MORE THAN SURFACE ELEGANCE


     It’s devastating, the way director Maryo J. delos Reyes depicted how the domino-effect destruction of 1995’s Sa Ngalan ng Pag-ibig (Regal Films, Inc.) came within milliseconds of never happening. Spanky (Christopher de Leon) could pick up and perish the idea of sleeping with exotic, enticing Donna (Alma Concepcion) — returning home determined to reawaken his wife’s passion. Likewise, Mae (Lorna Tolentino), could reduce the rage at discovering his infidelity — resolving to attempt reconciliation and not avenge a fling that blossomed into full-fledged intimacy. Delos Reyes has never been much for subtlety, but when is true sexual passion not abandoned inhibitions and wild expression? He understands, though, that the psychology of erotic fantasy has as much potential to obliterate as to titillate. Sa Ngalan ng Pag-ibig never arouses, judges or mounts a morality play. It’s a dark, delusional piece of sultry fantasia that doesn’t condemn or condone Spanky or Mae’s choices. It simply presents people surprised by the ease with which they transgress and allow little white lies to fester into gigantic, tumorous deceptions. Delos Reyes has always been a stylish filmmaker, but he gives Sa Ngalan Pag-ibig much more than surface elegance. His choice of angles and colors, his use of shadows and especially his mastery of editing all work to create a unified psychological texture. He's aided by an unusually honest and perceptive screenplay by Raquel Villavicencio and Wali Ching, and by De Leon and Tolentino whose performances go to a place of complete emotional nakedness. There's a remarkable sequence in which Mae goes to Donna's apartment. Her emotional state is one anybody could recognize, though it's hard to put a name to it. She's trembling and we can feel it. Not every filmmaker can convey that physical sense. Delos Reyes takes us inside it, so that we understand what it would be like to be her, to inhabit a body electric with nonstop longing. It's not an enviable state. It's more like a fever. Tolentino is asked to run the full spectrum of emotions, from unexpected joy to emptiness to heartbreak and her every step is a flawless grace note. As Mae becomes more and more aware of her husband's deceitfulness, the anger, hatred and insecurities that come with it are palpably felt by Tolentino's powerhouse turn. Delos Reyes contemplates newer models when he first lingers on Tolentino's sex appeal but, in the end, the actress fights back with evocative blood-splatter. 

     A word should also be said for De Leon, here eschewing all his usual tics. Spanky knows Mae too well and the big confrontation scene is affecting because it turns on the heart of the dilemma. A man who loves his wife so much versus a man who exists entirely in the present. While Concepcion has no problem making any man vulnerable, in Sa Ngalan ng Pag-ibig, she easily captures her character giving Donna the demeanor of a free, uncomplicated but somewhat mysterious woman who enjoys the games she plays. Perhaps the most humanistically genuine motion picture Delos Reyes has yet put to celluloid, Sa Ngalan ng Pag-ibig takes an unflinching and emotionally rattling look at the recklessness of infidelity and how it can destroy the lives of all three parties involved, leaving no one satisfied. While thriller elements are introduced into the story over an hour into the proceedings, Delos Reyes resists the temptation of resorting to horror movie cliches. Here, his intentions are set on a notably higher and more thought-provoking wrung. Sex is not just a passing fancy, but profoundly disruptive, not life enhancing but life shattering and what's broken cannot be remade. The fling cannot be unflung. A skipping record is Delos Reyes' transitional element between Mae’s comfort and fear, a Model of the Year trophy, the haunting reminder of nature bringing and tearing lovers apart. Sa Ngalan ng Pag-ibig represents the best of both worlds. It excites the emotions in the way a good melodrama should, but it also stirs the quieter feelings of pity and helplessness we associate with tragedy. It's the rare kind of movie that comes along only a handful of times-- gut-level entertainment that's oddly profound. It is not often that viewers are gifted with a rare adult film that presents a serious view of sex, love and relationships. As a showcase for marvelous actors at the top of their game and a poignant portrait of a family in the midst of unraveling, Sa Ngalan ng Pag-ibig gets it just right. 


