a certain way. I approached this film with a blank slate, with little or no idea what it was all about. I found the film quite fascinating, actually.

Look at it like this: consider all the romantic films we've seen that take place in an exotic location. It's pretty much its own subgenre of local cinema at this point. In these kinds of films, two lovers find each other in a strange land, their own comfort being each other. In a world where a diaspora has caused Filipinos find comfort in their own countrymen, birds seeking fellow birds of the same feather. This film takes place in all kinds of places: metropolitan cities, scenic historical villages, beaches, mountains, and icy plains. Last year's Through Night and Day (which, perhaps coincidentally, was also directed by Velasco) is an icy example.

Nuuk is a deconstruction of these types of films: the exotic locale isn't exactly a place one aspires to live in. Nuuk feels more like an icy wasteland instead of a wintry paradise. Its main characters are unsympathetic as well: Alice Dixson's character is an alcoholic, a mother of dubious character, addicted to uppers, as messed up as one can be. Perhaps that's why Aga Muhlach's character is so enticing to her -  she's been conditioned by the very films this film is deconstructing that he's a good guy.

It's as bleak as it can be, and I found its silence and desolation fascinating, akin to Eastern European and Russian cinema in terms of the tone it sets. The mystery, instead of being in the center, just gets in the way of the unraveling of Dixson's character. I liked this film a lot, but it's valid to think it's probably just me.

Do you have a friend you really don't know that much, the kind of friend you maybe met one or two times over some conference or through mutuals? You add each other, maybe like each other's posts once in a blue moon, then forget they were your friend in the first place, until one day, you scroll through social media and you find that there's a prenup video of that friend, or maybe an SDE, or whatever fancy thing they're doing these days. You watch the video out of morbid curiosity. You can't fucking help it, and then it happens. Something reaches deep inside you and you can feel your asshole pucker from the cringe. It's awkward from the time you hit play to the time the video ends, and you do watch all of it, albeit in spurts. The human body is not meant to consume cringe in bulk and in those amounts.

Conceptually, Cara x Jagger seems enticing and full of promise. Imagine the idea of a woman who can remember everything and wants to forget (ignoring the fact that in the real world, such conditions are infinitesimally rare) and a man who forgets but wants to remember. It sounds super interesting. Local filmmakers seem to be attracted to this idea of forgetting in the context of hugot (over the last year or so, there have been 2 other films with similar premises). And why not? The pain of a love lost is tied closely to memory, the act of moving on tied to forgetting.

But the execution doesn't really pan out that well. There's nothing creative, visually or otherwise, about Jagger's exploration of his past memories with Cara. The film feels restricted, boxed into the romantic genre it should be trying to escape, and it feels like that feeling I described in the first paragraph above. To be fair, the film manages to elicit a great performance from Jasmine Curtis Smith, but even she can't carry the film on her back.

Two of the films in this very long post hearken back to the trashiness of early 2000s local cinema, and one of them is Mac Alejandre's The Annulment. Though to be fair the trashiness does appeal to certain audiences (no doubt it earned quite a lot in its two week+ run), the movie itself is hilariously bad and perhaps inadvertently irresponsible as well.

Its central romance does little to endear us to the characters. The film's relationship problems seem to stem partly from class differences between characters but these characters fall into stereotypes. Joem Bascon's character feels inferior because of his lower socioeconomic status, but he's depicted as a hypersexual, selfish asshole with few redeeming qualities. Lovi Poe is portrayed as benevolent but clueless. These characterizations are not only lazy, but boring to watch.

As for the actual annulment itself, the film tries to extract drama from the situation by making it out like the annulment is some great tragedy. but getting these people as far away from each other as possible is obviously for the best. In addition, it portrays annulment as bloodless and conflict-free which is a gross oversimplification of the process, and potentially irresponsible as well.

My utter lack of regard for this film is also partly because of the fact that Marriage Story came out on Netflix, and that film makes this film look pathetic.

Two Love You is not as glossy as Benedict Mique's previous film ML. Far from it, in fact -  the film is rather rough around the edges production wise. On the other hand, the film does address very interesting topics.

The film can be seen as an exploration of the ways gay men adapt to a heteronormative society, first, through the use of capital and their own resources, and second, by playing according to the rules the society has established.

