Jazz in Love (2013)

Jazz in Love (Baby Ruth Villarama, 2013)

A telephone conversation between Ernesto “Jazz” Tigaldao and his German boyfriend Theo Rutkowski opens Baby Ruth Villarama’s Jazz in Love. As excited words are exchanged, Villarama’s camera lingers heavily on Jazz’s face, examining its longing lines and careful contours, forcing familiarity within the few minutes that are spent to introduce us to a same-sex and Facebook-initiated long distance love affair. By the time the two lovers give each other their respective parting kisses over the phone, Jazz has already become a fully-formed character, a hopelessly enamoured romantic who is on his way to Germany to wed his foreign prince and live his happily-ever-after.

It is not as if adorably optimistic Jazz does not deserve his fairy tale ending. He has studied and learned enough German to pass the required language examinations that would hopefully lead to a fiancé visa. He has survived the whispered curiosities and suspicions of his community, one that endures radio talk shows that disparage homosexual unions in the name of religion and morality. He has suffered through his father’s alcohol-induced coldness and frustrations. Despite the countless challenges, Jazz remains perpetually smiling, seemingly oblivious of the gravity of his love’s challenges.

Jazz in Love has all the makings of a perfect love story. Villarama has carefully placed and presented the foundations of her found fairy tale. She has an overly charming lead with a story marked with conflicts and issues that are relevant in a world of constantly shifting norms and migrations. Early on, Jazz’s route to happiness seems already predestined. He simply needs to pass his German examination, wait for Theo’s arrival, and be brought to Germany to live their expected perfect lives. However, as bits and pieces of Jazz’s life are revealed through impressions and anecdotes from his friends and relatives, it becomes apparent that there is something else quietly simmering beneath the infectious smiles and flirtatious retorts.

Theo does arrive. However, Jazz seems to be more in love than his partner, a rather pragmatic fifty-plus year old military staff who admits to surrendering to a life of being single. Their conversations, creatively framed by Villarama and co-cinematographer Dexter dela Pena to maximize available lighting to sentimental effect, are made lively mostly by Jazz’s undeniable attraction to Theo. The sparks though are momentary, replaced almost immediately by doubts and suspicions. In the midst of all their plans to legitimize their union, Jazz’s father is still cold and frustrated, drowning himself with liquor if and when the opportunity passes. His relatives, who are quick to blame their Filipino upbringing for their traditional morality, are more tolerant of the upcoming wedding than actually happy. Moreover, Theo seems to be more pragmatic than in love in entering into the marriage.

Of course, all these are just inferences and conclusions based on the subtle gestures and dialogues as captured and pieced together by Villarama. An entire relationship, despite its cyber beginnings and the haziness of its end, cannot truly be summarized within the scope of a documentary that also takes into consideration the filmmaker’s leanings and biases. Villarama has probably started Jazz in Love as something sweeter, something that will showcase love beyond borders, languages, and outdated prejudices. The limitations of documenting simply what unreliable fate chooses to do with Jazz’s life within a very short span has given her footage that showcases exactly the opposite, that despite the numerous pleasures that love can give, it forces us to be both blind and numb to its faults and deficiencies. Villarama, sensitive but unflinching in her presentation of the realities she has uncovered, gives impassioned Jazz both the respect and adoration to grant him that sheen of fantasy to his objectively imperfect romance.

(Cross-published in Twitch.)

Give Up Tomorrow (2011)

Give Up Tomorrow (Michael Collins, 2011)

It should have ended when the Philippines’ Supreme Court denied the several Motions for Reconsideration filed by the men who have earlier been convicted for the rape and murder of the Chiong sisters and sentenced to death. It was supposed to have been a triumph of a justice system beleaguered by accusations of being beholden to the rich and influential. For a time, it was indeed seen as a triumph. For that very little time when the media, in the guise of being one with the overwhelming majority, was celebrating the illusory end to all the questions and issues, the country had a sense that there is indeed order.

The convicted men were predictably seen as spoiled scions of the few members of the wealthy elite. The most prominent accused, Francisco “Paco” Larrañaga, is at first glance, the very personification of the country’s social divide. With his fair skin, brown eyes, and foreign features, he does not look like most Filipinos. His mother is a distant relative of a former president. His father is a Spanish citizen. His gazes are intense, almost angry. He talks with a cadence that is too assured and easily mistakable as indifference and arrogance. His eventual fall from grace, starting from his celebrated arrest to that final conviction by the highest court of the land, is therefore the logical happy ending to the escapist entertainment that the case has evolved into.

Director Michael Collins and producer Marty Syjuco’s Give Up Tomorrow presents the fatedly intertwined stories of the Chiongs and the Larrañagas from a specific perspective, that of those closer and more intimate to the perceived victimizers than the victim. At first glance, the obvious tilt to sympathize with Paco seems problematic as it clouds the documentary, pushing it further away from being a portrait of a frustratingly neglected truth into something that resembles propaganda. As it turns out, the documentary, with its skillfully presented pieces of evidence that pertains to the alleged miscarriage of justice, serves both purposes seamlessly.

The documentary’s strongest sequences are those that featured real footage from the prolonged trial, edited together with various interviews with shelved witnesses and emotional relatives, unflinchingly revealing the folly that was instantaneously believed and consumed in the heat of the moment. The film’s most sobering moments are those depicting Paco, from when he was snatched from the good life up to several years after when he is still serving a sentence for a crime he allegedly did not commit, insisting on his innocence, mouthing the mantra from which the title of the documentary was borrowed. Its portrayal of the two mothers, one whose obsession with her being a victim has allowed her to mold the system to suit her cause and the other whose trust in the system had turned herself and her family into its unsuspecting victims, is at once astounding and melancholic.

As it methodically shatters the official truth as narrated and explained by the various decisions of the trial and appellate courts, it also shatters the precious comfort and security that the processes that came up with the official truths provide. As it navigates the glaring flaws of a distinct judicial system through the experiences of Paco, it exposes the immense cracks of any system or institution tasked to retain both order and justice that is created and run by corruptible and erring men. More than swaying sympathies towards the already maligned convicts, Give Up Tomorrow espouses vigilance, especially in this age where truth is easily adaptable to the needs of the powerful.

Give Up Tomorrow acknowledges the gravity and importance of its cause, skirting away from too much style and spectacle and focusing instead on the scope and breadth of its material. Despite its very straightforward presentation, it is an admittedly difficult film to sit through. It is immensely heartbreaking, balancing the indelible pain of seeing an entire system that for years has been entrusted to set things right shamelessly crumble and being asked to accept the very possible reality that an innocent man has wasted his best years in jail, all for the benefit of keeping a tumultuous mob sated.

(Cross-published in Twitch.)

Harana (2012)

The Lost Kings of Serenade in Benito Bautista's Harana

by Francis Joseph A. Cruz

Nothing is ever truly obsolete. When something loses its supposed relevance because its functions have been taken over with more efficiency by another thing, it gains a different use altogether, as a product for nostalgia, a beacon for the past that is an unstable depositary of memories. Nothing is ever truly obsolete, unless forgotten. Memory, being a product of human thought, is needed to be urged to exist. Remembrance is not automatic. It requires an impetus, a switch to initiate the rollercoaster ride down experiences and emotions guarded by used time.

The harana, a traditional means of courtship where the boy would recruit a troupe consisting of a guitarist and a crooner to join him to the house of his beloved who is about to be serenaded to romantic submission, is on the verge of obsolescence. In an age past emotion-laden mixtapes, an age that is obsessed with speed, love has no more use for rustic rituals and ceremonies that enunciate what nowadays is perceived to be a dethroned and antiquated sense of romance. Filmmaker Benito Bautista and renowned guitarist Florante Aguilar, in their documentary that proudly bears the name of the courtship that is embattled by the natural course of time, intends to redeem the tradition from being completely forgotten.