Sound Engineer: Joe Climaco

Production Designer: Benjie de Guzman

Director of Photography: Charlie Peralta, FSC

Film Editor: George Jarlego, FEGMP

Musical Director: Jimmy Fabregas

Screenplay: Raquel Villavicencio, Wali Ching

Directed By: Maryo J. delos Reyes

IMPORTANT AND ABSORBING


     Most movies succeed or fail because of the way they tell their stories and develop their characters. Balota (Cinemalaya, GMA Pictures, GMA Entertainment Group, 2024) does introduce remarkably three-dimensional characters, but it tells their story in an awfully off-hand sort of way. People who view movies only on this level and ask questions, are cutting themselves off from the unique experience offered by Balota. Loose ends in the plot would be important if the film depended on telling a story. It does not. The new experimental films and several of the unconventional, recent feature films don’t always make their points this simply. Instead, they draw the audience into a series of seemingly unrelated events and make their point by the way these events butt up against one another. The thread running through is that they’re events happening at the same time as the events in the plot. They establish a climate for the story. Emmy's (Marian Rivera) acts do not take place simply because they are invented. Writer/Director Kip F. Oebanda makes it clear they take place because they’re the sort of acts that are in the air. Almost all movies could take place anytime and nearly anywhere. A series of faceless heroes and heroines have their crisis, solve it, move on. There is a vague romantic subplot that surrounds Balota, but Oebanda leaves the details of the relationship up to interpretation. He isn’t concerned with plot mechanics, other than the central theme of Emmy's social conscience. He saw her as a human being manipulated and influenced by events.  

     Oebanda's camera ended up getting caught in the maelstrom of violence and what’s surprising is that his approach is so rare. Perhaps all directors secretly enjoy playing God, controlling events, dipping down into the screenplay. They don’t like their movies to give the impression they’re not running things. Oebanda's directorial posture in Balota is, however, frankly that of an observer. He is as surprised by the events in it as we are and he’s at pains to make them seem as random. He doesn’t immediately supply us with connections, but rather makes us work to piece them together and it isn’t until more than half an hour into the film that we realize how these characters’ lives will begin to intersect and create a narrative we can follow. Instead, he uses his opening scenes to establish a climate within which the movie will take place. This sort of direction requires more work from the audience and can offer greater rewards. In the conventional story framework of most movies, the audience can be completely passive, allowing events to unfold as if they made sense. Oebanda's film is one of several movies that knows these things about the movie audience. To understand the way Balota is put together is to understand something about the way events get transferred onto film. Conventional movie plots telegraph themselves because we know all the basic genres and typical characters. Rivera, maintaining her character, rushes through the chaos of the actual conflict, delivering a natural and phenomenal performance as Emmy. The violence becomes part of the story, yet it exists outside of it, as well. That’s Balota's message on the level of story. It can also be seen as Oebanda’s message on the level of technique. Balota is important and absorbing because of the way Oebanda weaves all the elements together. 


Sound Engineer: Albert Michael M. Idioma, Nicole Rosacay

Musical Composer: Emerzon Texon

Editor: Chuck Gutierrez

Production Designer: Eero Yves S. Francisco, PDCP

Director of Photography: Tey Clamor, LPS

Written and Directed By: Kip F. Oebanda

SILLY, CLASSY, ENJOYABLE


     Nympha (Regal Films, Inc., 1980) is a silly, classy, enjoyable erotic film that was an all-time box-office success. It’s not remotely significant enough to deserve that honor, but in terms of its genre, it’s very well done, filled with attractive and intriguing people, and scored with brittle, teasing music. It’s a relief to see a movie that returns to a certain amount of sexy sophistication. This tale of a young woman discovering herself was a headline-grabbing sensation when sex in films had gone mainstream. Its characters inhabit a world of wicker furniture, soft pastels, vaguely Victorian lingerie, backlighting, forests of potted plants and lots of diaphanous draperies shifting in the breeze. It’s a world totally devoid of any real content, of course and Nympha (Alma Moreno) is right at home in it. She’s the eldest daughter of Don Bernardo Monteverde (Johnny Wilson), a shipping magnate allegedly raped by one hundred young men. This experience propels her into a dizzying series of sexual encounters that range from the merely kinky to the truly bizarre. The screenplay from Toto Belano brought some class to the continuous bumping and grinding while Joey Gosiengfiao's direction shone the spotlight on the female star that gave the film much of its success. Nympha is executed with a patina of respectability. The cinematography takes advantage of the scenery, the dialogue is polished to the point of pretentiousness and there’s tact to the film’s atmosphere that definitely sets it apart from crasser approaches. This being said, much of the material feels ridiculous, offensive or hopelessly naïve by today’s standards, lending the film a veneer of sophistication, which if you looked a little closer doesn't ring true. If we were to be grown up about sex, then we must be as liberated as Nympha. 