It first addresses the idea of gay men acting as sugar daddies, where they sponsor a younger male financially, and reciprocation is not always found or required. The potential for exploitation is there, and in cases where the benefactor's motives aren't so pure, it certainly can be. But in a world where older gay men are marginalized and denied the chance to find love for themselves, it's understandable that some of them resort to things like this.

As the drama shifts in the second half, the film explores the phenomenon of mixed orientation marriages, where one or both parties are of differing sexual orientations. In fact, one of the producers of the film, Ogie Diaz, has such a marriage. This is, again, another way people adapt to such societies. This push for homeostasis instead of societal change may turn more than a few people off, but that's a whole different conversation entirely, and one I'm not fully equipped to address.

The message is there, but the filmmaking feels bland, often safe, and some parts don't do the film's message any favors. Still, it's worth trying out and I did appreciate it, if only at a conceptual level.

The Art of Ligaw is a pleasant film to watch, though I was a bit underwhelmed by the ligaw part, and I wish that it had made its setting (Davao) pop out a bit more, since it looks like an interesting place.

Epi Quizon is great in this film, and KZ Tandingan is at least decent for a rookie actress. I really don't have much to say about it other than that, but contemporary films set in Davao are hard to come by these days, so points for that.

Adan has the 2000's Filipino softcore formula down pat, it seems: it's set in an isolated village, where a virginal, pure woman discovers her sexuality and finds out that she likes girls. Sex ensues, of course. But I do have to ask, it's 2019. What use do I have for these kinds of films when I can always go to certain sites and get my fix there?

As far as lesbian films go, having seen this only a few days after Portrait of a Lady on Fire soured my experience of this film even more. It's obvious Adan was written and directed by men, as their gaze infiltrates this film down to the very molecule. It makes for some ridiculous scenes, such as one time where, because these two ladies are so horny, they diddle each other inside a tricycle. With those kinds of roads, I'm amazed they actually managed to do it, and the tricycle driver didn't even notice? Like at all?? The two protagonists aren't even that likeable, with both of them portrayed more as deviant sociopaths instead of characters people can relate to. If you go to this film looking for representation, sorry but you're barking up the wrong tree.

It makes you wonder, you know, what Adan really means. Perhaps an attempt to reference the Garden of Eden, paradise conflated with innocence? Or how such a garden would look if "Adan" did not exist - nothing good, if this movie's edgy ending even is to be believed? Thank you, next.

Damaso feels like a mishmash of many different things that Joven Tan has tried before in the past decade: like Echoserang Frog, it's self reflexive about movies and the genre it's trying to portray, like Petmalu, it's a musical, and like many of his other films, it's all done pretty lousily.

The film follows two narrative threads: the first follows a screenwriter named Damaso is trying to pitch a historical movie, while the second follows the film Damaso is writing, a musical adaptation of Noli Me Tangere. In the first narrative thread, much discussion is given to the idea of glorifying historical figures. For some reason, the movie tries to humanize the character of Padre Damaso, the book's antagonist. Making an obvious stand in for the systemic oppression of the Spanish into a flesh and blood character looks great on paper, but Tan does not have the faculties to pull it off. In making evil men human, their evil deeds are inextricably linked with the totality of who they are. Tan lazily dismisses Damaso's evil deeds by way of his lack of skill and storytelling finesse. He makes Damaso sympathetic, but in a way that his evil deeds are whitewashed. That's not only a gross idea, it is dangerous as well, considering the times we live in.

The disclaimer at the start of Ariel Villasanta's Kings of Reality Shows tells us to believe what we want from the film we are about to see; it is what it is. And that is perhaps the most fascinating thing about this movie: a lingering sense of doubt that seeps into the viewer while watching this film. For a "Reality Movie," questioning its reality or unreality is quite a big part of it.

The first half of the film shows Ariel (of the formerly popular duo Ariel and Maverick) begging  for money from friends and local politicians. You see, way back when they were still popular, they made a movie about their attempt to get into American Idol. It was never finished, and exists in the GMA vaults. The begging is for the rights to the movie. This part of the film depicts Ariel as the "struggling artist," looking pathetic as he kowtows to several politicians in a series of exceedingly awkward interviews - the politics of this film are pretty bald-faced, but again, how much of this is genuine sentiment is up in the air.