Aguilar, motivated by a diaspora-charged obsession to preserve his native culture, decides to go back to the Philippines from the comforts of the United States to look for the last true remaining practitioners of the harana. Aguilar would at times play timeless melodies with his guitar to unlikely crowds in unlikely places, gaining further motivation for his search and hope that there remains an audience for whatever he is trying to find based on the resounding reactions he would garner from the most unadorned and unsophisticated of audiences.

Bautista dutifully follows Aguilar in his seemingly quixotic quest to revive the musical tradition by picking whatever remnants he can find. The film starts questionably, making it more a profile of Aguilar than anything. Thankfully, the film progresses away from Aguilar’s persona and further into his mission. Aguilar generously disappears into the background, and allows himself to play backup literally and figuratively to the long-lost troubadours he found and assembled into a charming troupe.

The old men that Aguilar deemed fit to represent the dying tradition have stories worth telling. Bautista carefully allows them their own narrative threads, emphasizing the intriguing possibility of their noble talents converging with their humble livelihoods and living conditions. It seems the sincerity that the music offers is a product of very modest circumstances, of timid gentlemen with nothing but their voices and their hearts to craft melodies from. They are unsung heroes passionately singing to save their songs’ fragile relevance. Harana marvellously allows their timeless voices to get heard and enjoyed along with memories of romances that persist or could have been had they not been rendered obsolete by the unstoppable passage of time. The best parts of the documentary are when ageless serenades are allowed to drown cinematic and narrative conceits. It is most moving when it graduates from the search and the struggle and becomes an unabashedly hopeful celebration of music.

(Cross-published in Twitch and ABS-CBNnews.)

Pureza: The Story of Negros Sugar (2012)

Pureza: The Story of Negros Sugar (Jay Abello, 2012)

Jay Abello’s Pureza: The Story of Negros Sugar astounds with its scope. In its attempt to answer the thesis question of what the real price of sugar is, the documentary explores and investigates the magnitude of what is ailing the local sugar industry, from the seeming ignorance and insensitivity that continue to plague governmental intrusion to the culture of entitlement that was cultivated by centuries worth of luxuries that the money crop has provided. It mostly succeeds in making a gloomy galaxy out of a spoonful of sugar one normally puts in his morning coffee to sweeten his day and condensing that galaxy into less than two hours of consistently interesting and sometimes entertaining conjectures, challenges, and fault-finding.

Abello’s approach is academic. The dense narration, delivered with curious seriousness by Abello not without a suspicious air of unfeeling detachment, expresses the immensity of the research. There is always that feeling that the narration was constructed to contain as much information within the least amount of words, unfortunately making the entire documentary not a little bit rushed and cluttered. Abello does manage to organize everything by dividing his research into chapters, providing some sort of comfort in his overeager lecture. He also adds some playfulness into the complexity of his subject matter, throwing into his thesis more than a bit of familiar history which conveniently criss-crosses with the very specific events that shaped the Philippine sugar industry, depicted as a stylized mini-feature composed of delightful re-enactments that temporarily divert from the moroseness of the present condition.

Abello sprinkles some personal anecdotes, grounding his bookish research with actual experiences. Although the documentary is grounded mostly by research-based facts and opinions of experts who were invited to weigh in on the subject, its heart lies in the fact that the endeavor for the documentary’s existence is drawn not from mere circumstance or curiosity but from the closeness of such material to the director’s heart.

Abello, being a member of the Negros elite, those who were in the receiving end of most of the benefits of the successes of the industry, was able to churn out the most intriguing interviews from his subjects, most of whom are probably relatives, friends or business acquaintances. He frames his interviews peculiarly. A prominent sugar baroness would details how sugar has spoiled the populace, laughing to her heart’s content while draped over an expensive but minimalist sofa. While an owner of a milling company discusses the future troubles of the already ailing industry, one can’t help but notice the immensity of his estate that features prominently in the background. There’s both sincerity and levity in Abello’s concern for the sugar industry. He understands the root of the problem enough to ridicule it, to harvest jokes out of it, and to produce a few earned chuckles from it.

Pureza: The Story of Negros Sugar avoids the pitfalls of being too localized and too inert to be of interest to the casual moviegoer by its earnestness, by the skillfulness in which Abello shapes his arguments, by the sporadic instances when the experiences of the Negros sugar industry evolves into a universal instigation of the caprices of government, the imperfection of economics, and the shallowness of humanity. It is hardly a perfect picture, but it does serve the purpose of education to the uninformed and re-education to the misinformed.

(Cross-published in Twitch.)

Basal Banar (2002)

Basal Banar (Auraeus Solito, 2002)

English Title: Sacred Ritual of Truth

The most unique of sunsets opens Auraeus Solito’s Basal Banar (Sacred Ritual of Truth). The distant coast and the clouds are but shadows to the mysterious red, blue, and white of the darkening sky. There can never be a more appropriate introduction. In a single visual, Solito introduces Palawan as this land that is mysterious, grandiose, and sadly, much burdened by problems any paradise may expect but should never deserve. From that otherworldly view of Palawan from the sea and through rivers and thick jungles, the film elegantly takes its viewers into the heart of the land, its people.

Solito has the advantage of capturing Palawan not from the vantage point of an absolute stranger but of a returning son. Instead of depicting Palawan’s people with the coldness and distance of an uninvolved documentarian, he positions himself as equally affected, giving the documentary a sense of reverence when depicting the more intimate details of the island’s culture and urgency when forwarding an advocacy.

Solito, schooled in Manila, prides himself of his Palaw’an heritage, a heritage that would guide him through several of his narrative features, all of which would give ample light to the unknown and marginalized, from the gay youths of Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, 2005) and Boy (2009) to the rare geniuses of Pisay (Philippine Science, 2007). It is only with Busong (Palawan Fate, 2011) that Solito was able to give his beloved Palawan undivided attention. In the film, he drapes his adulation with high definition images of a timeless paradise that curiously mingles with the very real and the infinitely current, creating something of a beautiful anachronism that is a more than apt summary of the situation in Palawan.

Basal Banar is an essential precursor and companion piece to Busong. Where Busong is dreamlike and artistic in its imagery, Basal Banar is organic and unrehearsed. Its aesthetics is borrowed directly from nature and the people that partake of nature.

Even the music and the sound design are essential facets of what is seen. The songs sung by the natives are little stories by themselves, tackling everything from sacred rituals to mundane domestic dilemmas. There are also songs heard from the radio, transmitted straight from Malaysia, the closest neighbor to the island. The songs heard in the film are essential to the story it tells, efficiently painting the island’s demographic as not comprised solely of the natives who have resided first in the island but also the newcomers. Solito, by encompassing the entire wealth of humanity that resides in Palawan, enlarges the scope of the struggle, deepens the pains caused by modernization and the inequity of the concept of property, a concept that is incongruous to the concept of community that has kept peace in the island, a concept that has displaced an entire people from a land they and their ancestors have considered home for centuries.

The documentary climaxes with a journey by Solito and other men and women to plot the ancestral domain that is supposedly protected by law. Hundreds of kilometers and several hours of arduous travel are reduced to several key minutes through time lapse. The effect is tremendous. It is in equal portions a campaign that would supposedly end the injustices caused by government-sponsored land-grabbing and a celebration of unity among people of various ethnic groups, educational attainments, professions, and personal histories. Basal Banar, in turn, becomes that rare documentary that forgoes dwelling in the evils humanity can be capable of by concluding in a note of triumphant hope.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog, 2010)

It is almost as if the paintings were waiting for the film to get made. The Chauvet Cave in Southern France suffered a cave-in several thousands of years ago, blocking its entrance and effectively preserving the paintings and everything else inside from deterioration caused by the elements and the natural course of time. For several decades since its discovery, the paintings have only been enjoyed through photographs and replicas, considering that entry to the cave have been limited to a few individuals. That is until Werner Herzog and his crew of three were granted unprecedented entry to film the interior of the cave. Cave of Forgotten Dreams is that result of the unlikely marriage of fate and genius.

