TOTEMIC FORCE

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     How do you talk about Kaya Kong Abutin ang Langit (V.H. Films Inc.) without talking about Maricel Soriano’s face? You can’t. Because its planes and curves, its expressions and opacity are such a central piece of the movie itself. A series of close-ups brings the high beams so intensely that she nearly overwhelms the screen. It almost feels like witchcraft. Each frame of her seems to be hand-tinted, as if she had ordered it. But it's Soriano’s eyes that viewers are most likely to remember—they dominate the screen.  But even when they’re hidden from us, we feel them still. By the time we reach that fateful scene in Kaya Kong Abutin ang Langit, we are keenly aware of the potency of those eyes, which gain in totemic force as the story unfolds. The doomed romance at the center of the movie is in fact launched by the bare, shameless gaze of Clarissa Rosales Gardamonte (Soriano), whose eyes land on Darryl (William Martinez). He has already been watching her for reasons of his own: in fact he has been staring at her in a delicious moment of narcissistic pleasure. In this battle of competing gazes, she wins, as Clarissa will win everything for the first half of the movie. Quickly, however, the very elements that drew them together in their first meeting lead to their immolation: Clarissa’s will to power, her possessiveness, her too-muchness, which threaten the relationship and more largely, the prevailing notions of femininity itself. Released in 1984 to great success, Kaya Kong Abutin ang Langit was directed by Maryo J. de los Reyes. Here, he offers us one of the most perverse and remorseless females, driven by the material, even relatable motivations of most lethal women—money, security, escape—and so Clarissa becomes not just the most dangerous woman but also, ironically, one of the most defiantly sympathetic. Thanks to De Los Reyes’ nuanced direction, as well as Jake Tordesillas' screenplay and Soriano’s tense and relentless performance, we find ourselves, in sneaking moments and in subtextual ways, understanding Clarissa’s frustrations as she fails, over and over again, in her attempts to conform and more intimately, to attain acceptance. 

     We may even find ourselves quietly admiring Clarissa or at least retaining some awe of her, as she rejects and overturns the social expectations that have stifled and nearly crushed her. The first clue to Kaya Kong Abutin ang Langit’s subversive, sympathetic view of Clarissa lies in its narrative frame. The movie unfolds in flashback, as Nancy (Gina Alajar) narrates her sister’s tragic tale. Nancy is the only one who knows the whole story and any insight into Clarissa will have to be gained through the story’s seams. But Clarissa doesn't follow rules. Her adoptive parents, Monina and Ralph Gardamonte's (Liza Lorena and Robert Campos) accident is, by all standards, an unforgivable act, but one that is so badly monstrous that it inspires a kind of horrified wonder as Clarissa lingers like an awful dream for the rest of Kaya Kong Abutin ang Langit. In a bit of narrative cunning, however, we now share a secret with Clarissa and therefore experience the same smack of irony that she does upon realizing that even homicide has not solved her problem. Even if we conceive of Clarissa as the villain, her open declarations of discomfort and entrapment feel wildly subversive. She tells Nancy that she hates being poor, a shocking declaration that underlines her narcissism. At the same time, however, the declaration—offered as the camera emphasizes Soriano’s costumed bulk and her character’s unhappiness—also serves as a sly acknowledgment of something she may have felt at one moment or another. Clarissa says the things women think but cannot say. Her unspeakable acts may have offered a cathartic relief from gender imperatives and an exorcism of their own forbidden feelings and longings. We feel her in the cruel irony of the closing moments. Such happiness is forbidden to Clarissa, who wanted too much, her arms stretched, up into the heavens.


