On the Job (2013)

On the Job (Erik Matti, 2013)

In one scene in Erik Matti’s On the Job, Francis Coronel (Piolo Pascual), an investigator who is close to uncovering an assassination ring within the higher echelons of the Philippine government, confronts Pacheco (Leo Martinez), the retired general-turned-politician ringleader. Coronel, with a swagger reminiscent of those imperfect cops on the verge of a bloody redemption that populate the cinema of John Woo and Johnnie To, readies his handgun, oblivious to the fact that he is clearly outnumbered. There is only one of him, and Pacheco has several armed bodyguards. Pacheco, played by Martinez with the alluring charms of a villainous mastermind, lectures Coronel about learning the ropes of corruption and the timeliness of revenge, effectively talking him out of his fatalist plans, thwarting what could have been an impressive gunfight. Without a single bullet let loose, Pacheco walks away, alive and victorious. Coronel remains the jaded hero, wounded not by gunshots by his acknowledgment that he is absolutely powerless against a force of corruption so blatant that there is no more need for subtlety.

Matti’s far-reaching foray into the unchanging state of Philippine corruption is nestled not in the distant but expository tradition that drew for filmmakers like Brillante Mendoza and Jeffrey Jeturian a certain level of acclaim. Matti intelligently pulls away from Brocka’s social realism, leaving the style and purpose to the many Filipino filmmakers who mix their cinema with some level of journalistic purpose. Matti is clearly an entertainer. On the Job is thoroughly enjoyable, replete with scenes and sequences that are precisely conjured to thrill and excite. Underneath the numerous pleasures it generously serves however is an unflinching observation, aptly pessimistic and bleak, of a society that has become oblivious of the decay that has invaded the lowest of its lows and the highest of its highs.

On the Job tells the stories of several players in an elaborate scheme that enunciates the very rotten core of a government that seems to thrive in crime and intrigue. Coronel, an honest investigator who unknowingly marries into a political family with shady connections, ends up with a murder case file conveniently snatched Joaquin Acosta (Joey Marquez), a low-ranking cop who has been slaving on the case and other similar cases for years, with the help of his influential father-in-law. The perpetrators of the murder, Tatang (Joel Torre) and his overeager trainee Daniel (Gerald Anderson), are prisoners whisked away from their cells every time a target needs to be disposed of. Between Coronel and Tatang are various other personalities, loved ones and protectors, all of whom enlarge the risks and stakes.

The screenplay is written by Matti with Michiko Yamamoto, who penned Maryo J. de los Reyes’ Magnifico (2003) and Aureaus Solito’s Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, 2005), all of which are films whose underlying observations on society’s ills are masked in their endearing depictions of humanity’s goodness. On the Job is similarly situated, carrying characters whose moral troubles are only reflective of their insistence on being humans despite a society that dehumanizes them. Tatang is only led to become an assassin due to that glimmer of hope he sees in his wife (Angel Aquino) and daughter (Empress), a hardworking law student. Daniel has an abruptly terminated romance to revive through the earnings and erstwhile freedom provided by his clandestine profession. Coronel, stuck in the middle of a war between good and evil, is guided by the virtues of a father who died a hero. Acosta diverts his attentions from his failed family to his unrewarded work as a police officer. Matti and Yamamoto’s characters are amply motivated. They never resemble soulless symbols, and are instead living and breathing characters driven by believable principles and aspirations.

Matti’s recent films feel like reactions towards trends in Philippine cinema. When the mainstream has caught up with Japanese-style horror, Matti release Pa-siyam (2004), a stylized ghost story that takes the best of the horror trend and properly situates it within a distinctly Philippine setting without being too obscure. When inane fantasies became popular after the successes of Peter Jackson in filming J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous trilogy, Matti teamed up with a local theme park to mount Exodus: Tales from the Enchanted Kingdom (2005), a flawed but ambitious display of Matti’s ability to create spectacle. The increase of films being made outside Manila resulted in The Arrival (2009), his personal ode to hometowns. Rigodon (2012) is Matti’s more sober and more morally complex reply to the slew of films that unduly glamorized marital infidelity.

