A Deep Dive into Security Academy

 

To be a security guard is one of the most underappreciated and overlooked jobs in the country. Often made to work long hours for insultingly low pay (on average around 15,000 pesos a month, if Google is to be believed), trainees often deal with unruly customers, trespassers, or in rare cases, criminal elements. In the two years since the pandemic started, they, along with health workers, food service workers and others make up a portion of the people who worked at the frontlines of the battle against COVID.

Now it's nice and all for filmmakers to shine a light on certain topics, and the topic of the security guard making an honest living is certainly a valid one. The problem is, "advocacy films" seldom live up to their name: they are shoddily made, misrepresent or mischaracterize the advocacy they are supposedly advocating for, and often miss the point of the whole exercise entirely.

Security Academy, a 2020 advocacy film that seems to have been put in the backburner due to the COVID pandemic, is one such film. I had my expectations very low, but holy shit, this film keeps on surpassing my rock bottom expectations by the minute. I wondered why at first, but I recognized some of the names in the credits, especially one Dyzal Damun, famed filmmaker responsible for such enduring classics as DOTA: Nakakabaliw and Kamandag ni Venus. If you are familiar with those two films, congratulations, you have a bit of an idea what we're getting into. To its credit I have never watched a film more ironically entertaining than this in the past year. Let me show you why.

I. The Security of Not Slipping on a Banana on the Beach

The film starts out with four people who enter a security guard academy to receive training: Clinton (Jeric Raval) is a law student who wants a side hustle. In one of the introductory scenes of the film, he is lounging on the beach where he ostensibly lives when a woman approaches him for one thing or another. Clinton starts to flirt with her, saying that he likes "extra rice kinds of ladies" and the woman walks away. Clinton's wife (Mutya Johanna Datul) comes and asks him what the fuck was that all about and Clinton kinda gives an unsatisfying answer. Meanwhile, the woman is walking on the beach, ON SAND, when she steps on a BANANA PEEL ON THE SAND AND SLIPS. THE BANANA PEEL IS CLEARLY BURIED IN THE SAND. IT HAS NO WAY OF SLIPPING. THIS WOMAN SHOULD BY NO MEANS SLIP IN THE NAME OF ISAAC NEWTON AND ALL THAT IS HOLY. This character exists only for the single purpose of flirting with Clinton, SLIPPING ON A BANANA PEEL EMBEDDED IN THE SAND (something that is impossible by the laws of nature), and disappearing forever. How insignificant we truly are in the vast grandness of the universe, mere notes in the cosmic fugue.

As the woman nurses her hurt pride, a bystander passes by and laughs at her. This is true kino.

Gerry (Jake Rines) has a girlfriend/significant other who for some reason has the voice of a woman twice her age. Take note that this actress is probably just as old as Jeric Raval's daughter AJ. As an aside, let me get this out of the way first: the sound in this film (especially in the first 30 minutes) is fucking atrocious, as if it were recorded  from a counterfeit Chatty Cathy doll from 1965. Gerry's GF's change in voice reminds me of bold star Joyce Jimenez, whose actual voice is less Gloria Guida and more Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Now you can argue that this is actually her real voice and John, you're just being an asshole (a voice-ist?) but let us put a pin on it for the moment and get back to that later.

Rolando (Aaron Concepcion of Culion fame) is the son of a banana cue saleswoman. For some reason, his ADR voice has a weird accent in the first 30 mins, like if aliens cloned James Reid but his emotion processing center wasn't replicated properly. His voice changes later on to what I assume is his natural voice, which tells me that these goons lost the sound of the entire first half of the film and had to redub everything because filmmaking is hard. He also has the most peculiar acting range of the four leads, which goes from "furrowed brows" to "furrowed brows, but like 5% more." He tries to borrow tuition money for the security academy from his parents, but they are both broke. Rolando, understandably, furrows his brows, but just on cue, a guy with a turban shows up and offers to loan some money. There are some very dark skinned Indians in the world, but this guy looks like a non-Indian man (African maybe?) they picked up on the street. He's not in the credits (I think) so I have no way to verify if I'm right or wrong.

Armando (Oliver Lacson) is the fourth guy. He doesn't really have a lot to do, but since he's the fourth guy, I'm including him here anyway.

The four security guard aspirants eventually make it into... the SECURITY ACADEMY.

II. The Security of Not Getting Breast Pumped while Unconscious

The actual advocacy part that shows how security guards get their training takes up only the first 1/3-1/2 of the film. This part mostly lets viewers like you and me know what aspiring security guards go through to become "legit."

Most of the people involved in this second part are most probably non actors and are staff or faculty of the security academy, because you see in them the same things you see with untrained non-actors: awkward pauses, stilted dialogue, a facial expression that's half uncertain what to do next, half anticipating the next line.

One particular instructor, a Lieutenant Carpio, teaches our eager cadets about security in an armored van. Anyone familiar with the job knows that it's extremely hazardous. To demonstrate this hazard but sadly without the resources for an OHP or a PowerPoint presentation, he draws a cartoony caricature of an armored van on the chalkboard behind him. Well, we don't actually see him draw it, it just magically appears behind him on the next cut.

here's what the drawing kinda looked like

Another instructor, a Lieutenant Macusa, teaches our cadets about various laws and general orders for security guard things. That's all and good, but she also teaches the cadets CPR for the rare occasion that a bystander faints, has no pulse or is unable to breathe. She asks one of the female cadets to help her demonstrate, because this place doesn't have a budget and training dummies are out of the question. She correctly tells the class to first assess the patient, try to wake them up and check their pulse and breathing. She then proceeds to demonstrate this:

thanks to medscape for this photo

Now what do you call this? In my training or experience, we call these chest compressions (or less commonly chest pumps). Our valiant instructor, perhaps urged on by a Freudian subconscious urge, refers to this maneuver as "breast pumps," as if the participant cadet was a lactating woman eager to feed her newborn child and each pump would squirt milk, fountain-like, from her nipples as she is revived. I had to listen very closely in case I misheard, but it was definitely "breast pump."

She then moves on to demonstrate mouth to mouth resuscitation, adding quite astutely to wipe the mouth of the victim first before doing the maneuver. However, perhaps due to mutual shyness, she doesn't actually do the mouth to mouth, opting only to move very close to the other person's face and blowing. Now, you and I know what's supposed to be done, and I'm sure the good instructor, sans the earlier misnomer, knows what's supposed to be done, but these cadets might not know that. Imagine poor Lola Carmela fainting in the supermarket due to an arrythmia and a blameless guard, going only on what he learned, does the proper CPR steps before just kinda blowing on a poor old lady's face.

We get a short interlude after the CPR lesson to cut to Gerry's friends. Nothing valuable is gleaned from this except for the fact that Gerry's GF-with-the-old-lady-voice is in love with him...? And entire cuts of the scene are out of focus, as if the intention was that our cinematic POV was through the eyes of a 80 year old grandpa with severe cataracts.

We are also shown other learning activities such as marching in formation - done in a basketball court, no less! I guess the security academy doesn't have a lot of space for facilities so they reuse the area for marching drills. Or maybe this is the barangay basketball court and they're practicing there? Who knows. Let's put a pin on this to come back to later.

Of course, every guard has to undergo self defense training, so they partner with a local martial arts dojo to practice some moves against perps carrying knives. Sadly, we don't see this pan out as most of the baddies in this movie carry guns, but hey, it's always prudent to be prepared just in case Timmy Terrorist has a fancy knife in his pants as a last resort.

The firing range is also featured, and by firing range I mean a room crowded with people, like 2 "firing stations" and with cardboard targets. They fire various weapons, even a shotgun, which I thought wasn't allowed but in certain firing ranges they actually do that stuff.

In between these sequences are fuzzy establishing shots of buildings which I'm guessing are shots of the security academy, but since Angel Film Productions probably doesn't have money for drones, they look like they were shot from a distance, using a Nokia 7650 in 240p resolution and zoomed in for maximum shitty effect.

The four eventually end their didactic education (or at least pass the basic education part of their training) and are assigned a place to guard - something like an OJT. This is where things get a bit weird.