The second half is where things get more interesting, as Ariel succeeds and shows us the film that never got shown in cinemas. The film within a film turns Kings of Reality Shows into a strange amalgamation of a feature-length Ariel and Maverick episode and a metafictional exploration of filmmaking and failure ala Lost in La Mancha (2002) or an exploration of reality and fiction ala F for Fake (1973). Granted, its humor is woefully dated, its production value crude at best. But there's something addicting in parsing the film's authenticity, possessing something that is key to most reality shows - presenting staged moments as illusory reality.

Mikhail Red's Dead Kids plays with the thriller genre in interesting ways, but its messages feel skin-deep, and if one is looking for a film that perfectly captures the trials and tribulations of youth in contemporary times, we already have films like Cleaners, Edward and John Denver Trending.

It is a fun watch, but to be honest there isn't much else to it other than that. This year, the best film made by a Red was Babae at Baril.

If there's anything shocking about The Heiress, its probably the almost-unrecognizable Maricel Soriano in a supporting role. What happened? It's like someone cloned Maricel and something went terribly wrong during the process.

The film could have explored an interesting dynamic - that of the biological mother versus the mother that actually raises a child. Incidentally, such concepts are not new to Maricel Soriano films; her 2006 film Inang Yaya being a particular example.

The third act of the film is relatively enjoyable, but the whole thing is spoiled by a horror ending that was made just for the purpose of shocking the audience even more. It's goofy, but it's quickly forgotten.

And finally, faith based films ala Pureflix are coming to the Philippines by way of Kaibigan, with a special guest appearance by Worst Baldwin (tm), Stephen. Don't worry, he's not in the movie that much, and he's eclipsed in terms of performance by all of the other people involved in this movie.

The film plays out rather predictably, like a Hallmark Channel movie or an after school special. Drugs are portrayed as a serious problem of the youth and kids are led astray because of other bad kids, but no one dies or anything because everything's squeaky clean. It's all wholesome and cute, and the conservatism is there, but it's not as in your face as other faith-based films. That balance elevates it a bit above those films as it tries to appeal to a wider audience. One wonders where this production company will go from here.

[Cinema One Originals 2019] The Truth, Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Don't let the largely French cast and setting fool you - The Truth is very much a Hirokazu Kore-eda film. In fact, it approaches the concept of family previously explored by Shoplifters (2018) but in a different way. Placing the movie in the milieu of the French movie industry (complete with loving easter eggs to French cinema) only furthers this exploration - what are actors but conmen, trying to make you believe that falsehood is reality? In that sense, the characters of The Truth are a family of conmen trying to convince themselves that they are not a family, even though, in their own dysfunctional way, they actually are.

The venerable Catherine Deneuve holds the film together; she is the star that holds the family in orbit, even though some members of that family would rather break free. She seems to be having a lot of fun with her role, though that may partly be because Deneuve is basically playing herself.

There's a film within a film in The Truth, a sci-fi flick that seems to mirror the family's situation, but Kore-eda wisely makes things ambiguous, leaving it to us to fill in the blanks. And that is perhaps the greatest strength of the film: offering the idea that within the structure of a family, the "truth" - whether historical or not - is often subjective, tempered by biases and hazy memories.

In interviews for her latest film Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Celine Sciamma describes the role of the muse in art, in that usually she is usually depicted as a character that is beautiful just because she is there, i.e. an object or a prop. In this film, she subverts that notion, portraying the muse as an active collaborator in the creation of art. And this idea ties into the greater scheme of things - this is a film about women creating beauty, a film about women in love, and a film about women being seen.

It's remarkable how meaningful Sciamma makes the film, even though it is, at least superficially, conventionally structured. But the film is about gleaning meaning from art, and that applies to the film itself. The tragic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is reinterpreted and deconstructed, in dialogue and in a painting later on. An innocuous painting turns out to be something much more - a declaration of undying love. Hidden behind innocent facades, art bears meaning to those who know where to look.

Sciamma still takes a restrained approach, filling the film with meaningful silences. She pays close attention to crafting her mise en scene, making every frame in itself a painting. And oshe molds these cinematic images to create a final scene that epitomizes the still-developing idea of the female gaze, in which the protagonist, the camera, and the audience become one, a moment indelibly etched in memory.

