UNPREDICTABLY MOVING

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     What makes Gensan Punch (Max Original, Center Stage Productions, Gentle Underground Monkeys Co., Ltd., SC Film International, 2021) so unpredictably moving is that Brillante Ma Mendoza takes the go-for-it clichés and invests them with genuine feeling and individuality. Working in a broad-stroke genre enables Mendoza to tear into charged emotional subjects without hemming and hawing. He’s got a diviner’s sense for deriving palpable drama from what remains unseen beyond the frame or in the characters’ heads. One of the movie’s most memorable image is Rudy (Ronnie Lazaro) and Nao (Shogen) facing each other in a workout and swaying in synch, from the waist up. Lazaro has never been more powerful than he is here, but even when the movie dips into tear-jerking, Lazaro doesn’t give into sentimentality. Shogen's raw honesty and ardor set the stakes very high. Even when Gensan Punch threatens to fall into show-off virtuosity, Mendoza keeps his balance. The movie ends with a lovely coda. When Mendoza is in top gear, he pulls you into the action psychologically and viscerally. He choreographs Nao’s fight into a single shot, after the camera swerves to take in Rudy’s imprecations, it immediately swings back to show their impact on Nao. At moments like that, Mendoza's precocity takes our breath away.

     Gensan Punch looks fine on high definition with a few caveats. Source noise can spike with occasional bursts of thickness that reaches a level of annoyance, particularly in lower light scenes. Banding is a much smaller and barely noticeable concern. The digital video source is a little flat and edges of the frame occasionally appear smudgy rather than sharp. Flesh tones range from pasty to warm. That said, the image generally impresses. The digital shoot does allow for a fairly rich color palette, occasionally feeling a little dull and diluted but finds a more vibrantly sustained feel elsewhere, whether out on the streets of Gensan or in the boxing ring. Detail satisfies, with skin textures appearing nicely intimate and clothing textures sharp and naturally complex. Black levels hold deep and accurate. The lossless soundtrack is certainly not timid. It's very aggressive and loud, perhaps lacking finesse at its most vigorous but offering enough sonic activity to satisfy. Boxing matches are noticeably enthusiastic and complex with roaring crowds, heavy punches, microphone reverberations at introduction and chatter in the corners between rounds all vying for attention but with the most critical pieces always finding the right amount of prioritization above the din. Music is aggressive while tunes regularly spill into the back but always maintain a command of balance throughout. Dialogue is clear and front-center focused. Performances are exceptional and the fight scenes, very well composed and executed. HBO Max’s presentation of Gensan Punch delivers good video with very aggressive audio.


Directed By: Brillante Ma Mendoza

Screenplay: Honee Alipio

Director of Photography: Joshua A. Reyles

Production Designer: Dante Mendoza

Editors: Ysabelle Denoga, Armando Lao, Peter Arian Vito

Musical Director: Diwa de Leon

Sound: Mike Idioma, Alex Tomboc, Deo Van N. Fidelson

ON SOCIAL CONDITIONING

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     For a long time, 1980 has been perceived and commented upon as a kind of breakthrough moment of rule-flouting, a decade’s natural culmination by which time the tenets of independent cinema that defined the preceding 10 years were absorbed into the mainstream and audiences were allegedly more willing to accept the outré. In its bounty of homo-friendly studio-financed movies, the year did seem to mark some kind of shift. Looking back, however, it’s evident that this response was perhaps overzealous and not just because in the Marcos era, we were about to swing back into a conservative mode of de-sexualized filmmaking that we have yet to crawl out from under. Ishmael Bernal's Manila by Night (Regal Films, Inc.) offers a far more complex inquiry into questions around gay representation, and the way it functions as a sly, surreptitious condemnation of the inherent homophobia of audiences and filmmakers alike. Manila by Night becomes a fairly spot-on evocation of the personal and cultural derangement of the closet. The tortuous ways that boys, just like the film’s structure itself, play hide-and-seek with identity and eroticism is a commentary on social conditioning. Bernal’s film, as a mainstream studio product ostensibly preoccupied with people who fashion themselves as societal rule-breakers, is in no way a countercultural work, yet its characters are constantly negotiating public and private registers, journeying into the dangerous night to either hide or reveal their true selves. For Manay Sharon (Bernardo Bernardo) and Kano (Cherie Gil) this negotiation is particularly acute, everyone else seems to have erotic designs on sexual presumptions about them. What makes Manila by Night a satisfying yet poignant queer film is that even after they have revealed themselves, they both maintain their outsider status.

