SARI-SARING SINENG PINOY

     A thriller conjured out of suppressed fears, Joselito Altarejos' Pamilya sa Dilim (ADCC Productions, 2076 Kolektib, 2023) is a concentration of ecstasy and violence devised in a perfect union of ideological paradox and existential instability. Through a combination of headstrong ambition and opportunistic abandon, Altarejos managed to tap this mother lode of disquietude. The basic premise is so thunderously resonant that it’s easy to overlook the skill with which Altarejos has gotten to its dramatic turning point. With simmering tensions and fractured psyches, Altarejos presented an ideal platform for his cast to deliver some of the finest work of their careers. Allen Dizon is fascinating, yet vulnerable as Eddie Boy, but it’s Laurice Guillen’s complex portrayal of Mamang Anita, the matriarch of the Medialdea family, that remains to be the film’s most captivating element. Her ability to mine gravitas may have brought her closer to the core of the movie than her celebrated co-stars could reach. Guillen's showcase scene and the film’s, comes when she recalls how her husband met his fate then all of a sudden the figures in her story appear and begin speaking their parts. From watching her past unfold Mamang Anita exits the shot and then joins the ghostly tableau, she has come unstuck in time. Memory is a selection of images, some elusive, others imprinted indelibly on the brain. In this spectral pageant, Mamang Anita shows us the pain of her memories and misfortune. This moment of attenuated stillness is pure cinema, and so is the eruption that follows. 

     Inday (Boo Originals, EpicMedia, 2018) is a scary movie with teeth, not just blood and entrails -- a gripping piece of work that jangles your nerves without leaving your brain hanging. And so, for a change, you emerge feeling energized and exhilarated rather than enervated or merely queasy. Recently faddish torture-and-gore pictures zero in on anatomical violation at the expense of more resonant archetypal terrors, those things that go bump in the long, dark night. Inday is a breathless descent into chaos and madness. What follows is a sensationally entertaining escalation of frights, the kind that make you wiggle and squirm as you marvel at the filmmaker's cunning and craft. What helps make Inday one of the better horror entertainment is how director Lawrence Fajardo and screenwriter John Bedia mess with our heads long before the monster does simply by tapping into our most primitive fears. Working with resourceful cinematographer Albert Banzon, Fajardo carves out an increasingly unsettling and claustrophobic world by keeping the lights down. The ingenious palette adds to the spooky beauty of the otherworldly setting. The scream of a high-pitched voice poised to believe, as we have so many times before, that this female cry is one of terror. 

     The sound, used to both reaffirm and then immediately invert our sense of social gender norms, provides a starting point to an ultimately blood-soaked film where we get to be petrified. Almost immediately in a moment of induced panic, hysteria festers among hacienda worker Berto (Milton Dionzon), his wife Almira (Renne Posecion) and son Kiko (Neil Bagasi). Yet, unlike many horror films where the victims are passive or weak, they can only turn toward themselves. And while Berto is scared (and rightly so), he desperately attempts to face the oppressive atmosphere enveloping them. A run in the woods is reminiscent of Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (1991), its very nature is suggestive of what is to come later. Fajardo's characters do panic and make foolish choices after the first attack by the flesh-eating Master, their frenzy is trapped and overcome. We see reflections, variations, and gradations of ourselves in Inday. While it’s somewhat surprising that Fajardo’s film still feels startlingly fresh due to its cast of relative unknowns, one can only hope that directors and producers increasingly capitalize on these talented actors—in all their glory.

Directed By: Lawrence Fajardo

Screenplay: John Bedia

Director of Photography: Albert Banzon

Editor: Lawrence Fajardo

Musical Scorer: Peter Legaste

Sound Engineer: Alex Tomboc, Aian Caro

     Filmmaker Roman Perez Jr. is a genuine obsessive who directs like an avant-garde butcher. His films play off a central juxtaposition: At the same time his characters are behaving like pigs, his style is one of luxuriously controlled aestheticism. On one level you can describe the movie simply in terms of the characters and the lustful and unspeakable things they do to one another. On another level, there is no end to the ideas stirred up by this movie. Between, there lies a simple tale of adultery, jealousy and revenge. The artifice is a great part of the work's effectiveness. Perez's stroke of genius is to create a self-consciously false world peopled with character types who slowly become real enough to evoke pain and sadness. The dark comic moments in Litsoneras (Viva Films, 2023) are rare, but they do sneak in at unexpected times. Things take a turn for the worse when Minerva (Jamilla Obispo), with uncoy vigor, takes a lover right under her husband Eloy's (Joko DIaz) nose. Jonas (Victor Relosa) exhanges glances with Minerva and soon, her daughter Elria (Yen Durano) catches them making love. Their unabashedly revealed sexual adventure continues. Elria gains her revenge by having sex with Jonas. Eloy gets wind of the affair and the battle lines are drawn. If Litsoneras were any less explicit, that moral battle would certainly have been diminished.

