Meet the Feebles (1989)

Meet the Feebles (Peter Jackson, 1989)

This is Sesame Street directed by the more perverted twin brother of Larry Clark. The puppets are all psychopaths and maniacs: including an overeating diva hippo with a depressive personality. a philandering, drug-dealing, porn-producing walrus; a shell-shocked crack-addicted gecko; an emphysemic chain-smoking worm; an obnoxious good-for-nothing rat; and a sodomy-loving fox. It doesn't stop there. There's also an innocent hedgehog who will fall under the love spell of a dreamy poodle; an elephant who is threatened with a paternity suit by a loose hen; a panty-sniffing anteater; and a rabbit who is suffering from the muppet-version of AIDS.

It's all done in bad taste. Peter Jackson, way before being tamed by the voluminous epic of J. R. R. Tolkien, is a genius in low-budget filmmaking. With funds saved from the grant he got for Bad Taste (1987), he developed this idea (with collaborators Fran Walsh, Danny Mulheron, and Stephen Sinclair) of repulsive characters in repulsive situations. The idea of turning the characters into puppets and mascots is golden; it allows Jackson and his crew to up the depravity without being absolutely obnoxious to the middlebrow viewer. No matter how gross and amoral things become, it'll always be perceived as satirical and not pornographic or gratuitous.

I think that Meet the Feebles is a product mainly created for fun and laughs (yes, weird sex and pointless violence is funny). However, it's not completely depleted of sense --- in fact, the film makes more sense than most pretentious issue films. The subtext of the horrors of show business hinges on legends and stories of drug-inducing, sex-starved, and suicidal stars that have graced the entertainment business. The sleaze, treachery, sex, drugs, and all that jazz that surround the business are exaggerated for laughs and giggles; the disturbing bit here is that it's not necessarily far from the truth. That showbiz people are portrayed as worms, flies, rats, lizards and hogs ups the statement a few notches higher.

The miracle of the movie is that despite its overt trashiness, Jackson inadvertently creates some nuggets of solid magic. That black-and-white flashback to the hippo and the walrus' first meeting evokes the timeless appeal of a newly discovered dreamgirl, where romance and fame mix in unhealthy quantities. That short bit in a puppet version of the Vietnam War has actual grit. Of course everything ends with a gargantuan punchline (the walrus cheating on the hippo with a seductive feline; and the lizard using the Vietnam bit as bate for donations for his drug fund).

Jackson would inevitably lose some of the zaniness of these films (although he somewhat tops the insanity of Meet the Feebles with Braindead (1992), an all-out romp of flying blood, meat and guts). His best work remains to be Forgotten Silver (1995), which is also his most effective joke (that despite being known as the biggest practical joke in cinematic history, remains to be still very funny and quite touching). Heavenly Creatures (1994) would pave his way to Hollywood wherein he will forever be known as the Academy Award-winning director of The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003, a grand epic with a less than desirous lack of Jackson's humor) and King Kong (2005). With his feet upon a high pedestal, I wonder if he still has the guts to return to his roots and give as a lovely yet salty-sour-sweet confection like this one. I hope he does.

Bullet Ballet (1998)

Bullet Ballet (Shinya Tsukamoto, 1998)

Years after his breakthrough film Tetsuo, you can still smell Shinya Tsukamoto's famous fetish with metal --- this time, with the elusive gun (a rare commodity in Japan since owning one is restricted there). The allure of securing one replaces the love for the girlfriend who killed herself upon gaining access to the prohibited weapon. Cash is exchanged; research is voluminous; and marriage licenses are signed; all in order to secure a gun. Tsukamoto, ever the visualist, creates a montage wherein the gun is played with, quite seductively and lovingly, against the formidable light and creating shadows that somewhat remind you of rock and roll erotica.

The quest for a gun lands Goda (Tsukamoto), the corporate bum, in the middle of a gang war. Youth with pointless ambition are occupying the underbellies of Tokyo with their arsenal of home-made weapons (baseball bats covered with nails, lead tubes, etc.). His professional demeanor, an unsure yet desperate step towards the underground, turns him into the ideal target for their street side bullying. The lone princess of the gang Chisato (Kirina Mano) counters the metal fetish with her own set of irresistible pheromones. It's not exactly the formula for hot and steamy sexual encounters as we're talking about speed-addicted youngsters and Tsukamoto's weird sense of romanticism here. The most we get are artsy moments of ennui shared in quiet, sometimes violent but always dispassionate fashion.

