BETTER GO AND GET YOUR ARMOR

Doubt (John Patrick Shanley/USA/2009)

Screenplays adapted from stage plays do not usually display and flaunt flashy technicalities on the film, what they ostentatiously  create for themselves  however is a gaudy treasure of film actors performances. These films talk ravely, defiling any human attitudes, behaviors, and ideologies just as from where and what form they are borrowing the content. What films from theater can develop is the character's proximity to the much desired empathy from the audience through what films have and theater don’t—editing.

Doubt has really been interesting for two reasons: superb acting and the compelling conflicts. Meryl Streep plays Sister Aloysious Beauvier, a strict and conformist principal of St. Nicholas Church School.  This Oscar-winning actress verifies all her awards and nominations under her name worthy of every single dime by rendering a frightening, unapproachable, austere and bigoted character. In fact, I even think that Streep has surpassed what Kate Winslet delivered in “The Reader” which for me, should mean another Oscar win for Meryl and none for Kate yet. He is just so dexterous, satisfying, and most importantly—true, all throughout the film. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Father Flynn, the beloved priests who Sister Aloysius insistently accuse of infringements, and implicitly personally dislikes. Hoffman, another Oscar-winning actor for his very memorable acting in “Capote” made Streep’s job and internalization very tractable. His pleasing aura gets more and more noble as his lovely character is being indicted, an artistic phenomenon only few are capable of. His voice carries with it a thundering authority that resounds through anxiety and fury in the most critical scenes of him with Streep. Amy Adams plays Sister James, an uncorrupted young nun who is tattered between the now loathsome result of what she innocently surmises and of the hopeful redemption of kindness and of elusive truth. Adams is tremendously mesmerizing. I succumb to her purity in acting. I do not wish to overstate, but she is really a conspicuous gem that shimmers alongside the veterans Streep and Hoffman. This demonstrates how adequate the screenplay is for no actors can absolutely be good out of a bad script.

 

The film is very character-driven and very conflict-based—very much a characteristic of plays. Doubt is made up of a human pageant of instinct which is an undoubtful uncertainty, of wishful judgment which is a doubtful uncertainty, and of the repressed truth which is an undoubtful certainty. This convolution of human disposition in a religious atmosphere comprises the good structure of its titular ‘Doubt’. Though it is not clear whether father Flynn is really the man that Sister Aloysius thinks he is, its resolution constrains us to muse over the severe nun bursting out in tears telling she has doubts of what she thought and ponder about the impeccant priest’s freeness from the tainted accusations. The film’s contents are fully honest and scrutinizing creating a paradox of honesty in a surmised foundation. This paradox surprisingly is present in every human beings in the world whether consciously or unconsciously and much as the film is concerned, it is one of the gravest loophole of our psyche.

Speaking of loopholes, I think that the underbearing part of Doubt is its vague and delayed establishment of the point of view and of the characters. Sister Aloysius only appeared after more than 15 minutes, as well as Father Flynn and Sister James. Given that the film is adapted from theater, we are expecting a lot of lengthy sequences that makes a couple of sequences look very long where we almost don’t keep in mind what previously established characters might be doing at the present time, or worse completely forget  them and be surprised of their next appearance in the film. The film’s major objective and conflict only made sense only after 30 minutes or more, though it is forgivable by seeing brilliant actors on their top form even without any life-rending conflicts yet and you can also add tot hat a congruous cinematography of Roger Deakins, especially at the scenes at the church.

The film is a battlefield: first of creating an exceptional transformation of a stage play into silverscreen, which it kinda fell short of; and of a smashing, tenacious, and formidable personalities that Doubt absolutely achieves. Doubt, if not the best, is one of the best-acted Hollywood films just as much as I render it due.

