GENIAL, CELEBRATORY

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     This genial, celebratory interview with Filipino filmmaker Lino Brocka interspersed with movie clips hits a note of excitable cinephilia throughout. Christian Blackwood examines the hows and whys behind Brocka's oeuvre in Signed: Lino Brocka (Christian Blackwood Productions, 1987) and what makes him worthy of serious attention. Blackwood decided to interview the director in person and let him discuss his filmography on screen with no other talking heads. This gives us Brocka’s unfiltered point of view. The director’s candid commentary reveals him to be a filmmaker who made movies and finds the right combination of style and substance. At least we now know why he did what he did. Nevertheless, Blackwood remains a cinema aficionado delivering a simple interview-style retrospective of Brocka’s life and career. What’s important here is movies – movies and yet more movies. Brocka’s personal life is given the occasional sidelong glance and there is an extraordinary moment when he confesses his coming out story. A staggering revelation that is mentioned briefly. There are no critics or film historians on hand to testify or tear down Brocka’s movies. None of his stars or screenwriters are interviewed to pay tribute. The entire interview was shot with Blackwood remaining off-camera, as this rather straightforward and linear account of Brocka proceeds with brief cutaways to his subject’s body of work. The documentary races a little too breezily through the earliest years of Brocka’s movie obsession. Whether he’s remarking on Eddie Garcia's over the top performance in Tubog sa Ginto (1971), his stories are fascinating, sometimes providing new insight into a film, showcasing the director’s unexpected honesty about his work. 

     Perhaps the most interesting aspects of Signed: Lino Brocka involve his discussions about censorship and the Marcoses. If there’s a worthy criticism about Brocka, it’s that the documentary does not thoroughly investigate how he’s been perceived. It’s a fascinating career overview (backed by ample clips, of course), as he talks about his critical breakout with 1974's Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang, his commercial success and box office failures. Blackwood puts Brocka in front of the camera and allows him to talk frankly and in depth about his journey through the Philippine movie industry. He explains single shots that bring the viewer into the moment while revealing an ever-changing perspective. What makes Signed: Lino Brocka an exciting and instructive film in its own right is that its subject is able to analyze his films from an emotional remove. That’s not to say he isn’t proud of what he made or that he’s overly self-critical. But he’s very rational with regard to what they are and what they achieved. The interesting thing is that he has insights on how every creative decision was made. Of course, not every movie Brocka made was great, but we emerge with a profound understanding of a singularly talented, creative filmmaker who invested himself fully in everything he did and whose work merits a second look. It becomes clear that nothing in his cinema is left to chance. The film’s focus on the work of its subject and desire to learn more from it is what really makes it worth watching. Signed: Lino Brocka is an entertaining portrait of a filmmaker that changed a generation.


Produced and Directed By: Christian Blackwood

Cinematography: Christian Blackwood

Editor: Monika Abspacher

Music: Michael Riesman

Sound: John Murphy

UNBEARABLY TENSE

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Dahas (MAQ Productions Inc., 1995) with Maricel Soriano, has two things that separate it from the pack of thrillers on the shelves: It's almost unbearably tense and it has the biggest visceral kick, capable of inspiring bloodlust in otherwise peaceful viewers. Seeing this movie, about a woman on the run from an abusive husband, makes us want to see Soriano lay him out. To maintain that emotional pitch, it's not enough for a movie to simply show a man smacking a woman. Everything has to work and it does. Chito Roño's cunning direction squeezes every drop of suspense from every setup. Most of all, it's the screenplay by Roy C. Iglesias that transforms an arresting premise into a thriller of significance. Iglesias' most important inspiration was in the writing of Jake, the husband, who is not a routine psycho sprouting devil horns on his honeymoon. Jake (Richard Gomez), operates with an unlimited sense of personal entitlement. He enters the life of Luisa (Soriano), like a toxic Prince Charming, sweeps her off her feet and portrays himself as a rescuer. If Jake were the husband from hell, Dahas would be a monster movie. Instead he's a fellow we recognize, a kind of man we might know, one who prides himself on getting what he wants, whose self-conception is tied up with his willingness to go to any length to succeed. Jakes are everywhere and that alone gives Dahas a modest social importance. 

     Soriano, playing a damaged soul, conveys a sense of that pain and when Jake hits her for the first time, we feel her terror. Gomez is chillingly twisted and the film is poised to make an effective dramatic statement. Tonton Gutierrez brings an edge to Eric, Luisa's knight in shining armor. Dahas does it by the numbers, albeit with style and has the requisite chase scenes, escapes and near-escapes and a suspenseful finale. Roño uses the same structure, in which a man victimizes a woman for the first half of the film and turns the tables in an extended sequence of graphic violence. The movie, in time-honored horror movie tradition doesn't allow Jake to really be dead the first time. There is a plot twist showing that Luisa can't really kill him--she's the heroine, after all--and then he lurches back into action like the slasher in many an exploitation movie. Dahas has a certain internal logic. Its wife-battering scenes characterize the movie's head-banging aesthetic. Through stealthy camera movements and an abrasively jumpy soundtrack, Dahas does a better job than most movies of sustaining a mood of palpable physical menace, then confirming your worst fears. From this point on, Dahas becomes agonizingly suspenseful and nerve-racking.


Sound Engineering: Audio Post

Production Designer: Jeffrey Jeturian

Supervising Editor: Ever V. Ramos

Film Editor: Jaime B. Davila

Director of Photography: Charlie S. Peralta

Music Composed By: Jessie Lasaten

Screenplay: Roy C. Iglesias

Directed By: Chito Roño


BEYOND REDEMPTION

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     What Vilma Santos achieves in Maryo J. de los Reyes' Tagos ng Dugo (VH Films, 1987) isn't a performance but an embodiment. With courage, art and charity, she empathizes with Josepina Ramos Regala, a damaged woman who simply asks that we witness a woman's final desperate attempt to be a better person than her fate intended. The performance is so focused and intense that it becomes a fact of life. Observe the way Santos controls her eyes in the film; there is not a flicker of inattention, as she urgently communicates what she is feeling and thinking. There's the uncanny sensation that Santos has forgotten the camera and the screenplay and is directly channeling her ideas about Pina. She has made herself the instrument of this character. Her transformation into a street prostitute, where she strides into the shadows before stepping forward to talk with Cesar Garcia (Miguel Rodriguez), a handsome young man who has found her in a strip mall after dark. I was simply watching one of the most real people I had ever seen on the screen. Pina's initial kill is justifiable. Having been raped as a child, she uses the knife in self-defense. Pina’s victims become progressively more innocent, with one simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. With a dying conscience, she dispatches Edwin (Michael de Mesa) and seals her fate. De Los Reyes presents the killings in a straightforward manner. Although we understand Pina's reasoning, we neither sympathize nor empathize with her. 