On the Job seems to be Matti’s defiant contribution to the on-going debate between the Philippines’ commercial and artistic cinemas. With the film, he marries the merits of the two seemingly opposing camps, infusing his sharp social commentaries within a style and aesthetic that suit more mainstream intentions. Evidently, Matti’s risks have paid off. His tireless crusade in developing a filmmaking culture that equally values content and craftsmanship has finally culminated in a piece of work that douses all the doubts and suspicions hounding both sides of the tired debate. On the Job is not satisfied in what pundits consider a safe and viable middle-ground. It opts to simply just move forward, always consistent to an aesthetic that is both true to the filmmaker and not manufactured simply to please a market.

Quick Change (2013)

Quick Change (Eduardo Roy, Jr., 2013)

Dorina (Mimi Juareza) is a retired entertainer who now plies the streets offering her cheap, quick cosmetic fixes to other transgendered men. Lacking any medical experience, she is nonetheless "doc" to her grateful patients, whose faces are sculpted to look like the glittering faces of popular local celebrities. Her patients then don extravagant and colorful costumes, sashaying on makeshift stages, pretending to be beauty queens with their plastered smiles and generic retorts. At night, Dorina satisfies her boyfriend (Junjun Quintana), a performer in a pageant show that caters to foreign tourists. She then starts to satisfy herself discretely lest she incur the wrath of a boyfriend who prefers not to be reminded of her persisting masculinity.

Eduardo Roy, Jr.'s Quick Change is all about facades. It obsessively dissects the culture of transsexual women, their infatuation with youth and beauty. Seemingly aimless in its meanderings in between the redundant struggles of its fading protagonist, the film attempts to sensitively shed light on the ills of a specific repressed subculture, those that have been masked excessively with thick make-up and fake collagen.

Roy's challenge is obviously enormous. He has chosen to tackle subjects that have often been marginalized or exoticized. Roy attempts to dodge the traps, freeing himself from focusing on the usual themes of discrimination which gives him the opportunity to observe his subjects' conflicts in identity, how they struggle in between being male and female, being religious and morally compromised.

Although Roy would sometimes indulges in the humor that has been stereotyped as part and parcel of what makes transsexuals so irresistible to Philippine popular media, he would nevertheless depict them not as oppressed individuals, but as individuals who have found a certain niche that they have become comfortable to live in. Roy mostly succeeds in his endeavors, betrayed only by the need to frame his grand intentions within a narrative that only attempts a certain degree of subtlety to its obvious didactics.

Roy missteps when, midway, he shifts his focus from his transsexual muses to the actual crime of conducting clandestine cosmetic operations. Quick Change deflates into something quasi-noir, propelled mostly by Roy's compelling depictions of the horrors of makeshift cosmetic surgery than by its advocacy or its narrative force. Thankfully, the film is consistently visually fascinating, with Roy and cinematographer Dan Villegas creating morbid and ominous images out of the plain and banal.

Much of the film's perceptive style is reminiscent of Bahay Bata (Baby Factory, 2011), Roy's impressive debut about several mothers overcoming the inhumanity of giving birth in a crowded government-run maternity hospital. As in Bahay Bata, Roy, for the most part, fashions himself as a passive observer of Dorina, following her as she flies from one cheap hotel room to another to conduct her dubious cosmetic operations. He then exposes Dorina's cornered morality, constantly being splintered by both an economic necessity and her community's insistence on being defined in terms of outward appearances more than anything else. 

Avoiding labeling Dorina in terms of good or bad, black or white, Roy conceives a society for Dorina where morality has been rendered obsolete by its impracticality. After all, in a world where consumerism is god and those who are incapable of paying make do with what they have, morality can never pay for food or more prominent cheekbones.

(Cross-published in Twitch.)

Transit (2013)

Transit (Hannah Espia, 2013)

Hannah Espia’s Transit deals with the struggles of an extended Filipino family living and working in Tel Aviv after the Israeli government passed a law forcing children of overseas workers who are below five years old to be deported back to their homelands.