EVIL GETS THE BETTER OF THE PROTAGONIST

Villa Estrella (Rico Ma Ilarde/Philippines/2009)

Swimming polls killing people because of retaliating spirits is actually an impossible idea even if you ask seasoned spirit questors. Pools may be haunted but for them to engulf unfortunate human beings is only a cinematic exaggeration. This in reality makes Villa Estrella a real fictional-horror film. By that, it means that you don’t have to worry about what is happening in the film to happen as well once you find yourself amazed over a swimming pool.  The film is made up of a typical ghost film plot and twisting it in ways where some is predictable others surprising and eventually end up in a way unconventional ending that though may cause unsatisfaction to normal audience, causes awe at least for me.

Ana (Shaina Magdayao) finds herself helpless against her ex-boyfriend, Alex (Jake Cuenca), with the permission of her dad Eddie (John Estrada) to e in a certain dilapidated resort called Villa Estrella that they have a plan to revive. Ana though having comfortable times with Mang Gustin (Ronnie Lazaro), Suzy (Rubi-Rubi), and Giselle (Maja Salvador/Eda Nolan), still can’t get easy with her ex-boyfriend’s manipulation, her father’s pressures, and the many weird things for her happening in the place: Jennifer (Celine Lim) talking to an invisible friend, Mang Gustin’s missing daughter, and her near death experience, almost drowning in the pool. Together with Dennis (Geoff Eigenmann) and Otap (Empoy Marquez), Ana makes an attempt to get out of the place but ends up staying the whole night after Otap can’t be seen anymore in addition to when she learns that her locket is no longer with her. The next day, Eddie and Dave (John Arcilla), fathers of both Ana and Alex respectively, arrive at Villa Estrella. Dennis, after searching friend Otap, learns about a certain Andrea buried under the swimming pool. Ana finds out that Giselle is not the Giselle she has known the day before but a ghost wanting to avenge her death. Ana learns that she is Andrea, the daughter of Mang Gustin. To her outmost surprise, Dave and her father, Dave, killed Andrea. Dave shots dead Dennis after knowing what he just discovered. Eddie is killed by Mang Gustin. Andrea tells Ana that she wants her body. After saying I can’t to what Andrea has just said, the latter vanished, and what appears to her at the neck of a statue towering the pool is her locket that her deceased mother gave her. In attempt to get the sentimental locket, the statue collapses, diving down the pool with Ana. After a year, Andrea has taken over Ana’s body without Mang Gustin and Alex knowing.

Villa Estrella is a little above average horror film. The screenplay is well thought of. The well-kept secrets and the horrifying process of their revelations are impressive. The swimming pool is a good metaphor of a buried secret that even after many years resurfaces terribly gruesome and thrilling. The twist that Maja is a spirit is not totally surprising especially with her unfathomable and stern looks. Living after The Sixth Sense has been released makes watching anything like this very easy to decipher. What is really unpredictable is her killers—the two fathers of the troubled Alex and Ana, where an early comment of Suzy about the two missing uncles of Alex said that men couldn’t last a night without women, which is what exactly Eddie and Dave did to Andrea. I love the fact many things in the film are well planted—Mang Gustin’s dead daughter, Suzy’s daughter, the locket, and even the kid ghost—Danica, though looking overrated with her shocking appearances without direct relationship to Andrea actually is a well planted element of the film for she diverts the audiences’ reading that Andrea is the real force of horror in the pool.

The film’s foxy handling of information is a good part of it. Maja Salvador’s acting is another one. Her acting is brilliant. In fact, the best I have seen from this young actress. Cabalistic enough to be suspicious, she creates a fountain of interest leading towards her. The scene where she is being drowned by John Estrada is the best part of the movie for her. she surely, as it shows, understands the word helpless—as it defines the scene explaining the mystery that impels everything. But what I really admire about the film is the surprising and unusual failure of the protagonists. Ana has three objectives: to stop Andrea's retribution, to get out of the shadows of her ex-boyfriend Alex, to be with Dennis, and even to get the found locket if you want to add, then make it four And she, completely achieved nothing, because aside from the very minimal, almost negligible efforts, all she did in the film is actually to walk-out, to run, and to escape. Andrea, the antagonist and supposedly the loser, wins the film. If we take a look at the people who died in the crucial night of Villa Estrella, we will see that Eddie and Dennis are both Ana's loved ones while those who survived, Mang Gustin, Alex, and Ana's body, are what Ana needs if she is to live in the person, in the life of, and in the body of Ana. This is an unusual ending, thoough not absolutely unusual for we see some similarities with Jun Lana's "Kulam" but this is something that you will not always see in Star Cinema.