      Tagos ng Dugo asks for a measure of comprehension, not identification. And it demands that we consider what role (if any) society may have played. That approach, more than any other, defuses charges of exploitation and moral indifference, making this a compelling, thought-provoking and unsettling drama. Movies like this are perfect when they get made, before they're grounded down by analysis. There is a certain tone in the voices of some critics that I detest. That superior way of explaining technique in order to destroy it. They imply that because they can explain how Santos did it, she didn't do it. But she does it. Pina's body language is frightening and fascinating. She doesn't know how to occupy her body. Watch Santos as she goes through a repertory of little arm straightenings, body adjustments and head tosses and hair touchings, as she nervously tries to shake out her nervousness and look at ease. And note that there is only one moment in the movie where she seems relaxed and at peace with herself; you will know the scene, and it will explain itself. Francis Arnaiz finds the correct note for Andy Mercado. Some critics have mistaken it for bad acting, when in fact it is sublime acting in its portrayal of a bad actor. We are told to hate the sin but not the sinner and as I watched Tagos ng Dugo, I began to see it as an exercise in the theological virtue of charity. It refuses to objectify Pina insisting instead on seeing her as someone worthy of our attention. She has been so cruelly twisted by life and is unequipped for this struggle. She is impulsive, reckless, angry and violent, and she devastates her victims and herself. There are no excuses for what she does, but there are reasons and the purpose of the movie is to make them visible. If life had given her anything at all to work with, we would feel no sympathy. But life has beaten her beyond redemption.


Director of Photography: Ely Cruz

Production Designed By: Cesar Hernando & Lea Locsin

Film Editing: Jess Navarro

Musical Director: Jaime Fabregas

Sound Engineer: Joe Climaco

Screenplay: Jake Tordesillas

Directed By: Maryo J. de los Reyes

DOMINO EFFECT

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     It’s devastating the way director Jerry Lopez Sineneng depicted how the domino-effect destruction of Rita (Vivamax, 2024) came within milliseconds of never happening. Rita (Christine Bermas) could pick up and perish the idea of sleeping with her husband Ariel's (Victor Relosa) best friend, Royce (Josh Ivan Morales). Sineneng has never been much for subtlety, but he understands that the psychology of erotic fantasy has as much potential to obliterate as to titillate. Rita never arouses, judges or mounts a morality play: It’s a dark, delusional piece of sultry fantasia that doesn’t condemn or condone Ariel or Rita’s choices. It simply presents people surprised by the ease with which they transgress and allow little white lies to fester into tumorous deceptions. Sineneng pulls out all the stops to display his lovers' erotic trysts. Playing down his handsomeness, Relosa invests Ariel with such palpable hurt. It’s such an emotionally naked performance, couched in understatement. Other strong performances are offered by Morales whose character is both repulsive and mysterious (that is part of his allure). Royce's charm is a convincing temptation and an interesting choice for Rita's dalliance. Perhaps the most balanced character is Rita's younger brother Marlon, played sensitively by Gold Aceron. As the confused and guilt-stricken Rita, Bermas is asked to run the full spectrum of emotions, from unexpected joy to emptiness to heartbreak and every step is a performance of blistering intensity. 

     Rita might be a richer take on female infidelity than usual, but like movie adulteresses before her, she faces repercussions. It’s success is due to the effectiveness of the performances and Ricky Lee's screenplay, delivering a storyline that escalates in a relatively plausible way. Rita has her reasons for straying outside a happy marriage. This is not necessarily a bad thing it is almost always more interesting to observe behavior than listening to reasons. Instead of pumping up the plot with recycled manufactured thrills, it's content to contemplate two reasonable adults who get themselves into an almost insoluble dilemma. Sineneng contemplates when he lingers on Relosa’s sex appeal but, in the end, the actor fights back with evocative blood-splatter. A skipping record is Sineneng’s transitional element between Rita’s comfort and fear, a haunting reminder of bringing and tearing lovers apart. Rita takes an unflinching and emotionally rattling look at the recklessness of infidelity and how it can destroy the lives of all parties involved, leaving no one satisfied. What follows in the movie’s Third Act is less satisfactory, but the ending redeems the picture and makes you appreciate just how odd it is for contemporary tastes: sex is not just a passing fancy, but profoundly disruptive, not life enhancing but life shattering.


Sound Designer: Norman Buena

Musical Scorer: Emerzon Texon

Editor: Froilan Francia

Production Designer: Kenneth Bernardino

Director of Photography: Rico Jacinto

Screenplay: Ricky Lee

Directed By: Jerry Lopez Sineneng

AUTHENTIC AND SATISFYING

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Darryl Yap treats love and loss with a disarming tenderness and a refusal of sentimentality that make his fifteenth feature, something of an anomaly among male identity flicks. Para Kang Papa Mo (Viva Films, Vincentiments, 2023) is about men and the male performances are terrific. In casting Mark Anthony Fernandez and Nikko Natividad, Yap not only chose two actors that actually look like they could be father and son but actors who fit into their roles with ease. Natividad is perfect, injecting Harry with subtlety abound, but it’s a deceptively restrained performance about a gradual development. Fernandez merrily falls into his role, capturing all the life apparent in this newly blissful way of living; fortunately, Yap never shows Fernandez as the absent father from Harry's childhood, allowing viewers to see him only as a new man. He brings Harry into his new life, giving him the chance to get to know and appreciate his father on a completely different level. Their relationship blossoms in ways that are emotionally authentic and satisfying. It's all about dropping their inhibitions to be sincere and silly with one another. Natividad and Fernandez say so much with their facial expressions and body language that the struggle and longing for human connection comes across loud and clear despite never being articulated. Ruby Ruiz gives a full-bodied performance as Tita Tita, a woman with her own issues but sweet and funny. She could have so easily been turned into a one-note role, but Ruiz brings her to life wondrously. The last component is Jao Mapa's Jose whose presence has many of the same qualities as Fernandez’s role, but with a particular charm. 

     We also get further insight into how Anton feels during these little scenes where Harry speaks in voiceover accompanied by a series of images on screen illustrating his point. Also, while most of the scenes are framed in a pretty yet straightforward way, the focal point, which in most films is usually somewhere on the side is quite often set dead-center resulting in a jolt to the senses. This is symbolic of the whole film, where the simplest things have the biggest impact. The story is triggered by illness and death, but in a simple turnaround, the film is not about these things. Instead, Yap uses Harry's death as a way to explore how Anton changes as a result of it—and not even the actual loss, as such, but in the recollection of lives lived with a purpose. There’s a warmth about Para Kang Papa Mo that you don’t feel in many films today. These are good characters, good people and Yap has made it easy to fall in love with them. Though the story involves a lot of highs and lows, going deep into grave material, the experience induces an instant smile that doesn’t fade for the duration perhaps because Harry and Anton try to remain outside of the commotion and therefore prevent the film’s mood from becoming severe. It’s never too much to bear, but also doesn’t let us get away without shedding a tear or having a few hearty laughs. That moment of sincere appreciation in the face of inevitable devastation is one that is repeated throughout the film. Para Kang Papa Mo is joyous in the places we're accustomed to misery. Yap has delivered a film whose idiosyncrasies are nothing short of charming and whose small story is eclipsed by its considerable heart.