Instead of merely treating the paintings as isolated works of art, Herzog posits that the paintings are prehistoric prototypes of cinema, explaining that the position of the paintings, the way they were painted, where they were painted, the possible sources of light in the cave allude to an illusion of movement and to a possible fantasy. Herzog’s hypothesis immediately removes the cave paintings from a position of trite curiosity into something more immediate and relevant. The paintings have turned into products of our conspirators in dreaming. They are evidence of something intrinsically shared with the prehistoric men. Herzog turns these anonymous people from the distant past into relatable characters with hearts and souls that are kindred to ours.

Herzog does not completely settle inside the cave. Instead, he frequently flies away, curiously focusing on the people around the film: their dreams, their inadequacies, quirks and past lives. Although separated by differing priorities and millenniums, there’s a connection that’s established between the subject of the film and his erstwhile subjects, and hopefully, the audience. In one scene, Herzog forces this connection, staging an ominous silence inside the cave, keeping his guides, his crew, and himself in a prayerful stance listening to a supposed communal heartbeat. Ernst Reijseger’s powerful score not so much swells but creeps into the middle of that shared contemplation, turning Herzog’s orchestrated meditation with that filament of humanity he strives to define into some sort of graceful sequence which it is ostensibly not.

The most beautiful thing that Herzog committed to in Cave of Forgotten Dreams is to expand it into something quite larger than it should be. The use of 3D for example is not for mere spectacle. Instead, it is a necessary tool to create that illusion of being inside the cave, of witnessing the actual contours of the cave walls instead of seeing a flat representation of those contours, of experiencing the movement of the painted animals instead of only imagining motion. Considering that the cave paintings and the cinema they aspire to be are all tools that utilize illusions to function as tools to approximate reality, 3D serves as a companion piece to this illusion-building by requiring the approximation of space and depth as essential to not only experience the wonders of the cave but also to understand Herzog’s claims.

That Herzog does not rely solely on hard facts and historical accuracy is what makes Cave of Forgotten Dreams so immeasurably fascinating. After all, what we see in the cave paintings are only minute facets of the immense world that the prehistoric man could have lived in and exploited. We can only watch in awe, dream connections and relations. Yet, we can never be exactly sure. We can only speak and feel from the very little that we know and the very vast that we can imagine. The documentary, as most documentaries do, places us in a comfortable position of looking at and into the subject. Thus, when the film moves into its postscript, with Herzog suddenly placing the audience as the subject for possible interpretation and interpolation of albino alligators that came from the probable future, the tables are turned, and the effect is nothing short of sublime.

(Cross-published in Twitch.)

Kano: An American and His Harem (2010)

Kano: An American and His Harem (Monster Jimenez, 2010)

The easiest thing to do is to inform. What Monster Jimenez does in Kano: An American and His Harem may be the hardest thing to accomplish. She first informs, of the life of Victor Pearson, an American war veteran who relocates to the Philippines and establishes a household that is composed of him and several wives and paramours, of the criminal suit for rape, of his eventual image as sexual deviant and monster. Jimenez then opens a window for Pearson, who has been adjudged by all who knew him solely as a character in the newspaper headlines as an indefatigable pervert, to prove his humanity, and opens a bigger window for Pearson to display his undeniable charms and wit.

Pearson looks like a thoroughly unkempt Harvey Keitel and talks like a reflective but drunken Edward G. Robinson. He is an inevitable screen personality. His backstory, with the possible barrage of psychological torture from a hinted torturous childhood and Vietnam War experiences, could have been a Kubrick thriller. His present story, as embattled villain in a legal battle against all odds, could have been a clever Lumet court drama.

His harem, on the other hand, is composed of an eclectic mix of looks and ages. Probably the only uniting factor for the women is poverty, which leads supposedly to their attachment and dependence on Pearson’s sizable veteran’s pension. However, to simply regard their intertwined relationships as primarily economic is to disregard the complexity of human nature. Jimenez explores not only the cycle of financial dependency but also the continuously evolving emotions, no matter how misplaced, mutated and immoral they seem to be. She treats the relationships between Pearson and his women and among the women with light-hearted sensitivity, with a careful but delicious mix of humor and seriousness.

Kano: An American and His Harem is ostensibly about the most curious of domestic arrangements, where one man plays benefactor, lover, victimizer, and a whole lot of other roles to the women who are voluntarily or involuntarily under his wing. Yet, the documentary also pushes perception despite the norms and moral boundaries that have set in place how we normally perceive what is human and what is not. Pearson, through Jimenez’s peerless and very involved investigation, has become the perfect example of the most misunderstood man, considering that his much-publicized and now legendary devious acts are too glaring to gloss over. And despite the initial disgust, the momentary fascination, and the lingering intrigue with Pearson, he becomes familiar, perhaps overly familiar to the point of discomfort.

Yet, Jimenez does not flinch. In fact, she confronts Pearson with only some apprehension, maybe some suspicion too, but never with disdain or an already made-up objective as to how the documentary will move. Instead, the documentary takes a life of its own, rollercoasting on emotions ranging from anger to amusement, and frustration to delight. It moves seemingly without direction because the director itself is moved by her subject, gravitating only to the business of exhibiting Pearson’s life and dilemma. As willing companions of Jimenez in her creatively crafted and deliciously enjoyable attempt to simplify the complexities of Pearson and his women’s unique situation, it is best to enter Kano: An American and His Harem with an open mind, totally unresisting of the probable charms of Pearson and his bountiful love.

(Cross-published in Twitch.)

Bombay Beach (2011)

Bombay Beach (Alma Har'el, 2011)

Salton Sea, a salt-water lake in the middle of the deserts of California, used to be the place to be several decades ago. Nowadays, it stands as a testament as to how time diffuses luster. The once pristine beaches that catered to the wealthiest of Americans are now graves to thousands of fish that perish because of the increasing salinity and toxicity of the lake. As it is, the area surrounding Salton Sea is that post-apocalyptic paradise existing in this pre-apocalyptic world. It remains to be this place of very elusive beauty, where glistening during sunsets are masked by abject sights of poverty.

Alma Har'el's Bombay Beach, without glossing over the pertinent issues that surround the subject surroundings, focuses on the lives of several individuals who seem to approximate the veiled charms of the place they call home. The film is loosely structured in a way that it does not follow any narrative arc but instead rides on an atmosphere of feel-good but never doubtful sentimentality. As a collage of portraits of various lives struggling in a presumably inhospitable landscape, Bombay Beach is joyously uplifting, which is somewhat pleasantly strange in this current cinematic landscape of popular doom and despair.

Music is an important element of Bombay Beach. The dances, mostly choreographed but performed by Har’el’s subjects with hardly any expectations of perfection, however, are essential. Volumes are communicated when a hard-boiled old-timer delivers a graceful gesture of unlikely romance in his awkward waltz, or when budding lovers interpret their newly formed affair with an evocative number. Benny, youngest son of the Parrish couple, whose story of being imprisoned for blowing up bombs in the desert as a pastime is an extraordinary subject for another documentary, takes part in this lovely group dance with other kids which summarize the endearing awkwardness of his fateful existence in the community. In a wondrously edited, lovingly executed and carefully directed sequence, the film transported its audience, although temporarily, to a place where innocence in the midst of immense adversity is not some lunatic’s fantasy.

That Har-el was able to draw inspiration from individuals who would commonly be regarded as the dregs of society, as pinnacles of human hopelessness, and jokes of cruel destiny, and was able to visually manifest beauty from a place where it has long faded is evidence of her ability to mix heart with directorial mettle. It is that unrestrained but sincere optimistic depiction of the human spirit that makes Har’el’s modestly produced but magnanimously crafted documentary such an indelible experience.

