A HEARTFUL CONSTITUTION OF THE SCARED, BY THE SCARED, FOR THE SCARED

T2 (Chito S. Rono/2009/Philippines)

The year 2008 has added two horror films (“Kulam” and “Shake Rattle & Roll 10”) into the long list of Philippine horror movies--a genre that never failed to at least get back what the production companies have spent filming them. A number that is quite unimaginable for a country so fond of this type of films. This year, it seems that there is more faith to that assumption. Two months before closing the year, moviegoers have already seen two horror films in the local commercial line-up: GMA’s “Sundo” & “Patient X”, Regals’s “Tarot”, some independent production like “Manghuhula”, and Star Cinema’s “Villa Estrella” and “T2”

T2 is a riveting narrative of dilatory confrontations of our lives’ painful and unacceptable realities embellished with real accounts of supernatural encounters with engkantos researched during its concept development period. The movie tells the story of Claire (Maricel Soriano), a travel agency owner who volunteers in an organization that ensures that every orphan in their custody will have a family they will grow up with, being an orphan herself. Claire together with Elias (Eric Fructuoso), sends and accompanies an orphan named Angeli (Mica Dela Cruz) to a mentioned aunt in a certain tenement in Manila where the title T2 comes from. The journey back to Manila has been ensued by weird events while Claire continues to ignore Jeremy’s (Derek Ramsey) calls, being mad about Jeremy breaking up with her. At the tenement, Claire learns that the people who want to get Angeli as the girl has been trying to keep it herself are engkantos. She is a daughter of a human and an engkanto and her mom wants to get her but she has been convinced by her father never ever come together with her mom in due time. She has felt so much unforgettable love from her father, and from this is where she hold on tight to reject the grandeur, the immortality, and the heartlessness of her mother’s world. Claire with the help of a neighbor (Tetchie Agbayani), who also has a story to share about their magnificent civilization, she is left with few minutes to save Angeli from the eternal destitution of spirit.

The film is a beautiful delineation of a point in every person’s life where we want to escape but just could not possibly do so. The domination of journey in the film provides an easy picture of life superimposed with escape. This journey-horror theme is also something new. We always see horror films about vacations on places, going back to Manila, and going back again to the province after they experience inexplicable things they need to find answers before everything becomes late (“Ouija”, “Siquijor”), but seldom we do see a film that treats journey as an adornment to a horror story more than just a logical explanation of moving from point A to point B.

Clair is trying to get away from the painful break-up with her partner. We see the passion she has to the organization she is involved as she immediately find it as the first and probably only resort from her extreme disappointment. Her character sets aside her own horror by helping a little girl who also wishes to run away from her own horror. Unbeknownst to the two of them, they need one another to resolve each other’s problems. This has been exemplified in the scene where Claire realized that the reason why they have met is because they can fill each other’s long deprival—parents for Angeli and a daughter for Claire.

What I really like about the film is that it is not just a horror film that tries to disgust audiences with their gross monster’s clammy green saliva or to shock them with growling gruesome ghosts. I can actually label T2 as a drama-horror film more than a horror-drama movie. I felt the fear of the characters through their emptiness that surely will have no other means of filling it up but by the security of familial protection. I love the fact that the film is very Filipino—the mystique of the supernatural, the importance of a family, the drama, the horror, the tenement. This has even elevated the level of family in Philippine drama by affirming a family related by heart and not necessarily by blood.

A film will never be good or bad without the performances of the actors. Have they remained to the characterization faithfully, or have they been confused with the hundreds of characters they have been once with their actual selves? Are they convincing enough to love or to hate them, or at least empathize them? Maricel Soriano, is at least for me Philippine Cinema’s Meryl Streep (though she even have more acting awards than Streep). Soriano is an acting chameleon. I actually adore her. You can always see her do decent acting. In T2, Soriano is again consistent and strong. This is not her best nor her worst, though her worst is still better than other actor around. Mica Dela Cruz  is a fantastic revelation. She has contributed so much to the suspension of disbelief in the film. This is a wonderful, commendable act for a child star giving quality support to a Philippine movie icon. Eric Fructuoso’s acting is also impressive. He doesn’t have any scene of ultimate moment in the film that you can see award giving bodies show in awards night as a nomination clip for acting, but he is faithful throughout. This is actually one of the reasons why I felt sad in his character has to die.

Oftentimes we hear stories about people who have been to that mystical world of engkantos telling of their blinding world. That might be the biggest challenge of mounting T2 I suppose. Practically, Philippine cinema can only achieve that by pure special effects. A third world country cinema can’t build phantasmagoric sets to depict such place, a sad reality but will continue to be a dram for film enthusiasts. Most of the special effects are awesome, something that you will be proud of. The façade of the palace where Claire stands before and the overview of the whole place at the background where fireworks are displayed are stunning amazing. For some time, I thought I was watching a Hollywood fantasy-adventure film. But nothing can just be perfect yet. Inside the palace, the design is still worth seeing but other production values wanes. The number of people/engkantos inside is very small, the central platform where the higher ranked engkantos are standing is also very small and uneventful looking, even the costumes are too simple for a place that is supposed to be fanciful. The cinematography and special effects at that point have seemed to overlook the phantasm of the scene. The lighting is very even, I can’t get out of my mind that the world I am seeing is just shot behind green screens. This could have been a scene where the best lightings could have been experimented and explored. This is what I love about “Pan’s Labyrinth”, where the cinematography and visual effects at the kingdom where Ofelia turns to be a princess is very immaculate. It just dramatically melts in your eyes like a chocolate melts in your mouth. But lingering the difference in the cinematography will be a waste of time, again this will remain a dream for future Filipino filmmakers.

