Pridyider (2012)

Pridyider (Rico Maria Ilarde, 2012)

The first few scenes of Rico Maria Ilarde’s Pridyider immediately reveal a particular milieu that is far removed from the real and the mundane. Tina Benitez (Andi Eigenmann) is first seen aboard a flight back to the Philippines. She is sleeping, dreaming a horrid dream. She immediately wakes up, prompting her seatmate, an amiable old woman who is finally returning to the Philippines from a thirty-year absence, to talk to her, mouthing cryptic statements about looking back to where you came from. She takes a cab driven ominously by Ilarde-regular and frequently used character actor Raul Morit to her new home. A heated discussion on the display of depraved violence in Brillante Mendoza’s Kinatay (2009) is heard from the radio. Tina, tired from her trip and unready to be bombarded by third world concerns, politely asks her cab driver to turn the radio off. There is just no room for the grime and guilt of reality in Tina’s story. Her story is one that can only happen in the twisted and more than slightly offbeat world of Ilarde.

Ilarde carefully lays the foundation of his world. Its oddball residents are all mutations of some archetype or stereotype. Tina is the damsel-in-distress, devoured by a mission to discover her family’s history. There is also her knight-in-shining armor (JM de Guzman), a former childhood sweetheart she re-establishes a romance with. The other characters are there to fill a particular role within the confines of Ilarde’s modern fable. The plot itself follows a familiar pattern.

In a way, the predictability of the film’s plot and characters is borne not out of laziness but of Ilarde’s obsession with the genre, an obsession to elevate it without breaking or betraying its time-tested rules. After all, the best of Ilarde’s works, his two indie-charmers Sa Ilalim ng Cogon (Beneath the Cogon, 2005) and Altar (2007) seem to be films created from the same vein, with characters facing similar moral and physical obstructions, inching their way to some sort of redemption.

Pridyider, perhaps owing to its commercial studio backing, is more fleeting in theme, with characters that are less subjugated to moral and spiritual uncertainties. Tina’s motivations are trite at best, nothing as life-threatening or soul-shattering as Ilarde’s previous protagonists. She is mostly passive, urged only to action when it becomes apparent that her most used appliance has some murderous intent. Ilarde is clearly more enamoured by his inanimate villain, establishing a back story that involves more complex human emotions such as jealousy as vengefulness.

It is inevitable but useless to compare Ilarde’s Pridyider with Ishmael Bernal’s, the middle episode of the very first Shake, Rattle and Roll (1984) movie. Bernal’s version had a sinister refrigerator charged with sexual frustrations, feeding off the heat-drenched lustful repressions of its new victims. Ilarde’s re-imagining avoids giving the appliance human qualities. It is otherworldly and evil, a manifestation of human distortion instead of a crooked human quality, designed to be utterly reprehensible with various innards, taunting severed heads, and vicious other body parts that inflict harm without respect to relationships. If the biggest threat to the peace of the world is far from human and something innately evil, the proper remedy to that threat is not something within the grasp of human logic or reason, but something particularly Catholic, symbolic and outrageous.

Ilarde filters much of the clutter from the genre and stubbornly goes back to the basics of horror, notwithstanding the fact that his audience clamours for twists and lousy sophistication. He represents that peculiar branch of horror that never swayed to the demands of the evolving market, that refused to follow the movement towards fake subtlety and vapid seriousness, that remained true to Lovecraftian weirdness and the many possibilities of horror it provides if localized and molded to suit the Philippine setting. He and his films will predictably be misunderstood. Despite that, he’ll predictably make the same films over and over. Pridyider is proof that there’s room in this mainstreamed household of repetitive romances and schlocky shockers for his entertaining eccentricities.

(Cross-published in Twitch.)