(Cross-published in Twitch.)

Vapor Trail (Clark) (2010)

An archived photograph of the Filipino-American war as shown

in John Gianvito's Vapor Trail (Clark)

Aftermath

by Francis Joseph A. Cruz

I once fancied myself a history buff, memorized all the events, the dates, the personalities, and other specifics. I was necessarily fascinated by the fact that these events, although involving unheard of elements like war, bloodshed and political intrigue, were real and that they happened in the same world that I exist in. That these events happened in the past gave me a god-like stance of observing them, studying them, memorizing them within a safety that is comforting. The immediate rewards of this fascination with history included top grades in social sciences and an infamy for being a reliable source of trivia.

Trivia. That was all history was for me and presumably most of the world’s work-a-day citizens. As soon as we participate in the seemingly grand but realistically humdrum race called life, we conveniently forget the lessons of the trivial past and replace them with a mentality of “what’s in it for me in the future.” The several EDSA Revolutions all seem like blurs, all parades of empty symbols of the color yellow, the Laban sign, and the humongous Mama Mary standing guard atop a Catholic shrine. For majority of us who are in it for the future consider these symbols as emblems of the promises that they once were and are rejuvenated as continuing promises, not necessarily as a linkage of the persistence of history as a reason for the woes of the present.

Alexis and Nika were murdered on September 1, 2009 in Alexis’ house in West Triangle. Alexis was a film critic, nay, a film activist who spread himself and whatever resources he has amassed during his lifetime for the goal of film education, whether it be to salvage whatever remains of whatever film legacy the Philippines has or to simply broaden the tastes of Filipinos to try films more complicated than the traditional offerings of Hollywood and its local counterparts. Again, all of these are just trivia, bits and pieces of information that newspapers would publish for a semblance of currency in their news-telling. Again, that’s that, a piece of history for the now-enamored-then-oblivious history buffs in high school. The truth of the matter is that their deaths have left an immense void in the advocacy that they concentrated their efforts on.

One of Alexis’ foremost projects was to set-up informal screenings right at the heart of the hangouts of the middle-class and upper-class Filipinos, presumably to bring intelligent films into the consciousness of those with the most capabilities to move and change the pitiful status quo. Thus, the Fully Booked Film Series was born. Imagine. The static shots of Lav Diaz, the beautiful experimentations of Raya Martin, the ultra-personal visual poems of John Torres, and the sensible madness of Khavn just a few meters away from Batman, Spider-man, Archie, Calvin and Hobbes. The irony of it all is just the cherry on top. The meat of the project is that these films, criticized for only being devoured by film enthusiasts outside the country, are being screened in the Philippines, for free, and with the directors and film experts present to answer or at least acknowledge hopefully sensible questions.

A few months after the deaths of Alexis and Nika, the Fully Booked Film Series re-introduced itself as the Tioseco-Bohinc Film Series in appreciation of the two film lovers’ contribution to its existence. In consonance with the recent happenings in the Philippine cinema scene, a very apt screening of John Gianvito’s Vapor Trail (Clark) was held a few months ago after much prodding from Lav, one of the film’s staunchest supporters. The first part of two documentaries that tackle former United States military bases in the Philippines, the film parades itself as a document of the harrowing effects of the ghosts of these bases, from the contaminations to the water supply to the general forgetfulness of the residents of the subtle woes that the Americans have left behind in the country. The documentary perceptively masks its berating message to the Filipino populace who seem to have contented themselves in treating history as a reason to install crumbling statues in unkempt city plazas while sniffing rugby for pleasure. We are a country of people addicted to momentary flights to landscapes of illusory comforts while everything else in the world is decaying.

In Gianvito’s very personal introduction to the film, where he acknowledged the contribution of Alexis to the film but was only read to the viewers because Gianvito was in Boston and could not go to the screening, he proposes that the Philippines “was robbed of its own independence” by the Americans “at the very moment it had finally achieved liberation from the brutal yoke of Spain is yet one more example of the willful distortion of history by those who benefit from the suppression of inconvenient truths.” The crux of Vapor Trail (Clark) is not only the indictment of the Americans of its overt and subvert crimes against the Philippines but also the indictment of the Filipinos for the act of forgetting and hence, undervaluing and neglecting the gift of liberty that was delivered by our patriots and freedom fighters. The very purpose why this country exists has been overshadowed by tenuous promises of alleviation. The truth is that we are still at war with our colonizers yet there are only very few revolutionaries left fighting, very few nationalistic songs sung, very few real Filipinos left to protect. The rest are slaves to a written history that is too much about trivia and too little about us.

These ramblings are of course products of my own frustration, not anymore about how this country’s history has been morphed into a topic of quiz nights instead of discourse but by the well-founded opinion that to even entertain such an idea is so unpopular, so boring, and so unsophisticated for anyone to spend a few hours of a lazy Sunday for. Vapor Trail (Clark), powerful as it is in its content, in the fact that it is imparted by an American, in the fact that it is too scathingly true to be simply a matter of entertainment or even curiosity, ended with only four people in the audience remaining. Alas, such is the sorry fate of these films that only seek to enlighten and to change mindsets and such is the blessed fate of Christopher Nolan’s Inception that is praised to death by both critics and viewers for its ability to turn fantasy into reality, vice versa ad infinitum. Such is also the fate of those who attempted to inherit Alexis’ woes, finding solutions against all odds to instill a permanent curiosity which will hopefully evolve into a thirst for films of these sort, films whose whispers are louder than the most grandiose explosions in a Michael Bay flick. If only these things can be treated as trivialities. Unfortunately, they can’t so we simply stagger on.

(First published in Uno Magazine, September, 2010, issue)

Eskrimadors (2009)

Eskrimadors (Kerwin Go, 2009)

The action film, a genre that was synonymous with the Philippines a few decades back where the country was producing countless films with heroes waging battles with iconic villains with their pistols or sometimes with only their deep knowledge in street fighting, is near-extinct in the present cinematic climate that fosters repetitive romances and horrific horrors.

It’s not that the country has lost action heroes (Monsour del Rosario, taekwondo champion turned action star, and Ronnie Rickets, action star who also directs, have moved on to politics) or directors adept with action filmmaking (there’s Rico Maria Ilarde who embellishes his horror films with lovingly staged action sequences). I’d wager that the lack of interest has more to do with the proliferation of big-budgeted Hollywood movies in the market. Where entire buildings burst into flames and characters dodge bullets and blows in eye-popping slow motion, the typical fisticuffs and car chases, no matter how adeptly staged, of a locally-produced and hence meagerly budgeted action outing seem outmatched. This is truly unfortunate, as this general lack of interest, caused by America’s cultural imperialism, is hurting our mettle for high-octane and violent filmmaking.

Kerwin Go’s Eskrimadors is not an action film per se. It is a documentary, and a very good one at that. Go centers on eskrima, more popularly known in other parts of the Philippines as arnis, a form of martial arts that primarily makes use of rattan sticks that originated in the island of Cebu. From its anthropologic roots as a sword-fighting method among the islanders down to its present-day popularity in international circles, the documentary carefully and effectively tackles the history of the sport, allowing living legends of eskrima to relay several stories, some of which are the stuff entertaining movies are made of. It’s all interesting. Go’s point in Eskrimadors is less self-congratulatory than it is cautionary, especially when the film’s mode transposes in the end where it feels like the film is lamenting the loss of a cultural treasure to a mixture of globalization and the lack of local interest.

To the martial arts enthusiast, the documentary is something of a well-packaged tribute to a sport that has been sadly relegated locally as mere curiosity when it has actually turned into a world-wide phenomenon. To the uninitiated in the field of martial arts, the documentary is told quite imaginatively, with a distinctly solid narrative flow, and a visual flair that outwits the budgetary constraints of a local independent production. It’s simply fantastic filmmaking. Instead of merely imparting researched knowledge, Go appropriates the brisk rhythm of eskrima into the film. The editing is aptly swift. The music scoring is exhilaration. The visual effects used are never needless. Eskrimadors plays exactly like an eskrima match: fast-paced, spectacular and always entertaining.