Tsukamoto's black and white palette gives a metallic resonance to the hyper-urban affairs. When his camera is still, it almost evokes Japanese cinema of the 50's and 60's with Oshima's directionless youth and Imamura's angry citizens. Then, Tsukamoto convenes his trademark style of on screen mayhem; always accompanied by tight spaces representative of the iron tubes he has become so fond of. There are always extremes in Tsukamoto's filmmaking; the quiet moments are always disrupted by a sudden burst of violence. He takes it to the next level when he counters a three-way chase in the cramped alleyways of Tokyo with Chisato in an ecstatic moment of high-class fantasy in Goda's fully-furnished apartment; of taking calls and living the affluent life.

The metaphor Tsukamoto plays is one of class discontent. The gang-bangers wants to eke out a future from their unlikely lives yet are bound by the codes of honor their group has. They are disgusted by the corporate whores, yet realize the inevitability of them being whores themselves. It's a futile rebellion that will eventually die. Goda's dilemma is much more novel. His intention is to supplant his corporate lifestyle with the live-free and die-free motto of those street urchins he is trained to loathe (and in a way, adore). Initially, the match-up results in broken bones and bloodied faces but as temperatures ease and the distinctions are revealed as merely nominal, similarities pave a semblance of repressed fondness.

The title tricks you to expecting encounters of John Woo or Ringo Lam-caliber. Bullet Ballet is indeed kinetic, but not in a sense that violence is depicted in an operatic manner. One can probably assume that Tsukamoto's bullet ballet alludes to that elusive romanticism that floats and flickers on the volatile surface of Tsukamoto's art form which is all about steel, blood, and noise. Those silent moments of disconnected near-romantic gazes or dormant ambitions to escape the edgy life are the adagio to the otherwise rust-infested madness of Tsukamoto's urban nightmares.

You Got Me (2007)

You Got Me (Cathy Garcia-Molina, 2007)

As it turns out, You Are the One (2006) made considerable money for Star Cinema. The team-up of director Cathy Garcia-Molina with her two newfound stars Sam Milby and Toni Gonzaga proved to be a genuine gold mine for the film studio that within a few months, a follow-up is released. With a stable of new talents (mostly from their reality TV show) who are waiting to be given projects, it seemed wise to come up with a film that will feature more characters and more derring-do's than their previous effort.

You Got Me has an essentially different mood, a lot more serious and more melodramatic. While You Are the One has a whimsical view of the Philippines' woes and ticks, You Got Me is much more straightforward and foregos the atmospheric charm that made the previous effort so vastly enjoyable.

Kevin (Milby) and Moe (Gonzaga) are cops. Their precinct seems to belong to an alternate universe wherein Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's promise of a strong republic was actually serious and not just for show. For one, Kevin is an IT and surveillance specialist while Moe plays a one-woman police force (regular cop/SWAT team-member/undercover agent). I'm aware that there are precincts with IT departments but that's really not a norm. The precinct is unnaturally clean with no sign of corruption, crab mentality, inutility, or other real problems of the Philippine police force. The prisoners are also treated with respect and kindness; enough for one of the prisoners, a petty criminal named Caloy (Zanjoe Marudo), to risk courting stern Moe.

With such a Utopian set-up, the only natural consequence is for the cops to worry about their affairs of the heart. A love triangle slowly boils (perhaps too slowly) in the midst of all the poorly directed action sequences and Milby's failed attempts to speak Tagalog without the distinct American twang (the writers do try to explain why Milby's character can't speak straight Tagalog by claiming he is from Cotobato where the dialect is Visayan, but that doesn't explain why his Tagalog accent is more Americanized than Visayan).

