And here it is, Cinemanila!

Even though my first day of Cinemanila International Film Festival (Dec. 20) was somewhat marked by unpredictability (cancelled screenings, late start of program and rainy weather), the films that this film junkie saw did not disappoint. 

"The Act of Killing" by Joshua Oppenheimer, et al (Indonesia/Denmark) 

This semi-documentary film is the most unsettling work that I have seen on the big screen in a long time (when was the last - Lars von Trier's "Dancer in the Dark", back in 2003?). The subject of the film itself is one tough stuff:the "re-enactment" of the mass killings perpetrated by Indonesia's military government during the late '60s, no less by the very men who did the murders themselves. The main target of such mass liquidation was what the government dubiously branded as "communists". If you were a landless farmer, then you were dead;if you were a Chinese, you were dead;if you had anything bad to say against the government, you were dead. The men who committed the atrocities tried to justify their act as the work of "free men" or "gangsters" (and this etymology is reiterated not a few times in the film) who possessed the "liberty" to enact things that they deemed to be of great benefit to the country. Thinking of this, it makes sense why these "thugs", when given free rein by the filmmakers to choose their mode of re-enactment, would opt to "dramatize" their criminal acts by way of the gangster genre. These men, notable of which is Anwar Congo (one of the most-feared executioners during those times), have such a high respect and admiration for the American gangster films of the '40s and '50s that they truly revel and take pride in their deeds, both in the actual act itself and in the re-enactment of the act. And this is what makes "The Act of Killing" all the more disturbing. You would think that having the actual persons themselves dramatize their atrocious deeds would make them feel uncomfortable, as if forcing them to eat their own guts (there is in fact one such scene in the film) or confront their own demons. Yet, what we see are persons who appear to celebrate their "acts of killing", the effect on them being more bacchanalian than cathartic. Without probably anticipating it, such seeming lack of remorse has a boomerang effect on us - it is us, the audience, who are made to feel uneasy, to take upon the guilt of being passive spectators to such criminal acts that we see onscreen. Again, in a somewhat "Funny Games" kind of way, we bear the burden of being willing voyeurs to the violence that we see in cinema. And this is what I find startling in the film:on the one hand, it serves as a strong indictment of a nation's notorious political past;on the other hand, it is an expression of affection for the art of filmmaking. On this last point, whether Oppenheimer and company (who chose to be "anonymous") intended it or not, "The Act of Killing" runs the risk of becoming tabloid journalism. Could have been, until the jaw-dropping final moments (not that the film is not jaw-dropping enough from beginning till end, in all its nearly 3-hour running time). This documentary was helped funded by filmmakers Werner Herzog and Errol Morris, who themselves have some astonishing documentaries on their names ("Grizzly Man" and "Encounters at the End of the World" for the former, "The Thin Blue Line" and "Heaven's Gate" for the latter). These filmmakers' caliber has surely bore its mark on Oppenheimer's equally astonishing documentary. 

"Neighboring Sounds" by Kleber Mendonca Filho (Brazil) 

This is one strange and morbid film. The last time I had this kind of feeling was when I saw Michael Haneke's "Code Unknown" and Ulrich Seidl's "Dog Days" on the big screen, on different occasions, many years back. A young mother is agitated by the ceaseless barks of a neighbor's dog;a young couple wakes up naked in the living room while the household help is about to start her day's work in the kitchen;another couple is surreptitiously making out when a young boy suddenly runs by behind them;a young girl is awaken by a seemingly endless horde of strangers coming inside their house for some unknown gathering;the neighborhood guards roaming the streets and coming out from every corner like some unwelcome intruders;the loud vandalisms on the neighborhood street. These are only some! Much like in a Michelangelo Antonioni geography, the urbanscape in "Neighboring Sounds" seems to be enveloped by some kind of malaise and discontentment, void and estrangement. This probably explains why instead of the residents' chatter and banter, what is distinctive in the film are the noises created by the neighborhood's inanimate objects and non-human species, thus the title (a triumph of sound design and editing). As a matter of fact, there is no clear-cut plot to speak of, with everything happening like an assemblage of vignettes and anecdotes, marked by the characters' strange and quirky behavior. If Filho had pushed things further to the point of arthouse excess and illogicality, the film could have been this year's "Post Tenebras Lux". If given the chance, I would like to watch "Neighboring Sounds" again. For I cannot shake off the feeling that there are somehow layers to be peeled from this seemingly low-key and banal tale of urban existentialism. I was not just inclined to do it the first time, for I was more engrossed in the film's ambient reverberations.

Joshua Oppenheimer's ''The Act of Killing'':These men are revisiting their younger days with, uhm, glory