SARI-SARING SINENG PINOY

     It's often the case that films we loved in our childhood don't hold up half as well when viewed again as an adult. Likewise it's very common to rediscover a film we hated in our teenage years only to find that we were completely wrong and that said pariah is actually a masterpiece. Bira! Darna Bira! (MBM Productions, 1979) is a more complicated example of this prolonged change of heart. Dodgy special effects, hammy acting, a nonsensical plot, the film reveals itself for what it really is, one of the most deliberately and thrillingly silly films ever to grace the screen. There is also some enjoyment to be derived from the fact that the film is helmed by the same man who made Ibong Lukaret (1975) and Ibilanggo si Neneng Magtanggol (1977). And for all the film's technical shortcomings, Tito Sanchez does direct very well. His compositions are good, the stunts and fights are well-choreographed, the characterization is memorable and most importantly, he captures the spirit of the original comics. The reason that Bira! Darna Bira! works so well, both as a comic adaptation and a film in general is that it is aware of the limitations of both its source material and the level of spectacle its budget allows. The film updates the characters a little, but otherwise the story plays out in exactly the same romping style of the original story.

     If we attempt to take Bira! Darna Bira! seriously, watching it as a proper superhero movie looking for deeper meanings in its talkier scenes, we'd last about five minutes before either bursting out laughing or giving up. The plot is totally ludicrous, requiring us to accept a load of unbelievable coincidences. By getting knowing laughs, Bira! Darna Bira! is a triumph or at least as close to one as we could expect. The fact that we laugh at it so lovingly is no accident, Sanchez manages to tap into the inherent silliness of the plot. It would be very easy to view Bira! Darna Bira! with disdain or contempt. Just as the film is directed with wit and intelligence while retaining a sense of humor and above all it's virtually faultless as a slice of pure entertainment. For all its faults and there are many, Bira! Darna Bira! is a triumph of both the sublime and the ridiculous. It's incredibly silly from start to finish and you just won't care.

     The art of a movie like Madrasta (Star Cinema Productions, Inc., 1996) is to conceal the obvious. When the levers and the pulleys of the plot are concealed by good writing and acting, we get great entertainment like Minsan, Minahal Kita (2000). When they're fairly well masked, we get sincere films like Hanggang Kailan Kita Mamahalin (1997). When every prop and device is displayed, we get Madrasta. The movie is really about Sharon Cuneta’s Mariel. Zsa Zsa Padilla is absent for much of the first half, until she turns up to see her grown-up children. Cuneta can create characters of astonishing conviction (Diane in Minsan, Minahal Kita). Here she has to be the voice of reason for the entire movie. There’s not a rest period where she just gets to be this woman. Every scene has a purpose, we're reminded of the value of those brief, quiet scenes in which directors like Lino Brocka take a beat and let us see the characters simply being. Madrasta has a certain tact. It wants us to cry, but it doesn't hold a gun on us and enforce its emotions with sentimental terrorism. Cuneta is immensely likable and Christopher de Leon seems caring and reasonable. We would have enjoyed spending time with them, if they'd been able to pull themselves away from the plot.

     I did some direct comparisons with my DVD and the improvements in terms of detail, clarity, depth and fluidity are quite remarkable. In fact, I believe that even on mid-size monitors the difference in quality can be striking because there are shadow nuances, fine details and highlights that are not present on the DVD release. The film's precise color scheme is also a lot more effective because saturation levels are improved and there's an entire range of new and expanded nuances. Some minor density fluctuations remain, but they are not introduced by questionable digital adjustments. I specifically want to mention that some are part of the original cinematography, while a few are inherited from the elements that were accessed during the restoration process. It is easy to tell that the audio has been remastered because stability and balance are outstanding. The score by Willy Cruz opens an extra dose of ambient flavor to the desired atmosphere. The dialog is clean, stable and easy to follow. Even after taking into consideration the film's many missteps, Madrasta still remains a worthwhile and honest drama that is able to portray the many dilemmas a family often must go through. While a few moments seemed to strain for melodrama, they were able to look like prime examples of unstrained subtlety.

Production Design: Jayjay Medina, PDGP

Sound Engineer: Arnold Reodica

Musical Director: Willy Cruz

Supervising Editor: Edgardo Vinarao, FEGMP

Film Editor: David G. Hukom, FEGMP

Director of Photography: Joe Batac, FSC

Screenplay: Ricardo Lee, Olivia Lamasan

Directed By: Olivia M. Lamasan

     Particularly in its early scenes, Director Jun Lana's Bakit Lahat ng Gwapo may Boyfriend?! (Viva Films, IdeaFirst Company, 2016) is extraordinarily funny. The film builds on theatrical direct-address conventions to the point of comic absurdity. Films with direct-to-camera narration, featuring characters who address viewers as if they are part of their universe, are rare for a good reason. Audiences immediately pay attention when they are directly spoken to, but there are downsides to having characters break the fourth wall. These moments draw attention to storytelling contrivances and shatter the window-to-another-world illusion that most filmmakers work hard to create. Kylie (Anne Curtis) has no qualms about turning to the camera and sharing a joke with the audience. She's a true flirt. Kylie bitches with a skill for camp comebacks. Curtis oozes irresistible warmth and humor that literally shape up the film's identity. Her witty remarks are always delivered on time with facial expressions that never feel forced. More importantly, a lot of the risky material becomes harmless precisely because of her perfect management of the funny and the truth. Dennis Trillo is excellent as Diego, the young and sensitive guy who is determined not to wear masks but routinely has to make compromises. Paolo Ballesteros' Benj is the only one who appears slightly out of sync, but his scenes with Curtis are nevertheless quite entertaining. Bakit Lahat ng Gwapo may Boyfriend?! could have been a seriously obnoxious farce full of clichés, fortunately, the film hits all of its targets with such precision, honesty and terrific sense of humor making it an absolute delight to watch.