It is a hard stretch of imagination the film's writers, actors, and Garcia-Molina are convincing their audiences to make. It reminds me of Johnny To's romantic comedies (like My Left Eye Sees Ghosts (2002) or Turn Left Turn Right (2003); not really his forte but he makes them competently enough to be enjoyable) without the assured execution or the distinct charm. Here, everything feels so manufactured: the chemistry, the far fetched plot, the silly action set pieces, the clumsy portrayals. Having seen You Are the One, a film that is just surprisingly and genuinely cute and fresh, this is just so much of a letdown.

Transformers (2007)

Transformers (Michael Bay, 2007)

I remember when I myself was transfixed on the animated series Transformers. I longed to buy each and every transforming toy and show them off to all my friends and be the envy of the entire neighborhood. I memorized each of their names, and their qualities, and sometimes pitted them against each other utilizing my imagination. I grew up of course but there still remains that little part in my heart that longs for a come-back of those heroic (and villainous) alien robots.

I wasn't alone. The theater wherein Michael Bay's update of the popular series was playing was jampacked with eager viewers and most of them are of my age (or of my generation). Some of them would bring their parents (who probably slaved away to buy their kids those expensive toys), or to the lucky few, their kids (who would probably plead their parents to slave away to buy them the neat-looking new line of toys). Bay, the film's producers, and the numerous companies who tied-in with the movie have hit the jackpot. The film caused the audience to cheer, clap, and march away from the cinema with eager points for conversation and a renewed feeling of "it's fun to be a geek."

Now, I was alone. Amidst the sea of satisfied and salivating enthusiasts, I was the lone Grinch. I was thinking why I didn't like the film as much as the rest and I was ready to pinpoint Bay as the prime culprit yet I didn't. The film was tailor fit to Bay's sensibilities. It was loud, consistently moving, and slick (in your typical summer blockbuster way). It was the film Bay was destined to make; the film that would cement his status of prime director of cinematic junk food.

Sure, I was annoyed by Bay's methods. He can't ever have his camera still, it always had to move (through a dolly, a crane, handheld, or whatever) and the constant motion would either cause your adrenaline to pump or give you a severe brain seizure. He also relishes in over-the-top and suspect cheesiness as let's say: a little girl asking a gigantic robot whether it's the tooth fairy; or a shot of the two protagonists suddenly holding hands amidst the mayhem; or that entire ending sequence which stank of pure childish and illogical kitsch. Despite Bay's distasteful tendencies, I was very ready to let everything sink as it is: a pure popcorn flick that would carry me back to those good old days wherein my only worry was that I didn't have enough money to purchase that Bumblebee toy.

The culprit can't be the technical aspect of the film. The CGI was breathtaking; and the reincarnations of the alien robots were in my opinion very apt. I thought the film didn't really need Steve Jablonsky's epic-sized musical score (complete with Carmina Burana-esque chorale singing), but I guess he was trying to top the juicy visuals that was consistently on display. Bay's camera tricks didn't really help showcase the technical pizzazz of the film; but sure, it wasn't totally atrocious. The point is, I knew what was happening onscreen.

Then there's the ridiculous plot. Much of it is grabbed from the Transformers canon (whose illogicality is necessary), but the stuff that was added, I couldn't really buy. The first half of the film involved a chase to get Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) who is in possession of a pair of eyeglasses that would reveal the location of the powerful Allspark. The second half (or what I'll refer to as the shut-your-brains-and-just-watch part) has the robots and humans battling the evil Decepticons to protect the Allspark. Annoyingly, the two halves don't jive; the first half isn't really necessary to arrive at the much-awaited mayhem of the climax and thus, the more-than-two-hour running time could have been trimmed to serve it better; and give it the appropriate label as a popcorn flick without all the inept narrative it tries so hard to sell.

I thought the update to Transformers is good. The animated series enters the present world of the world wide web, cellphones, Ebay, and Youtube. Meteorites land in the backyard and kids won't scurry away but will get their cameras to film the event and then upload to their respective websites. Everything is sold including family heirlooms using the ease of the internet. Information has become so readily available that the robots themselves form a complete vocabulary, attitude, and racial stereotypes utilizing the information gathered freely from the web. In a way, I can't really complain of the modifications the filmmakers have done to the beloved cartoon series.