Sound Design: Aian Louie Caro

Music By: Emerzon Texon

Editor: Vincent L. Asis

Editor: Arel Ebana

Production Designer: Gie Shock Jose

Written and Directed By: Darryl Yap


WRITTEN IN STONE

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Hindi Mo Ako Kayang Tapakan (V.H. Films, 1985) is one of those epic sagas that seem to have been made for television. The film by Maryo J. de los Reyes tells the rags-to-riches story of Doña Anastacia Hernandez Vda. de Tuazon. At nearly 80 years old, she heads one of the largest business conglomerations. Hindi Mo Ako Kayang Tapakan reflects on Tacing’s past and improbable rise to power from humble beginnings working her way to the top of a highly successful business empire. Revenge, ambition and power, complicated with an assortment of sexual entanglements - the formula is written in stone. Hindi Mo Ako Kayang Tapakan begins with a scene set for a flashback that takes up most of the film. Tacing's first appearance is one of the key moments in a film that resists being reduced to a handful of iconic images. Played with elegant authority by Charo Santos raging against her helplessness even while playing it up to manipulate others. With that much going for him, De Los Reyes does a first-rate job of establishing a solid sense of time and place. All of which makes Hindi Mo Ako Kayang Tapakan one of the more appealing examples of its special genre. Tacing works for Doña Consuelo Romero (Charito Solis) while her mother Josefina (Liza Lorena) leaves for Manila. She becomes romantically involved with Angelo (Albert Martinez). Tacing responds, ignoring the housekeeper's warning that You're stepping out of your class, and you'll get nothing but trouble. Which is precisely what she gets. Tacing swears vengeance for the wrongs inflicted on her. Be assured that before she is finished, Angelo will be begging for mercy and forgiveness. 

     Wanting to begin a new life for herself and her unborn child, Tacing moves to Manila aided by her best friend, Thelma (Chanda Romero). Poverty ridden, she is helped by Lt. Tom Baker (Michael de Mesa), a generous and equally ambitious American soldier and much later, Senator Ramon Tuazon (Robert Arevalo), who teaches her fundamentals of the trade. Tacing's business continues to expand and she goes into partnership with Ramon. Unfortunately, her private life doesn't run as smoothly. Of course, she must pay for her subsequent success. Tacing learns of a plot among her greedy children to oust her from control and seize her assets. Tacing tells them that she has changed her will, effectively cutting her own children out for their deceit and leaving everything to her grandchildren instead. Vivid impressions are retained of Dante Rivero’s work as trusted confidant, Atty. Teddy Velasco; Al Tantay as Nardo; Joel Torre as Rollan Tuazon and Gina Alajar as Josephine, Tacing’s eldest daughter who makes the most of her few appearances. There are literally scores of parts and bits, Rosemarie Gil is excellent as Monica, Ramon’s long suffering wife. Hindi Mo Ako Kayang Tapakan turns on the moment of Tacing’s first appearance and in an instant, her face freezes in dismay. De Los Reyes' film aches with regret, but its feelings are complicated by its protagonist through a quietly devastating final shot. His approach to the material is to, simply, not wrestle with it at all. Instead, he embraces its novelistic conceits. Hindi Mo Ako Kayang Tapakan all but weeps with a sense of emotional loss. 


Sound Engineer: Rudy Baldovino

Production Design: Butch Garcia, PDGP

Cinematography: Joe Batac, Jr., FSC

Music: Willy Cruz

Film Editor: Edgardo "Boy" Vinarao, FEGMP

Screenplay: Jake Tordesillas

Directed By: Maryo J. de los Reyes

STRICTLY FOR THE LADIES

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     While Jose Abdel B. Langit's Mapanukso (Vivamax, LDG Production, 2024) maintains a light-hearted feel for the first 45 minutes or so, there comes a turning point near the end of the second act that hurtles the film into a vortex of “the dangers of the male stripping business” cliches that fly across the screen with all the subtlety of a Reefer Madness to the forehead, but with virtually no amount of self-awareness. The film’s downfall is the fact that it had to have a plot replete with paper-thin characters. Putting it quite bluntly, Angelo (Itan Rosales) is a massive douche. He’s highly unlikable, presented as charming, but comes off as arrogant. Angelo wanders through the world with a highly undeserved sense of entitlement and becomes petulant when he can’t have his way. Sean de Guzman is actually quite good lending Carlo a degree of authenticity that makes him at least relatable. You feel like you’ve known someone like him before and while you might (rightfully) think he’s arrogant, you can’t help but want to be around him. He has an air of accomplishment that’s completely unwarranted and entirely fabricated, but is held aloft by De Guzman’s presence and conviction. He’s also a dexterous dancer, his limbs are flexible and malleable as the dubstep baselines he dances to. The best parts of the film are, without a doubt the dance numbers, which almost make you forget the suffocating melodrama surrounding them. It’s a shame that the rest of the cast doesn’t make the same impact or investment. Rosales tries his best, but there’s only so much he or anybody else could do with Angelo, he never once seems believable as an adrift 18-year-old. Only Primo (Marco Gomez) gets anything like character development and that’s only when he’s stoned out. What makes the film so completely disappointing is its hoary, shopworn take on the world of stripping. 

     There isn’t a cautionary tale trope that screenwriter Quinn Carillo doesn’t love, making sure to throw in as many as she can. I’m not saying that Mapanukso can’t be genuinely dramatic in-between the crotch-thrusting on-stage antics of the young men. It flirts with the idea of how someone like Carlo doesn’t quite fit into the real world but that’s quickly abandoned for another scene of someone doing something lurid. The strip show elements are intended to be background setting. Granted, it’s hard to call it erotic, because it isn’t that at all. Male strip shows aren’t about eroticism, it's about cheap thrills. Violent pelvic thrusts are common choreography and the whole thing seems so overtly sexual that it actually becomes inert. Don’t tell that to the women in the audience, however, because they’re all going crazy for it since this is one of the only outlets women traditionally have. And this brings up another point: this film is strictly for the ladies. The film may have been marketed heavily to gay men, which makes total sense because if there’s one thing gay men love, it’s a full basket and an ass so tight you could bounce coins off of it. However, there’s nothing gay about the film. There are no bromances to speak of, not a single man in the audience and the idea that the men may end up occasionally entertaining other men is never even approached. It’s a heteronormative fantasy and one of the ways the film feels distinctly unreal. Everything is geared to appeal to a traditional female demographic to the point of absurdity. If you wanted to see Mon Mendoza or Calvin Reyes shake their stuff, don’t bother. You would be better off checking out their shirtless photos online, after all the pictures have about as much depth as the characters they portrayed.


Screenplay: Quinn Carillo

Director of Photography: T.M. Malones

Editor: Kurt Jimenez

Production Design: Jay Custodio

Music: Dek Margaja

Sound Mix: Paulo Estero

Directed By: Jose Abdel B. Langit

BROAD STROKES (In Memory of Jaclyn Jose 1963-2024)

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     For writers Ricky Lee and Shaira Mella-Salvador, May Nagmamahal sa Iyo (Star Cinema Productions, Inc., 1996) seems like an occasion to tweak familiar formulas, as they exhibit a compulsive need to distance themselves from the story’s intrinsic sentimentality. For director Marilou Diaz-Abaya, it’s a chance to play up that same sentimentality, underscoring emotional moments with excessive bathetic flourishes. Working at cross purposes, these two sides make for a fractious movie whose internal conflicts mirror those experienced by its lead. Lorna Tolentino stars as Louella, a woman who gave up her son for adoption. Years later, still wrestling with that part of her past, she has become curious about her son's whereabouts. Louella confides in Nestor (Ariel Rivera), who offers to help, as she begins the journey of discovery. Louella shows the strain of life in her face. Carved in tense gaze is the need to find her son and the redemption he holds. The screenplay allows each to share their feelings and Abaya brings us close enough for us to feel the world in their skins. She is able to treat her subject evenhandedly without letting the film turn bland.  

