Ang Maikling Buhay ng Apoy, Act 2, Scene 2: Suring at ang Kuk-ok (1995)

Minggu, 08 Januari 2012

Ang Maikling Buhay ng Apoy, Act 2, Scene 2: Suring at ang Kuk-ok (1995)

Ang Maikling Buhay ng Apoy, Act 2, Scene 2: Suring at Kuk-ok (Auraeus Solito, 1995)

English Title: The Brief Lifespan of Fire, Act 2, Scene 2: Suring and Kuk-ok

With only the entire nine minute-running time of Ang Maikling Buhay ng Apoy, Act 2, Scene 2: Suring at ang Kuk-ok (The Brief Lifespan of Fire, Act 2, Scene 2: Suring and Kuk-ok), filmmaker Auraeus Solito was able to convey the components of Palaw’an culture that ensured its survival amidst the allure of modern culture. Solito, whose mother was one of the few descendants of the shaman-kings of Palawan who were sent to Manila for education following the efforts of the government to reach out to indigenous tribes in the Philippines, was gifted with stories from his wealthy heritage. The short film, which is merely an excerpt from Solito’s own play, is but one of the thousands of tales transmitted aurally from generation to generation. With the power and reach of cinema, Solito has ascertained the preservation of his treasured culture, along with it, the virtues and values his own culture holds dear.

The short film tells the myth of Suring, who casts a spell of immense beauty but is still judged by humanity. She retreats to the forests where she is far from the prying eyes of humans, and there, she befriends the Kuk-ok, a creature who can transform into any form. Solito, acknowledging the essence of the stories conveyed by his mother to be the act of telling and listening, withholds from turning the film into merely a package of visual pleasures founded on the supernatural foundations of the story. The myth is actually told by Suring, relaying with precise emotions her very own tale to the film’s audience. In a way, the audience becomes the direct heirs of the Palaw’an oral tradition, inheriting the knowledge of such tale straight from the being.

The sacred act of storytelling is preserved in the film. Solito only adds visual inflections. Using very crude stop-motion animation which turns Suring’s environment into a troupe of swirling and spinning performers that enunciate the highs and lows of the plot, Solito evokes a definite stance of enchantment in his recreation of how the legend was imparted to him. Leaves conspire to form a magnificent headdress for Suring, turning her into a terrifying presence. Tattoos are magically painted on her face, beautiful blues and yellows to represent her relationship with nature, and black and red to express the corruption dealt by humanity’s cynicism. Seashells, flowers, twigs and branches are turned into delicate brushstrokes and punctuation marks, tools in imparting the subtle complexities of the seemingly simple creation story.

Because of the dazzling colors and movements in the film, one can only surmise Solito’s wonderment when his mother tells him the story when he was a child. In a very mundane city such as Manila, these stories, especially to a boy whose imagination is not limited by the browns and greys of the metropolis, are sure to be sudden bursts of colors and textures. The film is successful in turning Solito’s very personal and private joys as a child astounded by his mother’s beautiful stories into something universal, where anyone can find himself trapped in the pleasures of being transported in a different place and era with only the power of voice and practical cinematic effects, without need of the excesses provided by computer-generated fakery.

Solito has always been a filmmaker who mines his unique circumstance in the world to etch his life as an artist. Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, 2005), although based on a lovely screenplay written by Michiko Yamamoto, is grounded on Solito’s own childhood experiences in his Manila neighborhood. Pisay (Philippine Science, 2007) on the other hand, situates his creativity within his own academic and political coming-of-age in a peculiar science high school. Boy (2009) is a peek into his sexual awakening. Basal Banar (Sacred Ritual of Truth, 2002), a documentary that dutifully details his rediscovery of his Palaw’an roots, lays the groundwork for his narrative films on the bevy of stories he has learned through the years. Busong (Palawan Fate, 2011), the first of the several narrative films he plans, finds Solito in that situation where he returns to Palaw’an, not as a child fascinated by that missing link, or a traveller searching for that missing link, but as an advocate, tasked to perpetuate, the same way his mother and his ascendants did, their heritage through the art of storytelling.

(Cross-published in Lagarista.)