[Cinema One Originals 2019] O

The first 10 or so minutes of O is filled with a frenetic energy that's rare in contemporary cinema, reminiscent of the first five or so minutes of Takashi Miike's Dead or Alive. But that energy quickly dissipates over its run, thanks to the fact that the film isn't actually finished. I actually managed to watch the film before it was taken off cinemas and it was not pretty to hear. Entire minutes went by without dialogue, music or any sound at all. The plot started making less and less sense as time went on, and when it ended, the film was a shadow of what it had promised in its first few minutes.

I had not planned to review this movie at all, but then the filmmakers "fixed" O and re-released it in cinemas a few days later. To be fair, this version does adequately address all the audio problems (at least for the most part) and considering that, in the words of the director himself, half of the film was not shot, the resulting product is remarkable, at the very least coherent.

That said, while enjoyable, O still feels largely unfinished. The story introduces and abandons many of its storylines with little to no fanfare, and the non-linear storytelling does not help in this regard. It's regrettable, but that's what happens with tight filmmaking schedules. One wonders what would've happened to the film had it been greenlit outside the festival system, but that in itself is a whole other monster: it's doubtful given the mainstream studio system we have in place right now that a film like O would have been greenlit in the first place.

[Cinema One Originals 2019] Metamorphosis, Lucid, Yours Truly, Shirley

Films or works of art that discuss or portray intersex individuals are rare. Perhaps the first of its kind in the country, J.E. Tiglao's Metamorphosis is a tender coming of age film about one such person's journey to discovering their identity.

The film does its best to be informative, though the proceedings sometimes follow a conventional melodrama (this is felt even more by the end scenes.) As a side note, perhaps partly because it was originally intended for Cinemalaya, the film feels like a Cinemalaya film stuck in another film festival.

Regardless, it's surprisingly tender and sensitive towards its subject matter. Even though it shows the long road we all have to take as a society in accepting our intersex brothers and sisters, the film shows that in your heart and mine, in the hearts of parents and siblings who love unconditionally, in the hearts of friends who find common ground (or just empathy), there is room for acceptance and love. 

NOTE: Some spoilers for Lucid are present.

Alessandra de Rossi plays Annika, an accountant who uses lucid dreaming to live an idealized version of reality. In Annika's dreams, she can snag the guy of her dreams and she can eat in fancy restaurants that she has no realistic chance of affording on her lower-middle class salary. It's all good until she meets Xavi (JM de Guzman), a mysterious man who intrudes on her dreams.

One would assume that this becomes a romantic movie where Xavi and Annika hook up. But Lucid isn't a romantic love story. I'd also argue that it isn't exactly about dreaming, either. Perhaps one would argue that the film's point is how some people use dreams as escape, or how reality is better, even though it's not  our personal ideal. That's only partially true. As Annika gains stability in her life during the second act of the film, if that notion held true, then she would be happy. 

She is not.

When Annika gains what she desires - a home, a family, companionship - she finds her dreams and reality merging, and it does nothing for her. If dreams achieved in reality become true, what then is the source of her discontent? Lucid is a film that tries to document a growing sense of loneliness that is not focused towards any one person or thing, but towards something bigger, something harder to define. It is numbness, grief and discontent towards a world whose reality has been overtaken by what society imposes on it. And that thing that society imposes, that "reality" where we suffer day by day to systems we cannot control, driven by our need to acquire capital and survive - why is that our ideal? Annika only begins to achieve a sort of peace with herself when she uses her dreams not as an instrument of escape, but as an instrument of introspection.

In terms of what it tries to say, Lucid is unlike anything I've ever seen before, and while the film is far from perfect, it is perhaps one of my favorite movies of the year.

Like last year's Pang-MMK, Yours Truly, Shirley doesn't quite feel like a film that belongs in the lineup of this festival. By itself, it's a mainstream flavored, lighthearted film about a woman who thinks her deceased husband has been reborn in the body of a popular idol.

It's occasionally cute, and Regine Velasquez-Alcasid does the best she can do with her character, considering how she was written, but it really doesn't elevate itself to more than just fluff. The film doesn't convince us why Shirley is so hung up on her husband, or why she is so determined to revive him in another's form.

