FIERY, INTENSE

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Roman Perez, Jr.'s Sitio Diablo (Viva Films, 2022) depresses, exhilarates and horrifies. An adolescent's criminal training begins at a more experienced gangster's knees. In one horrifying scene, a boy is told to kill the member of a rival gang. Goaded by Tonix (Benz Sangalang), he executes the victim in a rite of passage. In this semi-collapsed society, people are constricted by corruption and engulfed by criminality. As one of its major themes, Sitio Diablo painfully illustrates poverty's numerous privations: the few choices, the slim chances, the narrow and vicious minds. With little insight, life has never been sadder, never more visceral, never more violent. Here, the origin of poverty lies not much in diminished resources but with poor social behavior. We follow Aina (AJ Raval) and Bullet (Kiko Estrada) as they move from one troubled exploit to the next. Though he is often in a thick of dizzying morass, Bullet manages to avoid too many serious problems. He does, however, benefits from the criminality of his peers. The film focuses on Bullet's development contrasted with the easy promises and the dangerous pathos of youth gangs. Perez matches their energy with his vibrant cinematic techniques - capturing the rush of life in its precarious and capricious moments. Only occasionally does Sitio Diablo break from illustrating the fiery, intense work of crime to focus on life's smaller and quieter moments. But in this world even intimate moments explode. Perez's hectic style is not meant to merely excite. His intention is to develop an empathic understanding of these young criminals, because they take pride in hurting their enemies. 

     The film illustrates their frame of reference, so we can comprehend how they live, make decisions and target their victims. This empathic approach is meant to make us cringe at the fast-paced world in which they live and die. Clearly, Perez wants us to see things we are unable or, more likely, unwilling to see. So he comes to us with a powerful ferocity, assaulting our defenses to alter our critical perspectives. Consequently, Sitio Diablo has an implicit argument - that filmmakers must possess a social conscience. Art must intrude into and open up closed worlds. His is a kind of liberation aesthetic that sheds light on serious social matters. No doubt, Perez's pedagogy is based on strong impulse and conviction that life can persevere amid the most painful, shocking circumstances. His depiction subverts traditional conventions. Ordinarily, audiences approach fictive narratives by suspending their disbelief. Perez disrupts this willful suspension by drawing explicit attention to his techniques, so the audience can understand how his choices are as much a part of the narrative as the characters, settings and conflicts. With Perez, there is a burning desire for expression and this burning doesn't allow him to function as a detached expositor. Perez and writer Enrique Villasis place their protagonist in an unwelcoming world alive with deadly horrors and through Bullet, we understand the smell of the slums and the problems posed by roving, rootless masculine groups.


Directed By: Roman Perez, Jr.

Screenplay: Enrique S. Villasis

Production Designer: JC Catiggay

Director of Photography: Alex Espartero

Editor: Chrisel Desuasido

Musical Scorer: Francis de Veyra

Sound Engineer: Immanuel Verona, Fatima Nerikka Salim