BETWEEN MATERNAL AND CARNAL LOVE

Posted by Jojo Devera ,

     Overused and much misused, the word provocative has become a double-edged sword, especially when swung in the direction of Filipino independent cinema. At its best, the genuinely provocative film, off the top of my head, shocks in order to expand our vision of the world it encompasses. At its most dispiriting, it's an exercise in cheap thrills, designed to goose a presumptively stuffy bourgeois audience while positioning a director as some sort of iconoclast and Jun Robles Lana has no such excuse. The characters in Your Mother's Son (The IdeaFirst Company, Octobertrain Films, Quantum Films, Cineko Productions, 2023), belong in their own isolated little world that is self-absorbed and irresponsible. Lana and co-screenwriter Elmer Gatchalian come to the conclusion that some people would prefer to spend their days with those who are much younger, abandoning their social responsibilities and families. This is a film that seems divorced from any moral sensibilities. Your Mother's Son needed serious judgment: someone to have a firmer opinion on these terribly unappealing characters. It lacks plausible psychology and context for the film’s characters and their love circle. The performances from some normally reliable talents do little to strengthen our sympathy and help us understand them. As Sarah, Sue Prado has the hint of a beautiful woman aging, unused to such desperation in her loneliness. She is truly enigmatic, delivering a surprisingly strong and powerful performance for a film and a screenplay this superficial. Elora Españo (Amy) can convey nuance and quiet intelligence even when seeming to do nothing in particular. Both Kokoy de Santos (Emman) and Miggy Jimenez (Oliver) are given terribly uninteresting and inexpressive roles, spending most of the film underserviced by flat dialogue. There’s no sign of coltishness in either De Santos' or Jimenez’s performances. These characters don’t inhabit the real world: they remain lodged in this seaside idyll from beginning to end and whenever an opportunity is presented for them to leave. Your Mother's Son is poorly paced and concludes with an ending that is frustratingly detached from comprehensible human behavior and personal responsibility. There's a germ of genuine transgression to be located in this three-way affair and it has to do with the overlap between maternal and carnal love. But it's less explored here than it is sidelined. 

     Your Mother's Son is incredibly hard to watch. It's a completely illusory and nonsensical film and is one that would benefit greatly had Lana not taken the material quite so earnestly. The film needed to play on the frivolous nature of the premise in order to work or alternatively go completely the opposite way. It’s a messed up situation and if handled with more conviction and devastation it could be really affecting, yet we don’t get a sense for the severity of the scenario nor the destructive implications. It lingers nonchalantly between the two notions making this entire situation seem almost normal. The movie tacks hard into self-serious waters, piling on the consequences. We don’t get into any of the characters’ heads either, though to be honest, there isn’t particularly much going on inside any of them. Lana manages the trick of making sex joyless. Like porn, he tops that by draining his film of variety and longing. Within that framework, Lana makes some serious missteps. He always had a fondness for these kind of highly symbolic, far-fetched stories, but he still feels the need to give his characters more mundane motivations, to make us like them. It’s an understandable miscalculation and let’s applaud these two insanely talented actresses for gamely lending real vulnerability to these broken creatures, but it’s a catastrophic one, because it threatens to bring Your Mother's Son into the real world, and that’s not a realm where this story can survive. This sort of thing threatens to make the movie about sex and as far as I can tell, that’s not what it's up to. There’s a potentially interesting attempt here to explore without judgment why older women might be drawn into relationships with much younger men. Physical pleasure, reassurance and unencumbered freedoms that often vanish over the course of conventional long-term unions. But the film sticks to the surfaces right up to the climactic exposure. That makes these characters not much more than irresponsible narcissists living in self-satisfied isolation. The movie wants it both ways. It asks not to be judged by standards of realism, but then tries to inject realism and naturalism into its absurdist narrative. One imagines what other directors who deal in similarly symbolic, hermetically sealed environments could have done with this material. Lana, for all his talent and ambition, doesn’t seem up to the task; in the end, Your Mother's Son doesn’t quite go far enough.