The fortitude of Villa Estrella comes from its boldness (though not absolute) of rejecting a staple happily and  victoriously ended horror films.

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.

A CHEAP THRILL THAT REALLY THRILLS

EL MARIACHI (Robert Rodriguez/1992/USA)

Exploring cultural loss amidst the society’s fast changing living in the drug dealing action imagery describes the film El Mariachi. The film is a low-budgeted flick and this makes it outstanding and unbelievable because it is packed with many location changes, many characters, stunts, and even props ranging from guitars, to guns, to cars, and even prosthetics. It is a living testimony of a good film out of a not so good budget.

The main character (Carlos Gallardo) only wants to be a Mariachi and he tries his luck to a town where as destiny played a game of life and death with him, has been mistaken with a hustler who is trying to get the better of a drug lord.

The structure is very well defined. The objectives are clear and they are interestingly intertwined with each other’s goal creating a web of conflicts that resulted to action-packed sequences of running, chasing, and firings.

The director and cinematographer are so brave in shooting the film with no master shot, thinking that they only have to shoot the shots that they really want from the start for the benefits of cutting the expenses of negatives. What is really interesting for me in the film is that it didn’t look that it was shot with only a single camera. This is done by changing the positions of the camera as the action progresses which is definitely not easy and requires a lot of patience and passion.

From the point above, the main difference between El Mariachi and our local independent films is that El Mariachi didn’t attempt to look low budgeted or independent. You can actually always feel the commercial ‘feel’ of it all throughout the time. Specifically the camera set-up, it distinguishes the border of El Mariachi to ours in capturing consideration. The cast is the only element in the finished product I think that is very independent, all the rest, the technical manipulation, the entertaining and engaging plot and the action-romance genre are all commercial in nature. While the only independent inside the plot is the death of the protagonists’ love interest Domino (Consuelo Gomez).

Shooting most of the shots, if not everything, in a very limited film stock is a very risky thing to do in the production. There should be less or even no errors in the production and in the development and processing of the negative.

The result of this pop screenplay in a low budgeted and very independent mode of shooting is very impressive. El Mariachi tackles what has been lost in the life of the mariachi but we sure find the film as a film that we do not see every week or every month in our local movie houses or as something whose budget is so contained that gives yet a result so deceiving you wouldn’t even guess it’s cheap. El Mariachi is a first rate cheap film; and this is possible because of excellent production management.

A BEAUTIFUL RITUAL CALLED GOOD FILMMAKING

Mangatyanan (Jerold Tarog/2009/Philippines)

