A different way of showing reality

The 1st Cine Totoo (Sept. 24-30), a festival of Filipino documentary features spearheaded by GMA News-TV (Ch. 24), is yet another breath of fresh air in the country's active and hectic film festival scene (both local and international). As one participating filmmaker aptly observed, it's quite hard to fill a theater for a documentary feature, as it's not as popular as the traditional (or "commercial", "mainstream") feature film. Yet, there's a welcome sense of invigoration when one gets to see a documentary in the newborn festival. In fact, watching the documentaries isn't like watching a documentary at all!

And I'm speaking of those works which I was able to see, namely:

• "Ang Walang Kapagurang Paglalakbay ng Pulang Maleta" by Richard Legaspi (RT: 69 mins): 

This one tells the life of the filmmaker's aunt and cousin as OFWs in the wool-producing town of Biella in Italy. The eponymous titular baggage, which is bestowed a personality of its own in the film's key moments, serves, in the director's own words, as a metaphor for all their travails as immigrant workers, with red being the primary color of our country's major labor organization, the Kilusang Mayo Uno. The film is surprisingly touching and funny, even managing to be poignant at times. What's even best is that it's immensely insightful, providing us with precious wisdom and anecdotes in regards living and working in a faraway foreign town, coming directly from the very persons experiencing such. Straight from the horse's mouth, as they say. The film doesn't purport to be a grand exposition on the OFW phenomenon. Rather, it's an intimate portrait of the ties that bind Filipino families no matter how far the distance that stands between.

• "A Journey to Haifa" by Nawruz Paguidopon (RT: 72 mins):

This work is about the dilemma faced by the filmmaker as he makes known his true sexuality to his parents and, in effect, to the strict and tightly-knit religious community that he and his family belong to, the Baha'i (an offshoot of Islam, as the filmmaker himself tells us), as well as about the subsequent religious pilgrimage that they take in Haifa, Israel. Despite the delicate subject matter, the film is remarkably introspective and low-key, with the director employing a worm's  eyeview mostly throughout that allows him, as he admits, to make everything as intimate as possible. In effect, it's like seeing things as well from a child's perspective, free from prejudice but instead tinged with innocence, amiability and openness. As a matter of fact, this has a subtle effect on the viewers' mindset, aided in no small way by the harmonica soundtrack which evokes a lovely Italian countryside comedy. So much so that by the film's end, we feel as if we have seen something anew and afresh. 

• "Agbalbalitok" (The Gold Prospector) by Ferdinand Balanag (RT: 84 mins):

This docu brings us to a community of small-scale gold miners in the province of Itogon, Benguet. It's likewise insightful as we are able to take a peek into an undeniably lucrative, yet imminently hazardous, industry which even if we may have already heard about, we really know little, if not nothing, about at all. This work has a gritty feel to it, every now and then intercutting with a "drama" that takes an intimate look into the lives of the miners either while deep into work or while attending to their families. According to the film crew, such scenes were not "staged" at all, but they just let the real-life folks do their "thing" as the cameras were rolling. It's strangely ironic, because it feels like these characters were taken directly from a Mes de Guzman parable and the atmosphere mostly evokes a Dardenne brothers working-class drama. Indeed, real life is cinematic. In effect, this potent film serves a dual purpose of being a proletarian piece and a cautionary tale. 

• "Kung Giunsa Pagbuhat ang Binisayang Chopsuey" (How to Make a Visayan Chopsuey) by Charliebebs Gohetia (RT: 104 mins):

As with "Agbalbalitok", this one introduces us to a not entirely familiar terrain - the sport of tchoukball. This is a game that's being primarily played in the southern part of the country, particularly in Davao and Bacolod and, as narrated at the film's start, was actually invented by a Swede and has that funny-sounding name because of the "tchouk" sound that the ball creates as it gets thrown at the frame. As with the game itself, the film manages to be light and playful, even if it tends to be repetitive at some parts. And similar to the style employed by "Agbalbalitok", the various conversations and interactions in the film among the players, coaches and other persons related to the sport are shot spontaneously, the kind that suggests an improvisational style. The film also manages to be inspirational, not in a mawkish kind of way, but rather in a somewhat startling manner, as one gets to learn from the conversations how the players (mostly young adults, teeners and children) were previously involved in drugs and other vices - delinquents, as one of them terms it - and how the game has changed them for the better. There's a triumphant spirit that looms throughout the film, so much so that even if game politics, underappreciation by the government, defeat and disappointment are also touched upon, one still unmistakably feels in the end the sense of determination, dedication, responsibility and camaraderie among these people who get to develop a love for tchoukball. No matter the differences in age, gender and economic status (thus the allusion to "chopsuey" in the title), they are all binded by the same passion. 

What's remarkable in these works is that even if they are formally designated as documentaries, tackling various Filipino experiences as seen in real life, they seem to cross over into the domain of a narrative feature film and thereby be similarly governed by its rules and principles. In that sense, these cinematic fares dare to go out of the box, following the documentaries of the likes of Robert Flaherty and Frederick Wiseman, debunking the traditional "talking heads" and holier-than-thou perspective. And we, the viewers, are the more pleased by it. 

(Ferdinand Balanag's "Agbalbalitok":A documentary that crosses the boundaries of a narrative film.)