III. The Security of Not Getting Into a Firefight in a Supermarket

Clinton, 'Mando, 'Lando and Gerry (and a token fifth guard, Josefa) are assigned to a supermarket. One might think five security guards in one shift to guard a supermarket that's no bigger than a basketball court is overkill, but there's a reason for this. Not five minutes after starting the day, a suspicious white van enters the frame. The lead robber, played by Archi Adamos, goes over the plan with his goons.

They quickly incapacitate Armando, who hilariously hangs over the disabled access railing like a wet blanket, and enter the supermarket, where they promptly enter into a gunfight with the remaining security guards. For some reason, Clinton kicks a trash can behind him as the fight starts. Why? It wasn't even blocking his way! Someone's going to have to clean that up later, Clinton. Along with the dead bodies, of course. lol.

This is probably a good time to note that the people involved in making this movie are mostly known for making action movies in the late nineties to the early 2000s, which in terms of Filipino cinema, wasn't the best time for that specific genre. This film's director, Karlo Montero, is perhaps best known for 2002's Huwag Mong Takasan ang Batas, which starred Rommel Padilla (which isn't even B-tier as far as Padillas are concerned IMO) and Ynez Veneracion. It's obvious from the latter half of the film that there is an obvious nostalgia for those kinds of films, and it shows. Security guards don't often see a lot of action, but for these four, action is pretty much all they're going to see. And this is just their OJT!

The robbers tie up poor Josefa, leading her to waddle around like a duck in a uniform, while Clinton and the others 360 no scope the baddies with their shotguns. Several people (and various grocery products) get riddled with bullets. One unfortunate casualty of the firefight is a shopping lady in her mid twenties to early thirties who, as it turns out, is voiced by the same middle aged to old lady who voiced Gerry's GF!! I hope you gave that lady double pay.

The robbery attempt ends with frequent cuts to a crying cashier (who I think is related to one of the security guards?) Clinton headshotting Archi Adamos and Gerry getting shot in the shoulder. The police FINALLY arrive, randomly arresting a guy in shorts who is probably one of the robbers (they didn't exactly ask any questions), but who knows for sure.

While Gerry convalesces in a hospital, Mando and Lando get assigned to a warehouse and Clinton... just chills on the beach. Maybe his law school is on the beach. I'd go to a beach law school... if I wanted to take up law. That would be nice, taking a short swim after the prof grills you on constitutional law.

Old lady voice woman visits Gerry at the hospital and he doesn't speak. Oh no! Was there brain damage? Poor Gerry! Nope, he was just sulking. We find that this entire film takes place in Rizal, which I guess cuts down on production costs or something. There's also a "comedic" sequence later on about Gerry coming home from the hospital and some lady beating up what looks like a homeless person, but it's easily the least funny part of the film. Jokes occur naturally, like a woman slipping on a banana embedded in the sand. Yes, I will not let that go.

Meanwhile, Lando and Mando are getting weird vibes from the warehouse they are assigned to...

IV. Security From Not Discovering Drugs In The Warehouse You Are Guarding

Mando isn't too interested to investigate further, but Lando isn't having any of it. In the night, he Solid Snakes his way through the warehouse where he bumps into a car tire. A black bag falls down and finds ILLEGAL DRUGS INSIDE!! Apparently their boss, Mr. Lim (or is it Mr. Ang?) is a drug lord. Lando's Metal Gear Solid shit is gaining dividends.

So now, I have a question for you. You find ILLEGAL DRUGS in the place you are patrolling. You know illegal activities are afoot. What is the FIRST THING that you do next?

A. Call the PDEA and let the police handle things

B. Get into a shootout and get the baddies yourself

C. Join the gang and probably earn more than your security guard job... in exchange for your dignity

D. Get help from your friends, including that Indian loanshark who may actually be African

Do you know what this film does? NONE OF THE ABOVE! He does nothing until the next day and talks to his fellow security guards, where they tell him to just pray and be careful ("magdasal na lang at mag-ingat.")

Okay, I'm being a little disingenuous here. He eventually does letter A, but probably only after lots of prayer. So why have the meeting with fellow guards in the first place? Well, maybe it's because during the PDEA operation, they make SECURITY GUARDS the vanguard force. Involving security guards in a police operation is pretty ludicrous, but that's not all.

Mr. Ang and Mr. Lim, his associate are arguing about various money matters. I think Mr. Ang owns the warehouse since the credits state that the warehouse is named "Mr. Ang's Warehouse." lol. This is made even more convoluted when during the ensuing SNAFU and firefight with SECURITY GUARDS and 1-2 PDEA agents, Mr. Ang is referred to by his goons as Mr. Lim. I don't really expect script continuity from these dudes but Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, this takes the cake.

Both are caught and Mr. Lim tries to finagle with the PDEA agents but he is quickly rebuffed. The druglord is arrested and the security guards save the day again.

V. Security From Not Getting Robbed While Taking a Shit

While Mando and Lando are gun-fighting drug dealers, Clinton's wife rises from the ocean like a Kraken, but if the Kraken was very pretty and actually won Miss Supranational 2013. In the shot the sun is still up, or it is at the very least sunset. In the very next shot it is clearly night, as if two hours have passed. So she walked two hours to the resort where Clinton was? Maybe it's some sort of solstice where the night comes quickly. The two then engage in small talk, where Clinton tries forcefully to feed his wife fruit even if her mouth is already full (and vice versa.) This sequence is completely irrelevant to the rest of the story. Or is it...?

While Clinton stuffs his face with fruit (doing little to no law schooling), Gerry is back on the job, guarding a pawnshop. For some reason a tarpaulin with the name of the Pawnshop is attached to the metal shutters. This is perhaps as an attempt to say "this is a pawnshop" without paying for painting an empty building. Otherwise it would be weird. How would the shop open in the morning? Would the tarp just slide back in there when they open the shutters?

Just like clockwork, in the adjacent lot a group of robbers attempts to dig into the pawnshop and steal stuff. These robbers are filmed crouching next to a brick wall to simulate them digging into the pawnshop, even though its obvious that they're above ground (or at least in a bright tunnel). Meanwhile, Gerry takes a shit up top. He is alerted to the robbers' nefarious activities when the cup of coffee he placed outside of the toilet shatters. For some reason he didn't hear, you know, the sound of pickaxes and tools chipping away at the rock below him.

Gerry catches them in the act and arrests all of them, even letting one robber handcuff himself to his associate. He calls the police, followed by stock footage of... an ambulance??? AN AMERICAN AMBULANCE, AT THAT?? Is this a butterfly effect thing where Gerry taking a shit triggers a medical emergency in Idaho????????

VI. Security From Not Getting Swarmed on The Beach by....

For its climax, Security Academy asks us, what exactly can a security guard do?

In what is probably the same beach Clinton is staying in (assigned to?) a woman named Mrs. Dee is being extorted by goons for protection money. Mrs. Dee isn't having any of it, because Mrs. Dee is an upright citizen. The goons swear their revenge.

Mrs. Dee's first course of action would be to contact the authorities, and to be fair that's exactly what she does. What's the police's first course of action then when 20 goons arrive on three boats on the beach? Humor me on this one.

A. Assemble a force of police and confront the goons

B. Assemble a force of police and get the navy/marines involved

C. Intercept the boats in the sea and arrest the goons

D. Assemble a force of police and SWAT, but don't use them yet. Instead, gather a force of 20ish SECURITY GUARDS to act as a fucking VANGUARD FORCE.

If you chose D, then congratulations, you are correct. Unfortunately your IQ has probably gone down a few points after reading this. I'm sorry.

The pirates/extortionists get into a protracted firefight with FUCKING SECURITY GUARDS. ON THE BEACH! HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A SECURITY GUARD ON A BEACH?? And there are like 15-20 of them!! How many resorts are these people guarding?? Was Clinton assigned here or was he living here, or both??? Why have so many security guards in the first place? And why are they putting OJT-ers in the line of fire????

One of the security guards catches a goon and rear naked chokes his Nur Misuari looking ass out. I forgot which one of the four knocks out this counterfeit Nur Misuari looking motherfucker because I as laughing too hard at the absurdity of it all.

It's certainly not Clinton, since he's outside with this exchange with a pirate (and I paraphrase) :

Goon: Wait don't shoot! My rifle's run out of ammo!