Sound: Vic Macamay, STAMP

Production Design: Butch Garcia, PDGP

Director of Photography: Joe Batac Jr., FSC

Film Editor: Edgardo "Boy" Vinarao, FEGMP

Music: Willy Cruz, UFIMDAP

Screenplay: Jake Tordesillas, SGP

Directed By: Maryo J. de los Reyes


BETWEEN IMAGE AND REALITY

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Ask someone whether camp is best characterized by embarrassing, overwrought displays of joy or the schadenfreude of seeing society’s dregs either succumb to (or rise above) the constraints of their environment. You’ll find that it’s an easy question to answer: Both easily generate camp value, so long as the focus is on exaggeration. On the other hand, ask someone if it’s possible for the genre to convey a strong social message. Most will likely reason that the serious social message will be compromised by the strongly subversive antisocial camp value. Without dwelling on the question of whether camp value can be attributed to the intention of the filmmaker or a reaction by the viewer, suffice it to say that every postulation has its antithesis and for anyone who doubts that a film that’s soaked in camp can’t tackle a timely subject, here is Laruan (Falcon Pictures, 1983). Though suffused with guilty pleasures, director Emmanuel H. Borlaza’s film is also a devastating look at society’s unfair tendencies to make clear divisions between Madonna and whore labels. Carmi Martin is Joy, a beauty pageant aspirant who suffers a rape attack from photographer, William (played by Mark Gil, in another mannered performance). While there’s no shortage of similar tongue-in-cheek minstrelesqueries (Chanda Romero's Chelo chews some serious scenery as Joy's best friend), it’s also crystal clear that Borlaza buys wholesale into screenwriter Jose Javier Reyes' dissection of the fine line between image and reality. The message of Laruan, if I read it right, is less about the physical vulnerability of women than about the sexual hang-ups of eccentric young men. 

     Borlaza treats Martin very gingerly. There are times he seems to be protecting her by cutting away to other actors, when one would expect the camera to stay on her. Gil does as well as can be younger expected with the role of the rapist. The revelation of Laruan is Angela Perez who plays Flor, Martin's younger sister in the film. She has some difficult scenes and handles them like a veteran, she’s unaffected and convincing on camera and whether she knows it or not, she can act. Perez is interesting to watch. Poised to thoughtfully address the dual victimization women face in cases of sexual assault—the crime itself and later, the victim blaming —Laruan hoped to provoke the kind of cultural controversy and heated social conversations, but the only dialogue prompted was widespread criticism of what many saw as a tasteless attempt to exploit a serious issue by using social relevance as a smokescreen for a routine rape-and-revenge flick. By the time the melodrama has come to its conclusion, not even Joy herself is confident that her image as a sexual object doesn’t trump her emotional wreckage. In fact, Borlaza only seems to drive that point home by concentrating less on Joy’s inner torment and more on oblique angles of the mise-en-scène that mirrors the ’80s Philippine pageant world. But a last-act twist changes the whole tone of the movie, turning the enterprise into a popular (at the time) revenge flick at the cost of coherency. It's then that Laruan implodes. By the time Borlaza fastidiously ties up the loose threads other films in that vague decade would’ve left dangling. It’s clear that he doesn’t want the audience to dwell much on the specifics of the plot but, rather, translate the fundamental critiques of judgmental dependence on image tropes into their own experiences. That Borlaza hides this bitter message in camp—a genre that depends on its viewer acting on their image-reading, cynical impulses—is ballsy genius. 


Sound Engineer: Vic Macamay

Production Designer: Ben Payumo

Cinematography By: Rosendo (Baby) Buenaseda

Film Editor: Ike Jarlego, Jr.

Music By: George Canseco

Screenplay: Jose Javier Reyes

Directed By: Emmanuel H. Borlaza

APPRECIABLY DIFFERENT

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Danny L. Zialcita's Si Malakas, Si Maganda at Si Mahinhin (Trigon Cinema Arts, 1980) tells the tale of two people, Billy de Gracia (Dindo Fernando) and Jane de Joya (Elizabeth Oropesa), both practicing homosexuals who uncharacteristically meet, live together, marry for convenience, fall in love, propagate and come to terms with each other. Unemployed and firmly out of the closet, Billy doesn't mind going into Jane's to shape up her life. Shortly, Jane's sexual preferences are revealed with the arrival of her date, Candy (Alma Moreno). The scenes depicting all of this, as well as a deftly handled subplot, seem to drag, becoming self-indulgent and presumptuous only when dealing with the first months of marriage and expectant fatherhood. Here, the movie hits us over the head with the fact (dealt with up to this time in an appealing matter-of-fact way) that he's gay, she's gay and look! they can get married, have sex and isn't it great, they're normal? The screenplay and Fernando's performance in these scenes play up the misplaced awe and false airs that should not be there. The fact that Billy falls in love with a woman, stops sleeping with guys and is happy doesn't make him special. The movie seems to think so and attempts to prove this in several scenes. When Billy finds out he is going to be a father, he acts like he's done something no one else has done before. Suddenly, he and Jane are perilously close to conventional domestic strife. Expectant fathers (and mothers) have a right to be proud and happy, but being fanatical about it just doesn't fit. 