Joshua (Marc Justine Alvarez), who has lived all his life in Israel, is a few months shy of his fifth birthday. Moises (Ping Medina), Joshua’s father, aware of the risk of his son being deported if caught, keeps Joshua indoors. Janet (Irma Adlawan), Moises’ sister, takes care of Joshua while Moises is out to work as a caretaker for a wealthy retiree. She also has to manage Yael (Jasmine Curtis-Smith), her teenage daughter from an Israeli former flame who now has to grapple with neither being Filipino nor Israeli. Tina (Mercedes Cabral), freshly plucked from the Philippines and assisted by Janet to her new life as an overseas worker, witnesses a family that is in fear of being suddenly uprooted from a foreign land that they have decided to call their home.

Transit is a marvel of restraint and control. Embellished sparingly with visuals that are never too extravagant, too opulent to distract, the film is painted with delicate colors, which complements the fragile situations the characters move in.

Opening with an image of Joshua in an airport, his small frame backdropped against giants of airplanes landing from and departing to all corners of the globe, the film seems to mediate expectations, revealing the modesty of its story against a world of bigger problems. In truth, the story that Espia explores is one that seems too removed, too remote to be of moment. However, what Espia manages to do is tremendous. By dissecting the issues arising from a very specific troubled group, she navigates the blurring of cultural and national identities of individuals who are caught trapped between two countries.

The word diaspora was first used in the Bible to refer to the exile of Jews from their homeland by invading conquerors. Espia’s choice to tackle the Filipino diaspora in the land that first experienced renders some poetic effect, enunciating not the irony of the situation but the repetitions that seem to be the fate of all merging cultures. Transit is told from the various perspectives of its many characters, often repeating certain scenes to reveal facets that can only be depicted if seen through the eyes of the various participants. More than just a display of creative storytelling, the technique that Espia utilizes enunciates the necessity of understanding the contrasting motivations and interests, amplifying the emotional investment that pays off in the film’s subtle but moving conclusion.

The differences between the Filipinos and the country they adopt as their own but barely tolerates them are tremendous. Espia covers the extent of the difference, by chronicling a Philippines that seems to dissipate even more every year. Her scope is immense but she laudably concentrates on very palpable and very specific frustrations, heartaches, and triumphs, emotions that are shared by all of humanity.

Tina carries her homeland inside a worn luggage. She offers trinkets from home, packets of sour soup to remind her hosts of the Philippines they have not visited in decades. Janet and Moises speak both Filipino and Hebrew. They insist on their being Filipinos, forcing that dated idea of nationality to their children. Their children however reject the idea with reason. They do not speak Filipino, and have never been to the Philippines. Their only linkage to their parents’ homeland consists of bedtime stories repeatedly told to soothe their curiosity.

Espia paints a scenario where the characters are all confused, all tired from futilely maintaining illusions from a faraway motherland or struggling between two clashing alliances. Transit is a document of fractured identities, an essay that declares the very familiar concepts of citizenship and nationality as shallow facades that are maintained by laws and enforced by borders.

(Cross-published in Twitch.)

Babagwa (2013)

Babagwa (Jason Paul Laxamana, 2013)

English Title: The Spider's Lair

Jason Paul Laxamana's Babagwa (The Spider's Lair), an exploration of the proliferation of deceit in a rapidly virtualizing world, centers on Greg (Alex Medina), who fronts himself online as Bam Bonifacio (Kiko Matos), an affluent and handsome model whose sexual orientation depends on the gender of the target victim. The ruse is the brainchild of Marney (Joey Paras), who gets a sizable portion of the money earned from the swindle. Like all of his previous victims, Daisy (Alma Concepcion), a wealthy and philanthropic middle-aged woman, easily falls for Greg's dashing alter-ego. However, caught in a web of domestic drama, a shallow and stunted romance with his girlfriend (Chanel Latorre), and a slew of unsatisfying paychecks from his illicit gigs, he suddenly finds himself falling for Daisy.