Villa Estrella (2009)

Villa Estrella (Rico Maria Ilarde, 2009)

After Altar (2007), it would seem that Rico Maria Ilarde has mastered his craft. The film, about a titled boxer who was forced into early retirement after he killed his opponent in a match and proceeded to work in a suspicious house in a near-deserted subdivision, is in equal satisfying portions, scary, pulpy, and poignant. Ilarde knows horror. Before engaging in cheap thrills and elaborate narratives that predictably conclude in convoluted twists, acknowledges the many elements (conflicted heroes, misunderstood religions and symbols, instant myth-making) and the many influences (Browning, Tourneur, Ulmer, Gerardo de Leon, Corman, etc.) that make up the genre. Thus, his films tend to be monstrous and mutated in a way that common movie logic is conveniently disregarded and the only reason that remains is the unique and crazed captain steering the narrative, the visuals, and the characters in a direction that is so utterly fantastic, it is undoubtedly memorable. Where Ang Babaing Putik (Woman of Mud, 2000) and Sa Ilalim ng Cogon (Beneath the Cogon, 2005) felt like experiments of a mad scientist, Altar is the culmination of these experiments: a delicately crafted creation where all the elements are weaved together to form a seamless whole.

It is with that note that I say that Ilarde's latest, Star Cinema-funded Villa Estrella, is an absolute disappointment. It is easy to pinpoint where the fault lies: studio interference. The multitude of writers (Joel Mercado, Adolfo Alix, Jr., and JP Abellera) assures sizable roles for the studio's stars, sacrificing singularity and integrity of vision for imagined commercial viability. Former child star turned popular soap actress Shaina Magdayao plays Ana who, in an effort by his ex-boyfriend Alex (Jake Cuenca) to rekindle their lost romance, is dragged to Villa Estrella, a dilapidated resort that houses the answers to the dreams that have been constantly haunting her. There, she is introduced to the strange inhabitants of the resort: Giselle (Maja Salvador), the daughter of one of the resort's long-time helpers (Rubi-Rubi) who seem to have a mysterious connection with Ana; Mang Gusting (Ronnie Lazaro), the restort's eccentric caretaker who has been searching for his daughter since she suddenly disappeared many years ago; and a murderous monstrosity who resides in the resort's murky swimming pool.

My biggest problem with Villa Estrella is that it is told from the perspective of Ana, who might turn out to be Ilarde's most passive protagonist. Ilarde's protagonists are decision-makers. They are perennial action heroes who would not allow the often cruel machinations of their pulp existences to take a hold of their respective destinies, whether it be escaping their accursed scenarios with the rescued damsel-in-distress or spending an eternity in sorrow or solitude. Thus, the repercussions of their decisions have more substance and weight, considering that their fates are products of their actions, as influenced by their histories and moral standings. Ana, on the other hand, is a victim, passively navigating the convoluted storyline that she finds herself in. It is not so much a personality defect that she has to overcome but a character flaw, a laziness in the part of the writers to concoct a character that is not a mere narrative or genre device. Alex, with his undying persistence in winning back his troubled ex-girlfriend to the point of spiriting her away to a suspicious resort, would have made a more interesting, effective, and consistent Ilarde protagonist.

Ana shows more resemblance to the suffering damsels of many Asian horror films who are pushed into horrific situations, tormented by ghastly wraiths, and supported by their dashing knights, than Ilarde's action heroes. Villa Ilarde, as it turns out, is a Ringu-derivative (I doubt a studio would risk funding a horror film without the token shocks, twists, and creepy ghost kid) as translated into one of Ilarde's genre-bending exercises. Before the film becomes too comfortable in convention, Ilarde starts to take risks, revealing a goo-spewing monster which seems to be a cross between the alien in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979), the monster in John McTiernan's Predator (1987), and the hundreds of rubber-suited freaks that dominated many cheesy Filipino horror films of the past), have a disposable character make a self-referential, and absolutely humorous, quip ("are you an alien? a monster? or none of the above?") before being killed, have Alex and Ana's father (John Estrada) engage in a battle involving fists, axes, and other weaponry, and steer the story to something recognizably Ilarde.