     Gosiengfiao correctly understands that gymnastics and heavy breathing do not an erotic movie make. Carefully deployed clothing can, indeed, be more erotic than plain nudity. Gosiengfiao is a master of establishing situations. Nympha's rape, for example, is all the more effective because of its forbidden nature. And her encounter with Albert (Ricky Belmonte) is given a rather startling voyeuristic touch. The movie’s first hour or so is largely given over to the erotic awakening plot, but then Nympha comes under Marcial's (Alfie Anido) influence. She is intrigued at first, but with assurance comes experience and does it ever. Marcial delivers himself of several profoundly meaningless generalizations about finding oneself and attaining true freedom and then he introduces her to a series of photogenic situations. Marcial’s philosophy is frankly foolish, but Anido delivers it with obsessed conviction that the scenes become a parody and Nympha‘s comic undertones are preserved. What also makes the film work is Moreno's performance as Nympha. She projects a certain vulnerability that makes several of the scenes work. The performers in most skin flicks seem so impervious to ordinary mortal failings, so blasé in the face of the most outrageous sexual invention, that finally they just become cartoon characters. Moreno actually seems to be present in the film and as absorbed in its revelations as we are. She carries the film and at times almost seems like a visitor from another planet. Moreno is always shot with soft light and soft focus giving her a very tender appearance and it's not difficult at all to see why everyone in the film longs for her. It’s a relief, during a time of cynicism in which sex is supposed to sell anything, to find a skin flick that’s a lot better than it probably had to be.


Screenplay: Toto Belano

Director of Photography: Caloy Jacinto

Film Editor: Rogelio Salvador

Music: Jun Latonio

Production Designer: Danny Evangelista

Sound Supervision: Luis Reyes, Ramon Reyes

Directed By: Joey Gosiengfiao

HOOK AND FLAW


     The concept of Boy Kaldag (VMX, BLVK Films, Pelikula Indiopendent, 2024) is undeniably clever. Size is both the film's hook and flaw, an amiable but ambling comedy that collapses under extended exposure. Thankfully, there is more to Boy Kaldag than just its one-dirty-joke premise. A prodigiously endowed young man builds a reputation around his singular natural talent. People will always want sex and a man with a giant penis might not think it’s that crazy to try and make some money with it. Benz Sangalang is well-cast and interesting as Dax. He has an easy-going, casual style that fits the material. If Boy Kaldag is more often touching than salacious, it's because Sangalang imbues his character with such a palpable sense of yearning and regret, you end up rooting for him. Dax, in a voice-over explains what didn’t need to be explained. As he talks about the way things used to be, the tediousness of Dax’s interior monologue becomes funny. He winks at his failure to recognize how good he actually has it, making the viewer respond more tenderly toward him. The secondary characters include Jayner Santos as Gorgeous in a lovely comic performance filled with world-weariness that I found refreshing and largely believable. A farce with sensibility both mordant and whimsical, Boy Kaldag delights in its phallic symbols. So exuberant as to be unafraid of looking juvenile, it revels in illustrating the pathetic circumstances of Dax, whose only solace is being well endowed. 