     Supergirl (Prima Productions, 1973) is never as boldly witty as Lipad, Darna, Lipad!  When it goes for campy laughs, it falls flat on its face. Even Odette Khan, who seems to be vastly enjoying her mad scientist role, is constrained by the mildness of the material. Pinky makes a four-square heroine of unrelenting sincerity, but she's hardly a live wire. Female superheroes as a genre didn’t have much of history outside of comic books, the Vilma Santos Darna series being the only notable one at the time. The appearance of Supergirl is an indication if the producers ever consciously knew the real secret of the movies is to laugh condescendingly at the characters (which is what the writer, director and even some of the actors have started to do). We go to recapture some of the lost innocence of the whole notion of superheroes. And the result is an unfunny, unexciting movie. Supergirl counters most of the bad elements without much effort, so not much drama to be found there. Aside from confronting a giant, monstrous frog and thwarting the undead we don’t get much in the way of cool Supergirl action, none of this is particularly impressive.

     I must confess to a special fondness for comedies in which the rules of time, space and logic are suspended so that misguided people can straighten themselves out. Here Comes the Groom's (Quantum Films, Cineko Productions, Brightlight Productions, 2023) measure of integrity is that it moves smoothly, convincingly and with minimal self-consciousness from farce to earnest sentiment, earning your tears at the climactic rapprochement because it has treated you so generously to laughter on the way. Loud but never coarse, candid without being prurient, Here Comes the Groom is a quick-witted, perfectly modulated farce with a pair of beautifully matched performances from Keempee de Leon and especially Enchong Dee, who does some of his best work ever. Both tears and laughter arise from writer-director Chris Martinez's canny and unforced understanding of what makes his characters tick. Rodrigo (De Leon) and Junior (Dee) are recognizable types but also solid individuals, something that becomes clear only after their identity swap. In De Leon, we see the wistfulness and uncertainty beside his facade of brisk confidence. Similarly, it is only when Junior (Dee) is thrown into Wilhelmina's (KaladKaren) person that his strong, passionate ardor comes into full view. 

     Dee's performance is a marvel. He bounds beyond mimicry and gimmickry. He’s nothing short of dazzling as he enjoys one of his relatively rare opportunities to showcase his splendid comic timing and graceful physicality. De Leon always had an undercurrent of playfulness, his masterful interpretation of Wanda’s (Xilhouete) persona from voice inflection to simple hand gestures is frighteningly accurate yet funny. Sheer perfection! With a natural and nuanced ease, he just gets better with every role. Early scenes are a tad too over-emphatic, almost strident, really as Martinez errs on the side of obviousness while setting up familiar premise. Once he completes his expository duties, Martinez lightens his touch to allow for a freer, friskier sort of comedic interplay. Here Comes the Groom comes complete with maxims about seeing life through someone else’s eyes and appreciating the pressures brought to bear on loved ones. To his credit, Martinez sugar-coats the bite-sized life lessons with humor and verve. A strong supporting cast including Tony Labrusca, whose character Hans reveals surprising depth and decency in a key scene. Gladys Reyes on the other hand is a comic delight as Rodrigo's sprightly wife, Salve. A winning combination of acting, writing and direction, Here Comes the Groom will have you wondering what freak of nature occurred to bring us this delightfully refreshing comedy.

Sound Design: Janinna Minglanilla, Emilio Bien Sparks

Music: Emerzon Texon

Editor: Dennis Austria Salgado

Production Design: Angel Diesta

Director of Photography: Moises M.M. Zee, LPS

Written and Directed By; Chris Martinez

     The luminescent tryst between Baby (Vilma Santos) and Roy (Phillip Salvador) in Baby Tsina (Viva Films, 1984) remains to be Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s most complex and revelatory examination of unfulfilled love. She doesn’t solely rely on the flashier aspects of her patented style to convey a character’s fated desires or failures. She positions individuals as pieces of a larger mosaic, one populated by burgeoning and disintegrating relationships that reach beyond the frame. This construct produces subtext-heavy conversations containing real conflict and tension at their core. As Baby Tsina turns into a masterful dissection of loyalty, Ricardo Lee's dialogue expresses the characters’ way of maneuvering around emotional responsibility, of circumventing the betrayals that are lingering in plain sight. This conflict builds for long sequences before erupting in stunning moments of physical violence. In this very banal-looking world, unfulfilled desire turns sour from all the repression and guilt. Baby and Roy's conversations grow shorter and more kinetic, jumping past the traditional banter. The unique ways emotional expression shifts mid-moment really distinguishes the film as an organic work, a morphing cinematic experience that changes with the years to fit our individual perspective of unrequited love. Unlike the showy emotional relationships in Abaya’s other films, the connection between Baby and Roy feels bonded in actual human emotion. Baby Tsina centers around the title character - played with gusto by an always illuminating Santos. Her tremendous poise, visible at once in the opening credit sequence introducing the tone and protagonist of this very different film. The precisely-edited sequence serves Santos exceedingly well. 

     Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and granted a 1080p transfer, Baby Tsina is sourced from an older master with some obvious limitations. As a result, the technical presentation is somewhat inconsistent. While most close-ups convey fairly decent depth the larger shots tend to look rather flat. During nighttime footage or elsewhere where light is intentionally restricted shadow definition also isn't as good as it should be; select segments are too dark and some detail is lost. Generally speaking colors are stable, but in two different scenes I noticed very light but short color pulsations. There are no traces of sharpening adjustments, but grain should be better exposed and resolved. During a couple of darker segments some light halo effects can be spotted as well. Overall image stability is good. Lastly, a few minor flecks pop up here and there, but there are no large cuts, damage marks, or torn frames. The film has what I consider to be a soundtrack that breathes much easier here than it does on previous video release. Generally speaking, dynamic intensity is more pronounced, but even during the more casual footage there are obvious improvements in terms of depth (these are very easy to hear during the action scenes). However, there is still room for improvement as some nuances in the mid- register appear a bit flat. Baby Tsina is perhaps one of the most successful protagonist Ricardo Lee has crafted. Her desires and motivations are clear, and her thought process is shown in full. And best of all, she feels real.

Screenplay: Ricardo Lee

Musical Director: Willie Cruz

Sound Supervision: Vic Macamay

Production Design: Fiel Zabat

Film Editor: Ike Jarlego, Jr.

Director of Photography: Manolo R. Abaya

Directed By: Marilou Diaz-Abaya

     The self-destructive nature of searching for meaning, for a partner has long fascinated Elwood Perez. In Lupe A Seaman's Wife (Viva Films, 2003), he strips bare that hopeless pursuit. In those diurnal moments, the unexceptional motions that make up a relationship, Perez disinters the pleasures (however brief) and pain of love. Lupe (Andrea del Rosario) is longing for love. Hers is a Sisyphean desperation. Lupe is a woman with a powerful erotic drive and an indefatigable penchant for verbalizing her emotions. We first find Lupe having energetic sex with her husband Manolo (Leandro Muñoz) humping away and one may wonder if this is a portrait of a liberated woman or a glimpse from the male gaze. Del Rosario is relaxed, nervy, alert and overtly sexy as I can remember seeing her. Perez finds the inexorable beauty (and sadness) in the most corrosive and fugacious of feelings. For Lupe, love is a toxic need. Perez isn’t known for letting his characters have traditionally happy endings and the tragedy here is how normal that feels, how futile love can be for the unlovable. 

     Directed by Ma-an L. Asuncion-Dagñalan, Home Service (Viva Films, 3:16 Media Network, 2023) follows nursing student/massage therapist Happy (Hershie de Leon) as she goes about her business over the course of a few ordinary days–with the film primarily detailing Happy's encounters with clients and friends alike. In cinematic terms, the stunt fails dismally. Once the novelty wears off, there's nothing to hold onto, no meaningful insight into either the character or De Leon herself. There are layers upon layers here-but it’s unclear whether De Leon is a face in search of an expression. That may be the point, or it may be just that De Leon doesn't know how to modulate her performance. Either way, she's a plank, which is not much to build a movie on. Whatever the film has to say is obscured by De Leon's uncommunicative performance. Her persona simply becomes redundant with her role leading to an echo chamber of empty referents. Dagñalan has, as anticipated, infused Home Service with a consistent visual sensibility that initially compensates for the film’s uneventful atmosphere, and there’s little doubt that the almost total lack of context or exposition is, for a little while, not quite as problematic as one might have feared. It does reach a point, however, at which the relentlessly meandering narrative becomes impossible to overlook, with the progressively less-than-enthralling vibe exacerbated by the central character’s underdeveloped nature–as screenwriter Michael Angelo Dagñalan is simply unable (or unwilling) to get inside Happy’s head to a satisfactory degree (i.e. what makes this girl tick? why does she do the things she does? etc). It’s subsequently rather difficult to work up any interest in Happy’s mundane exploits, and although the movie does boast an admittedly authentic feel, Home Service‘s few positive elements are inevitably rendered moot by its ongoing emphasis on small-talk-type conversations. It’s impossible not to wish that the director would pay as much attention to the story as she does to visuals and atmosphere.