     This new digital transfer was created in 4K resolution from the 35mm positive film prints at Central Digital Lab. The restoration was undertaken by the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) and the Save Our Cinema Restoration Program of the Philippine Film Archive (PFA). The visuals have proper and solid density, the lack of compromising digital adjustments ensures an all-around stable organic appearance. The color grading is outstanding. There are nicely balanced and very healthy primaries, plus excellent ranges of supporting and equally healthy nuances. In terms of overall balance and fluidity this presentation is on an entirely different level, strengthening and preserving the film’s native organic qualities. There are no stability issues. Debris, damage marks, scratches, cuts, stains and all other distracting age-related imperfections have been completely removed. It’s an excellent restoration. The Vanishing Tribe's music effortlessly enhances the intended atmosphere and never disturbs the film's native dynamic balance. The dialog is clear, stable and very clean. There are no pops, audio dropouts or distortions. For decades of moviemaking, gayness has equaled coyness and that hasn’t changed even today. Yet there was one studio release from 1980 that directly and cleverly addressed the manner in which Filipino films deploy homosexual characters and more importantly, how audiences are instructed to engage or more often, disengage with them.


Screenplay: Ishmael Bernal

Music: Vanishing Tribe

Director of Photography: Sergio Lobo, FSC

Film Editor: Augusto Salvador

Sound Supervision: Vic Macamay

Production Design: Peque Gallaga

Directed By: Ishmael Bernal

IN THE MIDST OF APPARENT MADNESS

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Silip (Viking Films International, 1985), is undoubtedly the work of Elwood Perez's imagination. The violence is explicit and the nudity celebratory. In leaving little to the imagination, Perez asks us to confront the events of the film without mediation and approaches the material with musical verve. Perez's feeling for music translate well into his direction of actors. Sarsi Emmanuelle and Maria Isabel Lopez equally dominate the frame. They are the bodies in which the film turns and both give stunningly physical performances. Mark Joseph embraces his sensuality and is proud of his body. He is as charismatic and domineering here as he is anywhere else in his career.

     Perez’s imagery is a mash of surrealism and anachronism but underneath it is a fascination with the forces, external and internal, centered on sexual expression and the repression of religion. Tonya is gripped by religious fervor and frustrated sexuality that erupts in mass hysteria after Selda accuses her of possessing them. The eruption feels less like women being crazy and more like a society that strictly controls sexual desire and expression finally breaking down under the weight of undirected sexual energy. Ricardo Lee’s screenplay is an intelligent discussion about the nature of sex, desire and religiosity. Perez's style in itself gives the film a sense that we are watching things that are larger, wilder than real life. Emmanuelle and Lopez display their considerable talents to the extreme. Lopez finds sympathy and pathos in Tonya, a woman warped by her society and religion. Emmanuelle runs the gamut of emotions, but it is in Selda's quietest and most introspective moments that she finds greatest depth and meaning.

     Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Elwood Perez’s Silip arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Mondo Macabro. Upgrade in quality is significant. In some areas, the improved shadow definition and overall clarity are so big that details are now easy to see. Those with large screens will instantly recognize the vastly superior fluidity. Now, the entire film boasts solid organic visuals with plenty of striking nuances. There are no traces of problematic degraining or sharpening. The color palette promotes richer primaries. Needless to say, the overall balance is more convincing and image stability is excellent. There are no damage marks, cuts, scratches, stains or other conventional age-related imperfections. I viewed the entire film with the original Tagalog DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track and did not encounter any technical anomalies. Depth and overall balance remains pleasing. Dynamic intensity is excellent and at times pulls a few surprises with some terrific separation. This release also features a superior selection of bonus features. Silip is a serious film grappling with deeper theological concepts than it is perhaps given credit for in the midst of its apparent madness.


Sound Engineer: Vic Macamay

Production Designer: Aped Santos

Film Editor: Edgardo "Boy" Vinarao

Screenplay: Ricardo Lee

Music: Lutgardo Labad

Cinematography: Johnny Araojo

Directed By: Elwood Perez


POWERFULLY PERSUASIVE

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Lino Brocka, a tireless cinematic champion of the underdog has marched under this banner from the start. He plies his viewers with plenty of scenes in which characters debate the finer points of syndicalist strategy, but he also scatters petals of whimsy to nourish the senses. In Bayan Ko Kapit sa Patalim (Malaya Films, Stephan Films, 1984), there is a passionate discussion in which the laborers debate the pros of union membership. There are also several tense arguments about the conflicting demands of family security and worker solidarity. As if to balance these moments, there is also Phillip Salvador in the role of Arturo "Turing" Manalastas and Gina Alajar as his wife, Luz whose performances transform the film into a vital and complex piece of political art. Brocka maintains a humble respect for his characters and an unsentimental eye for the difficulties they face. While unequivocally on the side of the union, Brocka’s keen sense of contradiction and storytelling keeps his propagandistic impulses in check. As a result, the film makes a powerfully persuasive case and gives way to the gloom and frustration of summary firings and workplace abuse. 