Sana Maulit Muli (1995)

Jumat, 14 Mei 2010

Sana Maulit Muli (1995)

Sana Maulit Muli (Olivia Lamasan, 1995)

English Title: Hopefully, Once More

Olivia Lamasan’s Sana Maulit Muli (Hopefully, Once More) is essentially about two lovers drifting apart by reason of the American Dream. When Agnes (Lea Salonga), an overly dependent to the point of being spineless woman, was petitioned to the San Francisco by her absentee mother, she expected that her long-time boyfriend Jimmy (Aga Muhlach) would always be there for her as she struggles to survive on her own. However, as it turns out, Jimmy, an advertising executive, utilizes the time without his girlfriend to improve his career. The demands of their long distance relationship pull them apart, until Jimmy, detouring from an ad conference in New York, visits Agnes in the hopes of winning her back.

The film examines the American dream, a post-colonial promise that has consumed Filipinos wishing for the better life that the Philippines cannot seem to provide, with jaded eyes. It initially establishes the immense possibilities of life in America, showing Agnes change from a girl cocooned by her boyfriend’s abnormal attentiveness to a successful career woman, who rose from the ranks from caregiver to real estate agent. Before dwelling on the opulence of American living and the comforts of the fast-paced and go-getting lifestyle it promotes, Lamasan begins to shatter the fantasy, allowing a glimpse at the other side of the coin where illegal immigrants are overworked and underpaid, where interracial marriages are hounded by cultural misunderstandings, where life is just simply harder to bear with the dollars earned becomes equivalent to the ounces of dignity lost at the hands of unscrupulous employers, most of which are Filipinos themselves.

The film then becomes more pertinent when Lamasan depicts oppression in America, a concept that seems ludicrous if pitted against everything the American dream stood for. In probably the film’s most famous scene, Jimmy, after being cursed and demeaned by his Filipino employer in front of his co-employees for breaking several dozens of eggs, explodes in anger, brandishing a cleaver against his employer before walking out of the restaurant. That display of anger, executed with hardly any subtle cue, was carefully built up by Lamasan who slowly but surely invests Jimmy, who exchanged his white collar career in Manila for the thankless odd jobs he has to put up with, with signs of weariness and repressed violent emotions leading to the climactic outburst. It is a short-lived retribution. The injustices will most undoubtedly continue on long after the shock of Jimmy’s outburst has passed. Such is the life of a second-class citizen.

However, Sana Maulit Muli insists on putting Jimmy and Agnes’ love story in the center of the narrative, wasting whatever attempts at relevance with the incredulity of forcing two characters in a relationship that is arguably more destructive than romantic. Of course, the film was designed for its audience to root for its lovers. Every time Jimmy goes home to Agnes, tired from work, tired from swallowing his pride just to win Agnes back, Jimmy’s sacrifice is not only emphasized, it is overplayed. On the other hand, Agnes, vastly improved from the timid wallflower of her years in Manila to the self-sufficient success story that she has become, is depicted with subtle unfairness, and left with the decision to either leave America, the country that has been so kind to her in more ways than financially, for the sake of her beloved who outside his insistence on his love for the motherland, is actually a weakling and chronically afraid of being in a relationship where the woman is far more successful than he is.

Thus, the ending, executed with the exact syrupy indulgences of nearly all Star Cinema romances with Agnes returning to Manila to meet Jimmy in the city’s crowded sidewalks, can only leave an awful aftertaste. While love is realistically about compromises, the film conveniently blurs the questionable compromise committed with the help of the swelling music, rehearsed smiles, and a kiss to heal all the pains and aches just to achieve the happily-ever-after ending.

Consequently, Sana Maulit Muli could have not achieved the consistency of Gil Portes’ ‘Merika (1984), where a Filipina New Yorker starts to feel the deadening humdrum of American life, or the unhindered and unabashed moralism of Elwood Perez’s Waikiki (1980), where a mother suddenly discovers her family falling apart in her husband and children’s pursuit of the American dream, or the psychological, philosophical and social depth of Lav Diaz’s Batang West Side (West Side Avenue, 2001), where a Filipino policeman’s investigation of a young Filipino immigrant’s murder awakens him to the several conflicts caused by the Filipino diaspora. Forgoing its gloss, the kneejerk delights of the well-packaged romance, and the used-as-a-mere-backdrop discourse on the Filipino experience in America, Sana Maulit Muli is a film so confused and confusing, deeming the American experience, all the benefits and issues surrounding it, and never mind the fact that Agnes came out of it an infinitely better person, subservient to the whims of a limiting irrational heart.

