Sanglaan (2009)

Rabu, 22 Juli 2009

Sanglaan (2009)

Sanglaan (Milo Sogueco, 2009)

English Title: The Pawnshop

The characters of Sanglaan (The Pawnshop) seems to exist inside a bubble created from writer-director Milo Sogueco's conceit. The family-owned pawnshop, failing because of the worldwide recession and the proliferation of more popular chains, becomes the crossroads for the various waiting lives that Sogueco lovingly observes. Olivia (Tessie Tomas), a widow of several years, prefers the predictability of managing the pawnshop her husband left her to migrating to the United States to take care of her grandchildren. Amy (Ina Feleo), Olivia's starry-eyed ward who works as the pawnshop's appraiser, is delightfully stuck in a fantasy created from childhood crushes and romance novels. David (Joem Bascon), a transient awaiting the next ship to sail out of port, is too beholden to the material demands of the times to realize Amy's silent longing. Kanor (Jess Evardone), the security guard of the pawnshop, and Esing (Flor Salanga), who runs a small catering service to contribute to her husband's wages, rent the apartment above the pawnshop and opens their humble home to David while their son, a soldier fighting rebels in Mindanao, is away.

Their stories unfold deliberately. The film's unhurried pace might prove difficult to penetrate, especially for the chronically impatient. However, clearly emphasized is the uneventful phenomenon of waiting. It is not only the audience that waits since Sogueco painstakingly paints various waiting lives who are seemingly stuck in an uncomfortable stasis caused by the routine, hopelessness, hopefulness, and expectations that blanket their lives. Sanglaan's pensive mood is sometimes broken by moments of intense emotionality, such as when a quiet birthday dinner is prematurely adjourned by news of the death of a loved one, or when Amy pleads to break free from Olivia's extended influence on her life and love, or when Olivia discovers that her pawnshop is robbed just before the auction that might save her business from completely closing. As such, these characters are first, gently nudged, before being violently pushed back to existing outside the confines of the lives they have gotten used to.

The characters share a common predicament, although their needs vary. They are all nearing their deadlines, yet they lack the income to redeem whatever they have pledged for what essentially are illusory comforts of their humdrum lives. Olivia is fast approaching obsolescence. Her business is failing. Her ward is ready to leave her for a man. Nearing the end of her twenties and being threatened with a lifetime of dreaming love without actually living it, Amy finally experiences romance. However, David, the man of Amy's affections since her schoolgirl days, is too preoccupied looking for work to realize the niceties of his experience as a transient under the wing of Kanor and Esing. Kanor and Esing, on the other hand, are simply struggling for sheer survival. The film ends without resolving their predicaments. It leaves them and the audience in a state of perpetual pondering as to when their deadlines will arrive and what other valuable item, whether it be a material thing or something in the realm of sentiment, can they pledge to extend their lives in complacent waiting.

Sogueco's portrayal of these lives in waiting is too subtle and too tender to instantly move hearts. Their stories linger first like a gentle breeze, before finally aching, but only with the nuance of a needle prick. The calmness is numbing, to the point that when Sogueco starts to prod us to care, as when he stages beautiful quiet moments (like the wordless dinner of hot noodle soup between Amy and David, where their gestures speak of a mismatch between Amy's indefatigable romance and David's impenetrable ambition, or during the evening where Olivia expresses her care and forgiveness for her ward through a hot bowl of home-made porridge), we can't wholeheartedly commit to the emotionality of what we see onscreen, not immediately at least. Left with only the sincerity of its portraits, Sanglaan takes time to ripen. And when it ripens, the film suddenly evokes a beautiful melancholy, knowing that life can be both simple and complicated, relieving and agonizing as the many transactions that happen daily in the pawnshop.

Pawnshops thrive because it peddles the fantasy of being able to escape pressing problems with the efficiency of a quick transaction in a counter. As long as one has a valuable item that he is willing to pledge, he can purchase reprieve from his worldly concerns. The key element here is time. The escape has a deadline. One has to realize that the reprieve is temporary, and acknowledge that there exists inescapable dilemmas that are now compounded by the fact that the valuable item pledged is at risk of being lost forever and transformed into a soulless ornament or luxury. The trade knows no sentiment or emotion. The items are appraised absent the memories they represents, whether they symbolize a son who left home to fight a war, or a mother who simply wishes that her son finds a loving wife, or the legacy of a husband who has died years ago. It is callous, but it only emphasizes the hold of the tangible hardships of life over the intangible elements that make us human. Sanglaan, while a film that seemingly swims in an ocean of inconsequence, reflects that painful truth.