Babagwa is ingenious. Laxamana creates a believable world where fantasy and reality are immediately interchangeable. Set in Laxamana's native Pampanga, the film enunciates the nagging pains of living indolent lives. His characters are scoundrels, products of their own doing and a society that forces them to scrape the very bottom of barrels to experience a semblance of a decent life. Marney needs to uproot his parents from a house that is being threatened to be demolished by the local government. On the other hand, Greg, Marney's former talent who has allowed himself to fade alongside his dreams of fame and glory, has only his afternoon trysts with his girlfriend to remind him of what he has lost. To his annoyance, his girlfriend seems to be more interested in a vacation he cannot provide than stroking his fragile ego. Presumably, their victims certainly live similarly pathetic lives.

Laxamana conceives the world with Darwinian precepts, a bazaar where love is peddled to the loveless, and thieves and cheaters are abound. Facebook has made the marketplace smaller and has made it even more difficult to detect fact from fiction. It has allowed for the commodification of virtual lives, those products of wants and necessities multiplied exponentially by a specific moment's mood. In one's playful mind, depending on one's gullibility and specific need, a swindler sitting alone in a dark and unkempt room is a sensitive prince lying in an expensive condo unit and in need of part-time passion. Trust is a too expensive luxury if the need is desperate.

Laxamana clearly understands the foolishness of it all. Babagwa is after all still a comedy of errors, one whose humor is reliant on the very foolishness of humanity to fall for the obviously illogic all in the name of love, or lust. He doesn't take his observant musings too seriously, and instead concentrates on balancing the tension with moments of delightful levity. His actors share the same responsibility, peppering their convincing performances with playfulness. Babagwa is refreshingly balanced, its heavy themes never outweighing the need to still entertain.

It is therefore unfortunate that Laxamana chooses to give up the balancing act in favor of a neat resolution. The film's parting shot suggests Greg's comeuppance. The politics itself of such comeuppance seems questionable and misshapen. Moreover, it is a misstep that forces Babagwa to be a mere cautionary tale on the dangers of mixing virtual lives and real longing. For sure, the ending perfectly wraps Laxamana's brilliantly conceived concept, but it only does so for the purpose of completing a narrative, to satisfy the demands of tradition. In the end, Laxamana's sophomore feature feels more like an exquisitely filmed urban legend, an urban legend that has been whispered around by those unfortunate enough to be enthralled by the internet's promises of quick love only to be fooled in the end.

(Cross-published in Twitch.)

Rekorder (2013)

Rekorder (Mikhail Red, 2013)

Mikhail Red's Rekorder is the story of Maven (Ronnie Quizon), a tragic drifter who with his old camcorder records movies currently showing in theaters to sell the footage to pirates. The parting image shows Ronnie in the movie theater without his camcorder in hand. For the first time, he isn't asleep while the movie is playing. He is just there, sitting alone and motionless, completely engrossed by the movie he is watching. As it turns out, the movie is not the commercial features he has been recording throughout the years for the enterprising pirates, but security camera footage of a robbery that culminates in violence.

The footage plays a key role in the narrative, explaining how Maven turned into the unsettled character that he is now. Yet, viewed against Red's stubborn indulgence in depicting the overextended role of sensational acts caught on video, the image of Maven sitting in a theater, completely enthralled by a video of real and actual violence instills an observation of a society that has become so indifferent to evil that it appreciates as entertainment the recorded sight of it.

Rekorder seems to be a reiteration of themes already explored by Red's father, Raymond, whose films like Kamera Obskura (2012), Himpapawid (Manila Skies, 2009), and Anino (Shadows, 2000) feature a singular character who awakens to the ills of society. The younger Red does not hide his influences, displaying prominently the senior Red's Manila Skies as the movie Maven attempts to record in the theater. Fortunately, the younger Red, unburdened by memories of a glorious era where film was king, is less hesitant to experiment with the digital medium, exploring the varying textures and impulses of high definition video and other formats.

Maven is in fact a fallen filmmaker who has resorted to illicitly recording these movies to earn a living. He talks languidly, walks passively, and relates to other people with more than just a hint of disconnect. It almost seems that he does not belong in the same time and space as the rest of the world. He finds sanctuary only at night when he is at home, being comforted by grainy videos of his wife and daughter; relics of a foregone happier life. When he becomes an unwilling witness to a crime by following a compulsion to capture a violent rumble with his camcorder, his drab routine is disturbed, forcing him to finally participate in the same society that has betrayed him, the same society that grows noisier whenever a recorded video goes viral for the simple reason of brazen sensationalism.