Mangatyanan in simple words, is one of the films that keeps my faith in the unbelievable potentials of Philippine independent film making. The themes such as domestic violence, woman liberation, and patriarchal deconstruction or destruction are age-old themes and probably as old as the endangered ritual which is the titular of the film. But that exactly, the juxtaposition of the issues to a very semi-indigenous, semi-exotic, and raw and inevitably something unknown a cultural rite accompanied by heart pumping score work wonder for this well told piece of outstretched story in art.
Laya (Che Ramos) works with Eric (Neil Ryan Sese) in Isabela to photograph the probably last Mangatyanan ite to be performed, as she escapes from the obligation of visiting her well known father in the world of photography at the hospital. The rite is incompletely done as the supposedly successor ran away from the ritual, the pains of it and more importantly the obligation of heiring the position. As Laya and Eric waits for the bus going back to Manila, Laya learns that her father is already dead. Instead of going back home, she runs to the path of the unfinished Mangatyanan and finishes the whole process including the drinking of the liquid that is believed to enable the person to speak to the tribe's gods.
Producing any film is of course a mixture of a tiring and pleasurable experiences. But in the film, it can be doubled by the fact that they are going to a place that they might never have thought of. Going outside the metro for a shoot is as adrenaline bursting as an action movie. In fact, in terms of excitement, no one between the two has a far cry over the other. A mountainous area in Isabela can't make you bore to death. Producing such film is also fun because the story is about a photographer which is just the forerunner of the whole project you are making—film. I have seen some of the behind the scenes stills of Mangatyanan, and the actual stills of the BTS is essentially just like what the film is all about has got its structure--- a story through the passion in photos. This also calls for a challenging production design. As it is about a tribe with a dying ritual and culture, designing the beauty of the location, of the people, of the instruments is an experience that no lame production designer could ever attain.
I like the film practically because of five reasons and even though I like it I still have three issues about certain parts of the film
I admire the storytelling. As I have pointed out earlier, the subject matter is not something new. Despite the fact that movies about woman liberation and deconstruction tend to have the same take and same look and same resolutions, Mangatyanan finds her way to tell the story of Cinderella who is more passionate and that same passion led her to 'unforgive' her stepmothers and stepsisters. The film has just proved that no subject matter or theme can ever be dried, instead, everything is in any unimaginable way succulent.
I like its form. The functions of the parallelisms, similarities, differences, and variations are engaging enough to keep the viewers focus to the film while slowly absorbing how this element has something to do with a previous element without overdoing it that causes entertainment nausea out of elemental overload.
The narrative provides an excellent turning point, so excellent that I thought the first half of the film would completely be a bore without Laya finishing the Mangatyanan rite. Though the film is purely character driven, it has just been obvious in this part of the film. Escaping her social obligation of visiting her father in the hospital seems to plot driven but escape is also not any less than an objective. It is also her character that drives her away from her father. Her bold predicament to the ritual though clears the driving force of the film.
The cinematography especially and particularly in the scene where Laya is under trance seeing her father is a beauty in phantasmagoria. I love its dusty and yet pacific texture. Even the initial appearance of her father (Pen Medina), his staging and composition (that I want to specify his simple distance from Laya) is severely poignant and beautiful.

I commend that it is entertaining. While many other independent films try to be unentertaining by being self proclaimed as a film highly intellectuals can only draw power from it, Mangatyanan tries to tell a good story with a good appeal. I believe this film has a commercial potential. Which unfortunately reminds me how these beautiful a movie can't be produced commercially without Bea Alonzo or Marian Rivera playing Laya.
From this I would like to point out the actors' contribution to the entirety of the film. Che Ramos, Neil Ryan Sese, Irma Adlawan and other casts have given justifiable performances. Though I would like to comment that no one has really surpassed the 'just' performance which is expected. In other words, no one among them have really stood out. But biting into the bright side, they at least are convincing actors.
The fantasy scene is my favorite part in the film in terms of cinematography but I guess the conversation between the two has been prolonged. I didn't like that Laya's father talked so much. I also didn't like that he has to open his mouth to speak, it decreases the beauty in phantasmagoria I was talking about earlier. Lastly, I wish that the part where Laya and her father hesitantly hug each other was just deleted or at least polished their movements. In understand that the two has to be reconciled and they translated that resolution by the hugging but the movement is rough and so humanly mechanical that is very anti-fantasy where I expected every single movement in that scene be fluid and smooth.
I am also not a fan of the scene where Eric attended Laya in the hospital and said that he is there because she needs him to be there. It is very love team like and the two of them is a good working pair and not so good a love team. I am in anyway actually hoping for the absence of romantic love in the totality in the film because I believe that will cause injury in the feminist consistency of the film.
Over all, I still think that Mangatyanan, self referentially, without reading any intertextualities with its Confessional co-trilogy, is an admirable film. Though it is not flawless for me, it is not an enough to hate it or even lessen what I love about the film. The intensity of the film especially from its turning point that I have identified earlier until the well timed and rhymed fast sequences heading to the end comprised the films goodness with the largest percentage. That actually reminded me of Marc Forster's Finding Neverland where a turning point skyrocketed and never( at least essentially) decreased its acceleration and velocity until the very end leaving the audiences with a still hot sky rocket engine to give the film a round of applause it truly deserves.

