They Live (1988)

They Live (John Carpenter, 1988)

The world in John Carpenter's They Live is very similar to ours --- multi-racial with class structures divided by earning and spending capacity. The only difference is that in Carpenter's warped world, a huge conspiracy has successfully hidden the awful truth from humanity. Aliens whose heads are shaped like skinless skulls sporting insect-like eyeballs has transformed humanity into greedy, money-starved creatures by means of propaganda. Through television, these aliens have hypnotized humanity into thinking that the aliens look like one of us, and their un-creative and almost fascist statements are gorgeous ads and literature.

A wanderer (pro-wrestler Roddy Piper) walks into Detroit looking for a job. After searching in vain, he ends up working in a construction site and living in a tent city beside a mysterious church. He ends up discovering sunglasses that allow him to see the world for what it really is --- a society that mindlessly follows the uni-directional orders of those aliens walking, dining, and socializing among us.

Carpenter's motives are crystal clear: that consumerism is bad; avarice is evil; and that the true divide of humanity is between the controlling elite (the film's ugly extra-terrestials) and the suppressed working class. From the film's first few frames, you can tell Carpenter's disgust with society --- that the city of high rise buildings and expensive consumer products can live side by side with unemployment and poverty. The elite is overprotective of its powerful place in society, utilizing schemes and even the government to secure its place. The working class, however, is boiling to its limits, just waiting for that right time and that right opportunity to unravel to the world the elite's grand conspiracy.

At the center of the working class' battle is the newcomer, who with his determination and curiosity lands a more worthwhile job in ridding the world of its unwelcomed guests. Piper is most certainly not an actor --- he's all muscle, all steroids, all androgen without a granule of wit or cunning, which makes him perfect for that central role of the angry representative of the abused humanity. He is stoic in a way that rocks and stones are stoic; his emotionality doesn't pass through the thickness of his manly hide; which is why he can't have his way with Holly Thompson (Meg Foster) nor seduce her to his cause.

In the middle of Carpenter's modern-day fable on humanity's addiction with greed and consumerism is a prolonged fight between Piper and Keith David (who plays the wanderer's doubting sidekick Frank). There's an almost deadpan humorous quality to the dubious and indulgent exercise; there's that clinging feeling that the sequence simply doesn't belong to the pic but strangely, it fits right in and even deepens Carpenter's social commentary. Instead of merely being a critique on the elite's stronghold on society through its devious machinations, the film also tackles the working class' innate inability to unite. There's absolutely no question as to why the world has become such a feasible place for the aliens' enterprise --- it's because we are too willing or too involved with our individual concerns to pay true attention to what is happening elsewhere.

In the end, the aliens have become so ingrained in human society that it probably won't matter whether they look like walking skeletons. We've come to drink with them, have sex with them, eat dinners with them, transact businesses with them --- it's quite possible that we've become them. What good will that little revelation do but shock us momentarily. Will it shock us to leave the pleasures of avarice behind? I think not.

Gandahar (1988)

Gandahar (René Laloux, 1988)
a.k.a. Light Years

Gandahar is probably the closest René Laloux ever came in replicating the level of sophistication he gave alien civilizations in The Fantastic Planet (1973). He opens the film with an overview of a seaside community: blue skinned humanoids living life in utter simplicity. Laloux presents the planet of Gandahar as a utopian paradise where everything is in joyful order; nature and civilization coincide like connecting puzzle pieces (a plant gives birth to a pet, the pet is then taken care of by a female Gandaharian by breastfeeding it). The supposed peace is disrupted when laser rays start targeting the peaceful Gandaharians, turning them into stone.

Laloux cuts to the capital of Gandahar, Jasper. Beneath the carved bust of a female Gandaharian, the council of elders is debating on who to send to uncover the mysterious enemies of Gandahar. Sylvain is chosen; and is sent to the vast ocean to learn more about Gandahar's attackers, an army of metal men. On the way, he discovers an underground civilization of deformed Gandaharians (botched experiments of Jasper who were completely forgotten), and an oversized brain (again, another botched experiment of Jasper thrown to the sea when it was getting too big to destroy).