     Home Service is ultimately timid and evasive. It relies far too much on its self-consciously oblique approach, which tends to take center stage, and far too little on genuine insight into the world it represents. The filmmaker’s mistake seems to be supposing that the awfulness of most of these people means there is no high drama to be extracted from their lives. Home Service's narrative merely distracts from its dead-end cynicism. Dagñalan's title refers to the services of working students which include whatever a client desires. It's no surprise, the physical contact comes off as cold, clammy, and mechanical. The topics of conversation invariably revolve around money or the ways in which Happy balances her professional life and personal desires, though Dagñalan investigates these subjects with hastiness, routinely linking every character’s behavior and emotion to cash concerns, but going no further. Although there’s hardly a plot to speak of, the tale eventually hinges on Happy’s decision to break her own rules. She finally lets her guard down and is punished accordingly, learning a lesson both she and we, at this point in the proceedings, already know: that there’s no such thing as real passion, only mutual satisfaction.Yet during this signature moment, when her protagonist actually dares to feel something, Dagñalan finds no way to make us invested in her gambit, she has kept everything at arm’s length. 

Screenplay: Michael Angelo Dagñalan

Director of Photography: T.M. Malones

Editor: Gilbert Obispo

Production Design: Jay Custodio

Music: Dek Margaja

Sound Design: Fatima Nerikka Salim

Directed by Ma-an L. Asuncion-Dagñalan

 

     

     Lawrence Fajardo's Raket ni Nanay (Creative Programs, Inc., Indiopendence, National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 2006) is the best film I have seen about the physical creation of art, and the painful bond between an artist and his muse. Mimosa (Sarsi Emmanuelle) arrives at Badong's studio where unpleasantries give way to a sense of nervous social obligation. The reminder of his artistic stasis makes Badong prickly toward Mimosa. He scraps a piece of paper before his drawing takes shape, even the pages look so abstract and nondescript that one wonders what exactly makes Mimosa so special to him. Badong also takes interest in Joy (Tess Jamias) though not in a particularly lustful way. Badong is played by Mark Gil whose eyes can bore through other actors. With his high forehead and sculpted profile, he looks intelligent but is a formidable, threatening intelligence. He never plays the fall-guy. He always knows the story. Sarsi Emmanuel is Mimosa, the woman who inspires him. Startingly beautiful with sensuous lips and deep eyes under arched brows. The artist will attempt to seduce her but he wants more than that. Badong wants to possess her. And he wants to draw from Mimosa's irritating willfulness the inspiration for his rebirth. He must have an abrasive to create. The great central passage of the film involves creation. Fajardo uses a static camera and long takes, he rarely cuts away. We see a blank sheet of paper and the drawing taking shape, his fingers and thumb smearing the washes into rough shapes. 

     Of the performances, there is nothing to be said about Mark Gil except that he communicates exactly what Badong needs from his art and doesn't need many words to do it. Sarsi Emmanuel has an ethereal beauty, but it is her talent that has made her a leading actress of her generation. We quickly feel, without any dialog or behavior to spell it out, Mimosa's nuisance quality. Tess Jamias finds the perfect and difficult note for Joy. Fajardo's use of long takes gives his actors the freedom to modulate their interactions, capturing the incremental steps by which people become more familiar with each other and give themselves over to more bold actions. Close-ups show Mimosa trembling from a combination of embarrassment and exhaustion. Yet it’s in her resistance, not compliance that Badong seems to get the most inspiration as he builds toward his intended masterpiece. Mimosa's willingness to confront the painter has the effect of gradually eroding the distinction between the creation of the painting and what it represents and the studio scenes correspondingly progress from the naturalistic to the impressionistic with Mimosa lit luminously against backgrounds that collapse the distance between the real woman and Badong’s sketches. That fusion of subject and form eventually expands to include the artist himself, most visibly in a scene where both Badong and Mimosa break down undermining the tacit power of artists over their models by placing them on even ground. It’s a direct, cathartic illustration of the film’s deconstruction of accepted artist and muse roles.

Directed By; Lawrence Fajardo

Screenplay: Jim Flores

Cinematography: Julius Salazar

Production Design: Alf Alacapa

Editors: Lawrence Fajardo, Jobin Ballesteros

Original Music: Rachelle Tesoro

Sound Engineer Tad Ermitaño

     It is the love Carmina (Dawn Zulueta) and Gabriel (Richard Gomez) share which builds the foundation for Hihintayin Kita sa Langit (Reyna Films, Inc., 1991), Carlos Siguion-Reyna's tale of broken promises made and revenge exacted. Carmina’s heart is broken and filled with sorrow. It has weakened her. She no longer has any will to live. Feeling the intense power of her love and pain, death is the only ending to quiet her longings and broken heart. It was her own doing, breaking Gabriel’s heart first, then abandoning him for propriety, to live in her virtuous life of dullness, leading her to marry Alan (Eric Quizon) and the abandonment of her soul when she leaves Gabriel behind. The life she chooses is one that is hollow. Her dreams with Gabriel were broken with her heart. When Gabriel returns several years later with a moderate fortune, he marries Alan’s sister, Sandra (Jackie Lou Blanco) for spite. Nearing the end for Carmina, Gabriel arrives at her death bed. They share a loving moment, as he holds her up, speaking softly with love in their voices just before she dies in his arms. Love is more important than any tangible riches or objects of wealth. Let the heart be filled with love. Live for life not for the shackles that destroy the soul. 