I can understand the resounding praise that film has garnered from old and new fans alike. It's so easy to get lost in the fantasy of the boy and the car (who can transform into a heroic robot), especially if it's told with all the million-dollar special effects and goodies. It comes with this generation that is so engrossed with pumping up the ordinary: just observe the hundreds of nobodies in Youtube turning into internet superstars with their Jackass-videos or imaginative creations. Michael Bay's Transformers fits right in. It tickles that fancy of every Gen-X or Y employee that his used Corolla would play the right tunes for that hot chick he's never had the courage to ask for a date. In a way, it is that perfect escapist material for the frenzied masses who see technology as both foe and friend. So what's there to dislike in the film? Honestly, aside from Bay's inept direction and the inutile plot, I don't know.

You Are the One (2006)

You Are the One (Cathy Garcia-Molina, 2006)

I caught this one on cable television. I've heard some good stuff about this rom-com, but easily dismissed it as part of the hype machinery Star Cinema (or any other Filipino film studio, for that matter) utilizes to quickly recoup investments (yes, film studios are getting very creative in promotions as the film industry here is on the verge of extinction from cutthroat competition by Hollywood). Surprise surprise! The film is actually quite good.

The plot is simple enough: Will (toothpaste model-turned-reality television star-turned-matinée idol Sam Milby) is an employee in the American embassy in Manila who denied the visa application of Sally (singer-turned-host-turned-film star Toni Gonzaga), an employee of the local statistics office. It turns out the Will is also looking for his biological parents who gave him up when he was a baby. The tides turn when Will is now under the whims of Sally's office when the former starts searching for his birth certificate. From the census office, to the slums of Tondo, to the buried towns in Pampanga, the two start a romantic relationship that gets tested by their own individual dilemmas.

It's not the formulaic plot that gets the film going, but Cathy Garcia-Molina's astute direction. She finds whimsical in dire situations. While the late Lino Brocka, and his successors, would've made grave drama about the living conditions of Tondo, Garcia-Molina finds gems of human ingenuity. The rooftop of a squalid apartment becomes filled with colorful tents and bright umbrellas that shield gamblers and afternoon drunkards from the gaze of the sun; two buildings are connected by a string that allows laundry to be brought to and fro; women drag their children like a hen dragging her set of chicks. It is that unexplainable cosmos of survivors and their survival techniques that the Americans (in this case, Will) would never understand; and that's what Garcia-Molina forwards so wonderfully.

The film's romantic getaway happens in Pampanga, the province that was buried by a mixture of ash and mad (called lahar) by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. While other filmmakers squeeze the melodramatics of tragedy created by that natural catastrophe (like Mel Chionglo's Lahar (1996) or more recently, Brillante Mendoza's Kaleldo (Summer Heat, 2006)), Garcia-Molina paints the buried towns with gratifying color, turning them into one grandiose carnival. The setting is beautiful enough to be the central set piece for Will and Sally's blossoming love affair, as cued by the titular song heard in the background as the couple swoon in the rain.

Garcia-Molina distinguishes the clear-cut yet dull lifestyle of Will from the seductive chaos of Sally's life (complete with her two best friends: a standard gay sidekick (Gio Alvarez) and lovelorn internet dater (Eugene Domingo)). Their workplaces spell out bureaucracy but the professionally boring straightness of the U.S. Embassy feels very clinical as compared to the crowd-infested yet always pleasant (something I wish were true in real life) madness of the statistics office. It is that allure that tempts Will to re-discover himself and open up to the possibilities of taking part in it.

That run-of-the-mill ending of all romantic comedies wherein the male lover chases after his female lover (or vice versa) which is always against time, circumstance, or calamity is pumped up by Garcia-Molina and her team of imaginative writers, made distinctly Filipino by an adherence to exaggeration and over-the-top histrionics. This time, it works mostly because Garcia-Molina has consistently made it work ever since the first scene where time-tied Sally hilariously un-knots a traffic jam to the real, from ridiculous and enjoyable party-poverty in Tondo to the half-buried yet still habitable houses of Pampanga. It's a string of fascinating sequences and all of them are genuinely enjoyable. I do not kid.