It's an interesting concept, sprawling in its seemingly unlimited area of creation; which is perfect for the highly imaginative Laloux. Laloux eats up the concept, and populates the alien world with a civilization that becomes too advanced (probably not industrially; but the scientific experimentations to turn nature into a tool for advancement cannot relate Gandahar as naturally perfect), too selfish and perfectionist (the deformed Gandaharias have turned into a mere tall tale; and instead of turning them into a distinct class, Gandahar has totally forgotten them (class structures cannot exist in a Utopian society)), and too complacent that it is almost powerless to any external struggle. The plot relies on time travel for its movement; Sylvain seems to be the chosen one to enact the prophecy but the prophecy's cyclical syntax connotes an impetus for salvation. I suggest that the sudden appearance of the Gandaharian dinosaur-like creature that saves Sylvain and love interest Airelle from their egg-shaped cell as the impetus; Sylvain thought that the dinosaur as extinct; I thought that the dinosaur is one of those Gandaharian creatures that have escaped Gandahar's god-like machinations and is therefore the proper turning point (it being pure from Gandahar's "sins against nature") that could enact the cyclical prophecy and in turn save Gandahar.

Gandahar is released in the United States as Light Years. The plot remains relatively unchanged except that the script was revised by Isaac Asimov, the music is modified to include generic sci-fi melodics and sound effects, the director's credit shamelessly grabbed by Harvey Weinstein. Asimov's translation turns Laloux's film into an unexciting talkfest; Asimov delights in several voice-over narrations, suggests a maternal relation between the Gandaharian queen Ambisextra and Sylvain, lightens the romantic angle between Sylvain and Airelle. Asimov's screenplay is also riddled with hyphaluting wordplay, which somehow lessens the natural transition of Laloux's original film --- the result is a disorienting flow, a boringly sexless characterization, and an inevitably less enjoyable film. Harvey Weinstein does employ several actors and actresses to provide voice talents for the characters (Glenn Close as Ambisextra, Christopher Plummer as Metamorphis the evil oversized brain). However, the delivery remains flat; presumably because of Asimov's distancing semantics.

Seeing both versions, I cannot deny that Laloux's final feature film is indeed a worthy feature; still miles away from his masterpiece The Fantastic Planet, but definitely up and above Time Masters (1982). Even with Weinstein's mutated Light Years, you can still observe Laloux's undeniable artistry and imagination in cooking up an alien civilization complete with its social and governmental structures, and biological make-up.

Natutulog Pa Ang Diyos (1988)

Natutulog Pa Ang Diyos (Lino Brocka, 1988)
English Title: God is Still Asleep

In 1988, director Lino Brocka released two very different films: his more popular and recognized Macho Dancer and Natutulog Pa Ang Diyos (God is Still Asleep), a Seiko Films-funded melodrama. While Macho Dancer was outrightly dismissive of the overreaching arms of poverty towards the populace --- forcing men plucked out of their provinces to strip and gyrate their bodies in front of dozens of lustful eyes for a buck, Natutulog Pa Ang Diyos is more subversive --- using the commercial trappings of your everyday melodrama to surface the corruption of the huge social and economic divide in the Philippines. Brocka's social commentary here is probably as potent as those done by Douglas Sirk.

The film starts with a bar room brawl. Bernardo (Dante Rivero) forces bar hostess Patria (Gina Pareno) to quit her job out of jealousy --- and promises to marry her. With the blessings of Bernardo's employers (Ricky Belmonte and Marita Zobel), Patria moves in to the small house beside the couple's property. Patria and the mistress of the house both got pregnant at the same time. Knowing that he will not be able to provide a future for their future son, Bernardo switches his and his master's baby, only sharing that terrible secret with his wife, who disdainly agrees to the plan. The two babies grow up not knowing that they were switched at birth --- Andrew (Ricky Davao) believes he's the only son of the wealthy couple while Gillian (Lorna Tolentino) suffers through the rigors and the tortures of her meager life, furthermore burdened by the frequent abuses of Patria.

It's a ridiculous plot; one that is not strange to the melodrama-trained psyche of the Filipino. However, Brocka handles the plot with impressionable intimacy and intensity. Gillian's sufferings and pains are portrayed with a discomforting passion (Brocka's story is not very different from that of Gillian's; After the death of his father, he spent a portion of his childhood with an aunt who maltreated him). Gina Pareno inhabits the role of Patria with skill; when she dotes her real offspring Andrew, it's both heartbreaking (the fact that she only loves her child from a distance) and displeasing (since that doting is to the disadvantage of the already pitiful Gillian). Pareno's Patria is both maternal and vicious, both erringly heroic and pathetic. She spies from afar how Andrew celebrates his first birthday (without her). You can't help but understand Patria's plea; it's a difficult decision she had to make or was forced to make (probably out of Bernardo's cooked-up designs, or the fact that her upbringing dictates that she act that way (basic maternal instincts exclusively for those children out of her womb), or that the impossibly huge social and economic divide has turned the poor into juvenile savages (true, politically incorrect --- just like the film).