Sound Engineer: Allen Roy Santos

Music: Teresa Barrozo

Editor: Benjie Tolentino

Production Design: Roy Roger Requejo

Director of Photography: Moises Zee

Screenplay: Jun Robles Lana, Elmer Gatchalian

Directed By: Jun Robles Lana


 

SPECTACLE OVER SUBSTANCE

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Overly simplified and curiously uninvolving, Pula (Fire & Ice, CCM Film Productions, Centerstage Productions, 2023) is an example of how ruminative storytelling isn’t meant the way Brillante Mendoza presented it. He failed to make Pula into the emotionally echoing piece it could have been by drowning out the feelings with a garish and unfocused presentation. At once, the director is doing too much visually while not doing enough dramatically. Perhaps he could have let his characters do so as well. The biggest problem is that Mendoza pulls punches when it comes to content. Tricia (Christine Bermas) isn’t just simply murdered by Daniel (Coco Martin) she’s raped. Pula is a marathon of failed emotional connections. Caring about Tricia, beyond the basic empathy we feel for a murdered young girl, is almost impossible in her state in the film. Her presence has no meaning—she’s not lingering for any purpose communicated in her action. She just remains behind, if only to give the audience an excuse to watch her. Meanwhile, Tricia's parents Elena (Lotlot de Leon) and Canor (Alan Paule) spend their time brooding over their loss. At least Daniel is proactive about catching the killer. Although, Martin is clearly in over his head with the role and therein resides a problem. Mendoza isn’t quite sure if he wants to make a drama or if he wants to make a suspenseful thriller about catching a murderer. He doesn’t decide, so instead, Mendoza smashes the two together and neither receives full attention. Pula is all over, unfocused, unorganized and too poorly developed to convey the multitude of complex theories involved in the story. 

     Sadly, the filmmakers fail to strike a proper balance of the two parallel storylines and its many characters. It’s a mark of Mendoza’s lack of restraint that the mystery-thriller elements overtake the domestic drama that is the story's true raison d’être. He’s obsessed with spectacle over substance. The characters, peripheral to Daniel’s life but central to the narrative are largely undeveloped or ignored. Consider the wife, Magda (Julia Montes), whose marital withdrawal could have made a fascinating character study. She has an affair with police chief Raymond Anacta, played by Raymart Santiago. Magda is left mostly on the sidelines to have an emotional breakdown. For his part, Martin demonstrates the capacity to act superbly, ranging in emotion from suspicion to fear, loneliness and terror. Mendoza fails to engage us in the hurt of Tricia's parents, to whom at least half of the story should belong. Finally, there’s the plot. Rape and murder tends to be, understandably, a sympathy trigger like no other. This is apparent in journalism, where in any slow news week flip the channels and you will find story after story of the Missing Woman or Missing Teen exploited for ratings. There’s absolutely no question that these events are horrible, but for journalists and filmmakers this is like shooting fish in a barrel. Perhaps the story, characters and visual cohesiveness suffered because Mendoza felt assured he was dealing with an emotionally-manipulative subject that would preoccupy the audience enough to skew perception and make any real critical judgment of the film’s merits or flaws nearly impossible. Critics never endure more backlash from readers than when they attempt to deconstruct a film whose viewer is extraordinarily passionate. Pula redeems itself—barely—with an unconventional outcome likely to leave audiences feeling dissatisfied.


Director: Brillante Ma Mendoza

Screenplay: Reynold Giba

Director of Photography: Jao Daniel Elamparo, Freidric Macapagal Cortez, Jeffrey Icawat