Clinton: Okay, catch this (chucks his shotgun at the goon)

Goon: haha you fool! *fires the shotgun but it has no bullets*

Clinton: Eto saluhin mo to (Here, catch this) *takes out his pistol and shoots the goon*

It's comedy gold, punctuated by when one of the police guys shoots a grenade launcher at one of the boats and explodes it with a cheap green screen animation.

VII. Security From Extended Epilogues

Clinton, Mando, Lando and Gerry are awarded by the security academy or something. I guess their OJT training has ended. And by OJT the filmmakers of this hilarious shit probably mean Obliterate & Jail Terrorists.

They do the awarding ceremony in the same barangay basketball court/backyard court where they did marching drills earlier. There's an awkward series of cuts where the film seems to be waiting for the MC to start talking, and they just kinda cut back and forth to awkwardly anticipatory faces instead of editing it out.

We then see the general in charge of the security academy eating in a cafeteria, where he meets Clinton, Mando and Gerry. It's soon apparent that some time has passed and Clinton is back in law school and either Mando or Gerry (or both) have moved on to other professions. The general laments that he should be treating the three (+1) to a more lavish dinner. Yeah no shit, especially when these four literally ended an illegal drug operation and participated in no less than 3 gunfights!!! You should be treating these four to AT LEAST a buffet! 

Some time later, Mando, Lando and Gerry visit Clinton, whose wife is visiting a doctor. The implication is that she's expecting a baby and not endometrial cancer, just to be clear. Clinton's also become a lawyer, and the four discuss where to celebrate and eat out. Instead of a restaurant or a cafeteria, the three convince Clinton to go to the gym at the security academy. Much to no one's surprise, he is greeted by a surprise party. The end.

As the credits rolled, featuring a song that is best described as "a drunk dude who doesn't exactly remember the lyrics, singing karaoke at 1am," I thought of what the film stood for. Being a security guard can be a noble profession, and those who take on the task can be heroes. But perhaps Security Academy could have honored them by showing how they act out their heroism in less ridiculous, more grounded ways: by helping people in need, by keeping the places they guard safe, by simply providing for their families while being grossly overworked and underpaid. Not by choking out some dude in a firefight on a beach.

A Few Announcements.

 Hello everyone! Now that Cinemalaya is done, I have a couple of announcements to make.

The first, and probably the one announcement that many people know already is: I'm writing a book! It will be a "reimagined" compilation of reviews from this site from 2005-2022. The book will mostly focus on Cinemalaya, but I will be including some of my favorite entries from the last seventeen years. The rest will be all new essays that lean towards part memoir, part film review. By the way things are going the book will likely be finished in a few months, depending on how busy I am.

Because of this, I will have to break my yearly tradition of watching every single film in Philippine cinemas to date. I'm still currently updated so far, but in the next few months I'll likely fall off the radar as I move to the more labor-intensive part of writing.

That said, I still have a couple of articles on the way, as well as pending projects for the Youtube channel that I should have released a couple months ago (lol) so watch out for those things. This blog won't be completely dead, and I intend also to cover QCinema and tentatively MMFF, assuming I don't die or something in the iinterim.

Anyway, see you at the movies!

Cinemalaya 2022: Shorts B

 

I've seen Si Oddie a total of three times now, and it gets me emotional every time I see it. If anything, it is a masterful feat of storytelling from, of all things, a student film. I look forward to the director's filmmaking future.

There's a lot about Duwa Duwa that could have been fleshed out more; the ending in particular feels truncated even though it technically ends in an adequate place. Despite that, in bright, saturated frames, it tells a heartwarming story of a mother and daughter reconnecting and learning each other's worth.

Overseas work often entails a level of emotional displacement that divides families as much as it does so in a physical sense. Distance details the aftermath of one's return from that work, and how people heal from the divide created from that displacement. It is a deeply personal work, yet one that funds resonance in anyone "distanced" from their loved ones.

I've already seen Gabriela Serrano's Dikit last year, but it is in a theater where its many intricate pieces lock into place for me: its split screen a manifestation of desire, of its central mythological creature, of woman and womanhood. It's an astonishing film that achieves its goals without uttering even a single word.

The other day I was going back to my apartment after a long day of work, I came across a senior colleague who I hadn't seen since the beginning of the pandemic. In our short elevator ride together, the first thing we shared were the colleagues we lost in the interim. See You, George! encapsulates that feeling of loss and regret, though personally the change of heart seen in the end could have been brought out more to the surface and is left quite ambiguous. It takes on a whole different meaning now that the elections are over.

And finally, Zig Dulay's Black Rainbow from the NCCA's Sinehalaga film festival is a little gem of a movie. It follows an Aeta child as he vies to get a scholarship and, ultimately, defend his tribe from outsiders who seek to claim their lands. It's lean yet effective storytelling that is achieved in the ways that only the best short films can achieve. 

Cinemalaya 2022: Ginhawa, 12 Weeks

 

We are a nation that loves boxing: people like Elorde and Pacquiao are household names, national icons. The country once stood silent every time the people's champ had a fight. Their battles become our battles. But for every Pacquiao that succeeds against all odds, thousands more fail. The sport of boxing is violence contained in the four corners of the ring, but as Christian Paolo Lat's Ginhawa shows, it spills out beyond those four corners, creating a monstrous machine that takes in idealistic young men and spits out broken bodies.

The film follows Anton (Andrew Ramsay), an aspiring boxer who meets tragedy early on in his career. This tragedy compels him to take his training seriously and he gains the attention of his brother's former trainer (Dido De La Paz). He makes steady progress but his perception of the boxing stable cracks little by little.

The official English translation of the title is Solace, meaning comfort or consolation especially during times of sadness. Although Anton meets trusted friends in his journey, he has to walk it mostly alone, even if it means leaving them behind. Beaten down by a hard life, Anton is meek, passive, making him prone to exploitation. While we see the idealized image of the poor man succeeding against all odds, that is the exception to the rule. Outside the ring, the rich take advantage of the poor, treating their boxers more like racehorses than people.

Yet these boxers endure all sorts of indignity to provide for themselves and their family. Ginhawa can also mean relief, and the promise of a comfortable life lures these people into a trap that they cannot easily escape. This oppressive, exploitative culture becomes a reflection of society at large, one that serves only those at the very top, or those who are lucky enough to escape the cycle.

Ginhawa's biggest flaw, ironically, is in how it decides to frame the actual boxing. Most of the fights are filmed in extreme closeup, the action often seen as a blur. But perhaps that is the point. This isn't really a story about boxing; it is a story of violence - of a sport built upon it and of people who inflict it on other people who do not know they have the capacity to fight back.

Alice (Max Eigenmann) works in a humanitarian NGO. She's split with her toxic boyfriend Ben (Vance Larena) when she finds out she's pregnant. 

The best character studies are immersive, letting you into the personal and emotional spaces of its main subject so profoundly that it feels uncomfortable, even voyeuristic. These films find their greatness in characters that feel human: messy, complicated and far from ideal. I feel 12 Weeks belongs in this category, perhaps the best example of its kind in recent memory.

Alice's journey through her pregnancy is complicated by her relationships with the people around her. Her relationship with her mother (Eigenmann's real life mother Bing Pimentel) is strained, as it turns out she wasn't in the picture in Alice's life, and her excessive doting now may be a way of trying to make up for that. As the film delicately peels off its layers, we find that mother and daughter might not be that different in terms of circumstance after all.

And then there is Alice's relationship with Ben. It is by far one of the most uncomfortable relationships I have seen on film, because it feels so real. Ben is not overtly violent (though there are hints peppered throughout the film), but we feel the violence he inflicts in other, subtler ways. Despite being rejected by Alice, he always finds ways to worm himself back into a relationship with her. He is manipulative, cunning, and he gets what he wants. He is a red flag made human. Alice should be avoiding the hell out of him, and she tries, but he always manages to make her come back to him like a moth to a flame.

12 Weeks recognizes how society shapes a woman's decisions, in how her pregnancy is portrayed, or in how the unborn fetus is seen by others. Her decisions are ultimately her own, but they are shaped by the people around her even if she notices or not. And even here, Alice is living in an ideal: while access to abortion in 12 Weeks is available to women like Alice, here our reality it is still very much illegal. In our reality Alice would have been forced to carry the baby to term regardless of what she wants.