     When the movie drops this unnecessary pomp of gay awareness and specialties, and gets back to realities, the story and performances shine. Oropesa is a talented performer. Her role as Jane is filled with a gamut of human emotions and she handles the role superbly; she is both believable and enigmatic. The role of Billy is a fine test of Fernando's talent, but he still falls into play-acting at times which jars his overall performance. He convincingly plays the role so that his personality traits need not change although his sexual preference does. When he shouts out his sexuality, his  performance falters. And Moreno is terrific too. The subplot dealing with Jane's ex-lover, Julie (Suzanne Gonzales) and her reluctance to accept Jane as being suddenly straight and married, is a remarkably played asset to the story. And in thinking back, it needed one. Gonzales' performance is wondrous in that the fear, anxiety and hysteria over losing Jane are never overplayed or made to seem preposterous. Her scenes with Oropesa are among the best in the film. With so many right aspects blended together to create Si Malakas, Si Maganda at si Mahinhin, it is disappointing to have to realize the shortcomings. Perhaps because the theme, characters and plot are appreciably different from most movie fare and therefore difficult to capture onscreen, the failings stand out much more. Luckily, the overall quality, sincerity, fresh humor and truth smooth the rough spots making Si Malakas si Maganda at Si Mahinhin worth revisiting because it tries hard and (almost) makes it.


Directed By: Danny L. Zialcita

Screenplay By: Jojo M. Lapus

Cinematography By: Felizardo Bailen

Film Editor: Ike Jarlego, Sr.

Musical Director: Demet Velasquez

Sound Supervision: Rollie Ruta

SLAPSTICK TRAGEDY

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Pito ang Asawa Ko: Huwag Tularan (VP Pictures, 1974) is a humpback movie, portending Vic Vargas' plunge from the summit of celebrity, which now adds only to the film's retroactive, plaintive appeal. The protagonist, Douglas' outwardly together but inwardly brittle emotional state is underpinned by Vargas’ equally fragile state, as we know now that this film was pretty much the last of his where he was the major star many of us never forgot and always hoped would return to. Pito ang Asawa Ko: Huwag Tularan is a most unusual movie, a slapstick tragedy and superior to its reputation, in thematic concerns and lead performance. Vargas is crucial casting because it would be churlish to deny that it would be imaginable, inevitable even, for him to be an equal-opportunity womanizer who all kinds would respond positively to, as he is both handsome and charming. His eyes are smiling, all right, but even when wounded, his Douglas doesn’t use his male prerogative to lash out or torment; he gently pouts like a misbehaving dog or an admonished child, all while still looking like Vic Vargas. Douglas is an inveterate womanizer who desperately struggles with his own romantic indeterminacy. Douglas is so frustrated with his powerlessness to satiate his endless desire for romantic connection. He keeps falling all over himself and director Ishmael Bernal in fact traps Douglas with no head reshaping itself from a frying-pan shape at the end of this slapstick farce. Vargas simply has perpetual opportunities inaccessible to mere mortals and in any specific moment, his Douglas is exclusively immersed in creating a genuine connection, not using a woman as an instrument, a vessel – in Vargas’ situation, anyone might do the same thing. Bursting with sundry screwball comedy elements and sequences, Bernal's film might affect one’s response because Douglas, from the very beginning doesn’t feel like a pure comedy device but like a real person. The impossible question that Bernal poses in Pito ang Asawa Ko: Huwag Tularan is what’s the difference between truly loving women and merely making love to women?  Who is the lover, who is the womanizer? His answer is Douglas loves women, every inch of them and makes love when he feels it will be a reciprocally positive experience, which might sound supercilious and self-aggrandizing.

      Vargas' underplaying is impressive, as Bernal here and throughout does not allow him to call on his various cutesy and occasionally macho ticks. He stays modestly in character, a mean feat when he is supposed to be effortlessly seductive. Douglas is able to tune into the unique aspect of each woman he meets and has a different type of relationship with each one, which shows acute sensitivity on his part but also indicates his relationships are all determined by the women’s needs, him delivering what they need without ever fulfilling or even identifying what he needs. Vargas can’t break free of his cheerful compulsion and even when he apparently has it all plus the new self-knowledge of what drove him before, he can’t stop himself, resulting in the wedding that opens the film. What a curious way to have to describe a movie. This is why Bernal's Pito ang Asawa Ko: Huwag Tularan is a superior film, superior to its shaky reputation. This was the last attempt by Vargas to be a sensitive romantic lead that snuck out long after his star had disintegrated. Here, still the leading man he should have remained, Vargas gives a dexterous, proportioned performance: beautiful, softhearted and miserable. Of course, Pito ang Asawa Ko: Huwag Tularan needs women equal to the man’s desire for them and Bernal puts together a terrific ensemble of dissimilar, pleasing types. Gina Pareño, between her physical attractiveness and maturity is wholly imaginable to be what Vargas feels he needs after his stormy marriage with Gloria Romero, winning over the slightly tentative Liza Lorena whose character acts as a beautiful downer to counteract the high he gets from the women peppering every corner of his landscape and as such is equally desirable and plausibly seen by him as a viable solution to his dilemma. She, of course, is not so sure. One crucial aspect of the film’s success is Pareño’s performance, her every breath a sensual enterprise. Pito ang Asawa Ko: Huwag Tularan is much more ambitious thematically, its tonal shifts and overall tenor of humorous anguish can throw off viewers who want more sexy, slapstick lunacy and come off spurious to those who think the film should explore more of Vargas' psychosis. Pito ang Asawa Ko: Huwag Tularan maintains the tone of a light joke told with a tortured smile, who have made it well aware they have it all and yet feel miserable at some core level. Perhaps Bernal is exploring the despair of beautiful, interesting people, how do they find ways to nonetheless self-destruct? 