Bug (2006)

Bug (William Friedkin, 2006)

A sweeping view of nowhere, America opens William Friedkin's terrifying Bug. Acres and acres of fallow land with the Rustic Hotel, a dilapidated highway-side abode, serving as the only recognizable landmark. One of the rooms of the hotel serves as the residence of Agnes (Ashley Judd), a waitress in a lesbian bar, and the primary setting for this claustrophobic pic. Random prank calls describe Agnes' nights ever since her husband (Harry Connick Jr.) was release from jail on parole. Her meager earnings (several coins and single dollar bills from tips) are spent on canned peas and bottles of vodka --- she's desperately lonely; and it seems that her loneliness pushes her to be subdued by men (first, her violent husband; and second, a weird newcomer with an quasi-innocent charm that consumes her curiosity).

The sweeping view will, little by little, be transformed as the film's atmosphere becomes delegated inside that motel room. Many things are happening. First, the mundane --- Agnes' husband's threats and unwelcomed visits, Agnes' traumatic loss of her son. Then, the unexplainable --- that uninhibited yet sure attraction towards Peter Evans (Michael Shannon), a mysterious drifter and war veteran; the imagined (or perhaps, real) invasion by microscopic blood-sucking aphids; the government experiments and conspiracy theories. It sucks you in into the mysteries that are piled to the point of unrecognition. By film's end, you forget the fallow land or that the room is part of that distant hotel in a slice of land in middle America; all that is real is the room, covered with aluminum foil. It's an implosion of everything that is wrong in America in that little room and within the frightening dynamics of the two main characters.

Friedkin gets it right this time. While the rest of the world are still caught in shock by Linda Blair's revolving head and spider walk in The Exorcist (1973), it is the thought-provoking, the less visceral that pumps up the intellectual horror of Bug. The film keeps itself in the undefinable middle between real and unreal. When Peter rambles about bug egg sacs and parasites with more than adequate knowledge, you fear for his sanity the way you distrust Norman Bates' infantile yet dangerous gestures; but it gets weirder, as the volatile Agnes joins in the game. Is it the bug infection that is contageous, or the paranoia itself?

The film's climax wherein Agnes cooks up a theory worthy of a Shyamalan twist (only in this case, it isn't what makes the film but what makes the horror much more twistedly palatable) while Peter excitedly welcomes an affirmation to the madness. Before the very flammable conclusion, Friedkin allows us to peek into his subjects once more --- this time, with very discomforting intimacy. He reveals these two specimens (Agnes and Peter start to resemble insects in a way that their paranoia breeds violence and fear, the same way cockroaches would pounce or run at an instance of any movement) bursting into self-destruction. It is damningly horrifying; but Friedkin makes it clearly theatrical as the over-the-top dramatics and production design erupt into clear and visceral insanity. He successfully creates a cinematic equal of death to avoid irritation, a voluntary shut-down for the levity against the world's worries.

Bug is a proper film in a contemporary society that feeds off films like Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) or Sicko (2007) for entertainment. It thrives in the post-9/11 world of isolation against the growing sense of connectivity brought about by technological advances. It is that paradox that nurtures nuts that devise theories and discontent that springs from exaggerated versions of the present corrupt reality. Just think about it, Peter and Agnes may be your everyday computer nerd exploring the net for verifications of pumped-up tales; and in so doing, amasses an army of like-minded followers. Now, that is horror.

But I'm probably overthinking. As it is, this is impeccable cinema, a near flawless translation of a successful play into a downright disturbing exploration of two persons whose destiny is to fall into insanity together. It's a choking experience the way everything is packed inside the walls of an ever-changing room, and the way the characters delegate their consciousness to bugs. The only breath of fresh air we get is that helicopter overview of the vast land that surrounds the motel; and thereafter, everything shrinks into that minuscule aluminum-covered cell and discussions of government-initiated plans to control the world.

Kuroneko (1968)

Kuroneko (Kaneto Shindô, 1968)
English Title: Black Cat From the Grove

With Kuroneko (Black Cat From the Grove), director Kaneto Shindô dissects the divide that separates the classes in medieval Japan. The opening scene shows a solitary hut that is enveloped by a bamboo forest. Hordes of samurai warriors appear from the forest, slowly walking towards the hut. Inside the hut are two peasant women quietly eating their lunch. The warriors start grabbing their rice, and unsated, start raping the two women in horrid succession. The warriors leave the two unconscious women and the hut burning.