Bontoc Eulogy (1995)

Jumat, 16 Januari 2009

Bontoc Eulogy (1995)

Bontoc Eulogy (Marlon Fuentes, 1995)

Cinema thrives in illusions. Its existence is predicated on the ability to manipulate the limited capacities of the human eye to view still images sprinting in quickfire succession. French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard proclaimed cinema as "the most beautiful fraud in the world." While cinema largely owes its endurance as an artform to its ability to sustain that primordial lie, its purpose is magnified, ranging from unabashed escapism to poetic verity. Thus, Godard also claimed that "the Cinema is truth 24 frames per second."Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke's rebuttal is much more accurate. Reconciling Godard's two inconsistent quotes, he said that "film is 24 lies per second at the service of truth, or at the service of the attempt to find the truth."

Bontoc Eulogy, directed by Filipino-American filmmaker Marlon Fuentes, is a faux documentary about an Igorot warrior who was one of the 1102 tribal Filipinos sent to the 1904 St. Louis World Fair to be exhibited to America's curious masses. Bontoc Eulogy draws its inspiration and interest on historical events, but is cleverly crafted from facts, subtle half-truths, and downright obvious falsehoods. Archival videos and images, re-staged footage, soundbites, and other elements are stitched together to create a coherent whole, seamlessly operating like a real documentary. Yet, Fuentes' goal here is clearly not to deceive (unlike Peter Jackson in Forgotten Silver (1995), his most beautiful fraud ever). Instead, he uses that portion of history he refurbished as a springboard for his discussion on his own fractured identity as a Filipino (who, according to film critic Alexis Tioseco, left the Philippines for the United States and hasn't returned since for reasons only known to him).

Bontoc Eulogy is the unnamed narrator's investigation on the fate of Markod, the narrator's grandfather who was separated from his pregnant wife to join a torturous expedition to the St. Louis World Fair. The investigation leads to several points of interest, primarily to anthropologists and historians, as the gritty details of survival against the backdrop of very drastic changes in climate and culture is deliberately told in the fashion of a personal memoir, recorded by Markod and replayed by the narrator for the benefit of quenching his haunting curiosity of his roots. While fact and imagination mix to the point of the audience not knowing where fiction starts and where it ends, the film dutifully fulfills the most apparent of its goals: to provide ample light to a footnote in Philippine history, where Filipino men and women were exported around the world for the sole purpose of exposing their supposed primitivity, thus earning America the greenlight to colonize the Philippines, in the guise of gifting the archipelago with civilizationl; exploitation in the guise of benevolence.

To be satisfied and stop there would defeat the subtle artistry behind Bontoc Eulogy. While the film concentrates mostly with Markod's experiences during the St. Louis World Fair, it is also about the narrator's own dilemma as a Filipino uprooted from the motherland and in the brink of losing his identity, which in turn, is reflective of Fuentes' own situation. The narrator rationalizes, "to survive in this new land, we had to forget." Assimilation, the ability to combine cultural traits in the process of survival, not civilization, is America's gift to the Philippines, and the Philippines has maximized this gift, ultimately forgetting itself along the way. This is the narrator and Fuentes' dilemma, acknowledging that "we must remember in order to survive," not exactly as humans, but as Filipinos with an identity and culture to hold onto.

History repeats itself. The Philippines no longer exports its citizens to be displayed in world fairs and museums. The Philippines no longer needs salvation from what its colonizers refer to as savagery. The Philippines needs salvation from anything as broad as poverty and political turmoil or any pressing matter that would force a man to cut the cord that connects himself to his nation. We never become aware what drove the narrator (or Fuentes) away from the Philippines, but their emotional thirst for a reconnection to the motherland (or at the very least, a definite explanation as to his present scenario) fuels the picture, allowing for parallelisms between the narrator's predicament and Markod's eventual descent to cultural limbo. In Bontoc Eulogy, Fuentes adamantly searches for questions to answers he himself might not be aware of, and in turn, creates a film that seems to be the literal translation of Haneke's definition of cinema.