The mainstream elements of the film (everything that the studio executives forced Ilarde to comply with, from the unnecessary characters and side-plots) got audiences swarming into the cineplexes. Two thirds of the audience would be satisfied because of the complementary thrills and chills. A third (those who are bamboozled enough to look for complete logic in their horror) would consider the film a total waste of time and money, considering that the film is swimming in a sea of loopholes, illogic, and disorienting sidetrips to erstwhile film genres (like the Filipino action film). Perhaps the film sends mixed messages to its audience. It's neither the seamless conventional horror like the several Chito Roño made for Star Cinema (Feng Shui (2004), Sukob (The Wedding Curse, 2006), T2 (2009)) or the always interesting earnest genre-benders of Ilarde.

As I've mentioned before, my disappointment with Villa Ilarde hinges on the fact that Ilarde has made a brilliant film previous to this. Ilarde is not new to the mainstream, having made Dugo ng Birhen (Blood of the Virgin, 1999), Ang Babaing Putik, and Aquarium (middle portion of Shake, Rattle, and Roll 2k5 (2005)) with studio funding and still managed to come up with films that bear his signature. Villa Estrella, while noticably compromised by much studio interference, comprises an aesthetic that is distinctly Ilarde's: the dreamy and rustic appearance of the resort, with the statues, the unkempt cabins and the unexplored areas, that hide something more sinister. With that note and despite its innumerable flaws, Villa Estrella is a more than satisfying studio effort.

Altar (2007)

Altar (Rico Maria Ilarde, 2007)

Anyone who has watched Rico Maria Ilarde's more recent films would notice that all the protagonists of his bizarre tales are quintessential Filipino men, handsome, able-bodied, yet hinting of deeply rooted hesitations (may it be of an uncertain future, a criminal past, or sins of the family) that are exploited by the fantastic and often horrific circumstances they fatedly figure in. In Babaeng Putik (Woman of Mud, 2001), roughly masculine actor Carlos Morales plays Mark, a graduating medical student who spends some time in his uncle's remote property to assess his future, only to fall for a woman that emerges from a plant and be pitted against a terrifying monster. In Sa Ilalim ng Cogon (Beneath the Cogon, 2005), Yul Servo plays Sam, an ex-convict being hunted by both the police and a band of criminals who ends up in an abandoned mansion which houses both a lovely damsel and a murderous mutant. Even in Aquarium, the middle segment of horror omnibus Shake, Rattle and Roll 2k5 (2005) which Ilarde directed, Ogie Alcasid plays a father, suspected of philandering by his wife but is really hiding a family secret, who acquires a condominium unit for his family. Included in the unit is an aquarium, with a creepy mask as its centerpiece, which mysteriously murders everyone that gets near to it.

Ilarde's men fortuitously end up in places where concepts of reality are discarded and replaced with elements more suited in sinister fairy tales and dark fables. These locations, like the men they attract, are far removed from the preoccupations of the daily grind and harbor well-guarded histories. They seem to belong to another dimension, to another world. The men step foot into these places, in an effort to momentarily rid themselves of their troubled past. These places turn out to be temporary refuge to the men they lure. However, aside from threats from the local monstrosities, there seems to be no real risk involvedr. Ilarde's films turn out to be imaginatively crafted fairy tale films.

Altar, Ilarde's latest, seems to be a mere reiteration of Ilarde and co-screenwriter Mammu Chua's tried and tested formula. The protagonist Anton (model turned reality TV star turned movie actor Zanjoe Marudo) is a professional boxer who accidentally kills an opponent in one match, forcing him to retire from the sport. Chronically unemployed, he and Erning (Nor Domingo), another jobless man he meets while in line, accept a job to fix a house located in the remote outskirts of Manila. The foreman (Dido dela Paz) warns them of the basement, which houses a mysterious altar. Moreover, stories of previous workers suddenly disappearing, nightly apparitions by a girl dressed in white and an attic with cross-shaped windows and doors adorned with carved Latin phrase indicate that the house is not an ordinary one. On a lighter note, the two find the loves of their life in the area, Angie (Dimples Romana) and Giselle (Kristalyn Engle), maids from a neighboring household. The film is shaped in the mold of an Ilarde horror: the man of deep hesitations is matched with a fantastic setting.