The proliferation of media into the routine lives of a consistently bored and hungry populace, jolted into a mad rush by rapid advancements of technology the past few years, has quickly changed moral perceptions. What would have caused reactions of shock and disgust decades ago is now commonplace and welcomed with undivided attention. With the public's conscience being consistently pounded by random acts of depravity and violence that are captured and spread by anonymous recorders for various reasons, society has been rendered utterly callous to wrongdoings of whatever extent. Guilt has been rendered obsolete. It has been replaced by pleasure and escapism, by-products of those depraved acts whose sensationalism has turned them into convenient pieces of entertainment.

Maven, in all his exaggerated expressions of self-inflicted alienation, represents the extent of such modern apathy. It is only when the noise has become too close and near for peace and comfort that he acts, breaking down into a frenzy of self-preservation. Rekorder, even with all its fundamental excesses and obvious faults, succeeds in painting an alarming portrait of a man hesitantly living in a world that is much like ours, a world that gladly suffocates on its own filthy crap, perpetuated by our little recording gadgets for all eternity.

(Cross-published in Twitch.)

Debosyon (2013)

Debosyon (Alvin Yapan, 2013)

English Title: Devotion

Alvin Yapan’s films have always been influenced by his being both a literature professor and a writer of short stories. They are never empty vessels of creatively plotted stories that are heavily embellished by cinematic techniques and visuals. His films’ charm relies heavily on the fact that the stories are never just stories. They are intelligent observations on gender politics, as in Sayaw ng Dalawang Kaliwang Paa (Dance of Two Left Feet, 2011), where a gay love story houses feminist intentions, or in Gayuma (Pilgrim Lovers, 2010), a romance whose two halves articulate love and longing from the perspectives of both genders, and on economic history and Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe (The Rapture of Fe, 2009), a supernatural tale where the various inadequacies of the Philippines’ economic growth are represented by various inadequate male characters.

Debosyon (Devotion) is Yapan’s visually sumptuous observation on cultural and religious phenomena. In the film, he frames his explorations within the strangest of romance, one between a young man and a creature of mythology. Mando (Paulo Avelino) is a fervent devotee of the Lady of Penafrancia, a wooden Marian statue that is famed for the miracles it grants to its devotees. While searching the forest for orchids, he chances upon a solitary flower on top of a tree. He falls while attempting to get the flower. He wakes up to Salome (Mara Lopez), a mysterious woman who lives alone inside a hut in the middle of the forest, who nurses him back to health. They fall in love, only to be hindered by Salome’s revelation, one that shakes Mando’s religious devotion to its core.

Yapan tells the story with admirable patience, allowing his story to really take root in the landscape that features very heavily in his elegant visuals. The forest where Mando meets Salome is a character itself. Its trees bleed when axed. Deep in its heart is a pond pristine enough to wash the gravest of doubts. From its hills, one can see the perfect but solitary Mayon volcano, an image of absolute beauty and loneliness amidst plains and farmlands. Yapan understands the topography of Bicol. His narrative makes use of it in a way that it is intertwined with the romance and the mysticism. The beauty of the film is not intended to simply be pleasurable to tired eyes. It is meant to enamour, to give a semblance of the irresistible allure of the land. It is meant to make one fall desperately in love.

From the geography comes the native songs, the lyrics of which speak of loving desperation or pained longing. Mando sings one of the love songs Salome learns from a previous love as an act of courtship. Struggling to learn the song with only a guitar at hand and Salome’s memory for guidance, the song may very well be an expression of devotion, a pleasant tribute from a mortal to a woman whose beauty is venerated. At another point, Mando is warned by roving rebels of the forest witch that eats the souls of the men who are beholden by her charms. He desperately races to find Salome, presumably to see if the rebels’ warnings are true. In the background, another song is heard, lamenting of the hurts one bears for love. Yapan intelligently places the various songs in the vital points of courtship, directing the viewer to understand and digest the familiar lyrics along and melody within very specific contexts ranging from absolute adoration to enduring doubt.