Go’s greatest asset in the film are the eskrimadors themselves, who he shoots in action, displaying their expertise and swiftness in maneuvering their rattan sticks. Moreover, interspersed within the documentary are episodes from a fictional retelling of one of those lethal duels that were widespread during eskrima’s early years. The story isn’t so much. It’s plainly about a young man who sees his father die in the hands of a villainous eskrimador in a duel. He trains, and eventually takes vengeance on the villainous eskrimador. What’s fascinating about these short episodes is how expertly directed they are, from the sweeping cinematography, to the exciting action choreography, to the editing, the music, even the acting. These exciting episodes (one happens on top of a hill, another in a dimly lit alleyway, and another right in the middle of a busy marketplace), snuck neatly in an already terrific documentary, can only implore you to take notice of talents, from filmmakers to martial artists, that would otherwise remain unseen, talents that could change the fate of the dying action film genre.

(Cross-published in Twitch.)

Waiting for Sancho (2008)

Waiting for Sancho (Mark Peranson, 2008)

In black and white, a solitary angel stands against a desolate background of sand and rocks. Motionless and emotionless, she mechanically recites several prophetic messages in Catalan. The actress playing the angel, we later learn, gets her monologue on the spot from the director who is only a few meters away, communicating to his actress and his crew via walkie-talkie while conjuring words out of thin air. It's a grand but overly familiar metaphor --- that a director on his set is god --- but it has never been as aptly fleshed out in film as in Mark Peranson's Waiting for Sancho, a fortuitous documentary that covers the filming of Albert Serra's Birdsong (2008), a contemplative take on the journey of the three wise kings to meet the newly-born messiah.

Using a consumer-level HD digital videocam which he only learned to operate while on the airplane to the Canary Islands, Cinemascope editor Peranson, who plays Joseph in Serra's film, shoots Serra and his cast and crew both at work and at rest, capturing a volatile creative dynamic that is mostly supported by fostered relationships. Inside the hotel rooms, while driving to the desert, and while shooting vital scenes, interactions, which are mostly banal banters, dry discussions, jests and jokes, comprise most of Peranson's documentary, which if it is not unraveling the mysterious mechanics of "auteur filmmaking," for lack of a better term, is grounding one of its components who, in this case, is non-actor Lluís Serrat, the Sancho (a nickname he got from playing Sancho in Serra's Honour of the Knights (2006)) of the documentary's title whose heft and lack of physical prowess literally makes everybody wait for him during the filming crew's long and arduous desert hikes. If only for how it humanizes filmmaking, as compared to the needless and predominantly dishonest making-of documentaries that are mere supplements of their over-budgeted subjects, Waiting for Sancho deserves much more attention than it is currently being given.

In his introduction, Peranson states that he never intended to make a film. However, out of the more than five hours of footage he procured in and out of Serra's Birdsong set, he was able to come up with a distinctly immersive film, providing an insider look into the creative process of a unique filmmaker who, aside from several other eccentricities, requires that his actors be actually tired when filming. Thus, Waiting for Sancho requires more than patience as it indulges, by necessity, to extended moments where absolutely nothing happens.

Peranson's aesthetics however betray his lack of intention to create anything more than a video-diary of his collaboration with Serra. The documentary is quite beautifully shot. Peranson's visual compositions are often surprisingly elegant, persistent long-takes of endless deserts and people that are uncharacteristic of the hand-held camera that he utilizes. Given that Peranson often includes actual scenes from Serra's film, the documentary then poses as a high-definition colored surrogate to Serra's stark black and white photography.

The implications of Waiting for Sancho's connections as a simple making-of adjunct, a companion film, critical commentary, or parallel reality to Serra's Birdsong are infinitely intriguing. As such, it gains a life of its own, ultimately independent of Serra or his film. One may doubt the film's pertinence considering that very few have seen or are aware of Birdsong or Serra, for that matter. However, the trend as filmmaking becomes a democratized art form, especially with the advent of relatively cheap equipment and audiences who cater to personal visions rather than pomp and spectacle, more and more filmmakers (like Serra, Lav Diaz, Raya Martin, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and more) whose methods may veer further from tradition to serve their own intents and nobody else's are gaining serious attention.

Having said that, Waiting for Sancho, with its near-nebulous foray into Serra's oft-dysfunctional film set knowing that the result of the on-set ramblings, tantrums, and doldrums is an arthouse darling, may very well be this generation's Burden of Dreams (Les Blank, 1982) or Hearts of Darkness (Fax Bahr & George Hickenlooper, 1991), only it goes further than simply tackling the eccentricities of a filmmaker or the hardships of the filmmaking process while still maintaining a quietly charming modesty that lends well to the very intimacy that fuels these small-scale yet worthwhile productions.

Lupang Hinarang (2009)

Lupang Hinarang (Ditsi Carolino, 2009)

English Translation: Hindered Land

Ditsi Carolino’s Lupang Hinarang (roughly translated in English as Hindered Land), a two-part documentary about the failure of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Act, screened during last year’s edition of Cinemalaya as a work-in-progress. The documentary has all the ingredients for late-night editorial-political television programming. However, what Carolino does is both simple and magical. By following the farmers in their symbolic battles (the Cuenca farmers staged a 29-day hunger strike in front of the Agrarian Reform headquarters; while the Bukidnon farmers walked all the way from Bukidnon to Manila), allowing the farmers to tell or show their own stories without need of intervention, and ultimately relegates the politics to the background, she molds what possibly could be the most poignant, urgent and pertinent advocacy-oriented film in recent years. Editing hundreds of hours of footage into a tightly weaved package showcases Carolino’s talent for taut storytelling and efficient filmmaking. Creating a masterpiece that moved an entire audience to sobs and tears for people whose lives and dilemmas they would hardly know or care for showcases Carolino’s sincerity, selflessness, and compassion, three traits I wish more of our filmmakers had. The fact that the documentary is still a work-in-progress is quite troubling, evoking a sense that there are still so much promises of land grants that remain hindered and unfulfilled.

(First published in The A/V Club, Philippine Star, 19 March 2010; Richard Bolisay, Dodo Dayao and Philbert Dy's recommendations can be read here; Gang Badoy's beautifully written tribute to Alexis Tioseco and introduction to The A/V Club can be read here)

Village People Radio Show (2006)

Village People Radio Show (Amir Muhammad, 2006)
Malaysian Title: Apa khabar orang kampung

Midway through Amir Muhammad's Village People Radio Show, Pak Kassim, former Malaysian independence fighter turned Communist guerrilla, says that despite the fact that they're Communists, they still need religion. It's not an entirely paradoxical proposition, especially after learning the man's history through the relaxed conversation pieces he has with Muhammad.

Village People Radio Show, along with its companion piece The Last Communist (2005), was banned in Malaysia for its Communist content, which I think is quite silly. Although the documentary tackles the communist fighter, it neither espouses or supports the cause, or at least not enough to evoke a rousing conviction from anyone who would view the film. Instead, the documentary paints an earthly portrait of these exiled communists who are living in a Thai village bordering Malaysia. There's a discernible humility in Muhammad's filmmaking; you can sense a profound respect for these former freedom fighters who are not able to relish in the freedom they have spilled blood and tears for, simply because of ideological differences.

The documentary is structured uniquely. Interspersed between the many conversations are excerpts from a Thai radio drama, adapted from William Shakespeare's Winter's Tale. The conversations themselves are backdropped with sights and sounds from that Thai village: little children playing, the adult folks in their daily trade, the forests that cover the village. Muhammad shows an effectively wry sense of humor, as when Pak talks about how the first Malaysian president went to England to discourse talks about liberation and in return foregoing further talks with the communist fighters, he shows us a monkey on a leash; or when he starts discussing about their unfortunate exodus out of Malaysia, he shows us a colony of ants on a straight disciplined line.