     Showing the destruction that comes from not following one’s heart, Hihintayin Kita sa Langit begins with the growing attraction of friendship and love between Carmina and Gabriel. It also shows the class struggle between Gabriel and Carmina’s brother Milo (Michael de Mesa). Their father, Don Joaquin (Jose Mari Avellana) found the young boy on his travels. He took him off the street, bringing him home to be part of their family. But Milo was not generous of spirit like his father and Carmina. He felt it was within his rights to degrade Gabriel whenever the hatred turned in him. He tried to whip Gabriel into submission, but it would never happen. Milo is a weakling, whereas Gabriel has inner fire. No one had the power to break him except Carmina. When Milo feels he has the right to lord it over Gabriel, as so many today feel they have been blessed with the power to rule over people, you know there will never be equality. The human race is too ingrained with prejudice, class superiority and inferiority, and the unjust. That really hasn’t changed. Carmina had the power. She had two separate worlds in which to choose where she wanted to be and with whom she wanted to be. Carmina thought she wanted the dress-up world with Alan, but she hid from herself as much as she longed for the Carmina who was wild with abandon and filled with love. It is what drove them apart. Her vanity and broken promises from childhood and Gabriel not being the perfect gentleman that Carmina desired him to be, instead he was the outcast and the reject, a stranger in a strange land. 

     This sparkling new 1080p transfer present the film in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio for the first time on home video, but the level of clarity, detail and texture on display here is like watching a brand new film. Depth is outstanding and the film's particular color palette is represented perfectly, while a natural layer of film grain is present to remind us that excessive digital noise reduction hasn't been performed. The image is smooth and extremely natural, which will undoubtedly please long-time fans, it's been said before, but it's likely that Hihintayin Kita sa Langit hasn't looked this good since its original theatrical run. I'd say it looks even better, but for now this absolutely flawless transfer is reason enough to revisit the movie. Audio rarely gets equal praise in comparison to a crisp visual upgrade after all, screen captures are easier to share. What we get here stays true to the source, with most of the action spread widely across the front channels. It's an effective presentation that really gives the film a lot of charm, as the crystal clear dialogue and effects are balanced nicely with occasional music cues that don't fight for attention. Hihintayin Kita sa Langit simply captures a specific period in Filipino film history that a sizable chunk of audiences will always remember fondly. There's a lot to live up to here and this brand new restoration absolutely steps up to the plate, delivering a landmark audio and video presentation. 

Production Design: Joey Luna

Sound Supervision: Gaudencio Barredo

Music: By: Ryan Cayabyab

Photographed By: Romy Vitug

Screenplay: Raquel Villavicencio

Directed By: Carlos Siguion-Reyna

     Not many movies can lay claim to being a cultural phenomenon. There are certainly hit movies—the ones that make a lot of money at the box office and stir a lot of initial interest—but even the biggest of those often slide from memory after a few years, replaced by the next big thing. True cultural phenomena ties multiple strands of popular and political culture and becoming symbols of an era. There aren’t many of these, but Maryo J. de los Reyes' Annie Batungbakal (NV Productions) is without doubt one of the most memorable. Released in 1979, it encapsulated the surface attitudes, fashions and musical stylings of the disco era. The rhythmic beats of The Hotdog’s hit songs is a thin veneer over the story’s fundamentally despondent nature; it is, after all, a work whose epilogue is minor salve for all the dreams and frustration that fills the rest of the narrative. The story revolves around Annie (Nora Aunor), a young woman working a dead-end job at a record store all week to help her Aunt Beatrice (Chichay). She befriends eccentric neighbor, Gilda Bermudez (Nida Blanca) who invites her to go dancing at the Banana. Annie is like a lot of other ’70s movie protagonists, she struggles to make it in life, but at night on the dance floor, she is the Queen. For now, Annie is content dancing her heart out at the disco. It would seem that the discord between the socially aware and largely despairing narrative and the dance sequences inside the disco would produce a film that is fundamentally at odds with itself, but De Los Reyes merges them quite seamlessly by emphasizing the neon space inside the Banana as a kind of fantasy world of escape. 