It's that ridiculous plot that got me to think that despite all the technical inconsistencies (I guess Brocka had to make use of Seiko Films' team of technicians thus the very generic look of the film), the tepid third half (the film got bad when Gary Valenciano's character was introduced, and everything became nice and dandy), it's the more poignant film out of the two 1988 Brocka releases (yes, even more poignant than men who are forced to dance and gyrate in seedy gay clubs). It's relevance may be overshadowed by its commercial trappings, but Brocka relays his point quite convincingly --- that parents have given up on ever climbing the social ladder, that they'd sacrifice knowing their children are being raised without them just to provide a future for them. Brocka portrays the wealthy couple as kindhearted and understanding; but that's a given since they have nothing to worry about but their own personal lives. Brocka critically paints Bernardo and Patria; infuses them with a very human objective that jars (which shouldn't supposed to) with their social status.

The Thin Blue Line (1988)

The Thin Blue Line (Errol Morris, 1988)

One night in 1976, Randall Adams ran out of gas in the highway and would, by fate, meet David Harris, a teener driving a stolen blue car. A few hours after their fateful meeting, after several cans of beer, a few puffs of marijuana, and a double feature at a local drive-in theater, a police officer gets shot by a man who alights from the same stolen blue car suspiciously parked in the highway. The pistol used is found in the posession of Harris, conveniently hidden in a marshy part of his hometown which is considered as the Ku Klux Klan capital of Texas. Harris would be seen bragging that he has killed a colored cop, but would later on change statements and would be pointing at Adams, the drifter he met that fateful night of 1976, as the killer of the police officer. Adams would be found guilty by the jury for the murder, Harris being one of the witnesses for the prosecution. Later on, Harris will also be sentenced for a different crime. Errol Morris, director of The Thin Blue Line, spent two and a half years gathering information, gaining the trust of the different personalities involved, and finally interviewing them.

The Thin Blue Line is much more than just a documentary film, or a mere retelling of the factual outcomes of an individual case in one of the great cities of America. The Thin Blue Line is a vivid examination of the inaccuracies of America's criminal justice system. In any criminal case, it would be the people of the jurisdiction that would be against the suspected criminal. A huge burden rests on the government in maintaining order, through the normal functioning of the judiciary. The burden is doubled when the circumstances involve a victim who is an officer of the law, a setting that is arguably intolerant, and pieces of evidence that seems to lead to nowhere. The most logical way out for the jurisdiction is to find a scapegoat: in this case, Randall Adams, a drifter who nobody would miss.

From Morris' gatherings, it would be quite easy to pinpoint Harris as the culprit. Adams is shown as timid, balding and uninteresting, yet defiantly sure that he has nothing to do with the murder. On the other hand, Harris talks very confidently, assuringly charming, and in the same way, breezefully stating his facts. If one would base his judgment on the first few minutes of the documentary, one would probably get confused and immediately point his finger at the aging suspect rather than the charming young fellow. Pieces of evidence start pouring in and the scales of the balance change, and by the middle of the film, we sense that something is going on, there might have been a mistake in the process.

Differing versions of the same story are retold just like in Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950), only this time utilizing a visual mold that evokes film noir, erupting from the repetitive boom of the suspect's pistol barrel. Differing accounts of several witnesses are offered, with these characters' credibilities strengthened or weakened by other personalities who might have more accurate knowledge on these witnesses' motivations. Musings on the current legal system, judicial decisions, and personal visions are blurted out with conviction by Adams' lawyers, up against a legal bigwig who has never lost a case. Dr. Death is introduced, the resident psychiatrist who is unafraid to label convicted criminals as uncurably psychotic and deserving of the death penalty. Philip Glass accentuates Morris' bold vision with his haunting minimalistic musical score.

By the end of the film, Morris presents us with a piece of evidence that showcases his greatest strength as a documentary filmmaker. The visuals are aptly sparse: just a camera revolving in close-up around a tape recorder. What comes out of the tape recorder is what's important, Harris expressly stating that it was just fate that got Adams to where he is now, and impliedly telling the whole world that it was him who killed the police officer. The film ends with a statement that Harris is in deathrow for another crime, and Adams is still serving his life sentence for the murder, which we learned a few moments ago, he didn't commit. Justice is indeed blind, for all the wrong reasons. Disturbing but, as Morris' points out, true. A year after The Thin Blue Line was released, Adams' case was reopened and he was exonerated from the charge of murder, and Harris was subsequently convicted for the shooting of that police officer that fateful night in 1976.