There's something potentially interesting here, in that the film could show us how and why we attach ourselves to pop culture figures and icons, or perhaps an exploration of fandom. The ideas are there, but the film doesn't quite take that extra step.

[Cinema One Originals 2019] Utopia, Tia Madre, Tayo Muna Habang Hindi Pa Tayo

In the world of Dustin Celestino's Utopia, the Philippines is much like what we are right now: corruption, toxicity and bad behavior is systemic, their malignant roots invading everything. It's far removed from the modern definition of a Utopia, or even the utopia described in Thomas More's book. Utopia the film tells several stories, each connected in one way to all the others, a crime-riddled clusterfuck waiting to happen.

And as the plot threads begin to intersect and people start dying, things get pretty engaging. It's the kind of crime thriller that serves a certain audience, and understandably the sheer volume of narrative threads can be read as excessive by some. Not for this reviewer. The tone is loud, edgy, confrontational, but that's kind of the point.

A capable crime drama such as this could've been adequate by itself, but the ending of Utopia poses this question: with how things went in this movie, what if this crapsack world really was a Utopia, or at least, an idealized version of what we normally expect? What if, in the real world, things were far more cynical? The film then poses a challenge to us to help bring forth such a "Utopia," an ideal that may be far more pragmatic and closer to home, but an ideal that we can all attain by challenging the system in our own small ways.

The coming of age film is built upon a certain translation of reality through innocent eyes, filtered and reinterpreted by a child's imagination. Often in such films we see heavy, darker things made light or inconsequential because the witness, almost always a child who doesn't know better, cannot process these ideas properly. But what if that filter creates monsters?

In Tia Madre, Camille (Jana Agoncillo) is tormented by her unhinged mother (Cherie Gil.) Camille believes her mother has been replaced by an otherworldly creature, but it's unclear if her thoughts are real or if she's just making it up; the film keeps it a mystery and gives us the choice whether to believe Camille or not.

It's abstract at times, flavored with fantastical imagery bordering on horror, a freakish version of Nervous Translation. Perhaps not coincidentally, Jana Agoncillo was the lead on that film as well. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. But ultimately as the film reaches its symbolic conclusion, there's a feeling of release, even though the film continues to hold out from giving any answers to the bitter end.

The protagonists of Denise O'Hara's Tayo Muna Habang Hindi Pa Tayo treat their relationship as a sort of Schrodinger's Cat, in that if they don't observe it (i.e. acknowledge its existence), they can live in blissful ambiguity all they want. This tentativeness of a non-relationship feels safe, even though it's tempting to just go and take the step forward.

That's pretty much the premise of the movie, with both characters trying (and mostly failing) to reconcile the nature of their relationship with each other for the next hour and a half. They're both deeply flawed, and may come across as unlikeable to some, but their neuroses stem from major trauma from the past or from a stubborn attitude to love that doesn't exactly help the proceedings. 

The film is staged nicely at parts, but it doesn't quite reach the romantic mumblecore heights of its sister film That Thing Called Tadhana. It's a capable romantic film, even though it could have benefited from establishing the odds and ends of the (non) relationship a little bit more.

[Cinema One Originals 2019] Sila Sila, Shorts Program

A broken door serves as a motif in Giancarlo Abrahan's Sila Sila, in that it signifies an inability to move on, or a refusal to confront and acknowledge closure. Its main characters leave and return like planets in orbit, passing close to each other every so often, but never truly leaving. It's perhaps one of Abrahan's most personal films, and also one of his lightest.

As a slice of life, the film is lush and feels lived in. One feels like these characters are our friends, and we're in on their conversations, privy to some of their most personal thoughts. It's a testament to the film's writing and direction - Abrahan really nails the kind of film he wants to have.

As a character study, the film is solid, even though it feels a bit light compared to his previous two films. It examines how we find comfort in familiarity, how our bonds with someone else tether us to them, and how not moving on - an old fridge left where it is, a door kept broken - is still the best answer.

we want short shorts Cinema One Originals short shorts reviews 2019 edition

Last 2, 3, 4 is perhaps the first Filipino film I've ever seen, short or long, about intercollegiate cheerdance. It portrays the cheerdancer as a student athlete, both struggling with academics, their passion, and their everyday lives. However the conflict isn't as deeply felt as I feel it should be, and it rushes towards a standard conclusion.