However, Altar takes a different, and in my opinion, more satisfying route. Anton is probably the most complicated Ilarde hero. He is undoubtedly virtuous but inhabits a simplistic moral landscape: of bad and good; and black and white. When faced with a situation wherein real world complexities of morality become apparent (he has killed a man in a match, a situation wherein his black-and-white morality cannot operate efficiently), he resigns. Impoverished, he is satisfied with jobs that will not require him to revisit the difficult questions of that life-altering dilemma. The house represents a vagueness of morality. Ilarde, of course uses both traditional Catholic and logical denominations and symbolisms that define good and evil: crosses and pagan artifacts, heaven and hell, innocence and ugliness, all respectively. As the story progresses, we, and Anton as well, become aware that the lines are not clear cut as they are actually treacherous and tricky. As it turns out, Anton is again faced with moral complexities wherein an erroneous appreciation of the vague lines that separate good and bad might cost him more than his life.

Anton never escapes from his fairy tale-location. He doesn't end up holding hands or exchanging romantic glances with the damsel he finds. Instead, he becomes one with the place, a key piece in that fantastic dimension. That final shot of Anton watching Angie and Giselle walk away from the cross-shaped window is unsettling. He knows fully well of the impossibility of happiness he most recently found in Angie. How did Anton end up in a situation of perpetual sorrow? It is due to his inability, his headstrong hesitation to morally evolve, leading to an erroneous call: of killing the man (a priest wearing ugly and devilish clothing) tasked of keeping the monster from escaping. His unseen act of heroism (sadly, Ilarde does not show the fight between Anton and the monster; Anton, being a titled boxer, I was expecting a lot of well-directed and well-choreographed fistfights given the fact that Ilarde has experience shooting action scenes) is only an avoidance of further trouble caused by his mistake.

Altar is most definitely a step-forward for Ilarde and Chua, surprising though since the film didn't cost too much and was riddled with several production quips (mostly due to the fact that the funding was sourced from CinemaOne, restricting some independence for the filmmakers). Instead of abandoning the niche for which they have grown accustomed to and comfortable with, they redefined themselves by furthering their interpretation of the genre with conflicts that details astounding depth and maturity. That said, Altar might very well be my favorite Ilarde.

******
This review is also published in The Oblation.

Sa Ilalim ng Cogon (2005)

Sa Ilalim ng Cogon (Rico Maria Ilarde, 2005)
English Title: Beneath the Cogon

Rico Maria Ilarde's Sa Ilalim ng Cogon (Beneath the Cogon) feels like four films feverishly stitched together into one. It starts out as a heist pic. The film's hero ex-soldier Sam (Yul Servo) is the designated driver for the film's initial heist sequence. While his partners in crime are gathering their loot, he waits patiently in the getaway car unaware that his prison pal Pepito (Raul Morit) (frequent flashbacks make us aware that Sam was imprisoned for vagrancy --- the prison pal explains the deficiencies of the law giving way to a possible lifetime in prison) has shot his comrade in greed. The two escape from the crime scene; makes a turn to a deserted road where Pepito tries to shoot him unsuccessfully as Sam's military training gives him the upper edge in gunslinging (Pepito dies; his final words are as empty as his motivations). Sam wanders aimlessly until he reaches an estate (ominously gated with cement gargoyles adorning such to keep out visitors).