     The movie's 1080p transfer is gorgeous. It's inherently soft, but details are refined within the image's constraints and context. Skin showcases an array of complexities with ease. Brick, stone and concrete architecture, and accents are home to a wide array of tactile, intimate textures. Heavy suit fabrics or more delicate garments are finely revealing. Colors lack vibrance, but they're exquisitely reproduced within the movie's intended appearance. Nothing particularly pops, but brighter accents stand apart and consistency reigns throughout. Black levels hold firm and reveal positive shadow detail. Skin tones appear accurate, only pushing warm when lighting demands. Compression artifacts and film flaws are few and far between. Soundtrack isn't action-movie engaging but it's well designed and executed. Music is thoroughly rich and detailed with positive instrumental definition, wide front stage spacing. The track carries a wide assortment of complimentary ambient effects throughout, often submerging the listener into the movie's setting. Bustle on the streets, background music and chatter and clatter at a restaurant and other small details richly involve the listener in each location. Bakit Lahat ng Gwapo may Boyfriend?! is a great comedy whose script offers far more than just outrageous camp.

Screenplay: Denoy Navarro-Punio, Renei Dimla, Ivan Andrew Payawal, Percival Intalan

Sound Engineers: Bebet Casas, Immanuel Verona

Musical Directors: Richard Gonzales, Jay Dominguez

Editor: Noah Tonga

Production Designer: Vanessa Uriarte

Director of Photography: Mackie Galvez

Directed By: Jun Robles Lana

     By opening the doom of an obsession analytically understood and predictable, Maging Akin Ka Lamang becomes a meditation on the “woman’s film” rather than a direct experience and skirts the depths and heights of the great tragedies of obsession. Rosita Monteverde embraces her martyrdom from the beginning. There is no dramatic conflict. Tolentino's Rosita begins as an outsider, intersecting with society only to seek a human form for her obsession. Brocka understands that such an obsession is not only magnificent but terrible, not only sublime, but selfish and cruel. He gave us, in the most deeply sympathetic “rejected lover” ever created, (Jay Ilagan's Ernie Azurin), the true measure of this cruelty. Their sense of the wholeness that is forfeited or lost by those who would defy society and live at its edge. They see, with ambivalence, the wholeness that is left behind, but they also see, with ambivalence, the obsession to which love and madness can lead. Loss and gain, the components of paradox, are simultaneously present in the vertiginous daring of style, whereas Brocka’s devotion to the truth has the effect of constantly justifying Rosita’s actions, redeeming them with gravity, without ever plunging her into the abyss of romantic folly and cruelty that might, paradoxically, have given her the dimension of greatness.

Sound Supervision: Vic Macamay

Production Designer: Edgar Martin Littaua

Musical Director: Willy Cruz

Screenplay: Jose Dalisay, Jr.

Film Editor: Ike Jarlego, Jr.

Director of Photography: Rody Lacap

Directed By: Lino Brocka

     At its best, Brillante Mendoza's Serbis (Centerstage Productions, Swift Productions, 2008) is a vibrant slice of life that establishes the theater as a living organism nurturing a society of outcasts. More than just a movie palace, the theater also serves as home for the family that runs it, with tiny, jury-rigged spaces scattered throughout its four floors. Three generations of the family live in the theater and the atmosphere has clearly affected the children, including Jewel (Roxane Jordan), a young woman striking erotic poses in the opening shot and Ronald (Kristofer King), a projectionist getting head from a tranny hooker. The matriarch Nanay Flor, a tough-willed woman played by Gina Pareño, out of the picture much of the time is wrapped up in a bigamy suit against her husband that's dividing the family in half. In the meantime, her daughter Nayda (Jaclyn Jose) minds the fort, presiding over the business while tending to other matters, like cousin Alan (Coco Martin) who's trying to dodge his pregnant girlfriend. But Serbis also has a three-dimensional vividness that makes it come alive. Although Mendoza didn't care to resolve all of the many subplots, the film gives a complete picture of a family, a business, and a city in disarray, and its looming fallout.

     Anyone who saw Serbis theatrically will know that it features a rather soft, often diffused image and that continues with this latest high definition release. The opening sequence looks distressingly soft, while not mind-blowingly sharp, it is certainly a major step up from the old DVD release. Fine detail is best in close-ups, as is to be expected, but some of the establishing shots of the theater and its inhabitants pop rather nicely, all things considered. Grain structure is also well intact and in fact some viewers may be bothered by some of the overly grainy sequences, especially in the more dimly lit scenes. The film does suffer from some noticeable edge enhancement and fairly consistent crush in the dark interior scenes. Serbis never had a very aggressive sound design and that lack of a wow factor carries through to the PCM stereo mix in the original Tagalog with burned-in English subtitles. There's nothing horrible about this mix in any way, shape or form, other than its obvious narrowness. Dialogue is crisp and clear and the evocative score sounds fantastic. The film is rather small scale, from a sound design standpoint and while a 5.1 repurposing may have added some space and depth to the crowd scenes inside the theater, there probably wouldn't have been much to gain from such a surround revision. Serbis feels too surreal and conceptual to be taken as docu-verisimilitude, but it doesn't need to settle for such conventions when every frame is alive, breathing dank sweat and sighing desperation. This house of sin and cinema runs by its own rules.

Sound: Emmanuel Nolet Clemente

Production Design: Benjamin Padero, Carlo Tabije

Editing: Claire Villa-Real

Music: Gian Gianan

Director of Photogrtaphy: Odyssey Flores

Screenplay: Armando Lao

Directed By: Brillante Ma. Mendoza