BOLD AND SIMPLE

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Communication is vital for human existence. Unfortunately, we live in a continuously isolating world, partly by choice and partly by global circumstances. How often are you truly sitting down with one or a few other people and having a lengthy discussion that's not about simple trivialities? My guess is not often. As a substitute, we absorb discussions of others. Just look at the rise of podcasts. People spend hours upon hours listening to people talk about politics, film, sex or any number of topics. About Us But Not About Us (October Train Films, The IdeaFirst Company, Quantum Films, 2022) satiates that desire better than any podcast can hope for because it is cinema. Having these precise visuals captured by Jun Robles Lana along with the discussion forces you to give it your complete attention. You may listen to an audio version of the film, but would miss out on the emotion and context of the conversation. Being at that restaurant with Eric (Romnick Sarmenta) and Lance (Elijah Canlas) is just as powerful as hearing what they have to say. This is a film that manages to be both bold and simple. It's an idea that seems like something anyone could come up with but almost nobody would think to try. About Us But Not About Us  may just be a film about two men talking to each other over brunch, but they find more to say in five minutes than other films do in their entire running time. You might think that watching two men talk and eat for an hour and a half could be tedious, but this is a more invigorating and thought-provoking brunch you ever had. What the film exploits is the well-known ability of the mind to picture a story as it is being told. About Us But Not About Us never, ever, becomes a static series of two shots and closeups, but seems only precariously anchored to that restaurant where Eric argues, it is simply not necessary to go find the truth. 

     In watching About Us But Not About Us, it becomes clear how much of Lana’s narrative sleight-of-hand is made possible by Romnick Sarmenta's remarkable performance. All good actors are capable of externalizing emotion, but few can show a character shielding what we sense is inside — few can indicate a nucleus of truth that the film itself never speaks. Sarmenta is the rare star who’s able to turn that sense of withholding into his most powerful asset. It’s not only because the camera loves him, but also because he’s withholding something from the rest of the world in a way that makes you want to lean forward and learn his secrets. From the start, Sarmenta’s downcast gestures and weary remove have a way of complicating his character’s outward self-interest, as if Eric has spent a lifetime walling off his heart in order to survive. Yet when Lana reveals the truth, it’s Sarmenta’s broken smile that lets the character’s devastation seep onto the surface. With minimalistic body language, he conveys an inner cavity of pure need enough to make you reconsider the fundamental nature of romantic love. Elijah Canlas shades his character’s stubbornness with layers of pain he’s never been taught how to express. Lana's screenplay deprives Lance the comfort of being right forcing him towards a kind of ambiguity that young men have to seldom sort through. It’s in these strained moments that Canlas' performance allows us to see the cognitive dissonance that’s driving his character’s actions. The more that circumstances spiral out of Lance's control, the more Canlas grips on to the serrated edges of his role, the easier it is to appreciate the urgency with which Canlas is trying to find it for the first time. Grief, anxiety and rage build up in a pressure cooker until it inevitably detonates.


Sound: Armand de Guzman

Music: Teresa Barrozo

Film Editor: Lawrence S. Ang

Production Designer: Marxie Maolen Fadul

Director of Photography: Neil Daza

Screenplay: Jun Robles Lana

Directed By: Jun Robles Lana

LOFTIER AMBITION

Posted by Jojo Devera ,

     Alan Filoteo's The Restless Heron (Filcor Multimedia Studio, Cronasia Foundation College, 2022) succeeds in its loftier ambition of taking such a story and placing it within a cinematic tradition that makes it much bigger than itself, as big, in fact, as the landscape it inhabits which is as beautiful and as vast as man’s capacity for cruelty. There’s an aura of despair, a sense that they’ve already been rejected and dehumanized. Nature looms large along with an almost claustrophobic idea of community that spills over into oppression in the village at the center of the story. The Restless Heron is a film about outsiders. There’s the literal kind, like Datu Ali (Jun Nayra), who lives outside society’s rules. Then there are those who are kept out by design. This and other tensions underlie the film’s narrative, though Filoteo prefers the observational approach - piercing the atmosphere with personalities who contribute to a sophisticated dynamic. The movie hits a snag with its sluggish finale nevertheless, it’s revealing to watch the entire cast attempt to answer questions about the nature of their conundrum. The Restless Heron takes its historical setting and uses it to explore contemporary concerns of the individual and society.

