SARI-SARING SINENG PINOY

     The political landscape that seeps through Joel C. Lamangan's Lihis (Film Development Council of the Philippines, BG Films International, 2013) is as deep as the movie's heartbreaking story of two idealistic young men who fall in love almost by accident. It is embedded in this landscape where their idyll begins and ends. The same mood of acute desolation permeates Ricardo Lee's screenplay. Their intimacy just happens to unfold in ways that bring tragedy to the surface while keeping the viewer at a certain remove. What happens between Cesar (Jake Cuenca) and Ador (Joem Bascon) builds slowly, then explodes after which they retire to opposite corners. Their rough, impulsive coupling could have been a fight, it almost is. Lamangan filmed it with the frankness of a boxing match. Both Cuenca and Bascon make this anguished love story physically palpable. Cuenca disappears beneath the skin of his sinewy character. The pain and disappointment felt by Cesar, who is more self-aware and self-accepting continually registers in his sad, expectant eyes. Cesar is able to accept a little more willingly that he is inescapably gay. Lihis is ultimately not about sex (there is very little of it in the film) but about love, love stumbled into, love thwarted, love held sorrowfully. What Ador craved in a way he could neither help nor understand was when Cesar pulled him close, the silent embrace satisfying some shared hunger. One tender moment's reprieve from loneliness can illuminate a life. 

     In the end, this is Jake Cuenca’s picture, the final scenes allowed him to unequivocally and credibly express Cesar's sorrow. Joem Bascon plays the more callow of the two men, coincidentally or not, his performance doesn't dig as deep as you want it to. Lovi Poe as Cecilia whose youth and spiritedness slowly drain away in the face of an infidelity she can't encompass adds a beautiful low-rent weariness to the performances. The grading brings a sense of brilliance to the color spectrum, an accuracy and nuance that befits the film and the high definition format. It offers depth and tonal detail, natural greens delight, clothes pop and earthy tones around the frame enjoy a sense of pinpoint accuracy bringing the film to life. Bright outdoor scenes are delightful, the contrast between sun-drenched portions and shadowy elements are lifelike. Skin tones are perfect, black level is remarkable and whites are intense. The image is razor-sharp, bringing out refined details on faces and complex environments. The soundtrack delivers crisply defined support elements. Richly realized environmental atmospherics add bursts of heightened activity capable of handling its every core element with commendable ease, enriching scene-shaping and mood-enhancing clarity. Though it's mostly front heavy, dialogue is perfectly prioritized, positioned and detailed. Lihis is extraordinarily well done from a technical  and emotional perspective, potential viewers must tread carefully. 

Screenplay: Ricardo Lee

Director of Photography: Mo Zee

Editor: John Wong

Production Designer: Edgar Martin Littaua

Music: Von de Guzman

Sound: Mike Idioma

Direction: Joel C. Lamangan

     The opening moments of Memories of the Rising Sun (Pelikulaw, P.D. Class 2014) shows filmmaker Lawrence Fajardo at his most confrontational, setting up the idea of what his central character, as well as his audience are in for. It seeks to detail the increasingly desperate conditions endured during the final days of World War II by the remaining Japanese forces who had so brutally conducted a three-year-plus occupation of the Philippines. An idiosyncratic artist whose bravest films often displayed a thoroughly odd obsession with fusing the brightest and bleakest aspects of human nature, Fajardo has always had a gift for crystallizing contradictions. His undeniable status as an auteur depends on a paradoxical dynamic: the ability to concretize the emotional quintessence of his material and visualize it on-screen has proved to be his most defining trait. He consistently attempts to visually render something metaphysical that is invisible, like the heart or the soul. The incendiary and extraordinary Memories of the Rising Sun is one of the few films to have the courage to wallow so directly in the offal of man’s inhumanity to man. It’s oneiric vision of wartime atrocities serve to emphasize a single abiding point: the innately human will for survival can sometimes seem a fate far worse than the certainty of death. 