Engkwentro (2009)

Senin, 20 Juli 2009

Engkwentro (2009)

Engkwentro (Pepe Diokno, 2009)
English Title: Clash

That Jim Libiran makes an appearance as a hitman in the latter portion of Pepe Diokno's Engkwentro (Clash), further reinforces the nagging feeling that Diokno's film is an unnecessary revisit to the themes fluently tackled by Libiran in Tribu (Tribe, 2007), his acclaimed film about rapping gangsters in Tondo, a depressed Manila district. The similarities are uncanny: urban squalor, domestic quarrels, an antagonistic attitude towards authority, a climactic square off between two rival gangs, the overall pessimistic atmosphere that pervades the pictures. However, there are marked differences between the two films. Where Tribu has a heart and a soul (the best portions of the film are when the gangsters rap their hearts out), Engkwentro has a political agenda (even before the film starts, the audience is already barraged with information about state-sponsored killings in the South). Where Tribu makes use of Tondo and its residents to tell his story (with O.G. Sacred revealing himself as a very able performer), Engkwentro makes use of a set constructed in the outskirts of the metropolis, and actors to pass off as slum dwellers.

Perhaps the most glaring difference is style. While Libiran sometimes indulges in long takes (there's a particularly lovely scene where Libiran's camera follows a utilities man who is mobbed by Tondo residents who are complaining about their electricity bills), Diokno attempts to tell his story in one long take. He failed at that attempt but achieves something close. Engkwentro is composed of a couple of takes, seemingly seamlessly edited together by Miko Araneta. Diokno's camera is constantly in motion: candidly shaking as it treads the labyrinthine passageways of his makeshift slums; following the characters as they hatch their plans, negotiate, orate and fight; and document the goings-on with the efficiency of an inconspicuous voyeur.

Authenticity becomes the problem that Diokno has to grapple with. By filming Engkwentro the way he did, Diokno forces upon his audience an expectation of realism. The film's documentary-like style (real-time, if you want to be more accurate about parlance), where the camera, like a predator searching for its prey, pounces on private conversations or hidden dealings, is more distracting than pertinent, emphasizing not the urgency or gravity of the situation but the widening disconnect between style and substance, where the former seems to overshadow the latter. It's a pity, really. Diokno's message is something that is required to be said clearly. Draped in a Cain and Abel narrative that focuses on Richard (Felix Roco), leader of the Bagong Buwan gang who is being hunted by city-sponsored hitmen and is planning to run off to Manila with his girlfriend Jenny-Jane (Eda Nolan), and his brother Raymond (Daniel Medrana), a new initiate of Bagong Buwan's rival gang called Batang Dilim who is tasked by his superior (Zyrus Desamparado) to kill his brother, Engkwentro focuses on these slum dwellers' petty affairs to show the absurdity of the bigger picture.

Mayor Suarez, an omnipresent voice (of director Celso Ad Castillo) that haunts the slums with repetitive denials of vigilantism yet proud announcements of his accomplishments, is the nagging representation of the bigger picture, that they are under constant threat of extermination, not because of their felonies (bag-snatching, theft, and small-time drug-peddling: all of which are annoyances rather than threats to national security) but because they are disposable. That the mayor remains unseen throughout the picture enlarges both his authoritarian, if not fascistic, grip over the city and the absurdity of such immense influence despite his absolute physical absence and the ignorance of reality precisely because of his absence. It is this inspired layering that prevents me from dismissing Engkwentro as just another third-world film, peddling our nation's poverty for perceived art.

Its grimy surface, its attention-grabbing realist style, and Diokno's overwrought screenplay function to provide a human element. No matter how suffocating these slum dwellers' stories of survival can be, they provide ample framework for Diokno's agenda. The disembodied authoritarian voice of Mayor Suarez gets louder as the narrative nears its climax. The film then erupts into a cacophony. This is Diokno's edgy protest against these government-sponsored killings, a practice that can be best described as an alarming offshoot of an unjust and inhumane system that has nurtured crooks and criminals (only to dispose of them like unnecessary garbage). I may not find Engkwentro completely effective, but there is nothing stopping me from respecting Diokno's visual and noise barrage and allowing it to gain its rightful momentum.