     The Sultan of Talik, whether literally placed center screen, or taking the privileged vantage point where he is the only character who sees the whole action unfold. Rolando Inocencio's air of contemplative patience makes him a magnetic figure, while the distinctive rhythms and inflections of his speaking style is one of this actor’s mesmerizing features. Nayra offers a standout performance conveying Datu Ali's rage at society with depth and deftness. Filoteo understands that oppression creates tension, and tension creates a story. Each character is clearly defined, as are their motives giving the film its soul. The Restless Heron benefits from exceptional performances from the whole ensemble. The staid tone can feel monotonous after a certain point, and the film never picks up the pace or mood enough to break from its shell of strife and persecution.The dismissal of traditional tropes is perhaps its most effective feature, it also gives rise to the film’s most disappointing aspect. The moments don’t always live up to their own hype. For many scenes, the journey is far better than the destination. Despite its best efforts, The Restless Heron drifts into a mode of exocitism that renders an ultimately frustrating experience.


Director of Photography: Yen Morales

Sound Mixer: Jaylou Garban Dari

Art Director: Marthin Anthony Lozano Millado

Screenwriters: Ivy Masque, Alyanna Lumaguinding, Jan Ardis Limjap

Music License: Artlist

Directed By: Alan Filoteo

 

DARING AND ORIGINAL

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     In May-December-January (Viva FIlms, 2022) Ricky Lee and McArthur C. Alejandre create an emotional and dramatic spaciousness making a far richer, more provocative and deeply compelling movie. Opening with a scene of two young men on a study date whose individuality and difference from each other are expressed in their faces. Migoy (Kych Minemoto) has that round softness that looks like it has just blossomed, while Pol's (Gold Aceron) is square, frank, full of calm assertion. The actors takes the dialogue and fills it out. Pol is sensitive, more romantic, Migoy unashamedly sexual, and their closeness, as it often is between men is a form of erotic rivalry. We see this kind of homoerotic bond in film and literature all the time. Claire's (Andrea del Rosario) affair with Migoy begins quite organically when Migoy kisses her. But what makes May-December-January truly daring and original is that it gets inside the relationship between Migoy and Claire, and his friendship with Pol. The feelings of subconscious love are acted out, revealing the kind of shifting, inchoate emotions that lie beneath their closeness. 

     Minemoto plays Migoy’s lightness with seeming ease and Aceron is perfect for Pol’s constant brooding and melancholy. We’re always happy to see Yayo Aguila in any film, though her role as Migoy’s mother is far too short. Unsurprisingly, the film’s focus and its best work comes from Del Rosario and Minemoto. They ably play two halves of a whole with particularly good work from Del Rosario. There’s been so much made of the male gaze in cinema, but Alejandre’s film and cinematographer Daniel "Toto" Uy's camera unabashedly celebrate the body of Minemoto's Migoy and Aceron's Pol. We are used to seeing actresses as screen goddesses but rarely have male bodies been filmed as objects of beauty and desire in this way. Meanwhile, Del Rosario gets her fair share of admiring screen time, celebrating that beauty isn’t relegated only to teenage girls. She challenges the traditional roles of wives and mothers, often placing her own happiness as well as her singular bond ahead of what society wants. She has the hint of a beautiful woman aging, unused to such desperation in her loneliness. It's not only in the dramatic strength of the performances – but the openness of all three actors to the camera physically that makes the movie work. At times, May-December-January feels like a fairy tale in its matter-of-fact approach to the out-of-the-ordinary situation. There are certain elements of straight female fantasy, like romancing a young man and living an idyllic life. Odd as it may seem, this is not a prurient movie. It's an intricate exploration of friendship, parenting, love, loneliness, and desire. Lee asks you to contemplate this kind of love and Alejandre allows you to feel it.