     The film functions very much like a traditional musical, with the musical sequences offering a fantastical alternative to the workaday world, even if characters don't break out into diegetic singing. In the movie’s most romantic dance number scored to The Hotdog’s version of Langit na Naman, Annie and Eric (Lloyd Samartino) comes off as a working class disco-era Astaire and Rogers. The number climaxes when the two hold each other’s hands and spin around and around. They’re like young lovers consummating their partnership. Annie’s saving grace is her dancing. To be clear, Aunor is not a great dancer. Unlike Nida Blanca, she lacks natural talent and grace. What distinguishes Aunor is that she’s a better actor. She acts like someone who loves to dance. This is apparent in the movie’s centerpiece dance number, filmed in an unbroken full-frame shot in order for us to see that Aunor is doing all the dancing. The song used for the sequence is the disco banger Bongga Ka Day. It has a propulsive energy that is matched by Aunor’s fluid dance moves. This is what made the sequence an instant classic. De Los Reyes proved that Annie Batungbakal is more than just the soundtrack, it’s a movie filled with rich performances that has both flair and subtlety. The music is everywhere, and when it kicks in, you know that Annie is entering the world in which she reigns, yet it offers no real advancement; her reign evaporates with the morning light. It’s not hard to see how kids in the late ’70s could separate the film’s two parts from each, ignoring the narrative and losing themselves in the disco music but it’s a much richer, more evocative film when those two halves are seen as fundamentally integrated, with the dance-floor as temporary respite from life’s realities.

Production Design and Art Direction: Fiel Zabat

Choreography: Geleen Eugenio

Film Editor: Edgardo "Boy" Vinarao

Musical Director: The Hotdog

Director of Photography: Joe Batac, Jr.

Screenplay: Jake Tordesillas

Directed By: Maryo J. de los Reyes

 

     Making a virtue of simplicity and a vice of melodrama, Imbisibol (Sinag Maynila, Solar Entertainment Corporation, Centerstage Productions, Pelikulaw 2015) is a well-intentioned low-income drama. This is a genre in which work - exhausting, repetitive, unreliable is the story's engine and the characters' sole means of survival. Holding on to a job or finding a better one takes precedence over anything life can throw at them. Without a doubt, Imbisibol forms Lawrence Fajardo’s most assured work, it owes a lot of its initial momentum to John Bedia and Herlyn Gail Alegre’s unhurried screenplay. The film doesn’t lack for integrity, educating the audience on the desperation of living as an illegal entirely from the perspective of its characters. Carefully buried in a wealth of gesture and speech, from Linda, (the perennially underutilized Ces Quesada) and Benjie's (Bernardo Bernardo) plaintiveness to Manuel (Allen Dizon) and Rodel's (JM de Guzman) wistfulness, the actors in Imbisibol are remarkable. De Guzman's superb slow simmer of a performance as a pleading, recessive man is a silent striver who embodies a humanity that is ultimately heartbreaking. Dizon brings crafty venality to his character that we suspect people must actually work in a trade such as his. Bernardo Bernardo conveys decency, enthusiasm and self-restraint. Quesada creates a character that is sensitive and vulnerable. Who can say that pragmatism is less virtuous than innocence? Jane Austen, Anton Chekhov are artists who come to mind when we confront a story told through such tactful revelations of temperament and states of mind. Fajardo often shows a room before people enter and lingers a second after they leave. Every single shot is intended to have a perfect composition of its own. If a character is speaking, he shows the entire speech. He is comfortable with silences, it’s as if every person has the right to be heard in full. In his other films, Fajardo deploys his distinctive techniques more playfully, but here he seems chiefly concerned with creating a quiet world in which his characters’ personalities can stand out. Sometimes they speak little and imply much. 

     An elegantly refined style places people in the foreground, Fajardo focuses on the nuances of everyday life. His is the most humanistic of styles, choosing to touch the viewer with feeling, not workshop storytelling technique. By having established the rhythm of his characters' lives with such precision, Fajardo’s presentation is not conventionally melodramatic or histrionic. From one part of the world to another, Imbisibol stirs with its torrents of feeling. Dramas about illegal immigrants have often focused on the journey, an odyssey pocked with exploitation and fear, but one that ends on a note of road-weary triumph. In Imbisibol, the focus is on the plight of undocumented immigrants who are already ensconced in Japan. How they live in constant fear of immigration officials who want to deport them even though a modern Western economy could not function without these shadow workers. Imbisibol walks a delicate line between visceral cinema and complex emotional trauma, yet it never seems to struggle at balancing the two and if my description of precisely why seems vague, that’s purely because it deserves to be experienced through unfamiliar eyes. The adroit Fajardo doesn't overemphasize the acrid, fetid atmosphere of hard working immigrants clambering from one job to the next. The spartan, bleary-eyed plainness of the urban landscape of immigrant Japan makes Imbisibol more arresting. Fajardo's low-key curiosity toward what drives outsiders is a crucial element that lubricates the tough, noir melodramatics of the narrative engine. As businesslike as the immigrants who work several jobs to stay afloat, Imbisibol grows more compelling as it builds a head of steam.