More than just a love story, Debosyon seems to be an ode to Yapan’s native Bicol. It dissects a psyche that has been cultivated by a distinct landscape and the history that has taken place in it. Its mythologies, its songs, its undying devotion to the image of the Penafrancia idol, are to Yapan’s mind, products of a love affair between its people and the mystical land they live in. Religion hardly matters in the film. It is simply not its point, but just a starting to point to uncover a cultural feature. Yapan seems to be more interested in the psyche that resulted in the religiosity that is as intense and involving as romantic passion. Debosyon is profound allegory, a story that puts in a clear perspective a culture of devotion that is more rooted in a people’s pre-colonial conscience than the actual charms of Catholicism.

Yapan ends Debosyon with a summation of both the love story and the allegory. The lovers make passionate love, Mando heavily caressing the serpentine figure of his unlikely partner. People express their love to the Marian image, their little candlelit boats floating along the banks of a serpentine river. Despite the differences, the two images sit comfortably alongside each other. The country’s unique Catholic practices are but reiterations of a cultural devotion that has been shaped by the forests, the mountains, the rivers. “I saw your eyes in the eyes of the Virgin of Penafrancia,” whispers Mando when asked by Salome about his desire that seems defiant of reason and logic. In a few words, Yapan commits the impossible and marries religious fervor with the most primal of human urges.

(Cross-published in Twitch.)

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.)

Tuhog (2013)

Tuhog (Veronica Velasco, 2013)

English Translation: Skewered

Veronica Velasco has always found humor in the cruelty of fate. Her films have always been grounded on premises where an act of fate results in absurd and sometimes torturous scenarios that test the limits of humanity.

In I Do (2010), the dream wedding of two teens is constantly delayed by occurrences beyond their control, pitting their youthful love against youthful impatience. In Last Supper No. 3 (2009), a props-man turns into the butt of an overextended joke when he misplaces a wall décor he borrowed from an opportunistic family for an ad campaign, forcing him to experience the frustrating inanities of the Philippine judicial system. In Maling Akala (2007), which Velasco co-directed with Pablo Biglangawa, a chance meeting between two strangers results in a set-up that would hint of a budding romance that turns out to be nothing but an erroneous assumption. Velsaco and Biglangawa’s first feature, Inang Yaya (Mother Nanny, 2006), an emergency forces a nanny to choose between being a mother to her estranged daughter and a nanny to her ward.

Tuhog is spawned from that same obsession with fate’s cruelty. This time, the cruelty approaches the macabre, with three random strangers getting impaled by a steel pole when their passenger bus figures in a freak accident. The absurd situation the three find themselves in is that they are now faced with an even crueller responsibility of choosing who among them would have to perish to save the lives of the other two. The rationale for the need to choose is borne out of writer’s conceit: there are only two operating rooms in the hospital, leaving the unlucky unattended victim to simply bleed and suffer to death.

Velasco and co-writer Laurel quickly abandon the morbid image of skewered strangers in an ill-equipped emergency room to explore the three lives that through a twist of fate have become the subjects of a debate of life’s worth. Tonio (Leo Martinez) is a recent retiree who now finds himself either arguing endlessly with his adult children or reminiscing youth with his best friends over games of cards. His only hope from what seems to be a deadened existence is his sudden dream to put up a bakery. Fiesta (Eugene Domingo) is the toughened conductor of a passenger bus. Her hardened front, a result of having live with her alcoholic and suicidal father, is softened when Nato (Jake Cuenca), her replacement driver who has just recovered from a recent break-up, expresses his love for her. Caloy (Enchong Dee), a student who is far too concerned with his hormones to take his studies seriously, is in a long distance relationship his girlfriend. Having contented himself with the passing pleasures of daydreaming and online flirting in an effort to preserve his virginity for their upcoming anniversary, he now has to face the possibility that his girlfriend has already been sleeping around behind his back.

Beyond the mostly clever writing that rarely feels false or forced, there is also something humorously brutal in the way Velasco and Laurel fashion the three stories with linings of hope and forgiveness only to have them be abruptly suspended with the impalement. There is always that threat that death or some sort of sudden conclusion is just looming around, waiting to foil a life plan, to block a resolution, or to douse a passion.