Sam takes refuge in the abandoned manor of the estate. The manor by itself looks ordinary; but as Sam explores the interiors of the residence, the place slowly gathers a mysterious atmosphere and a distinct personality. The unkempt swimming pool has gathered several years' crop of dead leaves and has become shelter for toads and other aquatic lifeforms. The master bedroom reveals several pictures that arouse further mysteries and questions; he also uncovers a laboratory wherein forgotten experimentations are kept hidden. He notices mysterious girl Katia (Julia Clarete) drop packages wrapped in banana leaves just outside the fields covered with cogon grass --- doubling the film's already very pregnant premise. While the nightmare-ish storyline of barrio lass-in-distress mixed with science-gone-wrong horror milieu is being developed by Ilarde and co-screenwriter Mammu Chua, the heist/crime angle hasn't been forgotten and is kept breathing for a combo climax that mixes the juggled genres in a not-so-clean completion.

The genre-twisting done by Ilarde is actually a fascinating feat by itself. Ilarde doesn't opt for seamless fusion but instead piles the genre conventions upon each other; experimenting how characters and situations delegated towards specific genres will survive in settings and atmospheres of a botched experiment/horror plot. There's no careful transformation; Sam starts out as misunderstood hero; his entrance to the cogon forested estate doesn't change his status; he is still the loveless ex-soldier who is ready to kick ass but is bared by the arresting charms of Katia (a character who clearly does not belong to the heist); his staying in the haunted estate forces the genre-enclosed villains to invade the horror setting. These uncomfortable genre meetings of these features are exhilarating: muscle-for-hire suddenly makes an appearance after a fairy-tale lovemaking conclusion; Ilarde exercises his action filmmaking muscles; Katia interrupts the sudden savory kung-fu hiccup with a mini-climax of sorts.

Ilarde directs like a mad scientist. Given twelve days of shooting, with an almost non-existent budget, he creates scenes with a seemingly undisciplined abandon and sews them together with perfect timing and editing expertise. The careless direction (just in the first actual scene, a supposed dead security guard suddenly moves), the apt and instructed use of the digital medium, the well-entrenched understanding of genre conventions turn Sa Ilalim ng Cogon into a feature that quietly boggles yet surprisingly entertains. If Ilarde has a directing style that is comparable to the rabid excitement of a mad scientist, then Sa Ilalim ng Cogon may very well be his Frankenstein's monster. You can evidently see the stitches, the hideous imperfections, the bumps and creases of an underperformed surgery and the finished product is as unwieldy as the famed monster. But with all its mistakes and misfires, one can't deny that the film is indeed "alive" as compared to more polished features that scare and shock, but drop dead when the gimmicks have run out.

Shake, Rattle and Roll 2k5 (2005)

Shake, Rattle and Roll 2k5 (Uro dela Cruz, Rico Maria Ilarde & Richard Somes, 2005)

Shake, Rattle and Roll 2k5 is the seventh of the film series featuring three short films that supposedly shake, rattle and roll its audiences (I'm really not sure if those are positive possible reactions to movie viewing). The series started in 1984 with an omnibus featuring three great Filipino directors (Ishmael Bernal, Emmanuel Borlaza, and Peque Gallaga) entrapped in showing their mastery in the horror genre. The rest of the film series primarily belonged to Gallaga and his frequent partner Lore Reyes, with the last two (before this one), being shared by studio directors, including prolific Jose Javier Reyes. Shake, Rattle and Roll 2k5, instead of being called the seventh of the series, carries the burden of proving that the series has indeed crossed over to the new millennium, infusing the short films with a dose of new tricks learned from the Philippines' Asian neighbors, and some CGI enhancements.

It starts with dela Cruz's portion entitled Poso (Water Pump). The plot is conventional: about a retiring con artist (Ai Ai delas Alas) who performs her last fake seance with a rich old woman (Gloria Romero) who wants to talk to her dead son. The portion is basically meant for laughs and for children. Delas Alas chews up the screen with her boisterous comedic performance --- which fortunately predominantly works. The attempts at horror are nil (the blob-like CGI creation looks like regurgitated chewing gum --- not really a horrific sight at all), which makes Romero's serious performance and the teenybopper romantic angle out of place.