T2 is a very good story, a good film, what it lacks is what a third world country cinema lacks—technological filmic advancement. But I definitely do not and will never condemn this for lacking that part because it has created an interesting mix of genre. The film is coherent with many elements that have something to do with journey. T2 for me is one of the better films our country ha produced at least for the year. Keeping the heart at the forefront while clinging to the horror that is economically and even artistically tested, T2 succeeds to show us that Philippine horror films are continuing to be original and that we can create them excellently and even more so with advanced filmmaking techniques/equipment in the future .

THE ESSENCE OF A FILM, THE THEORY OF FANTASISM WAY

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (David Fincher/USA/2008)

A fantasy treated like a reality—this doesn’t always happen with the same ethereally dazzling result like David Fincher does it. Winning 3 Academy Awards—Best Art Direction, Best Visual Effects, and Best Make-up, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button grabs what they just deserve by bringing in the screen an incredible story captured in a sophisticated, classy, and grand cinematography and a production design superbly done. The movie is an affirmation of of human interaction with people and what these people do as brought upon by a very significant and vital element of life and of the film—time.

The film follows the unusual and even grotesque life of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) who is born looking like an 80 year old man. He is abandoned by his father and adopted by Queenie (Taraji Henson) who attends a home care for the old men and women to whom Benjamin seems to be just one. He grows older, but looks younger. He learns more but looks less old. He meets Daisy (Cate Blanchett) at the shelter, they become friends and will eventually be together. After they leave each other for personal pursuits, they finally decided to live together, this time looking more of the equal age. They are given a daughter but Benjamin is not prepared to be a father in the state of his bizarre condition. He leaves Daisy and their daughter, asking his wife to look for a normal father that will give their daughter a normal life. The next time Daisy meets Benjamin, he looks much younger while she looks much older, and their daughter already grown up very loving of her known father. Benjamin continues to get old and yet look very young. He dies a baby being cradled in the arms of the old Daisy.

Time is the core of this film. It explores an extraordinary reverse life process of a man creating pumping curiosity. There is no need finding logic or exhausting our faculties for answering such curious case because what we need to find is a heart that can understand what the intellect can not answer. The heart of a single moment is the purpose of that exact moment. We may unconsciously appreciate it but our hearts do consciously so. The turnaround of Benjamin’s life—growing young instead of growing old is only physical; and it is the matrix that provides us with the explanation that human beings do what they can possibly do and that human beings are just generally the same—that we all pass through life whether we grow old or grow young physically.

Where it gets most of my veneration for the film is its technical elegance. A visual achievement definitely made possible by its shimmering visualization, remarkable make-up, and startling effects. The classy feel from all the flashback scenes blend with the grandeur of its production values. While I am blown away by its excellent visuals, I am bothered though by some of its parts. I have always had a problem with films trying to tell a life-long story in a film. There are times that the three hour narrative justifies the 70 year story or more but there are also some that doesn’t. I think that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is one of those. I think this is due to the seemingly rushed ending and prolonged beginning of the film that makes the time frame distorted. Since the most important part of the film, at least for me, happens in the point where Benjamin is to leave his family, the concentration of actions and time  should have happened also in that later part of the film. There are also points in the film where I can’t let go of my adoration to the film because there is a feeling of awkwardness that draws me back. I materialize that awkwardness in the realistic treatment of the film that is really fantastic. I can’t say that even with the likes of Fincher, this type of approach always works. The sensitivity that you see something you know will never happen in the real world devised that it really does happen somewhere and sometime consists of that awkwardness.

Nevertheless, the film is still a first-class film. I f you set your mind to thinking that the purpose of a film is to let you visualize strange stories you will never ever witness yourself, then this film has absolutely done its purpose. The curious Case of Benjamin Button’s filmic excellence is completely enough for you to see this Oscar multi-nominated work of creativity.

YOUNG SAD BOYS..ALWAYS MAKE ME CRY

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (Mark Herman/UK,USA/2008)

Poignant and innocent, it is not everyday that you see a film such as The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas that pierces through the fundamental soul of your heart and move you in ways so bittersweet, unforgettable and unbelievable. Based on a book by an Irish novelist John Boyne, this beautiful picture teaches us that beyond the familiarity of ourselves there exist an unfamiliarity that needs to be tamed, understood, and be recognized as we recognize ourselves.