The documentary itself is constructed like a public announcement radio show, complete with an upbeat opening song that invites casual listeners. The invitation is of course short-lived, every now and then, the film stops into an irritating formation of moving lights accompanied by the distorted sounds over the airwaves, usually heard when one is changing the frequency to catch other radio stations. It's as if Muhammad is already parodying his film's current predicament; there's a funny sense that Muhammad is censoring those conversations with the village people; successfully intercepting the radio frequency to a harmless radio play, but is transported back to those soundbites of Pak Kassim's stories that are considered harmful and much political.

In a way, Village People Radio Show is not a mere documentary about a forgotten freedom fighter living his last days outside the nation he fought for, it is also a commentary about Malaysian politics and how most Malaysians opt for the simple pleasures of trite entertainment instead of complexing their lives with the plight and tales of the overtly marginalized. When faced with a depressing tale of a nationalistic man detached from his country, and such tale obviously hinges on a very sensitive aspect of governance and politics, they tend to turn the dial and hope something remotely entertaining is on the air, to pass the time.

Sicko (2007)

Sicko (Michael Moore, 2007)

Michael Moore, ever the provocateur, defines his documentaries with stunts that hammer his agenda with blunt, questionable yet entertaining spectacle. In Bowling for Columbine (2002), Moore enters the mansion of Charlton Heston to interrogate the celebrity of his gun-loving ways, turning his mood from cordiality to outright coldness. In Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), Moore goes around Capitol Hill parading the picture of a young soldier killed in Iraq, and interviewing lawmakers whether they'd allow their own sons and daughters to personally join the war in Iraq.

Moore's latest, Sicko, has a stunt that tops anything he's done before. He fills up three speedboats with ill Americans, transporting them from Florida to Guantanamo Bay to seek healthcare (which is provided for terrorists detained there). These sick Americans end up in Cuba where they are provided with proper medical attention and cheap pills; something that elicited tears, words of gratitude, and deep respect from Moore's subjects. The stunt may be considered manipulative or that it doesn't reveal the entire story or the methods Moore used to successfully drive his machinations. However, one can't deny that Moore, again, has successfully forwarded his agenda. There's no more denying the fact that despite Moore's love-him-or-hate-him personality and dubious filmmaking methods, he makes films that will make enough noise to matter.

Instead of rooting America's healthcare problem to specific politics, Moore goes for another method of attacking what America has become. True, Moore starts the film with Dubya speaking (in a presidential campaign, I suppose) about how healthcare is so important; then cutting to subjects relaying their specific healthcare woes (in escalating dramatics; beginning with a man who had to choose between the middle finger and the ring finger to a couple forced to bankruptcy by their medical troubles).

Moore also relays how Hillary Clinton, who championed socialized healthcare during her husband's administration, has become a paid puppet by the HMO's and pharmaceuticals when she became senator. All these are mere extraneous evidence for Moore since his attack this time varies. He doesn't go against the Bush administration directly by raising discovered anomalies or questionable legislation and presidential correspondence, as he did in Fahrenheit 9/11. This time, Moore gets more creative. He travels around the globe to stamp an ugly face on the American healthcare system; and in turn, shows how ugly America has become with its concern for rising economy and its citizenry's respective personal intents.

He travels to America's northern neighbor Canada, to Great Britain, to France, to show how America's privatized healthcare system is so wrong. He does seem to present those nations in utopian light but this is Moore, we really can't expect him to reveal full truths; he shows just enough to rouse anger, envy, and disgust. Surely, Moore's methods this time doesn't go for quasi-trials by presenting hard-hitting pieces of evidence and papertrails. Sicko goes for every logical fallacy in the book, but that's what makes it a far more satisfactory pic. While pushing for an agenda, Moore also pushes for the melodrama, the reality, and the absurdist comedy of these different stories of healthcare woes (including one by Moore's so-called greatest critic who becomes a recipient of the documentary filmmaker's charity --- the question of sincerity lingers, but it still shows how America's healthcare is an outright sham).

Sicko may be Moore's most important and best-made documentary to date. Unlike his previous works which I thought polarized viewers because of its highly political content, Sicko should unite audiences since the topic fairly belongs to one that does not discern political sides, race, or nationality. If Moore's filmmaking and his capability of twisting the truth to attain his goals still bother you, his latest will absolutely draw numerous queries and moments of disbelief. As for me, I'm just glad Moore brought this topic up with the force of a speeding ten-wheeler truck; now let's see America's presidentiables dodge this issue.

Riles (2003)

Riles (Life on the Tracks, Ditsi Carolino, 2003)

The Renomerons live around a feet away from the rail tracks. Their mornings, afternoons, and evenings are characterized by the predictable disruption of their routine whenever the train engine zooms past (in the documentary's opening shot, a gambling party is conveniently stopped to make way for the train). It's a literal living on the edge of life, and that description is mostly described by their very own routine. Eddie Renomeron is a balut (duck egg) vendor and earns a few hundreds of pesos per night. Pen Renomeron works as a part-time maid for a neighbor. Both their earnings seem never to be enough to pay for daily decent meals, and their monthly rent thus, the impending threat of their make-shift home being demolished to make room for a house extension by their wealthier neighbor.

Riles (Life on the Tracks) is documentary filmmaker Ditsi Carolino's ode to the resilience of the human spirit. The post-screening Q & A reveals Carolino's clear intent to portray subjects of inspiration, and not mere victims of urban poverty. She notes the process of her filmmaking; that she initially wanted to document the national elections but it evolved into something more human, she veered from the politics to document the realities of life; it turned out to be far more moving. Snippets of her previous plan resounds in the documentary. Senatorial candidate Winnie Monsod visits the dwellings in the rail tracks to ask for their votes. What ensues next is a debate on the merits of ex-president Joseph Estrada, charged with stealing government money but is well-loved by the urban poor. The poor start stating that Estrada never forgot them and would always visit to give them food and clothing. Monsod insensitively berates them by stating that what they need are jobs, and not food and clothing. In a sense, after watching the half hour that went by where the Renomerons literally struggle to earn food, you can't help but side with the poor. How can they start looking for jobs, when even the food they'll eat for dinner is as uncertain as winning from a gambling game?

Carolino possesses a perfect sense of narrative. She says that there were about 400 hours of footage, which she trimmed down to around seventy minutes, perfectly edited to play out a coherent narrative with slight touches of style and form. One of the favorite pastimes of Filipinos is to sing out their problems in the neighborhood videoke machine. In the film, the songs sung and heard through the machine divide the documentary: a domestic quarrel resulting from Eddie's drinking sprees with his best bud is capped with a weepy rendering of a popular love song; Pen's prayer for a longer life to see that her children and husband see it through their difficult life is capped with her touching ditty about motherhood.

Carolino is a formidable filmmaker whose heart is surely in the right place. Instead of utilizing the innate poverty of the slums of Manila as her passport to success, she instead focuses to document something more intimate, something more universal, probably less exotic and less intriguing, but definitely truthfully emotional. She captures the couple in periods of humanity --- their daily arguments, Eddie's flirtation with the bakeshop attendant, Pen's ever-consistent bouts of endless nagging. It's just fantastic how these couple retain the purest of humanity despite their living conditions, which Carolino also portrays unflinchingly: rats dwell alongside them, their ceiling leaks during rainy season, they try to make dinner for a huge family from a couple of potatoes and some eggs.