The last few frames of 12 Weeks superficially feels disconnected from the rest of the film, but I see it as a symbol of anxieties passed on from generation to generation, from mothers to their daughters and granddaughters, a symbol of an uncertain future that doesn't feel like they had much choice in. It is a profound sense of loneliness that is exceedingly hard to articulate, but is conveyed rather masterfully here.

Cinemalaya 2022: Kaluskos, Batsoy, Angkas

 

Of all the newer filmmakers over at Vivamax, Roman Perez Jr. is probably one of the most interesting. His Vivamax filmography is characterized by having some fascinating concepts but middling execution. For his Cinemalaya entry Kaluskos, he might have brought along a little too much of that Vivamax filmmaking ethos with him, for better or worse.

Rebecca (or Rebekah if we are to follow the end credits) is in the midst of a separation from her philandering husband. She plans to take her daughter with her to Norway, but she notices a change of behavior in her child and suspects something strange is going on.

On the surface, Kaluskos is a middle of the pack horror film. In the midst of its fellow films at Cinemalaya it feels out of place. I would be the first to welcome more genre films over at Cinemalaya, but I feel over the years the "Cinemalaya film" has developed its own identity. To be honest Kaluskos would feel right at home at Vivamax, and given who is involved in the production I would not be surprised if it ultimately ends up on the streaming platform.

Kaluskos feels derivative because it totally is: it cribs a sequence from a well-known copypasta/reddit short story, and in terms of visuals and plot, it gains inspiration from a ton of horror films both here in Asia and in the west. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though one could argue a lot more could've been done with the material.

The problem with Kaluskos is mainly with its storytelling, both overall and also in its depiction of its female characters. All but one of the main characters of Kaluskos are women, and they are either complicit with monsters, treated as monsters, depicted as monsters, and become monsters. Rebecca's anxiety towards losing her husband and child is valid, but is all but dismissed until it manifests as violence. Her ex husband tries to defend his philandering by referring to his wife's toxicity, but we do not know if that was grounded or if he was just making excuses. The film even frames him as the most reasonable character in the film, in contrast to his ex-wife's increasingly degrading state of mind, perceived by him (and most of the other characters in the film) as hysteria.

That is not all, either: perhaps due to tight filming schedules, constraints in production or just filmmaking habits inherited from the insanely demanding need for content in contemporary Vivamax, the storytelling is inconsistent and downright lazy at times. At one point, Rebecca explains the nature of the movie's monster by reading an internet article, while the actual text of that article is flashed on the screen. For some reason, a woman manages to lift a dead body that weighs around the same as her inside a drum that is as high as her head. And, an attempt to humanize the husband and his paramour comes too little, too late. The spelling of the main character's name is even inconsistent, for crying out loud!

Kaluskos on the surface is a passable horror film buoyed by a noteworthy performance from Colleen Garcia, but falls apart the more you think about it.

I tend to give a lot of leeway to films on the indie festival circuit because of their tight production schedules. For example, 2016's Lando and Bugoy is not a sterling example of technical filmmaking, but it's still charming in its own way. What does disappoint me is if a film that isn't well made affects the message it wants to convey, form influencing content in the worst way.

Batsoy is an unfortunate example of that kind of film. Set during the 80's, in the twilight years of the Marcos dictatorship, Batsoy is about two boys who go around town trying to sell firewood. Through subsequent events we learn that the two have experienced heartbreaking loss, and circumstances beyond their control will make them face such loss again.

The film is infused with a deep sense of nostalgia (both bitter and sweet) to a life that no longer exists. Much like director Ronald Batallones' previews feature Excuse Me Po, I wonder how much of this is autobiographical, or at least inspired by his own childhood. The two actors are decent in their roles and the ending is rather emotional.

It is also prudent to question the object of the film's nostalgia. What is it exactly being nostalgic about? Is it simply the oblivious abandon of childhood (which just happened to occur during one of the darkest times in our history)? Or does it have nostalgia for that dark time in itself? I want to say it's the former, but the film isn't exactly doing its audience any favors.

To say that the film is technically rough is a massive understatement. Various edits linger for too long, the meandering camerawork (perhaps to emulate a curious bystander?) at times puts its subjects frustratingly out of frame, and various scenes don't feel fleshed out. Certain green screened moments don't line up with the continuity of the shots before it. Even the film's title sequence has effects that are improperly cropped to fill the entire frame.

That in itself could be chocked up to severe constraints in resources and time (the team consists only of barely more than a dozen people) but the unfortunate effect of that is most deeply felt in the ending. I'd like to believe that the filmmakers had the best intentions in depicting the tragedy of the last few sequences and conveying the message behind it, but because the filmmaking didn't prop it up well, it can be interpreted in a very different way.

Hudas (Joem Bascon) is a habal-habal driver plying the mountain roads every day. When he learns that his old friend Ditas (Meryll Soriano) has passed, he sets off to claim her body, with childhood friend Migs (Benjamin Alves) in tow. The problem: Ditas is a member of the New People's Army and is wanted by the military, which makes retrieving her body from an active combat zone exceedingly risky.

Before I start this review of Angkas, there is one thing worth mentioning: director Rain Yamson II is a frequent collaborator and DoP of Darryl Yap, who serves as one of the executive producers of this film. It's not made clear to how much he is involved in this film, if at all. If that in itself, given recent events, turns you off from watching the film, I'd completely understand. But given how it explores its subject matter, you'd think he was not involved in it at all. Besides, that is the least of the film's problems.

Angkas oscillates between realism and magic realism, at times to its detriment. While sometimes the use of magical realism punctuates certain scenes and makes them more poignant, it makes for some jarring shifts in tone in other scenes. Some scenes in the middle seem to drag on for far too long after it has made its emotional punch, to the point where it feels like padding.

And what of Ditas? The film doesn't demonize her or her cause, rather viewing it as a brave act done out of compassion and in defense of her countrymen. Through flashbacks, we hear in her own words her reasons for joining the movement. But given that these are words from the dead, that's also the thing: Angkas is a film viewed from the outside looking in, in people trying to understand why people choose armed struggle. The use of magical realism here gives Ditas her own voice, yes, but it is unclear if it should be read as Ditas' own words, or as the manifestation of Migs and Hudas' limited understanding of her. It is very clear that Migs and Hudas loved Ditas in their own way, whether they agreed with her or not. Perhaps it would have been better to flesh out Ditas' motivations a lot more, look deeper at the systemic root causes that compel people to go to the mountains, and to see what exactly Hudas and Migs thought about those motivations in hindsight, and the film certainly tries to do so, though I'm not sure if it's enough. 

Angkas is both a pleasant surprise and a minor disappointment. At its best the film hits some genuinely emotional notes and lovely moments. At its worst, it's plodding and full of filler. It certainly has a lot of potential and is an interesting film despite its flaws. 

Cinemalaya 2022: Retirada, Blue Room, The Baseball Player

 

Azon is a newly minted retiree. The sudden shift is a shock to her, even though she doesn't show it to her husband and daughter. A friend introduces her to bingo and she soon falls into a destructive spiral that threatens to destroy her and her family.

Films about senior citizen concerns are not unknown to Cinemalaya. Films like Bwakaw (2012), Kung Paano Hinihintay and Dapithapon (2018) and 1st Ko si 3rd (2014) masterfully articulate the loneliness and anxiety these people face during the twilight of their lives. Retirada is an imperfect, simple, human tale about how retirees are displaced from a life they've likely known all their lives.

While I appreciate its intentions, Retirada as a story is far too simple for its own good, perhaps better suited to the shorts format. It concerns itself with addiction, though it only lets its characters express the reasons for that addiction in a final act that seems rushed, and even then it doesn't feel as fleshed out as it should. And while bingo addiction definitely does exist, its perception as a relatively harmless parlor game (regardless of its true harm) affects the viewing experience, like Ellen Burstyn's segment from Requiem for a Dream but with M&Ms instead of Opiates. 

The material ultimately feels insufficient, despite committed performances from Peewee and Jerry O'Hara. Inadvertently the film ends up being a cautionary tale about the dangers of bingo, and if that idea sounds weird or silly to you, me too.

Blue Room begins with an impressive sequence that introduces four of its five protagonists: the members of a band named Rebel Rebel (the pronunciation matters) on their way to making a new album. However, various complications and a run-in with the law make this a night to remember in all the wrong ways. 