Unfortunately and perhaps because there are limitations as to what is tolerable in commercial filmmaking, Tuhog never really embraces the darkness that could have complemented its gruesome center-piece. There is very little interaction among the suddenly conjoined victims, considering that their dilemma is one that would naturally excite the demons of self-preservation. Instead, it settles for obvious life lessons, as bluntly mouthed in the film's hurried end by its unnecessary mascot, a destitute drummer boy who every now and then appears in the film to vengefully predict death.

Still, Tuhog is something to behold within the context of a mainstream cinema that shuns experimentation and adventurism. Through convictions and compromises, Velasco and Laurel have come up with a film that successfully bridges the gap between smart and sentimental, eccentric and emotional, quirky and conventional.

(Cross-published in Twitch.)

Four Sisters and a Wedding (2013)

Four Sisters and a Wedding (Cathy Garcia-Molina, 2013)

Predictably, Four Sisters and a Wedding is plagued with all the deficiencies and excesses of a movie that caters to the masses. It suffers from an identity crisis, but that identity crisis is its biggest selling point especially in a country where being all-in-one is a virtue and a movie that offers tears, laughs, and lessons is a prized commodity. Four Sisters and a Wedding is adamantly a comedy, one that uses in unbridled exaggerations and popular wit to earn chuckles. Along the way, it suddenly transforms itself into a drama, with each of the movie’s multiple characters getting their fair share of profusely teary expositions. At the end of the movie, everything is wrapped up almost too neatly and easily with just mouthfuls of motherhood statements that render all issues and conflicts resolved.

Also predictably, it is that trait of Four Sisters and a Wedding that would be targeted by detractors. The movie’s insistence to remain within the borders of a cinema that is stubbornly safe for the purpose of commercialism is considered its downfall. Because it aspires to appeal to the majority, its story clunks with unnecessary heft and it confuses with its inconsistent mood and temperament. However, to simply dismiss the movie for its intention to comfortably exist in a market that knows fully well what it wants is short-sighted.

The Salazar sisters (Toni Gonzaga, Bea Alonzo, Angel Locsin and Shaina Magdayao) have been living their lives, connected only by occasional phone calls, until the sudden upcoming wedding of their youngest brother (Enchong Dee) forces them to reunite and join forces for what they think is the good of their family. As it turns out, the Bayags, the family which the youngest Salazar is marrying into, are as tactless as they are wealthy, convincing the sisters to plan together to dissuade their beloved brother from continuing the wedding. From a story by Jose Javier Reyes, whose works are almost always inspired by his sharp commentaries on Filipino middle class faults and aspirations, the screenplay written by Vanessa Valdez manages to simplify and meld various Filipino experiences into a package that is amiable enough.

For what it’s worth, within what may be considered a genre of Philippine escapist cinema that is mostly produced by mainstream studios, Four Sisters and a Wedding is actually quite remarkable. Its indulgent comedy parts are mostly hilarious, its extensively dramatic climax, moving. Director Cathy Garcia-Molina fulfills the requirements of commercial movie-making, balancing the vulgarity and tactlessness that draws laughter and tears with some semblance of predictability with some elegance and restraint, as may become necessary.

It is the movie’s disarming earnestness that is truly admirable. At one point, the sisters suddenly tearfully expose their failures and insecurities, probably in defense of their mostly despicable demeanor throughout the movie. Garcia-Molina forgets all notion of subtlety, allowing her actresses, all of whom are brilliant, to emotionally verbalize regrets and apprehensions that most of us would never dare expose. There are simply no pretensions of depth or insight as it specifically targets the heart, coursing its way to it through its familiar tale whose threads and strands seem to be plucked straight from the sometimes joyful and sometimes painful eccentricities of being Filipino.

(Cross-published in Twitch.)

Before Midnight (2013)

Before Midnight (Richard Linklater, 2013)

“Still there, still there, still there,” Celine announces while waiting for the sun to disappear behind the mountains. Jesse, her boyfriend for several years after their serendipitous reunion in Paris, is intimately sitting beside her, also waiting for the sun to disappear. Celine speaks the phrases like a prayer. It is as if the phrases were not observations of the sun’s setting, but a fervent wish that something else is still there and has not been lost to the cynicism that familiarity breeds.