It's a disquieting introduction. Shindô doesn't emboss the sequence with any musical score, as we only hear the crickets chirping, the stream running, and the few shrieks and grunts by the women and the invading horde. It reinforces the feeling that the samurais arrived, pillaged, and disappeared with hardly anybody noticing and anyone really caring. Later in the film, the samurai leader would defend his class by stating that it is the powerful that rule over the weak; that there's no rationale in hating the samurai class. His statement is of course pure folly as we have witnessed with immense efficiency how the samurai and war can directly affect the comman folk.

Kuroneko is of course a kaidan (ghost story) and the two women resurface as vengeful spirits who roam the night to lure wandering samurai into their abode. After seducing the samurai with gratitude, flattery, cups of warm sake, and sex, the two would finish him off with a violent bite in the neck --- the same way a tame black cat would pounce on his master. The treachery keeps them alive; and it fuels their vendetta against the warmongers who ruined their lives in an unnoticed heartbeat.

The warriors would of course retaliate. Several mighty samurais have died and the samurai lord orders Gintoki (Kichiemon Nakamura), fresh from an unexpected victory against a formidable fighter, to investigate and destroy the spirits. Gintoki turns out to be the husband and the son of the murdered women; yet the twist is that Gintoki is no longer a peasant but a samurai, and thus an appropriate victim to the wraiths' murderous plans. The blurring of these roles are treated with unabashed tenderness --- Gintoki and his wife (Kiwaki Taichi) would thereafter spend several days in romantic bliss, unmindful of each other's missions to destroy each other.

It is obvious that Shindô admires this class-less happiness. He shoots the couple's scenes together in an eroticically gorgeous manner; quite different from the wife's previous seductions wherein the men are ravenous for flesh. The sequence is poignant; coupled with the mother (Nobuko Otowa)'s painful dance (again, different from the more rabid dance performed during their murderous sessions) and the couples' incandescent lovemaking, there's no denying that the class-crossing dilemma is the ultimate heart of the film.

Shindô tells the story with a dutiful eye for detail --- the bamboo grove is made eerie by the fog; the wardrobe and the make-up applied to the two wraiths; the intricate detail that surfaces the amusing stereotypes (the mustache and the body hair of the samurai leader, the transformation of Gintoki from filthy peasant to titled samurai by several buckets of warm water); the perfect lighting (especially inside the wraiths' abode). Kuroneko is simply wonderful cinema. It is scary not because of jarring sound effects or sudden visual stimuli, but because it draws you in into the hapless drama, and the irrevocable damage caused by war and the men whose fortunes are rooted from it.

The Invisible Man (1933)

The Invisible Man (James Whale, 1933)

You can definitely predict the spectacle, that beneath the horrid bandages and the sunglasses is nothing. However, when Claude Rains starts unraveling his face, there's always that jolting effect no matter how many times you've correctly predicted the spectacle. It probably stems from James Whale's apt opening, with the heavily covered man walking past the snowstorm, arriving at a jolly little inn with jolly people. His physical predisposition and his unlikable aura counters the warmth of the inn where he intends to stay. He chooses to keep himself a mystery and when egged on by the innkeeper, he finally reveals himself and goes about on a rampage of petty and more serious crimes.

If anything, the invisible man's criminal activities are, during it's time, quite alarming, and his motivations are not really based on rationality. There's always an element of surprise in his malevolence and his concept of power is downright disturbing. Whale commits his crimes into celluloid with unassuming spontaneity. They're almost designed like comedic set pieces, as when the invisible man dons a pair of trousers and scares a woman away while singing a limerick; or when he throws a bald man's hat into the creek. However, Whale doesn't hold back when the invisible man commits his graver offenses, as when the invisible man makes two men fall down a cliff, or steals a box full of money from the bank, or derails a train, with the same alarming spontaneity of his lesser crimes. That indifference makes him more ferocious; his invisibility makes him all-powerful.