Blue Room is a thrilling, absorbing film, yet it is also the kind of film that will either win you over or not. I overall enjoyed and liked the experience - it is perhaps one of the best films in this batch of Cinemalaya - but I do recognize some problems in the way it is constructed.

Its middle class perspective feels reminiscent of films such as Ang Nawawala (2012) and The Animals (2012), though in this case this film's point is to point out how dysfunctional, lopsided and privilege-driven our justice system really is, even roping in real life events into the story (the film claims to be inspired by several true events.) The police are not depicted as a system with only a few bad apples - it is clearly evident that the fortuitous events of the film's climax happen only because of police acting for their own interests.

My main issue lies with the film's ending, and although I wish to believe in the film's sincerity, the montage of clips at the end can be read as an affirmation of the status quo and a performative and ultimately useless display of activism. One could argue that there's only so much our protagonists can do (they're not lawyers nor politicians), and that activism and social awareness take all manner of forms. I just wish it didn't have to happen at the expense of those without the privilege that our protagonists definitely have - in fact, we never see any of the people in some of those jail cells again, with only an arbitrary "they'll be taken care of" statement as to their fate. It also merits attention that at least one of the five protagonists were technically punishable for a crime, but ultimately gets off scot free. In addition, I felt especially uncomfortable when a Chinese man was portrayed as a stand in (and ultimately a scapegoat for anger) over his country's crimes, followed by the audience's seemingly positive response to this racist behavior. There's a botched attempt at portraying the privilege that foreign nationals have over normal citizens as well, though it ends up as an afterthought.

I totally understand why people would love or hate Blue Room. At the very least I hope it starts some conversations about how unfair our society can be to its most underserved citizens.

In his filmography Carlo Obispo seems to be occupied with young people living through historical events or socioeconomic milieus that are out of their own control: in Purok 7 (2013), the protagonists obliviously live their lives not knowing the tragedy that befell their loved ones; in Gasping for Air (a.k.a. 1-2-3, 2016) young girls get into sex work in order to survive. The Baseball Player, his latest film, is a simple yet tragic tale about a boy with dreams of playing in a professional baseball team, as conflict threaten to kill those dreams and harm everyone he loves.

The film recognizes the many nuances of the conflict in Mindanao, and how people are driven to protect their families and lands from increasing militarization and oppression. I heard that the filmmakers consulted with various people to make it work, and for at least that part, it shows.

What bothers me about this film, however, because of its choice to have its characters speak Tagalog and because of its casting, is that it feels slightly off. In the larger scheme of things this is a minor thing and excusable, given that the filmmakers did their research in all other aspects of the film, but it did impact my viewing experience a little bit. I'm curious if any fellow Muslim or Mindanawon audience members noticed, or if it was just me.

That said, Obispo finds emotional heft in various moments though the stirring music in some of those moments is often not necessary, as the characters speak for themselves. The Baseball Player ends in an anxious, uncertain place - one that might lead some to consider the material incomplete - but upon giving thought to it, it's correctly reflects the continuing anxieties of the peoples of Mindanao. There is no closure in this film because it doesn't exist in real life, and if the film chooses to end on that somber thought, I think it's a good choice.

Cinemalaya 2022: Shorts A, Bakit Di Mo Sabihin?, Kargo, Bula sa Langit

 

Cinemalaya 2022 Shorts A Short Shorts Reviews

I've said more than enough about Angpangabagat Nin Talakba Ha Likol and City of Flowers, both entries from QCinema 2021, both good in their own way, both well worth watching, both strong entries even in this new slate of films. I will note that these two films (especially, in my opinion, City of Flowers) shine the most on the big screen. 

Claudia Fernando's Roundtrip to Happiness shows two kids travelling the world in a time when international travel isn't exactly open, especially to those without the privilege and means to do so. The film is shot primarily through Google Earth (which makes me wonder whether the footage is subject to copyright or Fernando and her team has created a convincing facsimile of Street View.) However, in the middle of the short, Roundtrip to Happiness expands its scope into something bigger: as it leaves the Philippines and examines other countries, it examines the strange arbitrariness of mapmaking and history, of how small imperial nations conquer larger ones, and juxtaposes the scale of our small archipelago made vast and the ability (or impotence?) of people trying to control all of it.

In Mata Kang Busay, a fortune teller loses his powers and makes increasingly dire sacrifices to a mystic waterfall in order to regain his power. In terms of form I wish it could have done a bit more with its premise, and the soundtrack choices during the film's climax gives unnecessary pomp to what is happening on the screen. That said it does make a point about how much people are willing to give up for their own survival, something that we see in its worst form today.

Kwits starts out navigating the well-trodden but welcome trope of navigating the bureaucratic hell of government and how it can both work against what it was intended to do and how it can dehumanize people on both sides: those operating within the bureaucracy and those on the outside trying to engage with it. But then it shows how people can find humanity and compassion within these cold, unfeeling systems. It is perhaps my favorite (new) short from this lineup: well-directed, tonally consistent and cathartic.

Mga Handum Nga Nasulat sa Baras is a cute tale about three boys in a seaside village dealing with an educational system that has been profoundly transformed in pandemic times. It's relatively light (and it's also a rap musical!) so even if it was terrible (it isn't!) it's impossible to dislike.

Films about the deaf community aren't exactly new, even to Cinemalaya: Mike Sandejas' Dinig Sana Kita (2009) is a prominent example, and outside Cinemalaya we have Prime Cruz's Isa Pa, With Feelings. But those films examined a relationship where a hearing person tries to understand their deaf or hard of hearing partner. In Bakit Di Mo Sabihin? written by Flo Reyes, a CODA (child of deaf adults) both parties are deaf or deaf mute and that is a given. The film, first and foremost, is a romantic drama about two people engaged in a very dysfunctional relationship; their disabilities have little to do with their relationship dysfunctions, if at all.

While I expected a lighter film (I decided to come into this blind) what I got was a dead serious relationship drama more in the vein of Fifth Solomon's Dulo (2021) or Alessandra De Rossi's 12 (2017). Like those two films, this film can be as exhausting, in both good and bad ways. Migs (JC De Vera) is bound to conservative values and his idealized notion of a wife forgoing her job in order to take care of the children, even if it doesn't make financial sense. Nat (Janine Gutierrez) views marriage as a partnership where both parties are involved in child rearing, and that her personal dreams can coexist with raising a family. The film jumps back and forth in time, showing happier times for the couple while showing their current situation.

In films in this genre, the couple's incompatibility is made explicit; the bulk of the heavy lifting lies in making the audience believe that that relationship, however dysfunctional, was a meaningful one. It is a delicate tightrope act and the end result is either a very tedious film or something remarkable. While the film's fractured timeline certainly helps, I feel the melodramatic third act cheapens it by not giving the characters time to meaningfully confront each other and gain closure. For a film that asks us (and its characters) why won't you say it? It doesn't do that, even if the outpouring of emotions is one-sided.

There is a subplot to the film concerning a deaf child whom Migs wants to help (in a positive display of his character's tendency to want to 'fix' people.) It certainly reflects society's prejudices towards our deaf or mute brothers and sisters, especially society's unwillingness to see the potential in people. It ends in a frustratingly open ended manner, but I think it works: there is absolutely nothing wrong with seeing the potential in a stranger, or in your romantic partner, regardless of one's preconceptions about them.

There is always one film every other Cinemalaya (barring the lean years of 2015, 2020 and 2021) featuring (usually worn-down) protagonists (usually with a troubled past) going on a journey (metaphorical or literal) of self discovery. The results often vary, depending on how the story concludes: films like  Ronda (2014) end with violence or bleakness, films like Brutus (2008) end up being charming and profound, and films like Ang Katiwala (2012) devolve into an earnest, yet very silly, genre-mashed finale that on the whole takes itself way too seriously. TM Malones' Kargo, written by the late Joseph Israel Laban, is a great example of the last one.

Sara (Max Eigenmann) is a tough as nails cargo delivery driver whose work output is equaled only by her accident rate. She's plying the roads searching for the man (also a delivery driver) who killed her family in cold blood. During one such delivery run she comes across an orphaned girl (Myles Robles) and takes her in, eventually forming a relationship with her.