     This level of suppression is indicative of a single, historically specific strain of mind, one that, in overlooking the sufferings of the subjugated Filipinos and focusing only on the desperations of the at-long-last defeated Japanese, felt at pains to deny the possibility to show the limits within which a moral existence is possible. Fajardo's choice to shoot in black-and-white is to bring out the story’s darker dimensions; the lack of vivid colors enables the headlong plunge into darkest corners of the human soul. In Memories of the Rising Sun Fajardo keeps on landing a visceral force to the narrative, using the nightmarish atmosphere to blur the lines of reality. Great performances from the cast enhance the madness that unfolds. Yoshihiko Hara is terrific as Captain Takahashi who desperately clings to his humanity despite the horrific circumstances. Garry Lim brings a level of ambiguity to the role of Lt. Nagata making the character seem untrustworthy. Ruby Ruiz showcases Helena’s slow drift to pandemonium. Her vacant, hollowed-out expression would sear its way into our mind to forever represent the grisly image of war.

Directed By: Lawrence Fajardo

Screenplay: John Bedia, Lawrence Fajardo

Director of Photography: Lawrence Fajardo, Manuel Abanto

Production Design: P.D. Class 2014

Edited By: Lawrence Fajardo

Musical Score: Peter Joseph Legaste

Sound Design: Cedric Regino

     One unfortunate trope of independent filmmaking is the near-silence of working-class characters, as if a relative lack of formal education deprived a person of ideas, emotions and experiences. Joselito Altarejos' Ang Lihim ni Antonio (Digital Viva, BeyondtheBox, 2008) confronts it brilliantly, making its absence among teens the painful core of his film. At the center of this closed-in world is Antonio (Kenjie Garcia), part of a tight-knit community but doesn’t fully belong to it, and, though his appearance and behavior are indistinguishable from everyone else’s, Antonio manages to set himself apart symbolically and warily, if not openly. Antonio's sense of sexual self-discovery, his incremental awareness and avowal of his desires and pleasures is cut off from any sense of emotional growth and sensitivity. On the contrary, Antonio becomes increasingly alienated from anyone in his life who might be able to provide any comfort or support. As Altarejos sets the stage for a jarring finale, Lex Bonife's screenplay is riddled with wry observations about sexual identity as it’s understood through his characters’ vernacular. It's the tender vulnerability and concerned shame Garcia displays once Antonio is found out that make it stick. Other times he’s awkward and animalistic, lost in his newfound bodily urges as he lies in bed, breathing in the musk from his Uncle Jo’s dirty underwear as he arches his back and plays with his genitalia. Garcia belies a tender side that makes one of the most striking breakouts in ages; he’s the key ingredient that carries the movie’s basic premise from start to finish. As the abusive Jonbert, Josh Ivan Morales offers a character portrayed much more seductively and playfully. We see very clearly how he seduces Antonio, not just abusing him. His look complements this approach beautifully. 

     Performances are fine across the board with Shamaine Buencamino, a warm, watchful, sterling presence as Antonio’s mother Tere, and Jiro Manio particularly touching as Mike, Antonio's straight best friend. Ang Lihim ni Antonio is a film of constant anxiety and agitation—in other words a pretty fair approximation of the teenage mindset—in this case further shaken by the stigma still associated with homosexuality. It does have ideas about sexuality and, ultimately, the thin line between danger and desire. That, I think, is what sets Altarejos apart. The movie ends with a stunning act involving Antonio and Jonbert. It played like a logical, if unforeseeable endpoint to what was lingering all along. The ending is a reminder of what can happen when a director trusts us enough not to offer easy takeaways and psychological absolutes. What happens when a character who doesn’t know what he wants loses control over what little understanding he already has? It’s a crisis, and a risk, and Ang Lihim ni Antonio navigates both with the best of them. It is hard to digest the movie’s ending because it does not lead to a happily ever after. We see the movie resort to violence that is truly heartbreaking, unbearable, and, in my opinion, inevitable. Understated throughout, the Ang Lihim ni Antonio boldly concludes while Antonio is still processing the fact that his life just changed forever. What's special about the film is how much we come to know Antonio, perhaps more than he knows himself.

Production Design: Jeng Torres

Editor: Ricardo Gonzales Jr.

Music: Ajit Hardasani

Director of Photography: Arvin Viola

Screenplay: Lex Bonife

Director: Joselito Altarejos

     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

     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