It's not that the invisible man is pure evil. You can always still sense his humanity: the way he pleads for more time from the innkeeper just so he can find a remedy for his invisibility; or when his voice softens when he learns that Flora (Gloria Stewart) is on her way. Actually, that is what makes the film so irresistibly interesting, the same way Frankenstein (1930) and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) are outstanding horror pictures. Whale would always posit a lurking humanity beneath the monstrous exterior or lack of exterior, in this case.

The metaphor of invisibility is apt. It is power that shields the man from impunity but with the aftereffect of completely removing the possessor's identity and his whole place in this world. There are only traces of his former life, but the controlling facet is his invisibility. That skews his reason. His noble purposes are tainted with evil motivations. There dividing line between good and evil are dimmed.

It is for that reason that the film's ending, despite its questionably syrupy circumstance, is very appropriate. While in his deathbed, the invisible man is suddenly revealed, bit per bit, until we see his face, completely peaceful and at ease. We understand his plight as power is indeed tempting and damning. We also understand that despite the horrifying crimes he has committed, the illogical rationale still stems from his position of disadvantage, that his case conditions his mindset for such circumstances and that the help of science and the mysterious chemical he added in his invisibility serum are not the main causes for his insanity, but his human condition. He cannot get his life's love or his peers' approval because he was so poor to begin with, leading him to be jealous and destined to be continuously betrayed.

Tatarin (2001)

Tatarin (Tikoy Aguiluz, 2001)
English Title: Summer Solstice

Don Paeng (Edu Manzano) and Lupe (Dina Bonnevie) Moreta are trapped in a difficult wedding; at least for Lupe who starts to feel her subservient role in the household. We first see them in bed; Paeng on top while a bored Lupe suffers through the mechanical thrusts of her husband. The couple's morning lovemaking coincides with a woman's fervent prayer for a child (followed by a steamy scene of self-stimulation), and the couple's household helps' rabid humping; with the woman (played by Rica Paralejo) erupting into an illucid trance that would define the feast day of St. John the Baptist, which also coincides with the pagan ritual of tatarin (which in English refers to chopping).

The wedding vows aren't tested due to infidelity or a lack of love, but because of the skewed sense of inequality between the sexes. Paeng's conservative views force Lupe to stand by his side. You can see the effects of that patriarchal sternness: Lupe would always look with approving eyes before trying to do anything like watching the passing parade through their manor's balcony. It is the same patriarchal reign that Paeng would like his eldest son to inherit; that women are subservient to the man's concept of order.

The tatarin ritual is an affront to that patriarchal state which the Philippines has inherited from its Western colonizers. Guido (Carlos Morales), Paeng's cousin who relocates from Europe to take part in the pagan rituals, relates that women have always been powerful; that before there were kings, there were queens; that before there were priests, there were pagan priestesses; and that the sun bows down to the moon (which symbolizes femininity). You see Lupe's surprise of her undiscovered power upon hearing those words and while her legs are fondled by the very masculine Guido while her husband peeks through their balcony.

Director Tikoy Aguiluz carefully maps Lupe's transformation leading to that final tatarin procession where she overtly disobeys her husband. His adaptation of Nick Joaquin's short story may be viewed as gratuitously perverted (the way Paralejo's breasts are lighted with erotic tenderness, and other young starlets are casted to gyrate for presumably, tittilation). However, the visually portrayed sexual energy serves an appropriate purpose. It delivers a shameful light to the subtle cruelty of Paeng's controlling nature and his mechanical sexuality. It places points of extremes in a film that is basically about the jarring battles of the two sexes --- it spells out the differences between sensual and formal, freedom and restraint, female and male.

Set in the 1920's, Aguiluz makes sure that every detail is accomplished perfectly. The meticulousness shows. The wardrobe, the setting, the props are carefully conceived to match the era. It's all wonderful, the way Micaela (Ces Quesada) and her daughter (a tepid Maui Taylor who is unused in the department wherein she could've shined) steps out of their polished antique car; or the interiors of a provincial manor with its lovingly constructed furniture and its walls adorned with Catholic paintings; or the methodology in making the noodles the Moretas' factory is producing.