Production Design: Dante Mendoza

Music: Jake Abella

Editor: Peter Arian Vito

Sound: Albert Michael Idioma, Deo Van Fidelson


GENIAL, CELEBRATORY

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     This genial, celebratory interview with Filipino filmmaker Lino Brocka interspersed with movie clips hits a note of excitable cinephilia throughout. Christian Blackwood examines the hows and whys behind Brocka's oeuvre in Signed: Lino Brocka (Christian Blackwood Productions, 1987) and what makes him worthy of serious attention. Blackwood decided to interview the director in person and let him discuss his filmography on screen with no other talking heads. This gives us Brocka’s unfiltered point of view. The director’s candid commentary reveals him to be a filmmaker who made movies and finds the right combination of style and substance. At least we now know why he did what he did. Nevertheless, Blackwood remains a cinema aficionado delivering a simple interview-style retrospective of Brocka’s life and career. What’s important here is movies – movies and yet more movies. Brocka’s personal life is given the occasional sidelong glance and there is an extraordinary moment when he confesses his coming out story. A staggering revelation that is mentioned briefly. There are no critics or film historians on hand to testify or tear down Brocka’s movies. None of his stars or screenwriters are interviewed to pay tribute. The entire interview was shot with Blackwood remaining off-camera, as this rather straightforward and linear account of Brocka proceeds with brief cutaways to his subject’s body of work. The documentary races a little too breezily through the earliest years of Brocka’s movie obsession. Whether he’s remarking on Eddie Garcia's over the top performance in Tubog sa Ginto (1971), his stories are fascinating, sometimes providing new insight into a film, showcasing the director’s unexpected honesty about his work. 

     Perhaps the most interesting aspects of Signed: Lino Brocka involve his discussions about censorship and the Marcoses. If there’s a worthy criticism about Brocka, it’s that the documentary does not thoroughly investigate how he’s been perceived. It’s a fascinating career overview (backed by ample clips, of course), as he talks about his critical breakout with 1974's Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang, his commercial success and box office failures. Blackwood puts Brocka in front of the camera and allows him to talk frankly and in depth about his journey through the Philippine movie industry. He explains single shots that bring the viewer into the moment while revealing an ever-changing perspective. What makes Signed: Lino Brocka an exciting and instructive film in its own right is that its subject is able to analyze his films from an emotional remove. That’s not to say he isn’t proud of what he made or that he’s overly self-critical. But he’s very rational with regard to what they are and what they achieved. The interesting thing is that he has insights on how every creative decision was made. Of course, not every movie Brocka made was great, but we emerge with a profound understanding of a singularly talented, creative filmmaker who invested himself fully in everything he did and whose work merits a second look. It becomes clear that nothing in his cinema is left to chance. The film’s focus on the work of its subject and desire to learn more from it is what really makes it worth watching. Signed: Lino Brocka is an entertaining portrait of a filmmaker that changed a generation.


Produced and Directed By: Christian Blackwood

Cinematography: Christian Blackwood

Editor: Monika Abspacher

Music: Michael Riesman

Sound: John Murphy

UNBEARABLY TENSE

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Dahas (MAQ Productions Inc., 1995) with Maricel Soriano, has two things that separate it from the pack of thrillers on the shelves: It's almost unbearably tense and it has the biggest visceral kick, capable of inspiring bloodlust in otherwise peaceful viewers. Seeing this movie, about a woman on the run from an abusive husband, makes us want to see Soriano lay him out. To maintain that emotional pitch, it's not enough for a movie to simply show a man smacking a woman. Everything has to work and it does. Chito Roño's cunning direction squeezes every drop of suspense from every setup. Most of all, it's the screenplay by Roy C. Iglesias that transforms an arresting premise into a thriller of significance. Iglesias' most important inspiration was in the writing of Jake, the husband, who is not a routine psycho sprouting devil horns on his honeymoon. Jake (Richard Gomez), operates with an unlimited sense of personal entitlement. He enters the life of Luisa (Soriano), like a toxic Prince Charming, sweeps her off her feet and portrays himself as a rescuer. If Jake were the husband from hell, Dahas would be a monster movie. Instead he's a fellow we recognize, a kind of man we might know, one who prides himself on getting what he wants, whose self-conception is tied up with his willingness to go to any length to succeed. Jakes are everywhere and that alone gives Dahas a modest social importance. 

