SARI-SARING SINENG PINOY

     Ishmael Bernal builds and reinforces a mood with unexpected techniques that are simple, personal and resoundingly effective from the movie's opening moments. There are no suffocating close-ups in Hinugot sa Langit (Regal Films, Inc., 1985), instead, individual shots are long and leisurely. The camera movement flows, following the characters as they move about their world. Gradually, this lived-in feeling allows us to inhabit their world, too, and with that comes, not just an understanding but an actual feel for what it must have been like. Perhaps unsurprisingly, offscreen space plays an essential role in the film’s construction. Cinematographer Rody Lacap works with a mostly fixed camera here; the unconventional framing makes us aware of a larger environment and context. In one of the film’s most extraordinary sequences Carmen (Maricel Soriano), is sitting at the doctor's office. Her mind is elsewhere. She is worried. If things go wrong her life could be ruined. Bernal places Carmen at the center of the frame and shows her in a long take as the conversation happens. This is an aspect of consciousness, a moment in life, that we've all experienced. We've all been scared and feeling outside the general mirth. Yet, I've never seen this reality conveyed in a Filipino movie before. The scene is unbearably tense, not because Bernal shows us that Carmen is tense, but rather because he puts us at the table with her, and he does so long enough that we soon feel what she is feeling. The near-constant tension between narrative and image, between what we expect to see and what we are actually shown, makes Bernal’s insert shot all the more essential. Virtually every shot has something novel about it, either in its technique, emotional weight, psychological perception or a combination of all three. 

      Few films have never been as visually enthralling as Lawrence Fajardo’s latest. Everything from camera angles to scene transitions exudes longing. Sugapa (Viva Films, 2023) is an ill-fated romance, and that desirous mood grows until it overwhelms. It's a film about yearning and dependence, which later translates to love, both of which is attainable and unfeasible for lead characters Ben (Aljur Abrenica) and Ana (AJ Raval). The somewhat languid nature of their romance is never stale, nothing seems forced or exaggerated. Sugapa has Fajardo at his most restrained narrative-wise, yet that doesn’t affect the prowess of his directorial abilities nor the thematic expansiveness of the story at hand. Most cinematic romances tell us what to think, having characters state what they feel early on or inviting us to share lustful gazes. Fajardo does it the hard way, building up a complex psychological relationship in which sexual desire feels like an emergent characteristic rather than a starting point. When Ben and Anna focus on one another, the result seems so specific, so intense, as to be incompatible with any other aspect of life. It is also the kind of relationship which can make other people – including the audience – feel shut out, even rejected. The tension between the two extends like a taut wire that sits burdened under the weight of miscommunication, but also threatens to snap at the peak of their vulnerability. A shift in the second half recontextualizes aspects of the first half, but in this shift, Ana's story is more heightened. Over the course of Sugapa, Fajardo continuously elevates what we're watching and the film is never too much to handle. 