Directed By: Lawrence Fajardo

Screenplay: John Bedia, Herlyn Gail Alegre

Director of Photography: Boy Yniguez

Editor: Lawrence Fajardo

Production Designers: Lawrence Fajardo, Rolando Inocencio

Sound: Mike Idioma

Music: Jobin Ballesteros

     The tragicomic absurdity of cultural morality is the target of filmmaker Joselito Altarejos' latest feature, Finding Daddy Blake (2076Kolektib, MC Productions, 2023), an unpredictable blast that invites us into its outrage. In the process of recounting the country’s most recent atrocities, Altarejos' funny juxtaposition bursts with the irony of a society too horny to care for its more serious matters. Finding Daddy Blake consolidates the impulses found across Altarejos' work. It’s the searing approach that provides the foundation, giving him justifiable ammo for deepening the surrounding narrative by rooting it in a larger argument. Altarejos' analytic format opposes contemporary media’s narrative failures — the decadent escapism of mainstream cinema that hasn’t gotten up to speed about the pandemic but still treats moviegoers like children who need relentless distraction with entertainment. In the meantime, we see hard sexual innuendos everywhere. It’s an unexpectedly funny way for Altarejos to explore social hypocrisy. What starts as a head-scratching ordeal slowly becomes a hilarious satire on politics and social standards. Paolo's (Jonathan Ivan Rivera) unlucky cosplay signifies a personal restlessness that gets lost into a heedless culture. But sex videos is not what Altarejos finds obscene. He’s riled by the hypocrisy that has become the new normal. It is the shocking immediacy of keeping up with the world and often getting ahead of it — or at least getting ahead of his peers and sometimes, his audience. 

     Signs of the COVID pandemic, the mask-wearing are overlays of absurdity in this expansive social satire. It has something about what is wrong with contemporary life, as long as they don't mind the occasional interjection. What Altarejos posits is that society is the real pandemic portrayed here in an interesting manner. In a captivating scene largely predicated on Dexter Doria's unmatched ability to make Elvira Lopez’s cruelty so charismatic, owning the room, the camera, bending the scene to her will, Altarejos opts for the thornier, more difficult to pinpoint approach of giving us a powerful woman who takes advantage of peoples’ affections, does favors here and there and makes promises in the most banal, quietly damaging way. Doria's way with the angularity of her face and the camera feels thought-through and even more impressively, it’s great, delicious fun. Rivera showcases the grip Paolo has on his life, the controlled sense of domination he exudes. Even as Paolo’s hold over his life becomes tenuous and he begins to lose control over his own narrative, Rivera’s nuanced portrayal captures his character’s cracking shell, the boiling temper and fear that sits beneath the surface. As Antonio, Oliver Aquino's performance complements Carlos Dala (Elijah) and Tommy Alejandrino's (Kokoy) calculated intensity in every scene. Finding Daddy Blake embraces the pessimism and cynicism in Altarejos' vision of individuals and society. The social structure is hopelessly broken-down and narrow-minded stupidity will always find itself reinforced by the bureaucratic rituals of everyday life. It’s somewhat facile to ascribe a bleak sense of humor to our past experiences even if there’s an element of truth in that stereotype.

Written and Directed By: Joselito Altarejos

Cinematographer: Manuel Garcellano

Editor: Jay Altarejos

Musical Scorer: Marco Bertillo Mata

Sound Designer: Andrew Millalos

     Kasunduan (Cinebro, 2018) is a drama of the interpenetration of an ostensibly legitimate society - underground sports and the violent reign of organized crime. The central plotline is August Montemayor’s (Ejay Falcon) vaunted independence. The little world to which he belongs and the larger one to which he connects is a man’s world. Yet Kasunduan doesn’t psychologize his behavior. The logic is clear and consistent and the action doesn’t come off as willful symbolism. Rather, August's character isn’t diagnosed or traced to specific personal experiences or explained by aspects of backstory. The peculiarity of the film and its enduring inspiration is August's transformation into an opaque and external unit, a negative mirror that makes him a perfect and closed embodiment of the milieu to which he belongs. What consumes him in the wider world is equalled by the self-shredding fury of his suffering which also gets its supreme expression in fighting. Lawrence Fajardo films the underground fighting sequence in kinetic closeups that render the cruelty and the pleasure in inflicting pain, the destructive frenzy, the passion, and the virtual serenity of agony and grace in suffering. When August is ferociously beaten, showing him in a terrifyingly patient exaltation of anticipation of pain is a moment of conscience in torment that glows and flares only briefly, but with an intensity to burn a hole in the screen. The compact, compressed solidity with which August’s unilluminated, impersonal character is composed makes him not a cipher or a void but a distillation of the worst of the particular world he lives in and a paradoxical hero whose ability to win is itself an indictment of the world at large. From the metaphor of fighting to succeed, August actually fights with carnal possessiveness. From discarding traditional morality comes cavalier indifference. 