     Soriano, playing a damaged soul, conveys a sense of that pain and when Jake hits her for the first time, we feel her terror. Gomez is chillingly twisted and the film is poised to make an effective dramatic statement. Tonton Gutierrez brings an edge to Eric, Luisa's knight in shining armor. Dahas does it by the numbers, albeit with style and has the requisite chase scenes, escapes and near-escapes and a suspenseful finale. Roño uses the same structure, in which a man victimizes a woman for the first half of the film and turns the tables in an extended sequence of graphic violence. The movie, in time-honored horror movie tradition doesn't allow Jake to really be dead the first time. There is a plot twist showing that Luisa can't really kill him--she's the heroine, after all--and then he lurches back into action like the slasher in many an exploitation movie. Dahas has a certain internal logic. Its wife-battering scenes characterize the movie's head-banging aesthetic. Through stealthy camera movements and an abrasively jumpy soundtrack, Dahas does a better job than most movies of sustaining a mood of palpable physical menace, then confirming your worst fears. From this point on, Dahas becomes agonizingly suspenseful and nerve-racking.


Sound Engineering: Audio Post

Production Designer: Jeffrey Jeturian

Supervising Editor: Ever V. Ramos

Film Editor: Jaime B. Davila

Director of Photography: Charlie S. Peralta

Music Composed By: Jessie Lasaten

Screenplay: Roy C. Iglesias

Directed By: Chito Roño


BEYOND REDEMPTION

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     What Vilma Santos achieves in Maryo J. de los Reyes' Tagos ng Dugo (VH Films, 1987) isn't a performance but an embodiment. With courage, art and charity, she empathizes with Josepina Ramos Regala, a damaged woman who simply asks that we witness a woman's final desperate attempt to be a better person than her fate intended. The performance is so focused and intense that it becomes a fact of life. Observe the way Santos controls her eyes in the film; there is not a flicker of inattention, as she urgently communicates what she is feeling and thinking. There's the uncanny sensation that Santos has forgotten the camera and the screenplay and is directly channeling her ideas about Pina. She has made herself the instrument of this character. Her transformation into a street prostitute, where she strides into the shadows before stepping forward to talk with Cesar Garcia (Miguel Rodriguez), a handsome young man who has found her in a strip mall after dark. I was simply watching one of the most real people I had ever seen on the screen. Pina's initial kill is justifiable. Having been raped as a child, she uses the knife in self-defense. Pina’s victims become progressively more innocent, with one simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. With a dying conscience, she dispatches Edwin (Michael de Mesa) and seals her fate. De Los Reyes presents the killings in a straightforward manner. Although we understand Pina's reasoning, we neither sympathize nor empathize with her. 

      Tagos ng Dugo asks for a measure of comprehension, not identification. And it demands that we consider what role (if any) society may have played. That approach, more than any other, defuses charges of exploitation and moral indifference, making this a compelling, thought-provoking and unsettling drama. Movies like this are perfect when they get made, before they're grounded down by analysis. There is a certain tone in the voices of some critics that I detest. That superior way of explaining technique in order to destroy it. They imply that because they can explain how Santos did it, she didn't do it. But she does it. Pina's body language is frightening and fascinating. She doesn't know how to occupy her body. Watch Santos as she goes through a repertory of little arm straightenings, body adjustments and head tosses and hair touchings, as she nervously tries to shake out her nervousness and look at ease. And note that there is only one moment in the movie where she seems relaxed and at peace with herself; you will know the scene, and it will explain itself. Francis Arnaiz finds the correct note for Andy Mercado. Some critics have mistaken it for bad acting, when in fact it is sublime acting in its portrayal of a bad actor. We are told to hate the sin but not the sinner and as I watched Tagos ng Dugo, I began to see it as an exercise in the theological virtue of charity. It refuses to objectify Pina insisting instead on seeing her as someone worthy of our attention. She has been so cruelly twisted by life and is unequipped for this struggle. She is impulsive, reckless, angry and violent, and she devastates her victims and herself. There are no excuses for what she does, but there are reasons and the purpose of the movie is to make them visible. If life had given her anything at all to work with, we would feel no sympathy. But life has beaten her beyond redemption.


Director of Photography: Ely Cruz

Production Designed By: Cesar Hernando & Lea Locsin

Film Editing: Jess Navarro

Musical Director: Jaime Fabregas

Sound Engineer: Joe Climaco

Screenplay: Jake Tordesillas

Directed By: Maryo J. de los Reyes

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