Last Supper No. 3 (2009)

Minggu, 19 Juli 2009

Last Supper No. 3 (2009)

Last Supper No. 3 (Veronica Velasco, 2009)

Schadenfreude is the pleasure one derives out of the misfortune of others. Schadenfreude is probably the reason why Veronica Velasco's Last Supper No. 3, written by Velasco and Jinky Laurel from the actual court records and experiences of Wilson Acuyong who spent two and a half years and thousands of pesos to rid himself of two nuisance suits, is such a pleasurable experience. The film explores, with an adroit grasp of comedy, the suffering of Winston Nañawa (wonderfully played by charismatic Joey Paras), Mr. Acuyong's film persona, under a bizarrely inefficient, absurdly impertinent, grossly corrupt, and atrociously dawdling justice system in the Philippines.

Wilson is an assistant production designer who was tasked to locate a specific prop for a commercial shoot. The prop, an image of Jesus Christ's last supper (a token ornament in any Filipino dining room), was to be chosen out of the many residents of his lower class neighborhood who auditioned their last suppers (the residents lining up, clutching their last suppers, different in make, size, and quality, is a hilarious sight) for the chance of earning a thousand pesos. Three of the dozens of last suppers became finalists. One was chosen and its owner was paid the promised amount. Last supper no. 3, an unremarkable rug with tassels along its edges, owned by Gareth (Jojit Lorenzo) and his mother (Beverly Salviejo), suddenly disappears. Because of that, Wilson, along with his assistant Andoy (JM de Guzman), is charged with estafa (swindling) and serious physical injuries (an offshoot of the main case that resulted from an incident after an unsuccessful attempt at reconciling, where Gareth tries to hit Wilson and Andoy with his belt, and Andoy hitting Gareth in revenge, breaking his nose and leading him to come back with and threaten to kill with a replica samurai). Thus begins Wilson's calvary.

Velasco, one half of the directing team (the other half is Pablo Biglangawa) behind Inang Yaya (Mother Nanny, 2007), a lovingly crafted tale about a nanny who divides her time between her daughter and her ward, and Maling Akala (Mistaken Assumption, 2008), a subtle comedy between a pregnant woman and a mysterious man-on-the-run who serendipitously meet in a bus, conceives a movie that out-humors everything she has done. Despite Velasco piling absurdities upon absurdities, made brazen by a conscious insistence on extending Wilson's suffering for comedic effect (schadenfreude: when Wilson takes the public transportation from a shoot in the province to the court in Manila, he is splashed with mud, marathons to follow a cab, gets his shirt stuck to the cab door as he alights thus dragging him along, and all this, holding an oversized pink headdress, only to discover that the hearing was suspended because of the judge's untimely death, we are thoroughly amused), the film does not remain within the realm of comedy and slapstick.

Subtly, it matures. Despite the unfairness of the system and his fate, Wilson still pushes through his case with diligence and a bizarre belief that justice might prevail (or maybe he has just developed a callousness to the exploitation of the system characterized by impersonal lawyers, rabid litigants, and dilapidated courtrooms). At this point of the film, Wilson graduates from being an object of amusement into a tragic figure, everyman's martyr. He has known the system enough to empathize with his opponents, knowing very well that the months and years spent being immersed in the legal stand-off (which he himself experienced, envisioning the legal battle as an acting competition, rehearsing his direct examination script not as if his freedom depended on it, but as if an acting award depended on it), would lead you to believe that what you're fighting for, no matter how petty or skewed, is right and moral. He has come to acknowledge the bamboozlement inflicted by the unapologetically unjust justice system to him, both to him and his opponents. At this point, the amusement dealt by his misfortune transforms into respect. He has survived the journey, with battle scars, eyebags, and a mug mellowed by trials and tribulations.

This is Velasco's outstanding feat. She decides to expose a rotten system through humor yet instead of completely fabricating the story, she allows the case to speak for itself, making the absurdity several notches more alarming. In an inspired decision, she made use (surprisingly with the permission of the Supreme Court) of Manila's Hall of Justice, a building ripe for condemnation that houses the fiscal's offices and trial courts that service an ever-expanding population. The architecture of the building, several floors (connected by stairs because the elevator is usually out of service) of spaces that encircle a useless and unkempt courtyard, further emphasize the system that has been rendered inutile by red tape and bureaucratic complications. Thus, Last Supper No. 3 is funny not only because it centers on a man who was showered with a downpour of misfortune but also because we know it is very real, and the only plausible thing we can do about it is laugh.

Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe (2009)

Sabtu, 18 Juli 2009

Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe (2009)

Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe (Alvin Yapan, 2009)
English Title: The Rapture of Fe

According to writer-director Alvin Yapan, Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe (The Rapture of Fe) is a "poetic and allegorical narrative of a woman's will to survive in an oppressive environment. The woman here, the titular Fe (masterfully played by Irma Adlawan), is an overseas worker, repatriated by the bleak global economy, and is welcomed home by Dante (Noni Buencamino), her violent and barren husband, and Arturo (TJ Trinidad), her young lover who manages the basket factory that employs her and her husband. Amidst the abuses of her husband and the amorous declarations of her young lover, Fe would regularly receive a basket full of fruits from a mysterious suitor. Dante is unable to provide for her economically, while Arturo is unable to abandon both his paralytic father (Jerry Respeto) and the basket factory. Trapped in between two inutile men, Fe is reduced to desperation to the point of making a drastic decision to escape her asphyxiating predicament.

The simplicity of its narrative is seductive. The sharp observations that its narrative bears are instructive. Yapan explains the allegory with the efficiency of a literature professor, which he really is. His characters symbolize the different players that struggle within the patriarchal Filipino society, beholden to foreign forces because its agricultural sector (symbolized by Dante, whose farmland is mortgaged to Arturo and is left untilled) can no longer provide and its industry (symbolized by Arturo whose factory, while earning, is not profitable) has never matured to be self-sufficient. Within the context of Yapan's allegory, Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe blossoms into an academic but pertinent commentary on the state of the nation given its unique history and culture, as presented in the form of a literary tale where hints of the supernatural are weaved into overly familiar experiences of domestic violence and infidelity.

Yapan is not only a brilliant writer of stories that operate well given the differing depths, motivations, and perspectives of his audience. He is also a very effective director, understated in his aesthetics yet able to marry the ambition of his story with the cinematic medium. Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe works even without its allegorical aspirations. The film is gripping in its depiction of domestic violence, particularly in one scene where Dante castigates Fe out of jealousy, hitting and pushing her before finally raping her. Yapan's camera is conscious of the violence, still yet observant, determined to merely document the supposedly private atrocities and allow the emotions and Fe's undeserved victimization to be the only spectacle onscreen. It is this unhindered fluency of Yapan in visually portraying domestic violence that allows him room to move further, further away from reality and into that delicate borderline where reality, insanity, and fantasy meet.

When Fe offers the fruits that she mistakenly believes to be her husband's peace offering (possibly out of shame for hitting her the night before) to her husband, you cannot help but feel pity for the woman who is simply pleading for the respect and affirmation that she deserves from her husband. Knowing that the expectations she has of her marriage are futile renders her efforts that are not only unreciprocated but irrationally punished more wrenching. When we discover Arturo's repressed longing for Fe, we understand and accept it because despite her physical and economic modesty, she exudes a sensuality that seduces. Thus, It is simply unwise to ignore the performance of Adlawan, who transforms Fe from Yapan's literary device into a character you sympathize, you care for, even lust for. If Yapan's visual frankness is admirable, his decision to cast Adlawan, in a role that allows the criminally underused actress to explore the several facets of womanhood (as victim, object of desire, breadwinner, and prize) without compromising the integrity of the character, is simply inspired.

The baskets of fruit appear, unaccompanied by spectacle. Innocent-looking at first, but when blended with the repercussions of her husband's jealousy and the discovery of her young lover's inability to provide, the baskets evolve into something more suspect. As with Rolyo (Film Roll, 2007), Yapan's well-awarded short film about a farmer and his daughter who travels to the town and back to their farm, the film roll is given layers of importance to arrive at a concluding poignant scene where poverty is playfully depicted with the little girl watching a movie using the film roll used to make a horn, unrolled, and illuminated by candlelight before being turned into a perimeter fence the next morning to ward off birds from their farm, Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe layers the basket of fruits with escalating meanings, thus escaping the object's mundane existence to become first, Fe's temporary reprieve, then, Fe's inescapable punishment, and ultimately, Fe's costly salvation.