     Fajardo doesn’t dramatize the process but, rather, unites the action and the character with the milieu which is why so much of the best of Kasunduan is less a matter of action than of inaction, of potential energy, of the storm that’s brewing rather than the one that’s unleashed. The movie’s palette stylizes the drama and abstracts the action, detaching it from immediate experience and emphasizing stark lines and forms at the expense of detail, ideas in lieu of specifics. Kasunduan is distinguished from Fajardo’s later films by its stillness and abstraction. This matter of style is another thing that Kasunduan shares with A Hard Day (2021) and Fajardo conjures his ideas with similar dramatic strategy. It’s a film of gazes and pauses, of the power of the unexpressed and the undisplayed, of a mental life that expands beyond one character’s thoughts that echo outward as the common state of things. Long takes, featuring talk in near-stillness, in off-balance compositions that emphasize empty spaces before or behind characters are shot and edited to emphasize suspended moments which are terrifyingly tense with the violence that feeds them. There’s a widespread and mistaken notion that humanism in Filipino cinema is inseparable from the meticulous detailing of personal motives and histories. This has led to the commonplace of describing commercial films as plot-driven and artistically ambitious ones as character-driven and to presume that the latter belongs to the realm of finer feelings and broader conscience. Fajardo’s best films rely on character and psychology as springboards for action that nonetheless surpasses its personal specifics to develop through aesthetic ideas, a philosophical vision.

Sound Supervision: Immanuel T. Verona, Aian Louie D. Caro

Music By: Peter Legaste, Rephael Catap

Edited By: Law Fajardo

Cinematography By: Albert Banzon

Screenplay By: Enrico N. Santos, Anton Santa Maria, Rennes Soriano, John Bedia

Directed By: Lawrence Fajardo

     Much like Kapag Tumabang ang Asin (1976), T-Bird at Ako (Film Ventures, Inc., 1982) peaks to the creative and sometimes delusional nature of desire. Director Danny L. Zialcita plays their pettiness for some great laughs but at its core, the film expresses something true about love’s power to obliterate all other considerations, including close friendship. T-Bird at Ako is a little too neatly drawn, but Zialcita's enthusiasm and vitality compensate for more than they rationally should. This is a film easier to love than to like. Zialcita has a great feel for hip sophisticates in deep conversations, he also has a great eye. With cinematographer Felizardo Bailen, they've made T-Bird at Ako into a stylish affair. There is cleverness in the film's many tight shots that do double duty, playing to the intimacy of the piece as well as eliminating the need for elaborate sets. There are risky plot choices along the way, but the risks are what keeps the pot boiling as the complexities of the relationship between lady lawyer Sylvia Salazar (Nora Aunor) and night club dancer Isabel Mongcal (Vilma Santos) heat up and cool down. It all serves to make T-Bird at Ako a delightful romance charged with fierce intelligence. As Sylvia, Aunor is the picture of watchful uncertainty whose mixture of physical presence and self-mockery contributes to the film’s quirky, offbeat mood. Her performance is the best reason to see the movie. Santos manages to convey much sensuality infusing Isabel with complexity. 

     This new high definition transfer reveals the movie like never before, yielding a picture so pristine that watching it is practically like seeing the film for the first time. It's clean yet filmic. Obvious elements like skin and clothing textures reveal some of the most innately complex details imaginable, down to the most nuanced fabrics. The biggest improvements however, are in the area of color reproduction. There are completely new color tonalities and saturation is far better. As a result, the entire film looks richer and lusher. Interiors are beautiful, yielding an inviting warmth that’s substantially more nuanced and exacting. Unfortunately, the film's two-channel track is woefully dull and uninspired. Dialogue is often poorly prioritized, effects are typically brazen and weak. None of it strangles the presentation, at least not completely, but it all takes a significant toll. In an earlier scene, Isabel dances to the tune of Queen's Body Language. The song was replaced with a mediocre version of the original ruining the punchline to the greatest joke near the end of the movie. The audio mix is frustrating at worst, but for the viewer who just wants to watch, it's not a bad little endeavor.

Sound Engineer: Rudy Baldovino

Director of Photography: Felizardo Bailen

Film Editor: Enrique Jarlego, Sr.

Screenplay: Portia Ilagan

Directed By: Danny L. Zialcita