     May Nagmamahal sa Iyo features a deeply felt and gripping performance from Tolentino and a supporting performance from Jaclyn Jose, equally brilliant as Edith, that reminds us just how wonderful this actress has been throughout her career. Just a momentary gaze is enough to convey what many actors spend whole hours in a film not conveying. Jose brings such believable anguish to her part of the story that May Nagmamahal sa Iyo almost survives its biggest problem, which is the impossibility of a viable ending. While the movie sets up the plot catering to our need for nice, neat, and orderly boxes, the story weaves in and out of them, upending our conventional views and presenting us with more questions that drive us further into the narrative. This perfectly mirror's Louella's frustration as she encounters roadblocks in her journey. In fact, this arc is the one most powerfully portrayed in the film by Tolentino as she vacillates the pain she feels. It is the driving force for her search, and the means by which she finds resolution. The fact that we all have weaknesses and identify in the struggles, hopes and journeys of others is more indicative of the need for such stories so that we might find the strength to rise up and pursue life's greater aims. These are the film's broad strokes, and they are all true. They will make you angry, and tear your heart to pieces. 


Sound Engineer: Ramon Reyes

Production Design: Merlito "Len" Santos, P.D.G.P.

Editor: Jess Navarro, F.E.U.P.

Musical Director: Nonong Buencamino

Screenplay: Ricky Lee, Shaira Mella-Salvador

Directed By: Marilou Diaz-Abaya

SEDUCTIVE AND DISQUIETING

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Roman Perez Jr.'s The Housemaid (Viva Films, 2021) takes place almost entirely within the enormous modern house of a very rich man and centers on the young woman he has hired as a nanny. It involves primarily William (Albert Martinez), his wife Roxanne (Louise delos Reyes), daughter Nami (Elia Ilano) and Martha (Jaclyn Jose), the woman who runs his household. That something disturbing will happen is a given. William is a man who expects all of his wishes to be met without question and in his hermetic household the introduction of the nanny Daisy (Kylie Verzosa) creates an imbalance. His wife, Roxanne, is pregnant with twinscontent to live in expensive idleness. Her focus is on these two latest acquisitions of her marriage. Things are not so smooth with head housekeeper Martha (a terrific Jaclyn Jose), who turns out to be a passive-aggressive catalyst of the melodrama that unfolds. She is no less bitter for understanding the rules of the economic game. Martha’s devil’s bargain ties her with Ester (Alma Moreno), her employer’s scheming mother-in-law. Daisy is efficient, submissive and very attractive. We learn little about her, except that she needs the job. Daisy is in awe of William, who comes home from his job as Master of the Universe and plays flawless classical piano while drinking rare vintages. Roxanne drifts through couture designs. Their daughter Nami is a mystery, much loved and cared for but not much needed. Daisy and Nami instinctively bond, because in this home they are the only two with affection to spend. We know it’s inevitable that William will attempt to seduce Daisy. And it surely is a seduction and coercion, even though she agrees and seems to appreciate it. Sex is a bad bargain if only one party is free to set the terms. Martha sees what is happening because she sees everything that happens. Eventually Daisy’s pregnancy becomes obvious.

  The ensuing drama has less to do with Roxanne’s feelings about the affair, it has  more to do with hurt and jealousy. Her discovery and the subsequent events are where the movie gleefully cuts into a streak of almost sociopathic selfishness that afflicts some segment of the upper class. But don't let Ester's poise fool you. She's capable of horrific action. Ester tries to dispose of Daisy by accidentally knocking her off a ladder on the second floor of the palatial house. Swinging from the designer chandelier, Daisy drops to the marble floor with little more than a concussion. The mansion is huge and vacuous but no less suffocating. Its vastness is also set in stark contrast to Daisy's tiny apartment, which again draws our attention to the issue of class and economics.Verzosa makes a stunning presence with her brittle beauty which renders her role’s scheming nature all the more chilling. But it is Jose who dominates in the most complex role, providing suspense and a moral compass via her struggles with her conscience and shifting allegiances. As the plot thickens, we’re not certain who holds the upper hand: the envious mother-daughter team of matrons or the league of bitter underlings. The conflict congeals solidly around the females. At some point it’s clear that William is no longer needed — as if he were merely a device to set the four-way cat fight in motion. Perez who pumped a maximum of sex and mayhem into his narrative drama turns the intensity down a notch for Daisy’s story, but maintains that quintessential flair for visually startling set pieces. In its class-warfare specifics and detached observation of the household power struggle, Perez creates a seductive and disquieting thriller in which overt violence is rare but ruthless manipulation and a callous lack of concern for people are commonplace.


Production Designer: Ericson Navarro

Editor: Chrisel Desuasido

Musical Scorer: Earl Francis de Veyra

Sound Design: Aian Louie Caro, Janinna Mikaela Minglanilla

Screenplay: Eric Ramos

Directed By; Roman S. Perez, Jr.


GASPING POWER

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Silence speaks volumes in Iti Mapukpukaw (Cinemalaya Foundation, Inc., Project 8 Projects, 2023) the latest film from Carl Joseph E. Papa. The writer/director uses rotoscope animation as a tool hovering in the grey area of Eric's (Carlo Aquino) psyche, the look on his face as he hunts in his Uncle Rogelio's (voiced by Joshua Cabiladas) home almost shrieks with the pressure of repressed emotions in which silence may no longer quite have the upper hand. Papa asks us to listen carefully to that silence in order to catch the emotional echoes that lie within it. Iti Mapukpukaw unfolds Eric's narrative while simultaneously grappling with truths nestled within the family domain. The performances keep the momentum going. Aquino is the moral core of the film, the restlessness and righteous anger reflecting as much in his languorous body language as on his face. His Eric is someone you feel deeply for, grappling with angst as well as the actions of those he loves. Aquino, tersely affecting as an already wary, lonely young man shedding his last vestiges of trust in family. The film’s first half-hour keeps our emotional investment at bay as we work out the precise geometry of the characters. But there is gasping power to its reveals and a searching sadness to the emerging family portrait. Yet the effectiveness of the films' climax rests on the precise discipline of Papa’s filmmaking — here heavier on long-shadowed atmosphere, but not indulgently so. The recurring motif of silence reverberates through the narrative, alluding to the pervasive and endemic issue of child abuse, explored covertly within the film's framework. Iti Mapukpukaw not only captures the non-verbal reactions through Eric and Carlo's (Gio Gahol) actions but also manifests a verbal stance from Eric's mother Rosalinda (Dolly de Leon), most expressive in its wonder. The director utilizes the family as a fundamental societal unit to delve into a long-concealed secret and scrutinize the prevailing culture of silence and complacency. 