     The new 4K restoration of Bayan Ko Kapit sa Patalim is simply fantastic. Detail and especially image depth are enormously impressive. The blockiness and sharpening have been replaced with flawless contrast and at times truly overwhelmingly beautiful blacks and whites. The problematic nighttime footage also looks excellent. Shadow definition and clarity are dramatically improved in every single sequence. Furthermore, there are absolutely no traces of problematic lab tinkering. Naturally, the high-quality grain scan is evenly distributed throughout the entire film. Color depth and saturation, especially where there is plenty of natural light are also terrific. There are absolutely no debris, scratches, cuts, warps or larger damage marks. I watched Bayan Ko Kapit sa Patalim with the Tagalog DTS-HD Mono Audio. The dialogue is crisp, clear, stable, better balanced and easy to follow. Le Chat qui Fume's restoration of Lino Brocka's Bayan Ko Kapit sa Patalim, one of Philippine Cinema's masterpieces is enormously impressive. Beautifully restored in 4K the film looks astonishingly good, the best it ever has.


Direction: Lino Brocka

Screenplay: Jose F. Lacaba

Director of Photography: Conrado Baltazar

Production Design: Joey Luna

Film Editor: George Jarlego

Music: Jess Santiago

Sound: Rudy Baldovino, Willie Islao

FAINT SOUNDS OF HARMONY

Posted by Jojo Devera ,

 


     There's a a disarming playfulness to Roderick Cabrido's Purgatoryo (Purple Pig, Waning Crescent Arts, One Big Fight Productions, Monoxide Works, One Dash Zero, Quezon City Film Development Commission, 2016) that pulls you in, even (or especially) at its most grotesque moments. The pleasures are intellectual as well as visceral. Purgatoryo spends a fair amount of time unpacking its own premise keeping the exposition from sounding too much like exposition. Shadowy forces are waging war deterring anyone from embracing newfound possibilities. Funeral parlor owner Violet (Bernardo Bernardo) is tied up with local cop Jojo (Arnold Reyes), but it’s the immediacy of the storyline involving On-on (Kristoffer King) and Dyograd (Jess Mendoza) that makes it impossible to write off the film as a show of fan service. Cabrido makes brilliant use of Bernardo, there’s great tenderness in his performance. What Cabrido has to say lays on the line with few of the blandishments of popular movies and little of the aesthetic care of art-house ones. Cabrido and his production designer Steff Dereja are adept at telling their story visually. The plot contributes to the film’s general sense of weightlessness, as if the story itself is uncertain of how to evolve from one scene to the next and overwhelmed by the sheer wealth of possibilities. Sometimes this atmosphere of pervasive, never-fully-explained enigma feels rich with ambivalent meanings, other times it’s maddeningly vague. The last act, especially, is abruptly truncated. We never learn what happened to at least one major character, or the reason another met the fate he did. No matter, all of Cabrido’s subplots and asides are juicy with meaning.

     This high definition transfer is noticeably darker and burnished looking with an emphasis on almost yellow-orange tones that can give things a painterly air. The film's rather bracing stylistic quirks are nicely rendered here adding skewed perspectives and various hues basically drenching the frame with detail levels remarkably intact throughout. The material also has excellent contrast and detail levels, despite a somewhat psychedelic approach that can superimpose image on image and the like. There are a number of hallucinatory moments in Purgatoryo which probably don't have the same kind of wow factor that, say, a contemporary multilayered enterprise might offer, but there is still appealing immersion with both clear panning effects and discrete placement of individual effects in some of the visionary moments in particular. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Bryan Dumaguina's ethereal score in particular sounds beautifully full bodied and spacious. The ideas that Cabrido puts forth are powerful and poignant. It’s drama of a vision at the end of the line as he knew it. Even in death, Purgatoryo hears the faint sounds of harmony.


Directed By: Roderick Cabrido

Screenplay: Denise O'Hara, Joseph Israel Laban

Cinematographers: Mycko David, Cesca Lee

Production Designer: Steff Dereja

Editor: Mark Cyril Bautista

Sound Design: Yves G. Patron

Music: Bryan Dumaguina

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