Most of Kargo is a relatively serious character study that takes quite a while to get off the ground (the previous paragraph takes up like 60 percent of the film). During this time. Sara endures all sorts of sexist behavior from fellow drivers and members of law enforcement. Although some of the scenes go nowhere, Max Eigenmann sells it nonetheless. The film slightly delves into the plight of typhoon survivors, but ultimately doesn't do much with it. While Malones' experience as a cinematographer contributes greatly to the film's visual look, he struggles to control the film's tone, eliciting horrified screams from the audience at inopportune moments.

Kargo will likely be remembered for its finale, which ends up being rather entertaining in its earnest silliness. If features 1) one of the slowest car chases in cinema history (the film even shows a signpost showing the speed limit of 20 kph, as if to lean into the joke) and 2) a character who not only teleports from one place to another, but also generates minions of his own as if he were a character from Mobile Legends (a similar discontinuity occurs in the recently concluded Obi Wan miniseries, so it happens to the best of us.)

While I wouldn't claim that sequence (or the movie as a whole) to be good in terms of form, it is very entertaining, perhaps the most entertaining full length I watched on day 1. Kargo may not necessarily make it to the top ranks of Cinemalaya history, but at the very least it is entertaining and memorable for its denouement.

There exists a paradox in films that depict soldiers viewed from the eyes of loved ones; in Jay Altarejos' Walang Kasarian ang Digmang Bayan (2020) Altarejos as a filmmaker tries to reconcile the military's role as a tool for state violence with his own experience with his late father, also a military man. In Sheenly Gener's debut film Bula sa Langit, there exists a similar paradox, in trying to acknowledge the role of soldiers as the arm of the state while also honoring and humanizing individual soldiers as exploited by the system that uses them for its own ends.

Bula sa Langit starts with a reunion: Wesley (Gio Gahol) reunites with his girlfriend Ritz after a tour in Marawi. He has trouble acclimating to civilian life, a pattern reminiscent of films like Kathryn Bigelows The Hurt Locker (2008) where because violence seeps deeply into a person's daily life as a soldier, they are unable to return to a life without it.

There are many little bits in the movie that add to a larger picture. Wesley's name comes from the actor Wesley Snipes, and many of Wesley's friends and family have misconceptions of soldiers borne from the same action films Snipes and his contemporaries starred in. They are unaware of the trauma and pain that comes with violence, in receiving it and inflicting it, regardless of whether it is for a righteous cause or not. While people argue for the existence of a "just war", Bula sa Langit notes that regardless of whether that war is justified or not, conflicts by themselves exact a heavy toll, both on the soldiers fighting these wars and on the civilians that end up as collateral damage.

This then leads us to the finale, which is the film's weakest part, influenced also by the paradox I mentioned earlier. What exactly is the film trying to say? It looks like it is trying to say or do two things at the same time, but whatever its point is, gets muddled. What does it say about the cycles of violence that soldiers are subjected to and the violence that they inflict? Perhaps a viewer may expect to find a cathartic moment where Wesley pours out his feelings and anxieties, but the film gives us no such thing.

Cinemalaya 2022: Leonor Will Never Die (opening film)

When I was a kid, my watching time of whatever cartoon or game show of the day would be interrupted by the occasional local action movie trailer. These cheaply made, often goofy trailers cast a spell on me, and watching some of these films later (thanks to VHS tapes rented by my father) just reinforced that spell. And I wasn't the only one: I remember many times when I would walk to the nearest sari-sari store and see a group of men, women and boys gathered around a TV screen showing a local film. There's a reason why our culture is so inspired by these films: why our comedy draws from Dolphy and his ilk, why our romantic films shape how we deal with our own love stories, and why our action films have influenced even our politics.

Leonor Will Never Die acknowledges that long-lasting influence, but also looks at the relationship between man and film in a broader sense, in that people use art and the creation of art to escape from their own problems and to find closure to those same problems. 

Leonor used to be a screenwriter, in contrast to the macho, testosterone infused genre she primarily worked in. She still is, technically, though she hasn't had enough luck getting a job lately. The Filipino action film isn't exactly thriving in this day and age, and the kinds of films Leonor used to write doesn't really exist anymore. At the same time, she struggles with personal loss and issues of her own. As she tries to find the ending to her story, Leonor does what she does partly out of a search for closure, but also out of a desire to correct past mistakes, and take back the family that she thinks she has lost.

Leonor's journey is also a dissection of authorship - as the metafictional third act asks us, who decides how narratives are constructed? Some narratives organically grow from the audience, but where does that leave the creator? And ultimately, how divorced should a finished film be from its creator once it is let loose into the world? Read in another way, Leonor takes control of her own story in a way few women are allowed to even now, creative visions often giving way to constraints of money, cinema politics, sexism, or a combination of the above.

The film also recognizes the power of film in its creation of communal spaces, whether it be overflowing crowds ready to watch the new Star Cinema rom com, or a bunch of people huddling around an Abenson's TV screen, or a row of otherwise distracted commuters on a provincial bus. Film connects us, restores us, heals us. That's a pretty nice sentiment to have, I think.

This review originally appeared on letterboxd and was rewritten for this blog.

Fast & Feel Love Review: adulting 101

 

More than 15 years ago, when I had just graduated from college, I dipped my toes into an obscure fighting game. I didn't know how good I really was, since I didn't fight anyone else. Finally I had the chance to test my skills against someone for the first time. I went to University Mall, where they had setups for that game, played like two dozen rounds against this younger dude and got completely destroyed. For the next five years or so I'd enter the competitive scene for this game, holding tournaments and engaging with a community that I'd never have interacted with otherwise. Eventually, my speed and reflexes just weren't what they used to be, and various responsibilities (including med school, graduating from that, and finally entering the workforce) took over and I stopped. I haven't played seriously in more than a decade. Sometimes looking back, I wonder what would've happened if I pushed my little hobby as far as I could. I guess I'll never know; I never did have the drive to pour my everything onto one single thing and maintain it for my entire life.

For Kao (Nat Kitcharit),  he doesn't have that problem. Obsessed with speed stacking at a young age, his singular goal is to get the fastest cup stacking time ever and become the world champion. To help achieve that goal, he gets into a relationship with Jay (Urassaya Sperbund) who doesn't have any concrete dreams of her own. As the years pass, every incremental increase becomes even harder to achieve, and for Kao, much like that bus in the 1994 movie Speed, he has to go fast, without any other distractions, or he will explode like a blazing fireball. But to anyone who's ever watched a Summoning Salt video (or to anyone with common sense, really), you'd know that there is a human limit to how fast something can go. Kao's getting older and Jay's starting to realize that she's spent the last 10+ years living someone else's dream. So, one day, she leaves.

There's nothing inherently wrong with a singular attachment to a goal, but Kao soon realizes that that sometimes comes with a heavy personal cost. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes almost the same to support a man in his passions. The film makes it a point to illustrate how the increasing responsibilities of adulthood affect our childhood dreams, and how it affects the people around us. As Kao struggles to fill the gigantic hole that Jay left, he begins to face the responsibilities of being an adult for the first time.

Fast and Feel Love is probably Nawapol's most mainstream work. Although there are some moments where his arthouse sensibilities shine through, for the most part it's a self-aware, fourth wall breaking deadpan comedy full of references to everything from Star Wars to Mariah Carey. Tonally it's unlike anything he's done before, and considering his entire filmography, it's not his best. It's definitely an acquired taste, and I'm sure I've missed a bunch of references to Thai media and culture, but I personally found it an enjoyable watch. 

The film is an interesting companion piece to Nawapol's earlier Happy Old Year, in that Happy Old Year concerns itself with space: empty vs. emptied space and the things (and the memories) that we acquire to fill that space. Fast and Feel Love, on the other hand, concerns itself with time and how we spend that limited time: the almost irrational obsession with faster and faster stacking times, Jay's investment of her time on a one-sided relationship, the time that is taken away from us by the minutiae of adulthood, and the fact that the clock is ticking on both Kao and Jay: Kao's getting slower as he grows older, and Jay's window to becoming a mother is growing smaller. Eventually, Kao's coming-of-age doesn't completely transform him because old habits die hard, but by the end of the film you know he's come out of the whole ordeal a better person.