Bored and curious as a child, Bruno, explored the out-there of the new house they just moved in. He finds a boy name Shmuel and learns that he is not an ordinary boy behind a barbed fence.  As he develops an amazing friendship, he also makes a mark of his gradual knowledge and ironically misunderstanding of their difference, that he is a German and that the boy in the striped pyjamas is an enemy, a Jew; and of his naïve confusion of what his father is fighting for, and he should also fight as a German. His father, Officer Ralf, convinced finally by his loving mother, Elsa, together with the whole family is about to move in a place farther than the evil smoke that is from the gas chambers of the camp. Bruno, before saying final goodbyes to Shmuel, goes inside the camp wearing a striped pair of pyjamas to look for Shmuel’s father but before they are able to do so, they find themselves deluded to the chamber with a copious other believing only a shower is about to happen. Noticing Bruno’s absence in a swing tied in a tree where he used to be at. The family, together with the soldiers under Officer Ralf makes a desperate attempt to follow Bruno’s path leading them to the camp that shocks each one of them. They try to get in, but as bad as their worst nightmare, everything now is just too late.

As much as I am delighted by films like Little Manhattan, The Kite Runner, Artificial Intelligence and a number of other films that looks at life in the uncorrupted eyes of children, I am purified by the film’s perpetualiy of its point of view. Bruno’s scenes with Shmuel playing, talking and sharing food together is very emotionally riveting. The composition—the clean early 20^th century European clothes of Bruno against the worn-out and filthy striped pyjamas of Shmuel, the clean and scarless face of a German boy against the wounded and troubled face of a Jewish son, the toys and the food that Bruno brings against the wheelbarrow of Shmuel, and the barbed fence that divides the both of them—is one of the strongest, most touching and well-contrasted scene I’ve ever seen on screen. In these scenes I see the rigidity of the social structures which is very strong in the house of the family, being critically attacked. Yes, I can see the physical superiority that is sewed with other economic, social, and political aspects but between the innocence of the two boys, I see a marvelous and a brilliant brotherhood—a brotherhood that seems to be obsolete and useless in the world of the adults, in the world of power, and in the world that is soon to be theirs.

The only thing I wish to change in the film is its cinematography. I remember this parallel issue I encountered watching Marc Foster’s The Kite Runner. I think the cinematography of the film is  a little candy-ish, with that, I mean that the colors/visuals of The Kite Runner are too colorful, very catering to kids when it talks about giant issues such as the Talibans and modern world repression, though the rest of the film is of course awesome as Marc Foster could be. This also concerns me with The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, a more mature and competitive cinematography can absolutely put the film in places where films like Oliver Twist and Finding Neverland have been to.

A film very heartwarming and touching, this film will make you realize what a child is, and how adorable it is to always be a child. People who are searching for the hiding fountain of humanity will be surprised to find it in a German boy who has a friend in a striped pyjamas

WORLD'S MOST OUTRAGEOUS IMAGINATION

Journey to the Center of the Earth (Eric Brevig/2008/USA)

Fantasy adventure family films--these visual stunners and ultimate entertainers never fell short in mass popularity and general divertion. Journey to the Center of the Earth is enchased with astounding human and technological creativity bringing us in an experience so fascinating that is so eye-poppingly captured for the screen.Brendan Fraser of The Mummy series has really proven himself an icon of this genre movies; nevertheless with the help of Bridge to Terabithia's Josh Hutcherson.

The film is about Trevor Anderson (Fraser), a volcanogist/professor who is on the verge of losing his laboratory because of its long time unproductive status. Together with his nephew to his brother Max, Sean (Hutcherson),he goes to Iceland to meet a professor Max has named on his book before he died. To their surprise, that professor has died and instead they have been accompanied by his daughter Hannah (Anita Briem) in to the mountains and yes, until they made their way to the center of the Earth and their way home home which are characterized by hollow deeps, dizzy mine railways, jewel chambers, illuminated birds, giant mushrooms, sea filled with ghastly breed of fish and friendly water horses.

Journey to the Center of the Earth is a film about determination, an adventure that subjugates the idiosyncrasies and insecurities of the modern and competitive life under the captivating pleasure of what we can find because of a goal strengthened simply by love. The center of the earth is a metaphor of what we want, of what we aspire, of what we wish for. This sweet pursuit of dream is made bone chilling by by astonishing special effects and lavish production design. Certifiably an eye-candy, a chocolate for the soul of our eyes, it is nothing less a candy shop for the most outrageous imagination.

This family movie though is not perfect and could have been stretched more its potential. The journey of the three could have been elevated by probably bringing in in some greedy scientific/career rival of the Andersons that will give more action in an already action packed-able setting.There are some points in the film where I felt like the presence of the three characters is too small for the Center of the Earth and to reiterate or rephrase, the spectacularity of the visual composition is awesome but the thrills are a little boxed by the location.

The film, though improvements could have been done in the narrative itself particularly the addition of a stock character--the villain, is still a great Hollywood visual stunner. It is one of the most visually-rich family adventure out there that I've seen. The film is not perfect, it may even seem a little shallow and less socially relevant but if you want to have some departure from our complicated life on earth, you might as well want to visit the center of the earth. Try this one and have your eyes blown out of their sockets.