Sinag Maynila 2016 - two films

With the first three films that we saw, Sinag Maynila, now as before, appears to be gearing itself as a modest venue for Filipino arthouse fares. Should be no wonder, as one of its founders is acclaimed film director Brillante Mendoza, whose works ("Tirador", "Serbis", "Kinatay", to name some) have made rounds of prestigious international film festivals like Cannes and Venice. Let's now take a look at the other two films that we saw in the second edition of the local festival. 

• "Lila" by Gino M. Santos, writer: Patrick Vinalay 

This fifth film from young director Gino Santos ("The Animals", "#Y") is about a young woman (Janine Gutierrez) who, having been traumatized by a family tragedy, starts life anew by shutting herself off from her own family, except from her cousin (Enchong Dee), who appears to be her sole supporter as of the meantime. In order to seclude herself, she rents a room in an old house owned by an old amiable widow who lives there alone (Sherry Lara). Everything seems to turn out fine, until the young woman discovers a diary which, it turns out, belongs to a previous tenant (the title character). From there, things slowly begin to be strange - and sinister. 

Patrick Vinalay's screenplay makes no effort to turn the film's inevitable "twist" into a hard guessing game, which could've made the proceedings more mysterious and threatening. From the moment that the tenant and the landlady meet for the first time, we can already pick up how the initially genial relationship will become a dangerous one by the end. This is already enough for us to show little or no interest in whatever is going to happen subsequently. It's a good thing still that Gutierrez has enough charm and Lara has enough competence to somehow keep us invested in the proceedings. It's also interesting how the director doesn't heavily rely on the already-abused jump-scare tropes of a horror movie;"Lila" is pretty slow-burn, as a matter of fact. Adding to the curiosity is how the film utilizes mostly a single setting - the landlady's house - with the characters infrequently being shown to be venturing out of its interiors. So in a sense, there's a claustrophobic feel to the film, supposedly to enhance the young woman's situation of being "trapped" in a house of doom. But what's actually intriguing (whether or not the director and the screenwriter really intended to do so) is how "Lila" seems to be somewhat channeling the vibe of Alfred Hitchcock's highly-influential "Psycho" (a woman running away from guilt;the mother archetype;the duality of personality;the dark secrets harbored within a house). There's even one scene in the film that appears to be patterned after a very famous sequence in Hitchcock's classic! Even the violent encounter between the tenant and the landlady towards the end seems like an offshoot from the central murder scene in the classic film. But still, "Lila" isn't destined to be a "Psycho" - in fact, "Lila" is not "Psycho". If one comes to think about it, it's a film that might really be out of place in a festival like Sinag Maynila. Might as well show it alongside the other weekly mainstream releases in our theaters. Coming from the director who made a couple of dark teenage dramas before, this one is certainly a lesser and easily-negligible work. 

• "Expressway" by Ato Bautista, writer: Shugo Praico 

This is my favorite among all the five entries in the festival. In fact, I consider it the best film among the rest (though unlike my favorite last year, Lawrence Fajardo's "Imbisibol", it didn't win the best film award this time;the honor went rather to Adolf Alix, Jr.'s unclear "Mrs."). "Expressway" centers on two paid assassins: the veteran and taciturn Ben (Alvin Anson) and the young and impulsive Morris (Aljur Abrenica). The pair embark on a couple of latest hit jobs, under the command of a man whom they simply call "Colonel" (never seen in the film). This latest "mission" actually serves as Ben's last assassin work, as he finally decides to "retire" from the job;Morris, the Colonel's current favorite hitman, serves as his assistant in this farewell exercise. Their journey as they carry out their job serves as a long road trip, as the two men get to become aware of the private demons of each one, leading to something that proves how their fates are really tied to each other, more than they - or at least one of them - ever realize. 

"Expressway" is stylish, engaging and harrowing. It makes compelling and imaginative use of cinematography (especially the shadows and darkness, by Gian Vargas Caluag) and soundtrack (mostly jazzy, by Francis de Veyra) to convey mood and atmosphere, tension and thrill. The film mostly evokes those classic noirish thrillers;its opening image of a morose-looking Ben seemingly thinking about or waiting for something, with a gun in hand, as the opening credits are being shown is like a scene lifted from Jean-Pierre Melville's "Le samourai". It's essentially a character study of two dark souls on a very wayward path, one is about to steer clear of that path, while the other is just about to get deep into it. The one hitman has stained his hands with blood just too many times and has already become weary of it;while the other hitman relishes with delight every time his hands get stained with blood and has become more hungry than ever for such kills. We are already familiar with such crisis-of-conscience and crime-and-punishment tales, but Bautista's crackerjack and stylish direction still lends the proceedings with a hard-to-resist appeal. If not Mes de Guzman for "Dyamper", he is my bet for best director in the festival. As he has already shown in "Sa Aking Pagkagising Mula sa Kamulatan", "Palitan" and "Gemini" (even if I don't really like the last two films that much), Bautista knows too well his film noir. Meanwhile, the two lead actors, Anson and Abrenica who aren't really being given the chance to do topbill works in movies, manage to lend indelible and stunning performances. We just didn't realize how the two men are willing to go to extremes when handed the opportunity to portray a meaty character. Though both are paid killers, each one is able to respectively embody the yin and yang of their dreary job. And as if to further show the filmmaker's nod to the classics, "Expressway" ends with a simple and swift "The End", just like how simple and swift the fates of the assassins are to be sealed once everything has reached its due, by way either of man-made or of divine laws. 

Two Sinag Maynila films that reference other films