GRANDLY MELODRAMATIC


     There was a time when most people didn’t know men sold sex and didn’t want to know. Now the cruising underworld is the stuff of movies and fashion ads that are easy to decode. Writer-director Petersen Vargas' Some Nights I Feel Like Walking (Daluyong Studios, Origin8 Media, Giraffe Pictures, TEN17P, Black Cap Productions, Momo Film Co., Volos Films Italia, 2024) dramatizes the lifestyle where the audience gets to meet the locals while keeping a safe distance. That’s because the hustling world is sentimentalized here, filtered through a lens of romanticism. Although the central characters are prostitutes, the movie is not really about sex. Vargas does a good job of capturing the unsprung rhythm of the street. Some Nights I Feel Like Walking offers a gritty, darkly comical peek inside the lives of these young men as they try to hustle their way off the streets. While the films' overall portrayal of the hustler milieu mixes surface realism with an undercurrent of romanticization, the tale’s early parts are winningly spiced with humorous moments. Things grow gloomy as circumstances begin to close in on Uno (Jomari Angeles) and Zion (Miguel Odron) and the latter sections lack the spark of what came before, largely because the story’s tragic arc plays out what the viewer has already learned. Still, the central figures remain compelling throughout, due to two exceptionally strong and well-meshed performances. Newcomer Odron brings a sweetness and skittish vulnerability to Zion. He holds our sympathies even at his most petulant. As for Angeles, it’s remarkable to note that this is one of his most confident performances, who commands attention with his charismatic yet subtle and searching incarnation of a strong-willed loner undone by his life’s contradictions. The performance is both appealing and authoritative, Uno doesn't expect much out of life and his low expectations aren't disappointed. 

     Vargas' adroit work with his cast is matched by an assured visual sense and Some Nights I Feel Like Walking benefits enormously from the richly textured images that cinematographer Russell Adam Morton achieved on a low-budget, location-heavy shoot. As much as Vargas wanted to heighten the utopian thrill of Uno's circle and the environment in which they’re free to be themselves, there is also enough of a reservoir of restraint to keep things solidly clad in social realism. While Vargas' film lacks depth and well-paced narrative, Some Nights I Feel Like Walking does offer characters whose only salvation is a world in which trust and tolerance are absent. In trying to run away from the trappings of a tragic queer story, the movie ends up running right into some of its own tropes. Zion is shown to be rather isolated, very much in his own head and keeping others – as well as the audience – at bay. When he’s left alone, he is at his most vulnerable, sometimes crying but we’re not entirely sure why. What Zion wants is love and by love what he really means is someone to hold him and care for him. They have fallen into a lifestyle that offers them up during every waking moment for any passing stranger. Minor appearances by solid performers such as Argel Saycon as Bayani, Tommy Alejandrino who plays Rush and Gold Aceron’s Miguel round out the film. With varying effectiveness, Some Nights I Feel Like Walking chronicles changes to individuals who wander the streets of Manila. In the end, however, the film gets caught up in trying to tell a grandly melodramatic tale, when a simple, down-to-earth story of broken dreams and lonely characters would have been more engrossing. Too often, the naturally-effective elements of Some Nights I Feel Like Walking are swamped by the forced, scripted ones that curtails the movie's power and appeal.


Music: Alyana Cabral, Moe Cabral

Sound Design: Eddie Huang (Nien Yung)

Editor: Daniel Hui

Production Designer: Remton Siega Zuasola

Director of Photography: Russell Adam Morton

Written and Directed By: Petersen Vargas 

BETWEEN REALITY AND NIGHTMARES


     It’s a testament to director Chito S. Roño’s Ang mga Kaibigan ni Mama Susan (Regal Entertainment, Inc., Black Sheep, CSR Films.Ph, 2023) that it manages to incorporate so many of the visual and storytelling elements from lesser movies to create something compelling. Roño has executed the most effective, most rewarding horror film by exploring a demanding scenario that is all the scarier because he has constructed a dramatically tense situation to draw our emotional involvement. What’s more, the experience is grueling because the imposing imagery employed is truly the stuff of nightmares. There’s an emotional cause behind every horrible turn. Joshua Garcia plays Galo Manansala with amazing intensity—the kind that makes you wonder how the filmmakers incited the volatile performance, making his character's state so believable. Garcia’s slow transformation leaves room for Bob Ong’s screenplay to find new ways of highlighting Galo’s uneasiness to relinquish the past. Most viewers, if they’re honest with themselves, will probably hate Mama Susan (Angie Ferro) and they’ll be uncomfortable with the extent of their hatred and what that says about their capacity for empathy. This discomfort is conditioned by the shrill soundtrack dreading Mama Susan’s whimpering or all-around act of invasion. Roño's treatment is masterful in how he uses our imaginations to build up Mama Susan's "friends" and delivers them in expert cinematic reality. 

     Moreover, he creates a highly stylized mise-en-scène constructed as a contained environment from which Galo, Niko (Yñigo Delen) and Jezel (Jewel Milag) are exposed to a frightening blend of psychological and real horror. Equally vital are cinematographer Eli Balce’s shadowy interiors, as well as Roño’s enveloping sense of mood and attention to detail. Every piece of furniture has a deliberate placement, best of all, the treatment avoids strict adherence to genre rules; he refuses to make this a typical supernatural yarn and instead uses his supporting cast—Aling Delia, played by Vangie Labalan and church caretaker Mang Narcing (Soliman Cruz), to deepen his central characters. Ang mga Kaibigan ni Mama Susan takes great care to sharpen the details in Galo’s life so that when trouble comes along, it magnifies his anxiety. Perhaps the only elements that compare to Roño’s approach are Ferro and Garcia’s performances, especially the latter, since the young actor fully commits to his role with a mercurial presence, sending us further into the story. But it’s how Roño balances the film’s unnerving quality, genuine scares and its deep-rooted psychological impetus that leave us in full awe of how well Ang mga Kaibigan ni Mama Susan has been assembled and how it walks the fine line between reality and nightmares with skilled footing. The unexpected ending finds a rare emotional realism in what could have been a run-of-the-mill creepshow.


Directed By: Chito S. Roño

Screenplay: Bob Ong

Director of Photography: Eli Balce

Production Design: Jerann Ordinario

Editing: Carlo Francisco Manatad

Music: Andrew Florentino

Sound Design: Albert Michael Idioma, Jannina Mikaela Minglanilla