"Dementia" is almost there

Honestly, I don't exactly know what to make of "Dementia", the feature film debut of Perci Intalan and starring Philippine cinema's acting legend Nora Aunor. I'm not totally sold to the film, though I don't dislike it that much either. As a matter of fact, the production team behind the film is one good reason to appreciate it:Mackie Galvez as the cinematographer ("Mangatyanan" and "Sana Dati"), Lawrence Ang as the editor ("Tribu", "Ang Huling Cha-cha ni Anita", "Mga Kuwentong Barbero", Raya Martin's films and cinematographer for Keith Deligero's "Kordero sa Dios"), Von de Guzman for the truly frightening score and Jun Robles Lana for the story ("Mga Kuwentong Barbero"). And of course, Nora herself, giving yet another finely-modulated performance, which seems to be her cup of tea of late (following Mes de Guzman's "Ang Kuwento ni Mabuti" and Joel Lamangan's "Hustisya").

"Dementia" may not be one of the best Filipino films to be released this year, but it's something that can't be dismissed altogether. The idea that governs the film is pretty intriguing. It's a fiction of a fiction, or a narrative beyond a narrative, or a movie within a movie - however one wants to describe this kind of meta-fiction. This is the kind of narrative conceit adhered to by a recent Cinemalaya film, Francis Xavier Pasion's "Bwaya" (which went on to take home the festival's top prize). And years before that, by Jeffrey Jeturian's "Tuhog" (one of the director's best films). But whereas these two films were grounded, in one way or another, in real-life actualities (or so they said), Intalan's film doesn't have such claim (or so I guess). With this, the horror genre template on which "Dementia" works serves only as a kind of trapping or pretense. For what's really at stake here is the fragile, fleeting and whimsical qualities of one's memories as well as the dubious nature of cinema as being the barometer of truth and reality. Not until we reach the film's conclusion do we get to realize that we may actually just overlook the film's flaws (in terms of plot development), if only because it's entirely based on the workings of a memory in a state of progressive decline. On the other hand, we may as well say that the "ghosts" of our past are something that we can't fully escape from or that are just of our own doing.

To my mind, "Dementia" could have been better than it is. Intalan knows how to sway viewers into a "false" belief by creating mood and tension in accordance with the horror genre. It's in how the "trick" is finally let out of the bag, something that is inappropriately downplayed rather than packed with a visceral whallop, that douses cold water over the previously fever-pitch proceedings. Rather than making us put under scrutiny the veracity of cinema as a medium of storytelling, it makes us wonder why do the filmmakers even bothered to have it this way. It's like we know that they have something more to give in order for the film to fully serve its purpose. 

(Nora Aunor puts together the pieces of her crumbling memory in Perci Intalan's "Dementia".)