Sa Among Agwat is a festival darling, and seeing it for the umpteenth time doesn't take away its emotional power.

Ang Lumunod Sa Atin tries to tie together guilt and trauma with something otherworldly, but it stumbles along the way by overstating its point, missing its cathartic moment thanks to tedium.

There's a clever metafictional technique employed by The Slums that will work on foreign audiences reliant on subtities: it, in addition to the whole film, is commentary on how "poverty porn" is constructed by filmmakers for their own needs, while neglecting to humanize the struggles of the poor they claim to serve.

Sa Gitna ng Lungsod begins with a conversation that wouldn't feel out of place on a contemporary facebook thread or political discussion, placing doubt on experiences felt by others for the sake of a political agenda. But further events, while on the nose, put a hamper on those notions, giving the terror and trauma of the Martial Law era a sense of palpability.

And finally we have Ang Gasgas na Plaka ni Lolo Bert, a sweet tale about an old man who finds companionship (and even love?) in an unlikely place. It's a cute, well-acted, sentimental piece, with just the right amounts of comedy and fuzziness.

[Cinema One Originals 2019] The Lighthouse (opening film)

note: spoilers present. 

Nothing else matches the phantasmagoria of Robert Eggers' The Lighthouse. Set in a remote lighthouse somewhere off the coast of New England, two men (Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson) are tasked with taking care of the place. However, as the storm comes and with any chance of relief becoming more remote, madness begins to set in.

The film can be interpreted in different ways: as a retelling of the Promethean myth, where seagulls replace eagles, where light replaces the knowledge of fire. It can be seen as a treatise on loneliness, on our need and capacity to bond, on masculinity, with the lighthouse serving as a phallic beacon to homoerotic tendencies. It can be seen as the capacity of workers to tolerate labor under unjust conditions, with any promises of hope or compensation dashed by the treachery of man, leading to bloody revolution.

Whether the madness is just that, or a function of something bigger and more mysterious, something Lovecraftian in scope, only we can decide. It's a mesmerizing puzzle that begs to be solved, but eludes concrete meaning.

2019 Spooky Spooktactular reviews: Santigwar, Hellcome Home

Santigwar is about a bunch of Aswang and the people who hunt them, much like a low budget, low quality version of Underworld made with a budget of 25 pesos. Instead of focusing on this generational supernatural war, the film elects to focus on the efforts of four horny bois as they try (and fail) to bang the women they're associated with. It's not hard to see why, since Audrey Miles is one of the Aswang.

The film doesn't make a lot of sense, and there's a bit of silliness along the way. The horny bois come across a tree with ominous symbols carved on the surface. One of those ominous scary symbols is a Star of David. Apparently the film is warning us against the Jewish. In another scene, a blatantly scary old woman encounters the boy gang, none of whom find this development scary at all.

That's too bad, because Santigwar isn't exactly Joven Tan's worst film (it's probably not even his worst horror film, considering Otlum exists). But there's a laziness to the whole thing that turned me off completely from it.

Let me start off by saying Bobby Bonifacio Jr.'s Hellcome Home has a terrible first act. Bonifacio has apparently not learned anything from the making of his previous film, Hospicio, where an attempt to build dread is done by chaining together several jump scares in a row (sometimes, clustered together in the span of five minutes). Nothing about it is scary or dreadful, and the film made me disengage from it after ten minutes.

Once the second act starts, things get a lot more interesting. It flashes back to the past, and its own self-contained story, about a family that tears itself apart thanks to its own neuroses, is quite engaging. This part could stand up on its own, and this segment presented by itself would have been better than what we got.

The third act tries to recontextualize the horror of the first act. It doesn't make the first act any better, but it at least justifies its existence. There are a few great, tense scenes here, and the hyperactive preference towards jump cuts is all but absent.

It's better than Santigwar, but it's deeply flawed in its own way. I'd recommend it over the other film, but hey, Sadako's still showing this week too.