     Lino Brocka's Nakaw na Pag-ibig (Associated Entertainment Corporation, 1980) is a work of beauty, tenderness, power and insight. It is a tribute to deft dramatization that the principals are projected fully as the maelstrom of life in which they are trapped and with which they are unable to cope. One may argue that Brocka has given only surface treatment to the society which appears to propel Robert de Asis (Phillip Salvador) to his tragic end and accentuated his love affairs, groping for a higher rung in the social ladder. That it becomes apparent, is basically captious. Robert is obviously an intelligent young man whose background has not equipped him for anything better than menial endeavor. And it is not surprising that the lonely, brooding Robert will find an answer to his crying need for companionship in his drab, unlettered and equally lonely co-worker, Corazon Rivera (Nora Aunor). The forces pushing him to the final, horrible retribution are obvious and a tribute to the naturalism of Theodore Dreiser as he is suddenly exposed to the overwhelming opulence of Cynthia Ocampo (Hilda Koronel) to whose love he succumbs. Corazon becomes a nagging, inconvenient, and homely presence next to Cynthia's beauty. As Robert’s romance with Cynthia blossoms and he falls in love firmly secures the possibility of his better life in high society. At the same time, Robert repeatedly lies and breaks promises to Corazon, refusing to marry her. His desire that she just go away transforms into a murderous impulse when Corazon threatens to endanger any goodwill he’s established with Cynthia’s family. Rather than break it off, he strings her along—and so, quite understandably, she expects Robert to marry her. Since his basic upbringing does not permit him to callously desert Corazon—now frantic with the knowledge that she is bearing his child—he takes surreptitious steps to remedy his untenable position. This phase of his ordeal is a wholly tasteful and compelling handling of a delicate situation. The questions of his morals and intrinsic cowardice here are placed squarely in the eyes of the viewer. With similar integrity, the drama depicts Corazon's death and the subsequent mounting terror and confusion of her lover, faced with the enormity of the tragedy and the reiteration of the insidious thought that while he did not commit murder he must have willed it.  And, Robert, grappling with a transgression he cannot fully comprehend, is a pitiful, yet strangely brave individual as he explains his act and convictions in court. 

     Salvador's portrayal, often terse and hesitating, is full, rich, restrained and, above all, generally credible. Equally poignant is Aunor's characterization of the ill-fated Corazon. Aunor, in my opinion, has never been seen to better advantage than as the colorless factory hand, beset by burgeoning anxieties but clinging to a love she hopes can be rekindled. Under Brocka's expert direction, Koronel's delineation of the rich and beauteous Cynthia is the top effort of her career. It’s a shaded, tender performance and one in which her passionate and genuine romance avoids the bathos common to love as it sometimes comes to the screen. Salvador immersed himself in the weak and insecure morality of his character, resulting in a nervous, sweaty performance. Aunor downplayed her looks with almost no makeup, playing it frumpy and pathetic. But the understanding of their respective characters varies. Aunor played her role from start to finish as a dreary, but no less empathetic innocent in love who was seemingly destined to be disappointed by Robert. Brocka understood Corazon and directed her to be a lusterless character. Salvador played his role under the notion that Robert is unsympathetic, unsophisticated, and ambitious, not realizing that his good looks would do a great deal to counteract his interpretation. Nakaw na Pag-ibig tapers its concentration on the central romance, a cruel affair on Robert’s part that, today, the audience nonetheless wants to see because of the legendary stars involved. This is despite Cynthia's underdeveloped character being a little more than an attractive status symbol to Robert, and despite Aunor's excellent turn as a pitiable victim. Even today, watching the otherwise capable film is an exercise in the appreciation of fine acting and competent direction, as opposed to a heartfelt tragedy, salient sociopolitical text, or believable romance.

Screenplay: Eddie Naval Based on a Story By Theodore Dreiser

Director of Photography: Conrado Baltazar, F.S.C.

Music: George Canseco

Film Editor: Augusto Salvador

Art Direction: Joey Luna

Sound Supervision: Ben L. Patajo

Directed By: Lino Brocka

     One thing is certain: director Bobby Bonifacio, Jr. comprehends stifling dread in the most profound sense. With a grief-soaked story of ancestral vulnerability (you can’t pick your relatives, can you?), his terrifying and startlingly confident, Numbalikdiwa (2006) proved as much. Bonifacio fidgets with that peculiar breathlessness once again throughout Kahalili (Viva Films, 2023), a cinematic sacrament that dances around a fruitless relationship in dizzying circles. But be prepared to feel equally suffocated (albeit, a chosen, cultish kind) all the same. In the midst of wide-open surroundings we may be, but Bonifacio still wants us to crave and kick for oxygen, perhaps in a less claustrophobic and more agoraphobic fashion. The tangible dread in Kahalili—oftentimes charged by tight choreography and atmospheric compositions—is so recognizably out of Numbalikdiwa that you'll immediately distinguish the connective headspace responsible for both tales. And yet, this psychedelic thriller is different by way of Bonifacio’s loosened thematic restraint. You won’t exactly feel lost while disemboweling Bonifacio’s inviting beast, this is also a fitting way to describe the location where most of the story unfolds. There is only a slack sense of yesterday and tomorrow in Bonifacio’s locale of choice where an endless string of hallucinatory traditions are exercised in broad daylight.  

