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


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