Manila (2009)

Jumat, 17 Juli 2009

Manila (2009)

Manila (Adolfo Alix, Jr. & Raya Martin, 2009)

Adolfo Alix, Jr. takes the experiment seriously. The latter half of Manila, a modern reiteration of Lino Brocka's Jaguar (1979), tackles Philip (heartthrob Piolo Pascual, artificially darkened to match his character's lower income roots), the personal bodyguard of an ambitious although reckless scion (Jay Manalo) of a big-time politician. After shooting and killing a man in defense of his boss, Philip is suddenly left on his own when his boss abandons him for fear of getting involved in the murder. Alix directs with admirable restraint and his portion of the film operates with the same energy and rhythm that Tambolista (Drumbeat, 2007) possesses which gave his visualizations of urban squalor a treacherous personality. Albert Banzon's black and white cinematography, jerky when necessary but never disorienting, contributes to the prevailing unease. While adeptly filmed, Alix's portion is more repetition than anything else. He does not even attempt to stray from what every Brocka disciple, from Joel Lamangan (Bulaklak ng Maynila (Flower of Manila, 1999) and Hubog (Wretched Lives, 2001)) to Mel Chionglo (Sibak (Midnight Dancers, 1994)), have made careers out of.

A belated colored credit sequence, which separates Raya Martin's first half and Alix's latter half, showcases something bizarre: Lav Diaz, director of films whose average running time is seven hours, is filming a romance starring Iza Calzado and Jon Avila, both of whom are popular television stars. It's an unlikely scenario (especially since Diaz seems to be quite comfortable in the set where he has klieglights, a sizable crew, and teen idols, at his disposal), both improbable and impossible. The credit sequence, funny, ironic and bursting with subtle sarcasm, gives an adequate outlook point to view Martin's portion. It begs to ask the question "do we simply believe the images as projected in the big screen, no matter how improbable and impossible they are?"

There is something subtly subversive in Martin’s portion, which opens the film. Seductively immaculate in the way he captures the city as atmospheric backdrop to the tale of William (Pascual, with whitened hair), perpetual drug addict who we first see escaping a police raid, the day portion of the film, loosely based on the characters of Ishmael Bernal’s Manila by Night (1980), is driven not by narrative or a set of written characters but by an indescribable force that fuels the titular metropolis. Martin’s Manila is formless, like a nebula of rustic landmarks thinly connected by a shared motif. As with its first few minutes where Martin economically introduces his characters as cued by a jazzy soundtrack, the film exists primarily as a montage of exquisitely photographed (again by cinematographer Banzon) sequences that celebrate the allure of the city despite the thematic corruption that pervades its citizenry.

Pascual walks around a park only to lie down the grass. Martin cuts to his face. He cuts to show the sun. Martin cuts back to Pascual's face, now glowing with the sunlight, slowly being illuminated and fading to divine white. In an earlier sequence, Martin features Pascual being chased by the police after the raid of the massage parlor Pascual's character frequents. Out of the darkness, Pascual's worried but still very handsome mug appears. The subversion lies not with how expertly crafted these sequences are but by how his camera lovingly lingers to catch Pascual's face, to the point of utter ridiculousness. The visual satire of Pascual's celebrity reaches a climax during the confrontation between his character and Charito (Rosanna Roces), where an onslaught of maternal violence, tears, screams, and pleas, is captured in slow motion and extended much longer than necessary. It is supposed to be Pascual's moment to showcase his acting chops after being plastered as ornament to Manila's landmarks but Martin steals the show and creates a sequence so cinematically absurd and enthralling, that everything else, including Pascual who struggles to be convincing in slow motion, is overshadowed. Hitchcock once said "all actors should be treated like cattle." Thus, if you only have one cow and it is a goodlooking cow, you put it on display, and when it tries to do something it cannot convincingly do, you do something spectacular so attention is diverted somewhere else.

We actually never get a feel that Bernal is the driving force of his portion, except for the characters and the slow motion sequence in the hospital, all borrowed from Manila by Night. Given that Pascual seems to be a permanent fixture in Manila's seductive beauty, Martin's portion is more a hilariously surreptitious sabotage of a mainstream icon than a tribute. Pascual is the sole driving force, and Martin acknowledges it and to my mind, creatively pokes fun at it. Pascual, who after being groomed by the country's biggest television station, has turned into an insanely lucrative commodity. Pascual is not only a matinee idol, he is also a singer, a commercial model (Alix and Martin shares credits with Bench, a clothing line, Sanmig Coffee, a brand of instant coffee, Centrum, a brand of multivitamins, and a few other brands which Pascual endorses), and now, a film producer. Manila, more than a tribute to Brocka and Bernal, two of the Philippines' most prized filmmakers, is a vanity project for Pascual, and I suspect, whether it is voluntary or subconscious for Martin, is not satisfied with keeping it at that.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Sabtu, 04 Juli 2009

