Of kids in trouble: QCinema '14, pt. 2

For the next two films included in the international line-up that I was able to see in the ongoing QCinema International Film Festival, the spotlight is focused on kids in trouble - or the wild reeds, so to speak. 

• "Lilet Never Happened" (2012, The Netherlands/Philippines, 105 mins), dir.:Jacco Groen

The film may be directed by a Dutch, but "Lilet Never Happened" is actually set in Manila and has a Filipino cast. It's purported to be an advocacy film as it was based on the true-life story of Lilet who, at just the tender age of 12, is already working as a child prostitute. "Lilet Never Happened" is being geared up to bring awareness and action to the issue of child trafficking, considered to be one of the social ills besetting our country. No problem with that. The intention is well and good. However, while watching the film, as much as we wanted to think otherwise, we were just smelling miserablist cinema all over the air. The issue is being blared out loud and clear from all corners of the screen. In fact, the director just stops short of sensationalizing his subject. From the perspective of an outsider, the film's subject may look gritty and sensational. But for the Filipino audience, it's something that we've been already made aware of both on film and TV not a few times before. It's not that we don't care;what we do mind is if the plight of these kids runs the risk of becoming a media sensation. This is aside from the fact that the development of the theme of child trafficking in the film is kind of hazy and clumsy. 

Setting aside the lack of subtlety, if there's something that's noteworthy in the film it could probably be the strong performance turned in by the lead child actress, Sandy Talag. We initially thought that her performance would deteriorate into something similar to what happened to the performance of the child actress in Joseph Israel Laban's likewise child-in-trouble tale "Nuwebe": a kid made to awkwardly behave and think like an adult. As it gladly turns out, the anger, pain and defiance projected by Talag as Lilet is just believable enough for her plight. Had the film been accomplished enough, "Lilet Never Happened" could've been something like "Lilja 4-ever". 

• "Mommy" (2014, Canada, 139 mins), dir.: Xavier Dolan 

Truth to tell, I'm not a big fan of "I Killed My Mother", the debut film of Canadian wunderkind Xavier Dolan. It impressed me as something too self-conscious and self-indulgent. Its assault on the senses -or emotions - was just too hot to handle. With this in mind, I wasn't expecting to like "Mommy", his fifth feature that shared the Jury Prize in this year's Cannes Film Festival with Jean-Luc Godard's "Goodbye, Language". Methinks: Is the 25-year-old film director becoming too precocious for his own good? And yet, what I wouldn't like to happen just happened: "Mommy" simply blew me away! Dolan's portrait of a short-fused mother-and-son relationship is unbearably powerful, pulsating with lethal energy and unbound ferocity all throughout. So much so that the film just spills off from the screen. 

In a sense, "Mommy" serves as a companion film to "I Killed My Mother". But while the latter is very much from the point of view of the teenage son (portrayed in the film by Dolan himself), the former is mostly from the perspective of the mother (portrayed by Anne Dorval, who was also the mother in "I Killed"). Yet, the nature of the relationship dynamics is essentially the same: partly loving, partly antagonistic, with the introduction of an "outsider" mother figure (again portrayed by Suzanne Clément) providing an added weight to the relationship. If in "I Killed My Mother" we have an angry son who's always at odds with his single mother whom he thinks is simply an impediment to his growth as a person fully aware of his identity and sexuality, here in "Mommy" we have a struggling widowed mother who must do everything she can to keep her volatile son from going further down the path of sociopathic behavior. In their country, there's this law that gives full authority to the parents to commit their child to an institutional care when his/her behavior already becomes too much of a threat and hazard. This is something that Diane (the mother) wants to avoid doing at all costs, yet a turning point has been reached where she must already sacrifice Steve (the son, now portrayed by Antoine-Olivier Pilon, Dolan's alter ego) for his own good, culminating in one of the film's very powerful scenes towards the end. 

As much as it has been brought about by Dolan's brilliant cinematic storytelling skills - the effervescent photography and close-ups, the crisp editing, the mind-boggling 1:1 aspect ratio (an important moment in the film will reveal why this is so), the no-nonsense use of songs, both classical and pop (you'll never realize how joyous Oasis' "Wonderwall" can turn out to be) - "Mommy"'s triumph is a much a product of a trio of outstanding performances, too. Dorval, Pilon and Clément are funny, heartbreaking and feral. The electrifying energy brought about by the interaction of these three characters onscreen is just a joy to behold. When Dolan was asked in an interview how does he feel when his film was awarded in Cannes alongside with the work by the legendary Godard, he unabashedly answered with a confident smile: "I don't care." Indeed, why the association when "Mommy" can very much stand on its own. 

(To be continued.)

(Xavier Dolan's "Mommy": A powerful film that bursts off the screen.)