Carolino is clearly the tailor of this brilliantly woven tapestry of survival; the beautiful threads to complete the tapestry however are the Renomerons. Eddie possesses an affecting charm that is quite rare to people who are afflicted with poverty. He faces troubles with a string of jokes; and quite surprisingly, he's an effective comedian. Pen is a shining symbol of resilience; she survived through breast cancer, suffers through daily bouts of respiratory and skin disease, juggles their little finances with her family's needs and her own medicine (more often than not, sacrificing the latter for the former). Theirs is a human connection that every human being will not deem exotic or strange, despite the differences in stature in life, race, or nationality. Riles is a film with fully resounding themes and the sincerest portrayal of life in the slums.

Jesus Camp (2006)

Jesus Camp (Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady, 2006)

Somewhere in Missouri, 9-year old Rachel is telling a complete stranger how God has spoken to her and has instructed her to evangelize, 12-year old Levi is practicing his evangelical sermon and 10-year old Tori is dancing to the music of Christian heavy metal bands. At first glance, the knowledge of children actively taking part in religious activities is quite heartwarming. However, upon seeing the level of manipulation these kids blindly expose themselves in, the feeling evoked would be more of repulsion and disturbance.

The movement prides itself of being a political force, that its membership can sway any American presidential election. In one scene, a group of kids are asked to pray over a life-size cardboard cut-out of George Bush --- the psychological impact of the exercise becomes quite apparent; Bush is depicted as a spiritual figure alongside his political role as America's president. This is the sort of activism that is being planted in the hearts of these kids; that the separation between church and state is something that can be broken. It gets even more disturbing when we hear these kids lecturing about how they get sick when they see Americans who aren't members of their faith. That, of course, is a mere effect of the beliefs shared by the camp's charismatic adult supervisor Becky Fischer. Fischer, who shares that children of the Islam faith are being trained to incorporate jihad very early on, wishes to do the same for America's Christian youth --- she later on asserts that there should be no problem with that, as believe it or not, they have the truth.

The intolerance, the exclusivity, that is already dwelling in some of America's youth is quite troublesome. In the camp, these kids are being stripped of their youth; Fischer admonishes Harry Potter; later on, while the kids are having fun telling ghost stories, a camp director states that ghost stories are fun but they aren't Christian. The activities in camp get more serious. We hear Fischer lead the kids to war (spiritual, may be; but these are children who are citizens of a country at war --- the obvious connection is dangerous).

More liberal Christian radio commentator Mike Papantonio provides a semblance of reason in the documentary. Later in the film, Papantonio gets to interview and argue with Fischer; he somewhat comments that it gets weirder and weirder after Fischer scoffs at his adamant reason. It's uncomfortable to note that when these kids do grow up, and become like Fischer in their own right, how weirder (or more dangerous) would it get?

Yet the fascinating thing about Jesus Camp is its objectivity. Directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady do not parade their own activisms. The film is in turn polarizing; liberals may point out to the doc us a piece of evidence of these evangelists' growing political power and their underhanded tactics to assure such, the more conservative may merely claim that the doc is an objective portrayal of innocent church activities. I thought Ewing and Grady's techniques are quite suggestive: the film ends with Fischer passing through a car wash while listening to an evangelical radio show. Before the end credit starts rolling, Fischer pauses as the car wash finishes its job; the scene reveals the plastic door with two red sign stating "STOP." I agree, stop.

This Film is Not Yet Rated (2006)

This Film is Not Yet Rated (Kirby Dick 2006)

The Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA, is the subject of Kirby Dick's biting, sarcastic and always humorous documentary. Under the guidance of Jack Valenti (who takes the form of double-crossing imp in Dick's doc), the MPAA has turned into a self-important regulating body that has become the bane of every self-respecting filmmaker. There's a host of problems clouding over the MPAA's charter: the anonymity of the members of its ratings board the disregard for precedent, the lack of a clear standard for ratings. Each and every discrediting factoid, Dick feverishly gathers; and quite fantastically, his method works.

The bulk of the documentary presents Dick's arguments against the MPAA as accompanied by several filmmakers' experiences with the board. The effect is quite convincing. You have to take in consideration of course that the host of interviewees Dick gathers are all generally aghast at the board's functions. A seemingly cool John Waters shares anecdotes on how he lost his 'cool' when his A Dirty Shame was given an NC-17, with the subsequent remark that they just stopped taking down notes with what they thought was objectionable in Waters' film. Kevin Smith (Jersey Girl), Mary Harron (American Psycho), Atom Egoyan (Where the Truth Lies), Wayne Kramer (The Cooler) share similar anecdotes with similar levels of disgust. Noteworthy is Maria Bello's appearance alongside Kramer talking about how their film got an NC-17 just because Bello's pubic hair was shown for a split second.

More telling is Dick's side-by-side comparison on what gets a favorable R and what gets the dreaded NC-17. Most directors agree that a standard might be the number of humps in a lovemaking scene. More problematic is the unequal treatment given to heterosexual and homosexual lovemaking (and this does not merely range to what is depicted on screen (as in sexual intercourse) but also involves un-visual psychological motivations for masturbatory action (as shown in a comparison between the masturbation scenes shown in American Beauty (which got an R) and Jamie Babbit's lesbian flick But I'm a Cheerleader). Even more enraging is the difference in attitude given to male and female pleasure; Dick seems to be concluding that female orgasms have a negative societal impact on society, thus the evident displeasure by the MPAA raters.

The angry outcry by filmmaker-artists is already stuff of public knowledge. Dick merely lends his talents to cinematographically embellish and enunciate their sentiments. Dick's primary contribution to the battle against the MPAA is his detective work in revealing who views, reviews, and rates the films they make with the questionable gift of confidentiality. Dick recruits a private eye (alongside her daughter-assistant) to pinpoint and trace each and every person in the board. What may seem like a boring process of waiting outside the MPAA building, stalking, and searching through garbage bins (to reveal a review of Rob Marshall's Memoirs of a Geisha (rated PG, despite a raunchilly described scene that involves fingers, sex, and virginity) evolves into a personal battle by the private eye (who is openly lesbian) to take part in Dick's activism.

Dick evolves his documentary into his own personal battle when he submits his film to the MPAA. Complete with clips from all the graphic scenes from the interviewed filmmakers that the MPAA adjudged as unfit for viewing, he knows that the verdict will necessarily be NC-17. The ruling is of course a mere vehicle for Dick to gain an impromptu interview with MPAA chairman Ms. Graves (sarcastically animated), to give us a vision or a momentary taste of the paranoia, the bias, the irrationality behind the MPAA's ratings. The NC-17 ruling also opens the documentary to the subject of appeals, giving further work for the private eye to reveal the members of the appeals board --- the revelation brings about disturbing notions of a conspiracy theory by all the corporate bigwigs against free artistry.

An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

An Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim, 2006)

Have you ever wondered how different our world could've been if Al Gore became president of the United States instead of George W. Bush? Would the twin towers of the World Trade Center still exist today instead of an empty memorial grounds to an unfortunate tragedy? Will Afghanistan and Iraq still be self-governing sovereign nations? Will we be treated with uncomfortable suspicion by every establishment, airports to be more exact? Would there be a discomforting and highly rationalized form of racism against Arabic and Muslim individuals? An answer to those hypothetical questions might be an unsure "yes," (of course, depending on one's political leanings, or to a certain extent, I.Q. level). But for sure, those questions would yield an answer --- those questions are of the political domain, and a change in the leadership of the world's most powerful nation would have such drastic changes (at least in an alternate universe wherein Gore is president).