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Michael Bay, 2009)

The inevitable has happened. Revenge of the Fallen, the much-anticipated sequel to 2007's Transformers, opens to the absolute delight of the franchise's rabid fans around the world, raking in during its opening weekend in the United States an amount of money slightly larger to the yearly GDP of Anguilla, a tiny sovereign island-nation in the middle of the Caribbean. Perhaps the citizens of Anguilla wouldn't mind this alarming worldwide wastage in this era characterized by widespread poverty and economic recession, considering that Revenge of the Fallen seem to provide what was expected from it, no matter what its critics are saying. The film has robots, explosions, jokes, and the token sexy girl (Megan Fox) clean a motorbike in a compromising position. It can't be that bad, right? So, I was forced to bow down to mob mentality and force myself to watch the film. Simply put, the film sucked.

Michael Bay, who effectively turned the 80's cartoons inspired by a line of robot toys into a massively lucrative movie franchise by following his gut instinct of dishing out entertainment that satisfies humanity's basest cravings, sex and violence (and more importantly, without the accompanying guilt of devouring such pleasures), reuses the formula, only this time with larger doses. Thus, Revenge of the Fallen is grossly ostentatious in its excesses. Bay's sequel has this incessant need to nag about sex. This is not the adult and mature understanding of sex, but the prepubescent one, where each hump equates to a giggle and a high five between friends. Thus, some of us have to suffer through a bulldog and a chihuahua in visualized acts of fornication, a squeaky-voiced robot humping Ms. Fox's shimmering leg, and a Decepticon transforming into every shallow-headed college boy's dream girl. Revenge of the Fallen is the cinematic equivalent of a pimply thirteen year old kid who is suffering from a chronic case of bursting libido, with only gigabytes of internet pornography and succeeding wet dreams to quell his overactive hormones.

I appreciate the effort to de-robotize the transformers. Bay's team of writers detail a transformer's life cycle, from how they are hatched from transparent eggs to age into grumpy yet noble giants. Unfortunately, none of that really matter because the transformers who matter are as dull as earthworms hunting for prey. Optimus Prime, the supposed figurehead of the good transformers, is disposable scrap. Even his death, accompanied with the requisite slow-mo and music, failed to move me. Bumblebee, the franchise's inconsequential mascot (designed without a voice but with puppydog mechanical eyes), descends to factotum status. The rest are negligible eyecandy. Sure, they are colorful, humongous, and they make loud noises and huge explosions when they fight, but they are essentially ornaments, whose most acknowledged function in the franchise is to help sell action figures and burger meals, nothing more.

Don't get me wrong. I thought I was prepared for this. I listened to my friends who advised me to "leave your brain outside the cinema and just enjoy the show." I did exactly that, but I was still annoyed by this gargantuan vomit ball. It is not so much the intellectual void that bothers me but the fact that the film is to put it plainly, sensually torturous. The story is all over the place, jumping from one focal point to another like a horny Lothario in Amsterdam's red light district, but essentially getting nowhere. Bay utilizes every trick in his three-page pamphlet of directorial techniques, and what we essentially get is a headache-inducing encyclopedia of what the grossly inadequate director learned making such classic crowd favorites as Bad Boys (1995), The Rock (1996), Armageddon (1998), Pearl Harbor (2001), and Bad Boys II (2003): slow-mos, circular pans, explosions-in-exchange-for-logic storytelling, boobs-butt-and-legs-in-exchange-for-personality characterization, and obviously manufactured sentimentalism.

But what the heck, you're not going to listen anyway and still award this heap of trash with heaps of your hard-earned cash. I might as well stop and just let you and the rest of the world storm to the movie theaters and spend two and a half hours of your life watching this flick, and contribute to its ever-increasing haul. Maybe with your help, its worldwide earning might even overtake the GDP of the Philippines, a fairly moderate sovereign economy located in Southeast Asia and home to around fifty million people whose daily meal is equal to the amount of money you are about to spend to watch Revenge of the Fallen. How's that for a guilt trip?

Villa Estrella (2009)

Jumat, 03 Juli 2009

Villa Estrella (2009)

Villa Estrella (Rico Maria Ilarde, 2009)

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

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

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

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

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

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