     One of the primary advantages of using the rotoscope method is its ability to capture the performances of the actors and in Iti Mapukpukaw, this is extremely important as the high level of realism preserves the details of each actor’s expressions, body language and mannerisms. The gestures, the sound, the human expressions all seem real, but this reality is then re-interpreted artistically. It becomes a kind of moving painting. This style of animation allows us to see a different state of reality. The balance of traditional art forms with the hyper-lucid clarity of digital film is a critical component of the world building existing at the heart of the film’s narrative framework and it’s the validity that keeps audiences caring. The result is a visual feast for the senses. The animations are incredibly lifelike in an uncanny sort of way. The characters feel alive and their emotions quite real. Animated characters played by Aquino, Gahol and De Leon glow with pastel softness. The subject matter is all the better for the unusual style of filming. Iti Mapukpukaw is a fascinating film. One can’t help but be intrigued by its subject matter and visual aesthetics. It will make us think the way in which we watch a movie. Technologies can help in our human desire to express ourselves, to communicate and share experiences. That's why Iti Mapukpukaw is more than just an interesting moment in film technology. The technology has allowed this particular story - a story that probably wouldn't have worked in any other form to be told.


Written and Directed By: Carl Joseph E. Papa

Director of Photography: Jethro Jamon

Editor: Benjamin Tolentino

Music: Teresa Barrozo

Sound Design: Lamberto Casas Jr., Alex Tomboc

A HIGHWIRE ACT

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Luisito Lagdameo Ignacio's evocative Abenida (BG Productions International, 2023) is not afraid to ask questions about the nature of love and the boundaries of normal feelings. It’s a slow-moving and depressing film, that seems best for those with a taste for long pauses of silence. The acting duo of Allen Dizon and Katrina Halili create an atmosphere of tension and ambiguity. Abenida however, is not only a film about desire. Ignacio tells the story in a manner which suggests hidden meanings. Abe’s (Dizon) moral ambiguity is a fact of life. Everyone in the film is desperately lonely and unhappy. The surroundings intensify the gloomy mood. The community's claustrophobic houses are almost impossible to live in. This suffocating, threatening atmosphere ultimately gives birth to violence. The lives of his characters are banal and tedious, but at the same time intensely irrational. Abenida is a highwire act in maintaining dramatic momentum since the entire movie takes place from one man’s perspective. The film displays a rigorous control of mise-en-scène and mood, crafting something out of a character study of Dizon's docility. As Abe, his performance is central to Abenida's success. Dizon continues to be a powerful on screen presence, disguising layers of darkness beneath an affable exterior. There is something about him, particularly in his relationship with Aunt Siony (perfectly played by Gina Pareño). But beyond these feelings of unsettlement comes a deep sympathy for Abe who simply has nothing else to live for but his love for Nida (Halili).

     The sinister tone and most effective moment of cruelty occurs in a scene between Abe and Nida, where he reveals his monstrous nature with the truth. This is almost all that should be revealed so that the viewer can be left wondering where this story of strange obsession might lead. The transfer of guilt are embedded ambiguously with surrealist affinities in which the sense of lives connected by pain and desire is punctuated with poignancy. Ignacio and screenwriter Ralston Jover throw us headfirst into the narrative as we’re immediately forced to view everything exclusively from Abe's perspective. We witness our protagonist's enigmatic behavior from the outside and from within his own troubled, fractured consciousness. We see and hear more or less what he does and try to piece it together the best we can. The extent of Abe's obsession is itself extremely amusing but only flinging over the threshold in brief, manic spurts. Instead of laying out the premises explicitly, the film’s narration supplies them in tantalizing, equivocal doses. Ignacio follows the great tradition of distributed exposition, so that we get context only after seeing something that can cut many ways. By accreting details that cohere gradually, Abenida not only engages curiosity and suspense. Abe’s abasement leads his strenuous efforts melt into his surroundings. His wood carvings takes on a precise life. In its diffuse exposition, its teasing insert and gradually unfolding implications, Abenida also asks us to appreciate unresolved uncertainties. Ignacio leaves it for the audience to interpret. Having done a fine job of portraying the mundanities of everyday life, Ignacio doesn’t pause for long before revealing Abe's dark side, creating a tense atmosphere which remains consistent throughout.


Screenplay: Ralston Jover

Director of Photography: T.M. Malones

Editing & Sound: Gilbert Obispo

Production Design: Cyrus Khan

Music: Jake Abella

Directed By: Luisito Lagdameo Ignacio

CLEVER AND SOPHISTICATED

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Lawrence Fajardo's Kabit (Vivamax, Pelikulaw, 2024) demands that an audience ponder its many intellectualized, psychosexual, intertextual and subtextual meanings. At any moment, the film works on multiple levels, at the same time, its self-aware characters work out concurrent analyses of their ever-shifting roles, from Laura San Jose (Angela Morena), the actress who yields to her domineering director Harry dela Fuente's (Onyl Torres) every command. The film, set entirely in an empty theater, is pure Fajardo in that it contains themes of paranoia, power plays and tables turned throughout—qualities applicable to nearly all films to his name. It works as well as it does primarily due to the performances from Morena, whose transition from one stereotype to another is one of nearly imperceptible gradation and Victor Relosa, underplays James Dizon magnificently until the finale. Kabit is obvious in its goals, but the performances help us feel like we're discovering what we already know as we go. In Fajardo’s hands, the film holds the screen. In other words, Kabit is a life-imitating-art drama, one of those backstage stories in which the line separating actor and role constantly blurs. Here, the director navigates an enclosed space with cinematic flair, his dynamic camerawork assuring that the talky proceedings never feel especially stagy. 

     More than that, though, he makes the single setting a claustrophobic benefit instead of a liability: There is no escape for Laura, who’s in for a very thorough dressing-down. This is first and foremost a showcase for these actors to relish the opportunities in the production. Endlessly self-referencing, it's part of the point and the plot, this is a knowing story that steps in and out of the play within the play that is the film, it's clever and sophisticated as Fajardo often is although each character is exaggerated in ways best associated with compact stage production, Kabit can nonetheless be enjoyed for the superior performances on display. Relosa’s transition is most impressive, his severe politeness slowly erodes into the most vocal high-pitched hysterics. Morena, may seem demure at first, but slowly transforms into a reactionary capable of lashing out. Josef Elizalde, an underrated performer, perfectly blends his comedic and dramatic styles here as stage actor Andrew Vega. Torres' performance is the most fascinating, giving Harry a gamut of emotions within a limited time frame. And yet the casting pushes the fantasy in our faces, much as James pushes himself on Laura. Without missing a beat, it enters a theater and remains there, à huis clos, through the grotesque conclusion. An expertly staged and edited chamber piece, it is the filmmaking that delights and not the reveal that Laura will oblige if only to prove that the desire belongs to James rather than her insatiable quest for revenge. With his prestigious ensemble that seems tailored to their roles, Fajardo’s craft allows them to flourish.