LITERALLY BOLD AND LITERALLY BEAUTIFUL

Tuhog (Jeffrey Jeturian/2001/Philippines)

Tuhog is nothing less than an adult candy and a film enthusiast candy as well, a beautiful piece of sensitive issue framed in a captivating cinematography and honest interpretation of film as a media. The film tries to give a picture of how media particularly film manipulates real life and reel life. From the very start, it delineated to us how stories should be a commodity and therefore be consumed for the very superficial nature of media itself which is economical. The film proposes very important questions it interestingly didn't answer explicitly-- is it ethical to change some true to life stories into something that is more viable to commercial audiences? Are the hundred thousand peso payment and name censorship enough to protect the emotional vulnerability of the real people involved? Does seeing your story no matter how wicked the skeletons in your closet of secrets are in the splendor of silver screen enough because it subconsciously satisfies a fantasy over the phantasmagoric world of movies? The film answered no as suggested by the scene where Floring (Ina Raymundo) and Perla (Irma Adlawan) went out of the theater and didn't finish the movie based on their story anymore, though the accomplishment of the 'Hayok sa Laman' speaks doses of how they had also been eluded into making their personal experience a cinematic one.

The structure of Tuhog is awesome, at the time revolutionary, very far from what quality films of Star Cinema looks like, such as Tanging Yaman. It is non linear, we experience engagement through numbers of flashbacks without conventional filmic techniques on doing a flashback just like fading in to white or the close-up to extreme close-up shots to suggest flashbacks. It is a film watching another film about the film. It is different from a film within a film where the movie is really about making a film, or the behind-the-scene movies making it unique than any Filipino film ever made. It also has some documentary touches. The scenes where each character close to Floring have been interviewed create a huge impact on how Tuhog is seen as really a human story soon to be a movie story.

I am swept away by the cinematography. Striking angles and compositions, color palette, and movement producing an over-all tone of passion and innocence with highlighted intensity in many a genre both Tuhog and Hayok sa Laman can be identified. I commend the difference in the cinematography of Tuhog as oposed to Hayok sa Laman. Definitely, the latter's cinematography is more genius in terms of how lavish, warm and fantastic the look became but what is genius in the side of Tuhog is that it didn't try to look as dreamy as the other one. The realization is that Tuhog is the reality of Hayok sa Laman and therefore look as simple as one could perceive an ordinary day.

Where it fell short for me is the genre. The title itself honestly devastated me. I was a grade schooler before, who just like any other ordinary viewer and movie awards expectator, assumed a win from the favorite Tanging Yaman, but when I heard that a film entitled Tuhog had won I was like cursing how come a cheap sounding movie win for the much coveted award. Many years after, I experienced and learned how Tanging Yaman never had a chance to win over Tuhog at least in URIAN, though until now I can't really appreciate the title. There are a lot of possible canonical titles for the film to kick the five-lettered word to name a awesome film. The title really sounded off for me and the film deserves a better title. Hayok sa Laman on the other hand is perfect for the film inside. Parallel to this, I guess it would be a just treatment if the genre of Tuhog had been carefully done not to cross its border over the bold genre of Hayok sa Laman. What I am trying to say is that the film can leave all the 'boldness it can artistically handle to Hayok sa Laman and make Tuhog as purely a drama film. There are some points in Tuhog where I thought ambiguities in the genre occurred, like a couple of panty-pulling scenes that are not absolutely necessary but in any way touches the other film.

Tuhog generally is an intelligent masterpiece that needs to be watched and at least realized if not analyzed or criticized. It speaks volumes from the most famous product of human intelligence—communication through mass media. Also, it speaks volumes from the massive talent Filipino filmmakers have just waiting for a bigger and more liberal, honest, and unprejudiced audience.