Aside from the obvious adulting/codependency stuff, Nawapol's pattern of addressing contemporary millennial concerns is felt in the film's exploration of time: we have only so many chances to live our lives, so how then do we live it? And what can we do to make those moments matter, if we can at all? 

Nat Kitcharit and Urassaya Sperbund are both great in their roles, though the latter really shines in various moments - it's kind of a shame she hasn't done a lot of movie work. The rest of the movie is technically adroit: Panayu Kunvanlee, who worked on films like Bangkok Love Story and 2020's The Con-Heartist (a mainstream Thai film I enjoyed a lot) did the editing, including those deadpan comedic jump cuts that seem to be popular (?) in mainstream Thai cinema and Natdanai Naksuwan, who did additional cinematography for Baz Poonpiriya's One for The Road, does DP work here.

p.s. there's also something to be said about how gendered household roles function here; I'm reminded of a moment in the 2016-2017 J-drama Tokyo Joshi Zukan where the perennially love-searching Asami Mizukawa is asked about what men want in a woman, and the guy she's talking to answers that what men really want are women without dreams of their own. I kept coming back to that moment while watching this.

Ngayon Kaya review: Unexpected Nostalgia

 

What causes a relationship to end? While many a time the cause is easily identifiable, sometimes the reasons lurk beneath the surface, imperceptible to both parties until it is too late. These reasons are shaped not only by the couple themselves, but sometimes by forces larger than either one and out of their control.

When Harold (Paulo Avelino) and AM (Janine Gutierrez) meet again at a friend's wedding, it feels like the both of them have a lot of baggage to unpack. Certainly, their lives have changed since their last meeting. It's obvious that something happened in the past between them, and the film flashes back to tell us why.

The film then intercuts between present day and the couple's college days, when AM and Harold were the best of friends. They obviously have burgeoning feelings for each other, but as per romantic movie tradition, they have difficulty communicating these feelings. The two lead actors express this clearly, and the chemistry between the two actors feels very natural. There is a certain messy quality to how these flashbacks are intercut, as if these memories are struggling to come out after being hidden for so long, images appearing, scattershot, like flashes of lightning in a dark sky.

On one level, the two friends live in completely different worlds; early on in the film, Harold is teased by friends about how his new friend circle speak in a different way compared to them. He has his own personal problems, and aside from his own romantic feelings, he struggles to communicate those personal problems to AM as well. Perhaps the only thing they have in common (aside from their hidden mutual feelings) is their shared dreams, though the end of the film puts that in doubt. In AM, we see a passionate woman with the means to act them out - she obviously comes from a well to do family who wants her to pursue a career path that she doesn't want. 

But AM's weakness - and what partially causes the relationship to fall apart - is her own privilege. It creates a blind spot that she cannot fully perceive, representing ideas she cannot fully grasp. She is in the unique position to live her dreams and she has the resources to pursue something else when those dreams fail. Harold does not, and AM cannot understand those differences. In certain forms, idealism is a privilege to those who have the means. For those who live hand to mouth every single day, dreams stay as they are.

It's a question that's been asked before, notably in films like Irene Villamor's Sid & Aya (2018) and Antoinette Jadaone's Never Not Love You (2018), and director Prime Cruz and writer Jen Chuaunsu make their own spin on the subject. Aside from that, however, is something else: a deep yearning for a life that no longer exists, where living life was simpler and idealism still had sway over our lives. The film repeatedly considers the possibility of alternate paths, what-ifs that would have made Harold and AM's lives far different than they are now. But they (and by extension, we) do not have the liberty to redo things; our choices in the moment make us who we are, for better or worse. This nostalgia manifests itself in many ways: even the title ("how about now?" is a question thinking about these alternate realities and the promise of changing things for the better. This sense of nostalgia is embodied (at least for me) most noticeably in one of the featured songs in the film, Mayonnaise's song Jopay:

Dadalhin kita sa aming bahay

'Di tayo mag-aaway

Aalis tayo sa tunay na mundo

Dadalhin kita sa aming bahay

'Di tayo mag-aaway

Aalis tayo sa tunay na mundo

Sa tunay na mundo

The song, a single from their self-titled 2004 album, is about someone thinking exactly of those what-ifs, wistfully thinking of a life where he and the titular object of his affection lives together in happiness. But that sort of thinking is ultimately folly. Nostalgia is also fantasy; it is merely a way for us to exist an a life that has long past and will likely never come again. It's tragic in many ways - even more so when epitext meets text and forces beyond the film's control profoundly changes its meaning. Both past and present scenes in Ngayon Kaya are from time periods that no longer exist. We no longer live in a world where we can roam freely and watch gigs at Saguijo or Route 196. Some of those places have long closed down, and in this film we are merely seeing their ghosts. We no longer live in a world where we can walk around with no masks or not worry about the threat of sickness or death. The film, produced before the pandemic, was supposed to be released theatrically in early 2020, before the world stood still. It now stands as a snapshot of life just before everything changed forever.

The movie ends on an ambiguous note: one that could either cynically reinforce the idea of pragmatism versus idealism or offer a single, defiant kernel of hope - in that it is never too late to change things and pursue your dreams, all else be damned. I immensely enjoyed Ngayon Kaya, despite its flaws: a technically adept, well-acted romance that, while not Prime Cruz's best, is still worth watching.

The Roundup review: Return of the Beast

 

Ever since his breakout role in Train to Busan, Ma Dong-seok (a.k.a. Don Lee) has been making waves both internationally and in mainstream Korean Cinema. His screen presence is unique, even among peers and character actors who lead some of South Korea's best genre films, and he's definitely not the boyband heartthrob type, but there's something about him, especially in action, that is simply electrifying, 

The 2017 film The Outlaws is a film that fits Ma Dong-seok's screen persona to a capital T: in it, he plays Ma Seok-do, a tough-as-nails, fearless police officer who talks with his fists first and asks questions later. In that film, he helps bring down a Chinese crime syndicate from trying to set up business in the country. It was a hit with local audiences, becoming the third highest grossing film of all time in the country.

The Roundup is a sequel to that film (though to be fair, it functions perfectly well as a standalone film), and it mixes things up. This time, Detective Ma is in Vietnam, trying to catch a Korean criminal. But in the process of that operation, he comes across a much more fearsome adversary: Kang Hae-sang (Son Sukku), a ruthless criminal who preys on Korean tourists visiting South East Asian countries. Thus begins a fast-paced, surprisingly funny yet also very brutal action spectacle that starts off with the pedal to the metal and doesn't let go for the next two hours.

Ma Dong-seok doesn't disappoint; every action scene is a delight to behold, almost effortlessly dispatching perps left and right like a South Indian action superstar. It almost feels like he's in the wrong movie (in a good way,) in that it's like it's not a Korean detective out there kicking ass and taking names, but Gilgamesh from the Eternals punching a man so hard he flies through a bus window. But he's not all about kicking ass: director Lee Sang-yong (who, according to IMDB, has only directed one film prior to this) uses him as a deadpan comedy foil to create genuinely funny scenes that in the hands of a lesser filmmaker would be tonally jarring.

As an antipode to Detective Ma's immovable object is Son Sukku's Kang Hae-sang, a brutal, sinister, nigh-unstoppable force, one that cannot be stopped as he rampages through countries to get what he wants. Wildly different from his role as the morose gangster in the recent Korean drama My Liberation Notes, his turn in the film is just as electrifying as Ma's own, creating a counterpoint to our protagonist, his sharp knives and blades contrasting with Ma's hammer-like fists and brute force.

The film is a breeze to watch (perhaps the breeziest two hours I've spent in a cinema since theaters opened), with genuinely thrilling action sequences that will leave you at the edge of your seat. Fans of Ma Dong-seok will not be disappointed here; perhaps the only criticism I can level against it is I wish it had even more of him in it. The film debuts in cinemas starting today, and I hope people catch it there.

Present Confusion Campus Tour: Short Reviews of UPFI Thesis Films, Ateneo Video Open and Bagong Sibol Dos

Today we'll be talking about a bunch of films from the next generation of filmmakers: the four production theses of the UP Film Institute, Ateneo Video Open and Bagong Sibol Dos (produced in conjunction with UP Visayas.) Making films in the middle of a pandemic is still pretty difficult, even with the reduced alert level.