     In fact, Boy Kaldag is less interested in its conceit than it is with what drove Dax to prostitution, the emotional baggage and the questions of morality that accompany the profession, which makes it far more interesting than one about a guy with a tripod plowing his way through lonely and horny women. Dax, faintly reminiscent of Dirk Diggler, Mark Wahlberg's porn star from Boogie Nights (1997), a big, slightly confused man without the slightest trace of self-doubt on board, a temperament that not coincidentally, is absolutely imperative in the man-whore trade. Because, let's face it, most regular, thoughtful men, men of ideas, men with flaws, would have more than a little trouble getting it up and keeping it up. Boy Kaldag gets a lot of elements right, including the baby steps it takes into Dax's new side. It's rather a rueful look at the lengths to which one guy will go to capture a life that has gradually slipped away from him. Director Roman Perez Jr.'s interplay, his willingness to let the story gradually unfold and its disarming sensitivity helps elevate Boy Kaldag well above its gimmicky title.That something, unsurprisingly and as unsubtle as you might expect from Boy Kaldag, is sex. Dax is the meat and potatoes and it’s fascinating to watch him deal with different women. And that’s exactly where Boy Kaldag succeeds; when it stops pretending to be something more than it is, it gets back to guiltlessly pleasuring its audience.


Sound Design: Lamberto Casas Jr., Alex Tomboc

Music: Derek Margaja

Editor: Mai Calapardo

Production Designer: Mikey Red

Director of Photography: Rommel Sales, LPS

Screenplay: Ronald Perez

Directed By: Roman Perez Jr.

EVERYBODY HUSTLES


     Everybody hustles, but in Monti Puno Parungao's The Escort (Lexuality Entertainment, Treemount Pictures, 2011) hustling (in the hard core sense of selling your body for sex) is a way of life. For all its depiction of lurid subject matter, The Escort also balances its heavy drama with a strong dose of romance. It's a precarious and potentially disastrous juggling act and one that The Escort pulls off with genuine flair. There was a time when most people didn't know men sold sex and didn't want to know. The Escort dramatizes the lifestyle at the same time it tells a cautionary tale. The viewer gets to meet the escorts while keeping a safe distance. The world of The Escort seems terribly real,  it even smells that way. Parungao does a good job of capturing the unsprung rhythm of the street. The characters form a loose-knit community at the mercy of strangers. They may spend hours together and not see one another for a week. Parungao shows Karlo’s encounters, one is an old man with peculiar tastes. Miko Pasamonte finds the right note for Karlo. He has plans and dreams, but vague ones and he's often sort of detached, maybe because his life is on hold in between tricks. Karlo has fallen into a lifestyle that offers him up during every waking moment for any stranger. He does it for money, but it pays so badly, he can't save up enough to pay his rent. 

      The basic thing that happens to Karlo is that he meets Yuri (Danniel Derramyo), a person entirely outside his experience. Yuri has a measure of humanity, so does Karlo. They come together because there is no other way to turn. Karlo and Yuri are castaways. The two young men have obvious affinities, but their banter also establishes some important differences. They go their own way, live their own lives, become two of the permanent inhabitants of our imagination. They exist apart from the movie, outside of it. The Escort is about their mutual self-discovery, about the process that took place as they learned to know each other. Karlo's  journey toward actual love—tenderness, encouragement—gives the film its wrenching climax. Parungao's work with his cast is matched by an assured visual sense benefiting enormously from the richly textured images achieved on a low-budget, location-heavy shoot. The Escort largely builds from its personality and atmosphere to effectively establish characters through the portrayal of emotion and the human condition, which are physically reflected in their settings. Colliding hope with despair as the intersecting crossroads of Karlo and Yuri coexist in a contemporary world of excess and absurdity normalized amidst the chaos of it all while dismantling social boundaries. Luring the viewer with its seductive mixture of ambiguity, realism and gritty subtext while rendering a deeply sympathetic view of wayward lives, the film delivers a lingering perspective on the impact of meaningful relationships in the ever-alienating experience of human existence.


Production Designer: Vicente Mendoza

Cinematography: Ruel Galero, Moni Puno Parungao

Edited By: Monti Puno Parungao

Musical Scoring: Monti Puno Parungao

Screenplay: Lex Bonife

Directed By: Monti Puno Parungao