Screenplay: Ishmael Bernal, Desi Dizon

Cinematographer: Rudy Diño

Music: Danny Holmsen

Editor: Jose H. Tarnate

Sound: Gaudencio Barredo

Directed By: Ishmael Bernal

EXCEEDINGLY MODERN

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     The romantic comedy is the weakest and laziest genre around, perhaps even more so than horror remakes. There are only a handful of formulas that are repeated with only the tiniest bit of effort. First, there's the lie plot, in which one character can't tell the other character the truth for fear of some terrible consequences. Then there's the supernatural romantic comedy, in which some magical circumstances lead someone to true love. Perhaps worst of all are the meet-hate movies in which two people spend the entire movie fighting before falling in love. Rare are the movies in which two people simply struggle with the stupid, complicated problems of everyday life, such as personal experience and emotional wounds. Writer and director Jose Javier Reyes' Bukas na Lang Kita Mamahalin (Viva Films, 2000) is such a movie. One would be hard-pressed to expect much from an Angelu de Leon-Diether Ocampo vehicle centered on a gimmicky friends-with-benefits exploration. But Reyes maintains a buoyant tone throughout, capturing millennial life with squeaky clean affection for the city’s perfectly manicured delights. Caustic before gradually letting down its defenses, Bukas na Lang Kita Mamahalin is as exceedingly modern in its premise as it is traditional in its destination. True love, no matter how it might begin, is funny like that. In bringing together Abby (De Leon) and Jimboy (Ocampo), first as acquaintances, then as bedmates, then as potentially something more, the picture confidently does so without much tug or pull on the screenplay's natural feel, low-key tone and frequently very amusing sensibilities. Abby and Jimboy are smart, ambitious individuals—but they're also engaging, unpretentious and just the kind of characters one is happy to watch for the better part of two hours. 

     They're not above enacting mistakes—Abby long ago put up a tough exterior for her family and now, as an adult, is having trouble letting this go for the chance to be genuinely happy—but the decisions they make and actions they take feel believable rather than as a strained excuse to merely bring conflict to the story. We don't always relate to Abby's point of view, but we understand it, just as we understand why Jimboy is so hurt when he tries to express himself and is shot down. De Leon adjusts nicely to her more humor-based surroundings—she unexpectedly garners quite a few laughs—she also takes the part of Abby just as seriously. Ocampo is on more familiar terrain as Jimboy. He has played this kind of role—more often than not, but if he is left generally unchallenged, that doesn't take away how good he is at it. Indeed, Ocampo meets De Leon step for step and the two of them have an infectious camaraderie that really leaves one caring about them. The first official date they go on is lovely in the way it pays attention to them and their behavior. Even when Abby is saying that she doesn't want things to go further, you know that she really does. Also a bright spot in the furthering of their relationship comes when Jimboy agrees to go with Abby to meet her father, Filemon (Celso Ad Castillo); where this scene goes is both immensely sweet and hugely funny.  Side parts in this type of movie are usually throwaways, mostly consisting of friends and family whose sole job is to be confided in by the main characters. One after the other, they blow in and without seeming to even try, threaten to steal the show. The irresistible Tessie Tomas and perfectly acerbic Nikka Ruiz are a treat as Helen, Abby's mother and gal pal, Maricel, who gets a laugh with nearly every line she delivers. Bukas na Lang Kita Mamahalin is all about the journey, not the destination. Reyes avoids pandering to viewers the way most romantic comedies do—instead, he centers on the humanity within his characters.


Production Designer: Jake de Asis

Director of Photography: Eduardo Jacinto, FSC

Music: Jesse Lucas

Editor: Vito Cajili

Sound Supervision: Albert Michael Idioma

Written and Directed By: Jose Javier Reyes

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