    We follow  Martha (Stephanie Raz), Bonifacio’s second fearless female lead after Meryll Soriano, playing a character marked by something unspeakable. In a deeply scarred, emotionally unrestricted performance—you might hear her screams in your nightmares, Martha isn’t on her own, she's with her self-absorbed longtime boyfriend Carlos (Victor Relosa, convincingly egotistical). When Martha arrives, a couple, Isabel (Millen Gal) and Rod (Sid Lucero) respectively, Bonifacio forgoes the aforesaid narrative economy for something sinister. The sneaky hex Bonifacio casts has that tight grip, on both the characters and the audience. Sex and death, a source of so much pain and anxiety are here as part of life's unending cycle. Kahalili is in no rush to solve its mysteries. The third act is full of surreal images of revelry and ritual sacrifice. The unburdened surplus of lengthy customs does overshadow some of the film’s potentially ripe avenues of interest. But the invigorating reward here is the ultimate sovereignty you will find in Martha, a surrogate for any woman who ever excused an inconsiderate male, rationalized his unkind words or thoughtless non-apologies. Raz knows it in the film's final shot. And you will know it too, so intensely that her freedom might just feel like therapy.   

Sound Design: Armand de Guzman

Music: Emerzon Texon

Editors: Nelson Villamayor, Noah Tonga

Production Designers: Sigrid T. Polon, Junebert Cantilla

Director of Photography: Michael Hernree J. Babista

Screenplay: Juvy Galamiton

Directed By: Bobby Bonifacio, Jr.

     In Lino Brocka's Maynila sa mga Kuko Ng Liwanag (Cinema Artists, 1975), Manila is a libertarian dystopia where poverty breeds its own predators and victims as the city's poor grasp for the little wealth that hasn't yet been distributed. When Julio Madiaga (Rafael Roco Jr,), a young man from the province arrives in Manila to search for his lost love Ligaya Paraiso (Hilda Koronel), he's robbed of what little cash he has. Forced to work so he can afford the bare necessities of life, Julio finds a job in an unsafe construction site in which the workers allow their employer to pocket a chunk of their pay for fear of losing their only job. Soon, Julio finds himself working as a male prostitute even if it requires a different kind of sacrifice. Brocka's Manila is ambivalent to Julio's pain and its indifference, the city stamps out every glimmer of hope in his life. There's a deep undercurrent of anger and frustration to Julio's journey. A casual conversation between construction workers is followed by a fatal accident when a rope holding a bucket of water is released and falls from the height of a few stories. At this moment, the smooth, neorealist-influenced camerawork is traded for a quickly edited shot/reverse-shot montage between the bucket and the face of the man standing below it. The bucket hits him and he dies. Stupid, meaningless and avoidable. This harsh, stylized moment of violence, one of several, contrasts with the more subdued tone of the rest of the film. It's a signal to the audience that no matter how hard the characters struggle, this world is indifferent to their pain. Even as Julio scours the city, building relationships with people he meets and getting closer to his goal of finding Ligaya, these short fits of violence and emotion disrupt the complacency of the characters to their situation, suggesting that there's tragedy to be found in their acceptance of such a fate. Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag, with its extended scenes of working-class struggle punctuated by moments of harrowing, highly stylized violence suggests that violent reactions should be expected from a society that preys on the vulnerable. By the time Julio reaches his final confrontation with Ah Tek (Tommy Yap), an act of stupid, violent catharsis feels like his only possible course of action.