Now let's change the line of questions: Would we experience a grave change of climate and weather? Would Hurricane Katrina have the same disastrous effects, to the point of almost eliminating New Orleans from the map? Would shoreline cities and third world nations in Asia suffer severe floods and treacherous typhoons? You might reply those line of questions with a raised eyebrow. It's almost logically unfair to commit such disasters to the Bush administration; yet upon watching Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth, a connection between the natural and the political become distinct and clear. Here is Al Gore, who in the past have fought for the environment with every bit of political power he has garnered, and upon losing the presidency to Bush, has traveled the world with his hi-tech power point presentation about the truths and dangers of global warming. Here is a man who has a clear and unadulterated perspective in what politics should stand for. On the other side of the fence is Bush, who was fed, clothed, and was funded by oil; and upon winning the presidency, has traveled the world looking for more oil, and destroying governments and notions of fair play along the way. The second line of questions is suddenly provided with an answer similar to the first --- a possible "yes," depending on one's political leaning, and even more so, on one's I.Q. level. Our world would've been a very different place if the United States had Gore instead of Bush, as president --- on a hypothetical level.

The forced idea of what could've happened if Gore won is just one of the aches that the viewer would feel when watching An Inconvenient Truth. The other is more visceral, the entire topic of Gore's presentation: the realities and short term effects of the present level of global warming. Al Gore makes use of a lot of numbers and graphs; most of which I did not quite understood initially. They do sound scary and the graphs are visual indicators for alarm and discomfort. Gore is such a convincing speaker that it is almost impossible to doubt whatever he's saying; he has a whole army of pieces of evidence to back up his advocacy --- photographs, studies, maps. And it's not all serious stuff as Gore manages to make the bitter pill more palatable by using animation, jokes, anecdotes, and a surprising sense of showmanship.

An Inconvenient Truth isn't only about global warming as dictated with gusto by Al Gore. Guggenheim interrupts Gore's power point presentation with Gore's own reflections on the present state of our environment, and his own recollections of very personal portions of the public figure's life. I thought that proved to be an effective tool to give credibility to the personality speaking (by showing that he has a stake at the future of the world: the near death experience of his son gave him the prime motivation for his right to live) and a welcome relaxation to the uncontrollable stiff presentation of hard-hitting facts and theories. With that, the film flows much livelier; a visible heart is fathomed from the rather dismaying topic. The human side of Gore forces us to look at what's at stake for us, and we start realizing that there indeed is much in store for us if we force ourselves to close our minds to the truth. Human logic dictates that action be done; it's just quite sad that logic is often blurred by the temptations of gold: black or otherwise.

Who Killed the Electric Car? (2005)

Who Killed the Electric Car? (Chris Paine, 2005)

Chris Paine's documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? opens with a funeral parade. Several testimonials follow suit, all declaring the good traits of the deceased. It turns out that the deceased is not human at all, but an electric car. The entire funeral parade is in fact part of the program by former electric car owners who are now protesting General Motors' retrieval of the environment-friendly consumer vehicles. The electric car in in truth dead. General Motors, against the rabid campaigning and vigil of activists, has terminated the last few units left, and left some for automobile museums. Paine weeps the unfortunate passing of what could have been a solution to the many problems that surround gas-powered vehicles, and then starts pointing fingers at the likely suspects.

It's a very well-presented documentary of a topic that I think is of important relevance. The first half of the film is told like a clever testimonial to the dead. Paine presents the history of the electric car, avidly describing the fact that these cars have existed alongside fuel-powered ones a century ago. It remains a mystery why the electric cars totally disappeared, only to resurface in a hopeful and probably one of the few bravely political mandates that ever came out of California: the mandate that would slowly phase out fuel-powered cars in favor of electric cars. Paine shows the importance of such, environmentally, economically, health-wise and politically. After telling the story of the rise and fall of the electric car, Paine starts to dissect the details in CSI-fashion and determine who caused the death of the electric car.

The documentary is narrated by a very boring and bored voice of Martin Sheen. Sheen's voice doesn't have the complementary power his visual presence provides and turns the documentary's important messages into a sort of infomercial extravaganza that doesn't quite effectively match up the magnitude of the film. Paine's efforts can be observed. He comes up with several interviews with politicians, ex-employees of General Motors, celebrities (including a bearded Mel Gibson who miraculously doesn't say things that can damage his or the film's reputation), advocates, environmentalists, and an aging inventor and his sweet wife. Paine also shoves up some archived videos from the David Letterman Show (showing a Tom Hanks who is so enamoured by the electric car), a Naked Gun film (which surprisingly and disturbingly accurately describes the reason behind the silent maneuverings to make sure that not a single electric car be driven in the highways of California), and the administrative proceedings that completely toppled the important electric car mandate.

It's a cool and intelligently pieced out feature. There's a sort of sadness by the fact that the only piece of hope or joy the documentary provides is the idea that there are now hybrid plug-in cars in existence or in development (that doesn't really help the cause since electric cars are already an available technology, why spend more cash for something safely in between). It quite feels that the documentary is entirely a lost cause, a mere precaution for what could happen in the future by good-natured technology that may drive huge corporations out of profitable existence. Overall, Paine made a documentary of a story worth telling, and it is told with coherent competence, but above that, there's really not much else. Paine's call for action is not emotional enough to disturb, his documentary not passionate enough to rouse attention.

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005)

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (Robert Greenwald, 2005)

An anti-Wal-Mart protester compares Wal-Mart's dawning on the town of Inglewood, California with Godzilla's destructive invasion of Tokyo. It's not really an accurate metaphor for Wal-Mart's destructive forces. I have a soft spot for the oversized reptile. Godzilla is also a victim despite looking like a heartless monster. Wal-Mart, based on political documentary filmmaker Robert Greenwald, is nothing but a vicious victimizer, descending on little American communities, exciting consumers with its bargain prices bought by a Faustian contract with the demon of greed.

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price is obviously one-sided. The documentary doesn't give any opportunity for the Wal-Mart management to air their side. I doubt the management will ever give their side, at least not in Greenwald's documentary. Greenwald's allegations, aside from the typical aftereffects, like the closing down of small time shops because of impossible competition, of gargantuan retail corporations landing a pimp spot in any locale, is of immense damaging potential that retaliation from the management would only seem futile and conveniently rehearsed. Actually, Wal-Mart management indeed lends a voice to Greenwald's striking documentary. The film opens with Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott in an archive footage excitedly wowing a crowd of Wal-Mart associates with opportunities of earning more. The film also contains several of the glossy and equally sleazy inaccurate Wal-Mart commercials Greenwald makes use as a sort of divider to his documentary's many issues, and as a target for stirring yet humorous sarcasm.

Greenwald's attacks range from the obvious to the real eye-openers. Greenwald makes an obvious effort to put a human face on the several businesses that Wal-Mart forcedly closes. It's an emotional touch to an already tired issue that Greenwald seems to be mightily concerned with, and as that, rejuvinates the point with a more humanist rather than an economic concern. Then Greenwald mostly centers on Wal-Mart's deliberate labor abuses, both in America and its foreign factories. Wal-Mart's concern against labor unions and any similar activities is quite distressing --- the way they spend an amount of money for security cameras to detect union activities within their premises, but neglects any security spending for their very own customers; the way they hire multitudes to hinder an impending labor voting. Greenwald tries to connect sexual and racial discrimination in the Wal-Mart workplace with the management's seeming lack of concern for such. It's kind of ill-placed in the documentary but is still nevertheless very telling.

Overall, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price is compelling stuff. It adds more insult to injury that Greenwald makes use of former employees (even some of those who have spend a quarter of a lifetime working for the retail corporation) who have become disgruntled of Wal-Mart's inhumane ways. Greenwald even makes his way to China and other offshore sweatshops to put a human story to the often told tale of sweatshop workers laboring for a fraction of a dollar per hour. It's amazing research work and Greenwald puts all the stuff together in coherent and scandalizing fashion. With the immense difference between the cost of the products sold and the actual cost for their manufacture, you can't help but wonder what happens to the more than one thousand percent profit being made. Greenwald doesn't let the major culprits get away without being smeared like their unjust corporate vehicle: The Walton Family and its boisterous mouth Lee Scott get majority of the profits to fund their anti-apocalypse bunker and a fleet of jet planes and helicopters.