More interesting is the actual tatarin procession where women (all obviously choreographed) dance and gyrate in delirious drumming, and the men (who are celebrating St. John the Baptist's festival --- a Catholic feast which figures, since Catholicism espouses patriarchal society) who strut alongside the women. It is quite easy to get lost in the orgy, and the sequence is pungent with sweat and saliva. The men fall under the spell of the women and are revealed as equal, if not weaker (especially in that scene wherein Guido stumbles into tears when Lupe abruptly ends their lovemaking, thus, revealing Guido's past in Europe wherein he wails the name of a woman he presumably loved and lost).

The final scene ends the transformation. Under the glow of a full moon, Lupe finally gets what she wants and becomes on top (sexually and emotionally) of her husband. The mechanical nature of their sexual consummation is abandoned when Paeng reveals his emotions and steps out of the formalities dictated by the patriarchal society they live in. Paeng follows the whims of his wife; and disobeys the commands of the Church (which approves of only one sexual position) while he gets consumed by the spirit he has, in his entire lifetime, rejected.

Ang Tatay Kong Nanay (1978)

Ang Tatay Kong Nanay (Lino Brocka, 1978)
English Title: My Father, My Mother

Lino Brocka's Ang Tatay Kong Nanay (My Father, My Mother) is such a delightful film. Sure, it engrosses itself with several melodramatic turns and its representation of homosexuality is limited to the loud transvestite types. However, there's something about the film that strikes you as adamantly sincere (as compared to popcorn fare like Mrs. Doubtfire (Chris Columbus, 1993) or other gender-bender tearjerkers released lately).

During its closing sequences wherein Coring (played with a pitch-perfect sense of both comedy and drama by Dolphy), dressed as Ms. Spain in a low-budget gay-version of an international beauty pageant (again, a testament to Philippine ingenuity), answers a question by the pageant host. Brocka's camera then lingers to Dolphy's exaggeratedly painted face; and Dolphy owns the close-up, delivering his lines with subtle emotionality and tender grace. His manner of answering felt like his character bore the aches of the entire Philippine gay community on his shoulders, and you can easily feel for him. Just when you are drawn to his character's poignant soliloquy, Dolphy snaps out of the mood with a joke, and you laugh, although still teary-eyed.

The plot itself is nothing special. Coring, a gay beautician, is left with a baby by his former ward, Dennis (Philip Salvador). The baby grows up (the boy is played by a very young Niño Muhlach) thinking that Coring is his real father. Everything seems to be smooth until the kid's mother (Marissa Delgado) suddenly shows up to claim her son.

What's special is how Brocka and writer Orlando Nadres pumped up the story with themes dealing with the difficulty and sensitivity in the rearing of a boy by a gay parent. There's a detailed attention on how Coring tries to shield the boy from his homosexuality. A touching sequence shows the boy using Coring's lipstick on himself so he looks like the Indian from a picture book. When Coring sees the boy using lipstick on himself, he scolds the boy out of fear of him turning into a homosexual. When the boy explains that he was only trying to emulate the Indian from the picture book, Coring's fears are waived and he lovingly hugs the boy.

It is that underlying theme that ultimately unites the film, more than the tearjerking story. There are two scenes in the film that adequately resolves the issue of identity. The first one is when the boy catches his father donning a dress in a fashion show. He point-blank asks Coring whether or not he is ashamed of the way he looks. Coring, before answering, wipes the make-up from his face and removes the wig from his head, and gives a reliable excuse. The ending of the film offers a similar scenario. The boy again catches Coring, who just got home from a beauty contest. There were no more questions asked and Coring didn't even bother removing the make-up from his face or the wig from his head; they just hugged. The bonds of fatherhood withstood the demands of society or Coring's own shame of showing himself as a homosexual in front of his adopted son.

This makes the film, with all its stereotypes and conventional narrative arcs, as timely now, as it was decades ago when it was released. It is a gay-themed film that is ultimately rewarding beyond its genre. It preaches acceptance, not mere tolerance. It proposes homosexuality as a non-issue in parental love and affection. Straight or gay, there's something to be gained from watching the film --- a handful of chuckles, a cupful of tears, and most importantly, a whole lot of heart.