Directed By; McArthur C. Alejandre

Screenplay: Ricky Lee

Director of Photography: Daniel "Toto" Uy

Editor: Benjo Ferrer

Production Designer: Ericson Navarro

Musical Director: Vince de Jesus

Sound Engineer: Immanuel Verona

PROVOCATIVE AND SATISFYING

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Stylized and visually arresting, Lawrence Fajardo's Mahjong Nights (Viva Films, 2021) complicates and perverts the simplest of interactions. It unfolds at a languorous pace, ultimately leaving viewers with a haunted feeling, an uneasy sense of always having something to worry about, some constraint on expression or behavior. The perversion of natural impulse begins with Angeli Khang whose achievement ultimately comes from how she renders Alexa. We’ve all seen the film where an actor chooses to dramatize the relationship between a performative character and the role they’ve taken on by underlining skill and barely contained nerves. Khang avoids this route entirely and instead shows us a performer with an intuitive, bodily understanding of who she’s playing. When we first see Alexa we don’t get the sense of a technically immaculate interpreter but of an instinctive, in-the-moment performer so committed to the goal she’s been given. In the rare moments she looks distracted, we get the sense of a performer stuck in her own head. We never forget the stakes that inform her ever-evolving crisis, yet Khang communicates all of this cleanly and dexterously. Jay Manalo's Leo is stern and forbidding, rarely letting the cold mask drop. Fajardo’s cast (which also features Mickey Ferriols as Leo’s wife Esther) is exceptional and Tad Tadioan gives an impassioned performance as Big Boy. Like Fajardo’s other films, Mahjong Nights grows out of a tension between essence and form—between a person’s emotions and the role he or she must play. 

     What made the second half so mesmerizing was the interplay of glances between Sean de Guzman’s Gaspar and Alexa. Much of appreciating the choreography of looks has to do with understanding the history of electric eyes. There's a specific moment when the battle of the stares begin. It's at a mahjong table where the characters communicate on two levels. Through speech as they exchange pleasantries and talk about the game, but true intentions are spoken with their eyes. Some may find the film excruciatingly dull, but pay close attention - beneath the surface, there's usually more going on. The underlying plot gradually reveals itself. We do not see Leo at work, but Manalo is able to project the man's capability for menace and begins to do that in bed with Alexa. Mahjong Nights is a film of deceptive subtlety that springs shut in its final moments like a steel trap. Fajardo is clearly having fun with audience preconceptions with a mahjong game that reveals plenty about the milieu we’re about to move in while balancing all sorts of layers effortlessly. Mahjong and Fajardo are a good fit—which I don’t mean remotely as an insult. The game is elegant, formal, and deliberate, but with a hint of repressed violence. As the story unfolds, Leo's cruelty stops being simply vile and starts to become fascinating and even paradoxical, infusing a potentially two-dimensional villain with humanity and pathos, leading to a terrific, unexpectedly amusing scene when Alexa’s conflicting emotions finally boil over and when her facade eventually breaks down, Fajardo’s story finally jerks into focus. It may seem like a long time getting there, but when Mahjong Nights finally reels you in, the payoff is both provocative and satisfying.

Directed By: Lawrence Fajardo
Screenplay: Byron Bryant, Lawrence Fajardo
Cinematography: T.M. Malones
Editing: Lawrence Fajardo
Production Design: Lawrence Fajardo
Musical Scorer: Peter Legaste
Sound Design: Alex Tomboc, Pietro Marco Javier

SKILLED FOOTING

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


      It’s a testament to director Chito S. Roño’s Ang Mga Kaibigan ni Mama Susan (Regal Entertainment, Inc., CSR Films.Ph, Black Sheep, 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

Music: Andrew Florentino

Director of Photography: Eli Balce

Editing: Carlo Francisco Manatad

Production Design: Jerann Ordinario

Sound: Albert Michael M. Idioma


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