UPFI Production Theses

The UPFI thesis defense program was fully online and made available to the public. Much of the program consisted of defenses of non-production theses, either to pitch a movie idea, or to discuss a particular scholarly topic about film. Watching the former, even when there is no finished product (yet), is fascinating. Seeing the process of ideas to film, discussed and dissected by colleagues and fellow filmmakers, can be just as engaging as seeing the finished product itself.

Because of pandemic limitations, only four students managed to produce films. That in itself is quite the achievement, given the limitations of budget, location, and resources available to filmmakers at that time, much less younger, newbie filmmakers. There is the film Kubling Kulay, a story of repression made visual through its treatment of color. Films about pandemic anxieties were not in short supply - Sukat and Looped approached it in different ways. The former expressed these anxieties as claustrophobic spaces, often filled with various forms of violence; the latter expressed these anxieties as repetitive yet stagnant moments of time that blurs the boundaries between one minute and the next.

But my favorite of all four films is Mad Red, a documentary about a person (also the filmmaker's younger sister) living with a diagnosis that affects her menstrual flow. At first the film tackles how this person deals with their illness and how it is perceived by the people around her, but then it evolves into a larger conversation about how we still hesitate to talk about what are, for all intents and purposes, normal bodily functions and how that reflects on how society views women as a whole. It's so conceptually rich and so layered. It's honestly one of my favorite shorts of the year.

Ateneo Video Open

KTX recently re-aired the Loyola Film Circle's Ateneo Video Open, featuring short films from student filmmakers from all over the Philippines. The entire collection (more than four hours long!) contains films that I've seen before, such as Vincent Joseph Entuna's Ang Amomonggo sa Aton, and JT Trinidad's as if nothing happened (both are good for different reasons.)

Among the documentaries that caught my attention are Kambalingan, about Marawi and the city it used to be, as compared to the city as it is now, and Spacebound, which uses its viewpoint to look at how our children are being educated, how it has changed over the past two years, and how that is affecting their eventual future. There's also Pasilong, a film that shows how trauma, a degraded self image, and emotional pain can affect people over the years through words and distorted ideologies. 

There were also a bunch of narrative films that were fun to watch: Kubli and Sina Alexa, Xander at ang Universe approach the same topic (of sexual repression) in very similar ways, though the former is a lot more bleaker and tragic than the latter. Another film that approaches the same topic would be The Misfit, which takes a very cute and humorous approach to the whole thing. Films like Ang Huling Hukuman have concepts that are nothing new (a similar short was featured just last year), though it does pull a number of twists that are interesting. There are also films like Slapjack Confetti, which is mostly humorous nonsense but you can tell the filmmakers are having fun with the material. It's almost surprising the same collective of filmmakers were responsible for A Year to Breathe, a sci-fi film with visual effects that would rival many local productions. The latter two shorts are available on YouTube.

Other narrative films were more contemplative, such as Safety Shots and how it looks at footage that would otherwise be forgotten, or From You, 60 Years From Now, which is a spoiler onto itself, or No Exit, exploring the various social dimensions and repercussions of a sexual assault. And although I wasn't a big fan of Yours in a Variant (oh you sweet summer children), there's this quality to its naivete that interests me. I'd be interested if these filmmakers redid the film in 10 or so years to see how their views on love have changed.

Bagong Sibol Dos

Last but certainly not the least Bagong Sibol Dos has a lineup of shorts that, in all honesty, is the most impressive of the bunch given that these are student films! There's Itom Nga Bugas Kanaryo Nga Ugat and Biboy and the Sigbin in the City, which both used metaphor and myth to examine contemporary social issues (the former, also quite effective as a horror film).

There's also 'nara, a narrative film-as-therapy that is also a personal reflection on the filmmaker's own regrets, and the well-made and charming Always a Little Bit Mad, about the most timeless of stories: a boy and a girl. Longing and dance intertwine in Sayaw sang Buhi, reminiscent of one of my favorite local films Ang Sayaw ng Dalawang Kaliwang Paa. And the downfall of a relationship intersects with interesting usage of split screen with on the rocks.

But perhaps the most impressive of all the shorts I've mentioned in this entire article is Maria Kydylee Torato's Si Oddie, a social realist pandemic story that hits very close to home. The storytelling at play is frankly impressive, peeling back layer by layer of its story until it reveals its bleak entirety.

There are many other films (and film ideas) that I've not mentioned in this piece, but I think they're all worth watching! Though Ateneo Video Open has finished, many short films are available elsewhere. Bagong Sibol Dos, on the other hand, has its last day today as of this writing, so please catch these very nice shorts while you can.

Rise, Roar, Revolt: A Period Bromance for the Ages

 

You might have heard some buzz regarding RRR in certain social media circles, about how both westerners and non-westerners alike have been blown away, or how theaters showing the film are still going gangbusters even though it came out a few months ago.

Since the rest of this review is me gushing about the movie and probably spoiling everything in it, here's all you need to know: watch this film if you have the opportunity, preferably in Telugu, and preferably on a big movie theater. Out of all the blockbuster movies released in the world this year, this is one of the best of them: a riveting triumph of maximalist storytelling that sticks with you in one form or another long after you've left the cinema. It doesn't quite reach the epic scale of Baahubali, but RRR is a fantastic film on its own, cementing S.S. Rajamouli as one of the best blockbuster filmmakers living today.

The overarching premise of the film is pretty simple: what if two real life historical figures, both revolutionaries who never met, were actually besties and had awesome superhuman abilities? While historical fan fiction can vary from total goof fests like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012) to serious, contemplative fare like Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis (2016), RRR is pure 100% spectacle: part musical, part bromance, part balls-to-the-wall action film, part rousing, chest-thumping anti-colonialist call to revolution.  At this point in time, Komaram Bheem (N. T. Rama Rao Jr.) and Alluri Sitaramaraju (Ram Charan, whom Rajamouli worked with in proto-Baahubali fantasy film Magadheera (2009)) are not (yet) the revolutionaries Indians know in history books: the former is a tribal leader tasked with finding a kidnapped girl, while the latter works as a police officer for the British Empire. They develop their friendship not knowing their respective allegiances, as things come to an inevitable conclusion. Spoiler alert but not really: it gets really wild.

As Bheem and Ram, water and fire, reach the ends of their respective story arcs, they learn the value of revolution and reveal their own intentions to fight back against their colonizers: for one, it is a direct, physical kind of empowerment - through arms, knowledge and ideas. For the other, it is the spiritual empowerment that comes from igniting the fervor of all those who desire liberation from oppression.

It's this visual and lyrical poeticism that struck me more than the over the top (yet infinitely enjoyable) action sequences. Near the end of the film's second act, Bheem is tied up and tortured. He must kneel to the British Empire and confess his crimes in front of a large crowd. A leaf caresses his cheek and it hits a puddle on the platform he is on. Bheem sees the reflection of his face on the water, which is his visual theme. He then sings a song, a prayer to himself, that declares: if he submits to the oppressor, what worth is he as a leader, as a pillar of his community, as a child of the forest? As he is repeatedly beaten and tortured, he does not lose his composure. Eventually he faints without ever kneeling, an action that deeply moves everyone present: in Ram, it makes him question his motives; in the people watching, it ignites a fury that explodes as they rush the stage. Jr. NTR acts the hell out of that scene, honestly one of the best parts of the entire film. Here it is if you want to be spoiled.

The climax of the film is as ridiculously awesome as I expected; perhaps even more so. People familiar with the palm tree catapult scenes in Baahubali 2 will know the level of action that I'm talking about. But even if, at face value, things look absolutely ridiculous, for many of the people that have seen it (including myself) it's welcomed rather than treated as silly.  Of course they (the protagonists and Rajamouli both) would have the audacity to do what they did in RRR. Over the course of the film, we get to know these two people and we believe they really could have been friends, and that they could be capable of anything. Without resorting to metanarratives or appealing to "fanboy" tastes, RRR is cinematic spectacle at its most enjoyable. 

p.s. It's also interesting to note the level of intertextuality in RRR where the texts it references are different than the usual things that we see in Western Media (Rajamouli himself has admitted incorporating elements from texts like the Ramayana and Mahabharata in his works, and many South Indian revenge films follow the same basic structure).