Sound: Pietro Marco Javier

Musical Director: Peter Legaste, Joaquin Santos

Editor: Lawrence Fajardo

Production Design: Ian Traifalgar

Director of Photography: Rap Ramirez

Screenplay: John Bedia

Direction: Lawrence Fajardo


TACTILE AND RELENTLESS

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Gerardo de Leon's films are often about people confronting certain despair. His subject is how they try to prevail in the face of unbearable circumstances. His plots are not about whether they succeed, but how they endure. He tells these stories in an unadorned style with elevated tension. De Leon's work holds many people in a hypnotic grip. They demonstrate how many films contain only diversions for the eyes and mind and use only the superficial qualities of their characters. Consider 48 Oras (Premiere Productions, Inc., 1950) and its close scrutiny of salient details. In De Leon's films there are no fancy zooms or other shots that call attention. He uses the basic vocabulary of long, medium, close and insert shots to tell what needs to be told about in every scene, no shock cutaways. He defies expectations of action cinema by focusing on Carding's (Rogelio de la Rosa) patience and perseverance by magnifying every detail with insistent close-ups. It's a drama where the slightest gesture carries the weight of a confession. In such austerity the tiniest of details take on a monumental significance. This is perhaps Filipino cinema in its purest form, freed from unnecessary accouterments and embellishments and the result is absolutely riveting. The audience is completely glued to Carding's every move. De Leon eliminates the artificiality of performance to get the essence of action by removing the focus from De La Rosa’s face, allowing the viewer to concentrate on film form and the represented action rather than the actor’s interpretation of it. We watch De La Rosa in the film with no extratextual associations or assumptions about his persona as we might associate certain characteristics with actors like Leopoldo Salcedo or Jose Padilla, Jr. We know only what we see, captured in De Leon’s medium shots that focus on action, avoiding close-ups that depend on the actor to emote. Rather, his close-ups serve to give us visual detail.

     Carding's escape is so focused, so deeply driven by a desire for freedom. Ding M. de Jesus' screenplay from a story by Cesar Gallardo is lean and efficient, scraping away any artifice or pretense. Audiences have seen similar stories countless times, especially in the years following the Second World War. Prison breaks supply a necessary catharsis, whether they reflect our spirit of rebellion in particularly restrictive times, create heroic wartime fantasies about soldiers thwarting their captors or simply capture the pleasure of process. De Leon takes a different approach with 48 Oras; he minimizes the dramatic embellishments and usual sprawling cast of characters found in a prison break film, simmering the filmmaking and narrative into a fine reduction. His focus on action reflects his view that our behaviors echo our inner selves and he points the cinematic apparatus in that direction. 48 Oras builds toward its austerity, its unity of form and function. While other filmmakers make compromises to studio demands or at the insistence of their artistic collaborators, De Leon was the truest of auteurs who left nothing to chance. His style puts action first, laying it out with a shot-for-shot logic that gives greater understanding to the advancement of a task. He shoots the action in 48 Oras without affectation. Each shot is edited to emphasize an individual action and build to the next, making every cut a logical progression and the shot duration calibrated to support the action. Nothing deviates or provides an aside. 48 Oras is devoid of unnecessary subplots or randomness; its focus is a forward narrative thrust, an unshakable momentum toward the protagonist’s desired outcome. Even in two-shot conversations between Carding and Melchor (Enrico Pimentel), the scene’s function is not character development or establishing atmosphere just as the camera’s objectivity keeps a measured distance to portray the action with clarity, the action reflects on Carding himself—single-minded and focused on his goal. The final confrontation between Carding and Andres (Oscar Keesee) is a masterful display of tension and deliberate action. De Leon lets his audience believe that a man who can endure pain and hardship deserves liberation. He doesn’t think and act like his counterparts. His basic need to implant conflict in the narrative comes from the will to showcase the burden that man needs to carry through. De Leon's plots don’t succumb to theatrics. Moreover, his aim remains tactile and relentless.


Art Director: Jose de los Reyes

Film Editor: Eugenio B. Acantilado

Story By: Cesar Gallardo

Screenplay By: Ding M. de Jesus

Photography By: Tommy Marcelino

Sound Engineer: Demetrio de Santos

Musical Director: Ariston Avelino

Directed By: Gerardo de Leon


THE PERFECT COMBINATION

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Documentaries often do one of two things: they open your eyes to a topic or story you might have had no knowledge about or they add to the knowledge you already have. But good documentaries are valuable to both kinds of viewers, giving the audience a deeper understanding of their subjects. The Probe Team did just that with its recent documentary Seksi Pantasya at Pelikula (Vivamax, Probe Archives Documentary, 2024). Vivamax is a subscription service website, where people can pay to access movies on a monthly paid subscription account, in addition, they also have pay-per-view content. The popularity of the subscription site has soared in recent years. Amid a yearlong pandemic and record unemployment rates, Vivamax exploded into the private lives of Filipinos providing a place for actors and filmmakers to let loose and indulge in creating and engaging in adult content. While businesses around the country struggled, Vivamax saw a massive surge aided in part by celebrities helping legitimize the platform. I already knew a lot about Vivamax because of its large presence on social media, but this documentary is a good start for those who know nothing and want a quick, concise introduction to the divisive world of Vivamax. This film treats its subjects like people — which is the bare minimum — but still rare for documentaries on this subject matter. 

     The documentary also shows the creators in control of their own work. Seksi Pantasya at Pelikula takes a different approach to telling the story, introducing you to the featured actors and filmmakers before diving in to a thought-provoking conversation of the forces that led to the rise of a platform like Vivamax and a conversation about it’s potential staying power. Seksi Pantasya at Pelikula features appearances from actors Alma Moreno, Katya Santos, Maui Taylor, Jay Manalo, Angeli Khang, AJ Raval, and Sean de Guzman. In addition, the documentary also includes commentaries from directors Celso Ad Castillo, Jose Javier Reyes, Erik Matti, Roman Perez, Jr. and Professor Rolando Tolentino who will unpack the ways in which Vivamax may be changing Philippine cinema for both good and bad - forever. You don’t leave Seksi Pantasya at Pelikula with a desire to subscribe nor does it make the platform look particularly attractive from the consuming end. What it succeeds at is sparking an open conversation about sexy movies, removing the stigma from the narrative and examining it like any other type of Filipino film. It covers a lot of ground in under 50-minutes, from conversations about body image and even ways to find a connection on the other end of a screen. For a generation fixated on fame and sex positivity, Vivamax offers the perfect combination.


Writers: January Acosta, Michael Rolluque

Edit Supervisor: Dessa Jimenez

Editors: Charles de los Santos,CJ Bibon, Gio Gonzalves

Master Editor: Leo Cruz

Musical Scoring: Paulo Almaden

Researcher: Searle Lira


SOPHISTICATED, COMPLEX

Posted by Jojo Devera ,

     

     There are two lines of thought that dominate any discussion of what makes a movie scary: either it is a great deal of subtlety and implication that allows the viewer to imagine all sorts of terrible things just out of sight or it is being explicit in the most hideous, disconcerting way possible. It is the difference between a creepy ghost story and a bloody slasher flick; I think it's not an undue generalization to suggest that the side any given person comes down on is going to be reflected in their age. Strip away all of its frightening elements, Patayin Mo sa Sindak si Barbara (Rosas Productions, 1974) remains a sophisticated, complex and tremendously subtle character study. Director Celso Ad. Castillo knows to trust his actors to sell the material, starting with Susan Roces who gives a spectacular performance both thrilling and heartbreaking. Emotions are manifested in camera movement, as when Barbara (Roces) and Fritz (Dante Rivero) suspect something horrifying going on inside Karen's (Beth Manlongat) bedroom. Castillo gets a scare from shifting the light-source to cast face-shaped shadows on mirrors. Patayin Mo sa Sindak si Barbara is yet another film ill-served by pan and scan television prints. Castillo brilliantly uses widescreen to strand his characters in odd-shaped rooms or corridors, making the watcher's eye skitter frantically over the screen to catch every ingeniously rendered detail. Rivero's Fritz is self-assured and a little smug. Rosanna Ortiz is especially good at revealing the stubborn strengths that lie within Ruth and makes her, in the end a danger both to Barbara and daughter Karen.