Dispatches from Tokyo International Film Festival 2019: Human Lost

Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human is considered one of the most highly regarded Japanese novels. For the 110th year of Dazai's birth, Polygon Pictures (the studio behind Blame! and the Godzilla trilogy) makes Human Lost, a sci-fi flavored retelling of the original novel. This is not the first time that the novel has been adapted; the film has been adapted in film more than once, as part of an anime series, and even into several manga.

There's considerable worldbuilding behind the film: in the near future, disease has virtually been made extinct thanks to a society-wide health care system. This has led to some unforseen side effects, and the divide between rich and poor has only widened thanks to the corporatization of the system.

Despite the sheer volume and quality of care taken in crafting the film's dystopian world, the film does not do anything with it and the proceedings come across as pretty standard. Its hero, named after Dazai's novel's own protagonist, is as run of the mill as they come, a 'chosen one' fated to change the world forever. It's not exactly detrimental to the experience, but one hopes the story matched the ambition of the film's worldbuilding.

Dispatches from Tokyo International Film Festival 2019: A Beloved Wife, We Are Little Zombies, Flowers and Rain, Motel Acacia

Shin Adachi made waves in 2014 when he wrote the screenplay of the award winning 100 Yen Love, eventually serving as the country's submission to the best foreign film category of that year's Oscars. He has since directed his own feature film, 14 That Night, which premiered at the Tokyo IFF 2 years later. His second directorial feature, A Beloved Wife, is far more autobiographical compared to his earlier films - it's based on Adachi's novel Chibusa ni Ka. 

It's about a struggling screenwriter, Gota (Gaku Hamada) who finally catches a big break. He decides to go on a trip to the countryside for some inspiration, and brings along his daughter and his cantankerous wife Chika (Asami Mizukawa). The two of them don't exactly get along, and their personalities clash repeatedly. Both husband and wife have their frustrations: Chika hates her husband's lack of assertiveness and overall laziness, and Gota is frustrated by a lack of sexual contact. They probably should've separated ages ago, but there's something holding them together, something that - in spite of all the frustration and setbacks, is the basis of their unconventional love.

The casting in this film is perfect; Hamada really is suited to pathetic loser roles, a perfect mix of weirdly cute and pathetic at the same time. Mizukawa towers over him physically and in terms of presence, making her all the more imposing. Their interactions are great, and it felt a lot more natural and a lot less shrill compared to another Tokyo IFF film with similar themes, Miyamoto.

Makoto Nagahisa's We Are Little Zombies is a peculiar, formally creative exploration of grief and finding a place in this world, of growing up and the fickle nature of showbusiness.

Patterned like an oldschool videogame from the Famicom era, it charts how four children, now newly orphaned, processes their emotions (or lack thereof.) Searching for mementoes become quests. Defeating a boss means emotional catharsis. Upon completion of their individual quests, the four of them find solace in each other's lack of emotion and (what else?) form a band. Art is created from this peculiar lack of pain. But the pain is really there all along, and our intrepid group comes to learn that over the course of the film.

The film uses a lot of narrative techniques - continuous shots, RPG-style birds eye view shots, sprite graphics, surrealism, stop motion animation, split screens - but the real emotional resonance comes from the contrast of these scenes to something quieter and more somber, glimpses of real life events that break through these childrens' fantasies, hazy memories of the past, distorted by perceptions and time.

Based on rapper Seeda's album of the same name, Hana to Ame (Flowers and Rain) reads on the surface like a Japanese rendition of 8 Mile, where an aspiring rapper (who grew up in London, then moved to Japan) strives to be the very best at what he does.

The journey to that destination isn't easy, however, as the film detours into a long sequence where our protagonist deals drugs and gets into a lot of shady things before finding his groove.

A good rap song has a smooth rhythm and flow; good guidelines to abide by whether one is making a song or a film. But Flowers and Rain struggles to find that flow in its first half, stopping abruptly before potentially great moments. We hardly ever hear our protagonist rap at all until the very end, which would have sold him as someone competent and worthy of making it in the rap world. Instead, it's hard to empathize with him up until a certain point in the film. It's a decent effort, but it comes out a bit short in this case.

Set in a hypothetical dystopian USA, where Trump's vision of the Wall is a living reality and immigrants are on the run everywhere, Motel Acacia is a tense horror-thriller in the vein of John Carpenter's The Thing (1982). However, while it does tackle interesting concepts, and while the creature effects and production design of the film are top notch, the film's story doesn't quite hold up to scrutiny.