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995)

Kamis, 15 November 2007

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995)

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (Aditya Chopra, 1995)
English Title: The Brave Heart Will Take the Bride

Only in Bollywood do you have films that stretch past the three-hour mark and still manage to be authentically engrossing. Only in Bollywood films do you have plotlines (sometimes borrowed from Hollywood or elsewhere) that are rehashed to death, choreographed show-stopping musical numbers that pop out suddenly, actors and actresses that practice histrionics in their method of acting and still remain enjoyable and surprisingly refreshing. Only in India would you have a film like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (The Brave Heart Will Take the Bride), a well-made but rather conventional romantic melodrama, have commercial public screenings for untiring patrons years after its initial release.

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge is the first feature film of Aditya Chopra, son of legendary Yash Chopra, prolific director of such movies like Dhool Ka Phool (Blossom of Dust, 1959), Deewaar (The Wall, 1975), and most recently Veer-Zaara (2004), and even more prolific producer to several other well-loved hits. At the young age of 24, Aditya Chopra has crafted what would become one of the most successful Bollywood film of all time. It is not a great film, merely a pleasant one. Evidence of Chopra's inexperience is abundant, like the frequent flatness of his visuals (those unaccompanied by majestic geographic backdrops or loud colors, such as when the sequences happen indoors, are relatively plain-looking). However, the film's success is of course not surprising as Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge has all the elements of a Bollywood hit in near-perfect mix: an unchallenging thus extremely watchable and rewatchable plot, doses of enjoyable musical numbers, bits of lowbrow comedy (slapstick, witty one-liners, and other unembarrassed attempts for laughter), some action including a sequence featuring thunderous slaps on the face and a brawl scene, and most importantly, one big and unsubtle heart.

The film tells the story of two London-bred Indians, Simran (Kajol, a lovely actress with perfectly shaped eyes), who is engaged to marry the son of her father's best bud back in India, and Raj (Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan), happy-go-lucky son of a doting millionaire. The two meet during their one-month long excursion in Europe, a rather lengthy affair that predictably begins with the two exchanging looks of annoyance and ends with them magically falling in love. This love-hate struggle for that romantic link that would sustain the challenges to come comprises half of the film. The father's plan to have Simran wed his friend's son pushes through forcing Raj to relocate to India, assimilate into the household of the groom-to-be, and hopefully or magically convince Simran's family to have Simran marry him instead.

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge is mostly interesting because it strikes a balance between two conflicting values, that of tradition and progress. "Habits left unchanged tend to become necessity-like," explains Simran's younger sister when she joked about her mother's insistence on calling his father every morning just to find out if he reached work safely. That phrase seems to be the film's starting point in its goal to ease the challenging strictness of Hindi culture. The traditions, considered by Simran's father as his family's only linkages to the homeland they left two decades ago, are guarded from being tainted by foreign influences, which is exactly how Raj is portrayed: brash, careless, and wasteful Hindi-European hybrid. Following tradition, he keeps true the promise made to a friend to have their children marry, compromising love and affection from the marital bonds.

The film puts that tradition in the spotlight but tangentially criticizes the necessities produced by the habits forged by tradition. In one touching scene, the mother placates Simran, weeping because of her inescapable misfortune. She tells her of how she was told of the equality between men and women, and how all her life she was deprived of that so-called equality leading her to promise Simran when she was a baby to assure her a life of happiness. She recants her promise, surrendering that women do not even have the right to give such promises. In that scene, we see how a strict appraisal of tradition is tantamount to a deprivation of some facets of humanity. That scene is sad, uncharacteristically so in a movie that bursts with such mirthful energy.

Despite that, the film relishes in tradition where it matters. Raj, supposedly the Indian who was lured to the liberalities of the West, exemplifies tradition and progress in harmony. Faced with the dilemma of losing her love to the whims of an agreement made decades ago, he still chooses to have the father give his blessings instead of whisking Simran away with him. He grounds his belief with object rationality, as explained in his impassioned speech to Simran and her family, that to elope with Simran is tantamount to severing treasured ties with the family. Even during the final suspenseful moment, Raj keeps his well-tempered adherence to tradition with absolutely no clue whether his gamble will pay off or cause him to spend a lifetime of heartache and regret. Whatever happens, the conclusion remains sumptuous, truly deserving of the three hours spent arriving to it.