In 1995, Richard Linklater conjured a romantic fantasy by having American backpacker Jesse take a stab at spontaneous love by inviting French tourist Celine to an impromptu excursion in Vienna that has to end before sunrise. The night was magical. There were no ridiculous plot devices or grandiose musical themes, just those once-in-a-lifetime conversations about random facets of life as observed through different eyes that glued them together, at least for those few special hours. They ended their love affair with a promise.

In 2004, Linklater visited the couple separated by geography and broken promises. Jesse has just released his book based on the events that took place that fateful night in 1995, and is now in Paris to sign copies. Celine’s in town as well. Their reunion doesn’t have the exhilarating spontaneity of their initial encounter in the train, but the reminiscence of what has happened and what could have happened is too alluring to ignore. They end up in Celine’s humble hovel, listening to music, surrendering to the fairy tale that was a decade in the making.

Less than a decade after, Jesse, as unkempt as he is ancient, finds himself in a Greek airport, saying his farewell to another what-could-have-been. After hopelessly waiting for perhaps a reassuring hand gesture or eye contact from his son, he leaves the building. Romantic music deceptively plays in the background. Celine, also visibly older, is waiting outside the car. Inside, twins, we presume to be the fruits of the decision they made several years back, are sleeping. Linklater is back at his game. The ride from the airport back to their Grecian home is a treasure trove of banter and insight, of clues as to what has happened within the nine years we left the couple to plot their love story.

However, things are different now. In 1995 and 2004, Jesse and Celine are strangers, excitedly learning about each other. They scrape their lives for whatever secret story or piece of trivia they have left. Bubbling underneath an exterior of flirtatious jokes and other pleasantries are regrets and other things a life already half spent unceremoniously offers. For the first time, Linklater invites us to witness the couple interacting with others --- young lovers discovering the exhilaration of romance in a quickly virtualizing world, a working-class couple who has learned to love the idea of settling for each other’s pleasures and displeasures, and two elderly intellectuals whose varying perceptions on relationships provide both comfort and pain. In the midst of their conversations, Jesse and Celine’s romance loses their uniqueness. It is as if Linklater is preparing the film-viewing world he has molded into believing a fantasy of happily-ever-afters that exists in a cynical world to swallow the pains of seeing the perfect love be rendered imperfect.

The sun disappears. Jesse and Celine end up trapped in a boutique hotel room that forces them to confront each other, without the safety of their twins, their hosts, and the time and distance that used to separate them. The fissures of their discontent were all subtly depicted within that single day. Celine throws a knowing look at Jesse over lunch when certain sensitive topics are touched. Jesse retreats to his accented amorous and humorous declarations of sexual longing when cornered by Celine’s relentless questions. Their expected fight, which is as impassioned as the sweeping promises they used to tell each other, is the heart-breaking evidence that the beloved love story has opened itself to the biting cynicism of our current world.

Linklater has grown up. Jesse and Celine too. The way they see the world has been molded by age and regret. In a country made famous by its ruined edifices that constantly remind the greatness of its past as opposed to the uncertainty of its future, Jesse and Celine are in the brink of seeing their great love be reduced into a piece of history. Great wars of nations have been waged for principles and religion. Jesse and Celine’s war, however, is one that is waged by differences of personalities, of sex, of culture, of everything that was the subject of their laugh-filled debate over a sumptuous Grecian feast. The inevitable truth that is too bitter to swallow is that the heartbreak of seeing the romance fall apart reverberates greater than the sweet promises and expectations that got us drawn to them in the first place.

Jesse makes a last-ditch effort to save everything. In that same seaside café where Celine repeatedly said “still there, still there, still there,” she finds the heart to find truth in the mantra despite the fact that the sun is nowhere to be found. Jesse’s attempt to revive the romance, despite the adorable but passing creativity, is obviously patchwork. There are issues unresolved. From those issues, more fights, probably more vicious than the last one, will be fought. They are now engulfed by reality, just as we all are, with our mercurial moods and relationships. By being brought down to Earth, their love story has taken one big step towards immortality.