The film addresses issues of immigration, the effect of colonialist masters on our psyche, how we sacrifice our humanity for the sake of our loved ones, and at the film's root, our capacity to empathize with other people. This is a film very much rooted in the Trumpian era - his voice, or at least an approximation of it, is heard everywhere. Callousness and a tendency to dehumanize trickles down from the top to the bottom, from colonizer to colonized, one link in the hierarchical chain to another, until servant emulates the master too much and becomes him.

But the story of Motel Acacia works better as metaphors rather than anything realistic. Why are these people so desperate to cross the border, even though it's assumed that opportunities on the other side are non existent? Why did the motel owner do the thing he did? How could a woman survive a self inflicted wound that would have otherwise killed her? If you get into the details, a lot of the film doesn't really make a lot of sense.

Regardless, the film is a fine effort from all involved, and considering the quality of the design work at play, it's something to be proud of, at least in that regard.

Dispatches from Tokyo International Film Festival 2019: Ultra Q in 4K, Miyamoto

A lot of Filipinos might be familiar with the tokusatsu series Ultraman, where a giant space alien karate chops other space aliens for the sake of mankind. However, Ultraman is actually the second Ultra TV series ever produced; the first series is a strange kaiju/Outer Limits/Twilight Zone hybrid called Ultra Q. Running for just about six months in the mid 1960's, the series was groundbreaking in the way it did special effects, blending cinematic techniques with TV, as well as pulpy, radically different storytelling, especially compared to the Jidaigeki dramas of the time.

Tsuburaya productions showed several episodes of Ultra Q, restored and enhanced to 4K definition, in one of the festival sections. Each episode is followed by a documentary discussing the impact of Ultra Q and anecdotes about the production of the series. The interviews are varied and interesting: it appears that most of the staff of Ultra Q were young people in their 20s or 30s, and most had come from the movie industry.

As for the episodes themselves, I managed to catch episode 19 of the series, Challenge from the Year 2020. It's a strange, body snatchers-flavored episode that is equal parts silly and awesome.  It also features a neat monster whose design is top notch even among other kaiju of the era. Audience members were given a pamphlet promoting a DVD set of the whole series restored to super high definition; one hopes English subtitles are part of the offering.

The 2019 film Miyamoto (also known as Miyamoto kara, kimi e) is actually the sequel to a TV mini-series of the same name, which is itself a manga adaptation of a Hideki Arai 1990's manga. This was a fact that I didn't know going into this film, but aside from a few side characters and background information on the protagonists, one can get by with just this film.

Miyamoto the movie flits between past and present - beginning with the titular character (Sosuke Ikematsu) bloody and missing a few teeth, and bringing his girlfriend Yasuko (Yu Aoi) to his parents with the intention to marry. There's more: Yasuko is pregnant. But there's more to this than meets the eye: flashbacks gradually show the sequence of events that lead to this event, and things are far more darker than it seems.

If you've heard of Hideki Arai somewhere before in this blog, you're right: Ara's other well-known work is Itoshi no Irene, whose movie adaptation released a few years ago (the two movies even share the same production companies.) Like Itoshi no Irene, Miyamoto brings with it the same problems as its sister manga: dated views of masculinity and poor, even cruel treatment of its female characters. It's sure to polarize audiences, especially non-Japanese audiences who are unfamiliar with the source material. Interestingly, the film subverts the trope of the white knight doing everything for the girl he loves: in one revelatory moment, Miyamoto states that everything he does in the film is for his own selfish desire for justice.

It's bound to make more than a few people uneasy, and as with most of Arai's works, unease is the main tool of Miyamoto. The film is shrill, violent, messy, even gory. The protagonists are good people deep inside, but they are heavily flawed, emotionally messed up individuals. These are exceptional performances, especially Yu Aoi who really breaks out of her comfort zone for some intense emotional and physical scenes.

Strangely enough, Miyamoto ends in a hopeful note, still done in the loud and screamy tone that it has sustained for the past two hours (neighborhood associations in real life would've thrown a fit by this time for all the noise). It's a hard pill to swallow, but there's something interesting in there for those who can stomach it.