Forgotten Silver (1995)

Minggu, 25 Maret 2007

Forgotten Silver (1995)

Forgotten Silver (Costa Botes & Peter Jackson, 1995)

If we are to believe Costa Botes, Peter Jackson and their 1995 Forgotten Silver, many of the cinematic achievements of 1927 would've lost a bit of their luster. Colin McKenzie, the subject matter of the film, is an obscure Kiwi filmmaker whose padlocked chest (found in the shack beside his widow's house) opened a possible rewriting of film history. Cecile B. deMille's biblical epic film King of Kings would have to give way to McKenzie's own three-hour epic Salome, whose history and ambitious production would belittle probably everything made during that era.

McKenzie would also be credited for creating the first feature film, which also happens to be the film that first used synchronized sound, topping The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, 1927) by more than a decade. Aside from these innovations, McKenzie would've invented (voluntarily or involuntarily) the tracking shot (by attaching a camera to his bicycle thus eliminating the need for the hand crank), a steam-powered projector, color film (by utilizing a chemical obtained from Tahiti; wherein his test shot included half-naked Tahitians bathing; also giving him credit for producing the first pornographic film), the close-up shot, hidden camera (and irreverent reality entertainment), among other things.

However, there is really no Colin McKenzie. McKenzie is played by a Kiwi actor Thomas Robins, who among others (like producer Harvey Weinstein, actor Sam Neill, film critic Leonard Maltin) are part of Botes and Jackson's ultimate prank. Forgotten Silver infused native New Zealanders with beaming pride of their forgotten legend's achievements and their archipelago's place in cinematic history, only to be told that everything is a well-crafted lie. It is humor at it's cruellest yet most creative. It is also the reason why I consider this film as Jackson's best (yes, even against his own Salome, The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003)).

I would've loved to see the film not knowing that it's a product of Botes and Jackson's wild imagination. I would've loved to feel the emotions of being had, of witnessing history being retold with earnest and excited interest by these intrepid crew of so-called film enthusiasts and historians. Yet that's clearly impossible and the next best thing is to set myself up with a mind clear from any pre-conceived notions of what I know about film history and the film itself. I must say that while the experience cannot top those who were fooled, it was something worthwhile --- my eyes were closely nitpicking aspects of Botes and Jackson's filmmaking, their characteristic humor (Stan the Man, an invented degenerate of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton, the subtle touches of fantabulous revisioning of cinematic history --- that picture of the steam-powered film projector, the home video using the bicycle-powered camera, the 20-second sequence of Tahitians bathing as McKenzie was obviously aroused from testing tropical flowers) obviously surfacing above the National Geographic-type of documentary filmmaking (with talking heads, archived footages, a supposed documented quest to search for the extravagant ruins of the Salome set).

But Forgotten Silver isn't a mere prank, it's something more --- it has that unusual heart, an engrossing story of an artist, a melodramatic twist of belated accolade. It injects jealousy, romanticism, even heroism into the made-up character of the filmmaker, and everything flows along the infused plausibility of the exercise. The made-up footage of McKenzie trying to save a soldier during an attack, his ultimate sacrifice, bares a gargantuan humanistic soul from a character that was conceived to be a practical joke. The life-long affair with the actress playing the titular Salome, his tense tie-ups with Communist Russia and Italian mobs, and that tragic effect of the ongoing madness, is quite emotionally resonant.

And the ending, starting from the premiere of McKenzie's Salome (shown in bits of pieces while the narrator describes what is happening), to the last image of McKenzie operating a camera, is nothing short of genius. It's a summation that can be best described as a heartfelt, if not humorous, contrarian play on our fetish with history, of first's and titles. Forgotten Silver was such a success because it tried to rewrite history, and it will probably be most remembered as that "mock-umentary" that almost did. However, consume the film, its characters and its stories, its mocking nature will surely fade and what's left is something touching, something more rewarding.

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This post is my contribution to goatdogblog: The 1927 Blog-A-Thon.