Rico Maria Ilarde's Aquarium fares better. It features television comedians Ogie Alcasid and Ara Mina as a married couple who just recently moved into a condominium unit with their son (Paul Salas). They discover a mysterious aquarium which the father fixes up for his son. The mother, wary of her husband's frequent late-night calls and vacation leaves, starts seeing visions of a wraithly old woman warning them against the cursed aquarium.

Ilarde has been in the industry for a while, and has crafted horror films that generally do not follow the conventional trend the rest of Asia is going for. Instead of female ghosts, he opts for rubber-suited monsters and mondo prosthetics. Instead of conventional narratives that go for cheap shocks and plot twists, he opts for bending the genre. He's in his top form when strapped for cash --- Sa Ilalim ng Cogon (Beneath the Cogon, 2005), a messy yet compelling dive to the wacky (and sometimes corny) unknown, is shot in cheap digital video but is highly regarded in horror film circuits. In Aquarium, Ilarde tries to mix his cheapie gonzo sensibilities to match the conventions of Filipino studio filmmaking. Ilarde borrows a lot from Hideo Nakata's Dark Water (2005), but instead of delegating a long-haired ghost as the primary object of horror, opts to go for a rubbery and monstrous envious ghost-kid who, according to the wraithly old woman, was hated by its mother for looking like a goldfish. Ilarde's mixture of his creative sensibilities and the film series' cross-over to the 21st century (Ilarde makes use of digitized sea weeds, which again, is more funny than horrific), and the need to put a domestic issue on infidelity keeps Aquarium from being truly memorable.

The last portion, Ang Lihim ng San Joaquin (The Secret of San Joaquin) throws logic and narrative conventions out the window, and puts the audience in a disquieting unease right from the start. A couple (Mark Anthony Fernandez and Tanya Garcia) escapes from the wife's parents' clutches to start a new life in the faraway town of San Joaquin. Why San Joaquin (a town populated by freaks and weirdos and is just too unsanitary and creepy for a pregnant woman)? Director Richard Somes doesn't really reveal clues to answer any of the questions that might creep into your mind. Instead, he impresses you with a visual energy and a knowhow in film technique and history to mend whatever disastrous plot holes his short film has to offer.

Ang Lihim ng San Joaquin primarily deals with aswangs. Aswangs are the Filipino version of vampires (but instead of being dashingly debonair in its blood-drinking ways, aswangs tend to use their elongated tongues and their sharp fangs to devour flesh). It is obvious that Somes has watched a great deal of vampire movies before venturing into filming this. With the help of cinematographer Nap Jamir (who also lensed the lush ghettos of Manila in Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, Auraeus Solito, 2005)), Somes recreates Tod Browning's lighting effect over Bela Lugosi's eyes in Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931) when the wife lights a candle beside the bust of Christ revealing subtly the identity of one of the townsmen as a creature of the night.

It's not just Tod Browning that Somes borrows from. The aswangs are fashioned as a Filipinized version of Max Schreck's Orlok in F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922). The lighting and the editing acknowledge German Expressionism as put into work in a Southeast Asian landscape ala Canadian Guy Maddin's modernization of the silent film. The aswangs surrounding the house of the couple is a throwback to George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968). Mark Anthony Fernandez's unflinching machismo is an acknowledgment to all the irrational heroes of Predator (John McTiernan, 1987), and other cult horror flicks.

It's a dizzying ride that dazzled my senses within the span of the short film, that welcomes Somes (who worked for Erik Matti as production assistant) as a bright new director who understands and comprehends film history relating to film production. If you have to sit through Uro dela Cruz's trite Poso and Rico Maria Ilarde's interesting yet surprisingly conventional Aquarium to see Somes' Ang Lihim ng San Joaquin, then I suggest you do because it is really worth it.