     The real crux of Patayin Mo sa Sindak si Barbara isn’t so much Ruth's hauntings – although these are among the most effective ever committed to film – but the unravelling of her relationship with Barbara. For every action in the film there is a justifiable excuse. Even upon the film’s conclusion, no formulaic reason is given — only suggestions. Patayin Mo sa Sindak si Barbara is fifty years old and it persists to be as effective and scary as any rendition of the same concept. With its stark compositions, sudden camera movements and odd perspectives, Castillo’s film owes much to Master Filmmaker Gerardo de Leon and the restoration work shows this debt off beautifully. There’s a touch of inadvertent grain only very infrequently, but for the lenses that Castillo used and the associated occasional softness of the focusing, everything looks wonderfully sharp, really bringing out the mood of the movie. There are some vertical lines that occasionally pop up. Tiny flecks can be spotted as well. Detail and image depth however, are very pleasing. Generally speaking, contrast levels also remain stable throughout the film. It’s probably beneficial that the audio has been left in the original mono. Any attempt to improve it would surely have ruined the effect. Once free of the overused internal monologues, Castillo dedicates the rest of the movie to establishing genuine fear that's punctuated with carefully timed shocks. Pretty soon, you've forgotten about the slow start and have entered a startling film that still retains effective tension. You might not have a lot of answers by the end but you'll find various scenes stay with you long after the movie is over.


Directed By: Celso Ad. Castillo

Film Editor: Augusto Salvador

Sound Supervision: Angel P. Avellana, Jun Ella

Director of Photography: Ricardo Remias, F.S.C.

Screenplay By; Mike Relon Makiling

Music By: Ernani Cuenco


RESPONSIBILITY AND REVENGE

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Human suffering is an interesting subject for cinema, since it possesses a relative ease in connecting with viewers and evoking emotions. Brillante Ma Mendoza's Apag (Heaven Pictures Hong Kong, Center Stage Productions, 2023) succeeds in emphasizing the events of a hit-and-run accident. From this point on, Mendoza spotlights Nita's (Gladys Reyes) pain and Rafael's (Coco Martin) simmering remorse. His natural softness, so often exploited in decent-menfolk roles, here throws off an air of hesitation and vague moral fidgeting that suggests he could go either way. Yet it’s so manipulated that the dramatics come in for some rather mawkish moments and cries of disbelief. Apag clearly wants to make a stark, profound statement about guilt and fury, responsibility and revenge. The tragedy deeply shakes up Rafael and his father, the contrite Alfredo (Lito Lapid) who somehow gains our sympathy despite there being no excuse for leaving the scene of the accident as he not only learns how to become a better father by turning himself into the police to face the law. Jaclyn Jose plays Elise, Alfredo's reasonable wife and Rafael's mother who has painful issues of her own. But the movie is about Rafael and Nita's parallel but opposite emotional arcs, which it hopes to elaborate through a transference of audience sympathies. As guilt devours Rafael from within, Nita is groping for a way to do right by her husband. This will require a certain sheen of ersatz sophistication. Reyes works in reverse. She's a tough actor with a spiny self-possession that cracks under the weight of Nita's loss. 

    At first, the tragedy plays out with honest and difficult scenes of her family's coping. And Reyes is a broken woman, an actress who grows vulnerable the more we see her. She's human frailty personified. But the film shoves her through a wholesale personality change that stretches credibility or rips it to shreds. Grief eats her. And Mendoza shows a sharp eye for the shading that defines Nita's character. Apag only slowly reveals its real subject in a story that looks more deeply than we could have guessed into the lives of its characters and has a shocking reversal at the end. Apag involves love and some thriller elements, but it is not about those things. It is about people trapped in opposition that one of them must break. Apag finds in the hovering silences between words a depth of sorrow and stifled fury that few films have ever conveyed. Mendoza understands that the essence of violence has little to do with fireballs and the splatter of exploding bodies. It can accumulate over time and can be discerned in people's clenched, drawn faces and choked-back words. Time passes but doesn’t heal wounds; revenge, or at least the thought of it, does. Apag sustains an awful sense of foreboding and dread of the inevitable. Its final disquieting message suggests that the most perfect revenge can be far from sweet, that our darkest passions after discharging themselves may still never fully subside.


Director: Brillante Ma Mendoza

Screenplay: Arianna Martinez

Director of Photography: Rap Ramirez

Production Designer: Dante Mendoza

Editor: Ysabelle Denoga

Musical Score: Jake Abella

Sound: Albert Michael Idioma


JUDICIOUSLY EROTIC

Posted by Jojo Devera ,

     In the wrong hands, Palipat-Lipat Papalit Palit (Viva Films, 2024), Roman S. Perez Jr.'s story of obsession and jealousy could have easily been turned into a tawdry film. Perez avoids this thanks to his use of highly stylized framing. Love scenes are rendered in fragments with each frame carefully composed. Palipat-Lipat Papalit-Palit is steeped in intense, complex interpersonal relationships. It's packed running time offers a catalogue of infatuation, adultery and death, all packaged in imagery so exquisitely staid that the film continually resists classification as mere sensationalist sexploitation – or any classification at all. Here, the film’s seductive surface hides turbulent depths, while at the helm is a woman of questionable reliability. Palipat-Lipat Papalit-Palit is an aesthete’s wet dream – but at the same time there is a tangible tension between its sedate form and its more shocking content, perfectly embodied by Denise Esteban's performance as Edna, whose modesty and grace seem constantly on the point of erupting into a frenzied hysteria. Victor Relosa is a very interesting, vivid actor. Here, he's suitably intense as Larry, but to such little effect. The film plays like a shrill melodrama, but it's also a mystery, with the relationship between Larry, Edna's husband and Amy (Aiko Garcia) depicting the wellspring of desire and destruction. 

     The first half of the film gradually builds the relationship between Larry and Amy. But we soon learn that she may not be quite as innocent as we thought. Larry's obsession with Amy leads him to defy Edna. And when she learns of – and confronts Larry about his affair, he’s unrepentant. But things are complicated even more when Amy falls under Larry’s thrall. They carry on a passionate affair, much to Edna's dismay. There’s a growing abandonment of common sense among the lovers and the instinct for self-preservation becomes consumed by their desires leading to a grim conclusion. The whole point of the exercise is to show how powerful these desires are and that the characters have become enslaved by their unchecked appetites. There’s a thought-provoking secret that transfixes the obsessions of the characters in a way it has seldom been done before on film. Palipat-Lipat Papalit Palit is the kind of movie in which ordinary rational thought processes are cast aside and passions are allowed to reign supreme. It speaks of a love story compromised by deceits, doubts and jealousies. It's judiciously erotic and an unexpectedly potent slice of Filipino cinema.


Sound Design: Lamberto Casas Jr., Alex Tomboc

Music: Dek Margaja

Editor: Aaron Alegre

Production Designer: Junebert Cantila

Director of Photography: Rommel Andreo C. Sales

Screenplay: Ronald Batallones

Directed by: Roman Perez Jr.

PAINFUL AND INTIMATE

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Filmmaker Joselito Altarejos, whose artistry has not been channelled toward making a new movie for quite a while, is instead turning back to tinker with his earlier film. He went back and reworked Pamilya sa Dilim changing the order of several sequences and giving it a bold, new title. Guardia de Honor (ADCC Productions, 2076 Kolektib, 2024) better calibrates our expectations for a mournful, elegiac film. The story is identical; so, for that matter, are its emphases. There’s a carefully parsed opulence to Altarejos' direction. Most of the new edits are a matter of pruning, coming into scenes later and getting out of them earlier to provide a momentum. The film’s tautly controlled turbulence guides the eye to salient details, its clarified lines of dramatic tension calmly burst into images of an explosive yet nearly static intensity. Instead, Altarejos has made cuts that make the lengthy film and its sprawling narratives a bit more concise. The difference isn’t in style; it’s that the movie’s theological passion is inseparable from another aspect of the film, one that’s too painful and intimate to discuss in detail. Is redemption hopeless for the Medialdeas?
     
     The biggest structural change Altarejos has made to the movie concerns Mamang Anita (Laurice Guillen) as she recalls how her husband met his tragic fate. This scene used to happen midway into the film, but moving it near the end liberates Mamang Anita from the sludge of her memories. That framing lends Mamang Anita an instant desperation that endows her with a clear purpose that’s powerful enough to persevere against the change that swirl around it. Maybe adjusted expectations are the key to appreciating Guardia de Honor. Altarejos has remade it to fold himself back into the very substance of the film. The changes he has made are interesting and I am glad that he got the chance to make them and bring the film closer to what he originally intended, although I am not sure they have a significant effect on the overall experience of the film. The amazingly striking black and white cinematography adds to the visuals in numerous key scenes. That said, Guardia de Honor gathers force as it goes along. It’s a movie that can sweep you up if you let it.


Production Designer: Jay Custodio

Musical Scorer: Von de Guzman

Sound Engineer: Andrew Milallos

Editor: Joselito Attarejos

Director of Photography: Manuel T. Garcellano

Written and Directed By: Joselito Altarejos

DRAMATIC AND COMPELLING

Posted by Jojo Devera ,

 

     Not many films would start with such a bold beginning, but Adolfo Borinaga Alix, Jr. sets the tone of Kontrabida (Godfather Productions, Ovation Productions, 2022) with such a striking opening shot that it causes a ripple effect which stays with its viewer. The moment is blunt and unusual; it flies in the face of conventional storytelling. It’s the kind of story that could only come from the perspective of a filmmaker like Alix. With frequent collaborator Jerry B. Gracio, he would employ familiar faces and places into the narrative. Kontrabida touches a raw nerve but that’s what makes it such a fascinating watch – to see these characters operate within this story and not so far removed from reality. Nora Aunor’s Anita Rosales is one of her great screen performances. It’s such a difficult part to play because she could have easily tripped into parody. Aunor has such control over every inflection of her voice, every wave of her arm and movement of her fingers. She can be charming one minute and dangerous the next. Her expressions are broad and dramatic, the use of her face proves that. Aunor holds Anita together until the very end when her fantasies take over. It’s a performance for the ages and should be studied in its precision despite how outlandish it may appear. The result is a sympathetic character that is also one of the best villains of all-time. It strips away the lines between fiction and reality in a way that’s both dramatic and compelling. 

     Another way in which Kontrabida's outlandish point of view is controlled is in its canny composition. Alix from his initial shots crafts a film that is visually intriguing. There is tension created by the characters' placement and movement in the frames, the cluttered mise-en-scène and the play of light and shadow. Though the transitions are not generally disarming, many of the shots are enticing. There are continual metaphors of dominance in the composition. If the effective visual composition of Kontrabida helps shift us away from our disbelief, so do the lines and situations of Gracio's screenplay. The dialogue is expressive and incisively clever. He gives Aunor some sure-fire lines with which to emote. Suspension of disbelief is a tricky concept; it is in the mind of the beholder and depends on many factors. There will always be those who affirm it and those who dismiss it; but a work stands or falls on how it is able to allow a portion of its audience to be comfortable with its vision and its trappings. Bembol Roco, as Anita's ex-husband Ramon delivers with excellent restraint. Only two other cast members have a chance at more than a few lines but they come over with a wallop. Jaclyn Jose is splendid as Anita's devoted fan Dolly and Julia Clarete plays Chie with complete assurance. Not to be forgotten is how sad and quietly heartbreaking Aunor is. Without saying anything explicitly, she perfectly portrays the tragedy inherent in Anita’s story.


Direction: Adolfo Borinaga Alix, Jr.

Written By; Jerry B. Gracio

Director of Photography: Odyssey Flores

Editing: Aleksandr Castañeda

Production Design: Bobet Lopez

Music: Mikoy Morales

Sound Design: Immanuel Verona


REALISTIC YET CHARMING

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     To characterize Monday First Screening (Net 25 Films, Lonewolf Films, 2023) as just another product of the rom-com assembly line is to ignore the depth of feeling Gina Alajar and Ricky Davao bring to their performances. It is also to neglect the wisdom of writer-director Benedict Mique’s screenplay co-written with Aya Anunciacion, the eloquent portrait it develops of aging alone and the ways Mique illustrates the profound comfort of finding someone when all hope for doing so seems lost. He consistently frames the characters in a fashion that places them at odds with their surroundings. Lydia (Alajar) and Bobby's (Davao) awkward pick-up scene isn’t pathetic, it’s funny and terse, crackling with the sound of defense mechanisms slowly being lowered. Monday First Screening is a comedy with no big surprises, but in the age of Internet dating, the prospect of two strangers trying valiantly to connect in public carries a dash of romantic heroism. Alajar as accomplished an actress as any we have brings the hesitant, formal demeanor of a person resigned to a life of loneliness. Davao, an expert at using his body language to imbue mundane moments with significance, makes the most of his director’s generosity in a performance rife with masterful understatement. The pair might not have much to do other than to play off each other but Alajar and Davao make a fun couple. They aren’t going to set the world on fire with their passion, but we can see why they would enjoy spending time together. 

     Even when Mique asks them to perform doubtful bits of comedy, they pull it off with professional nonchalance that is fun to watch. The chemistry between Alajar and Davao is as uncanny as it is convincing. On the surface Alajar has, what might for many actresses be, a thankless role as the love interest. Instead she pulls the character in from the wings to take her rightful place, center stage. With superb supporting performances courtesy of Soliman Cruz and Ruby Ruiz, Monday First Screening is real cinema for grown-ups. Observing the trajectory of the central relationship is an experience as uplifting and powerful as any to be had at the movies. Monday First Screening is the kind of film that probably wouldn't get much attention if it were released at any other time. An unambitious romance aimed at grown-ups, it deserves the handful of champions it will find. It's a small movie of simple pleasures that's easily forgotten when it's over. Monday First Screening is your basic romantic nugget sweetened by its cast. The plot gives us little more than basic romcom primer before throwing these two together. Included, of course, are a meet-cute, misunderstandings and a happy ending with lessons leaned about love and life. Finally, a romantic drama worth investing in, Monday First Screening is a realistic yet charming film. If you think you've seen it already, stop. We may have seen mature romantic drama wannabes but this is the real deal.


Sound Engineer: Armand de Guzman

Musical Director: Isha Abubakar

Film Editor: Noah Tonga

Production Designer: Eric Torralba

Director of Photography: Owen Berico

Screenplay: Aya Anunciacion, Benedict Mique

Directed By: Benedict Mique

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