Alpha: The Right to Kill: Rightfully brave, but...
In the midst of a wave of Filipino romantic comedies or horror movies that engulf our local theaters, Brillante Ma Mendoza consistently and diligently serves us a social-realist fare every now and then. "Alpha: The Right to Kill" (2018) is his latest film along such mold. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the San Sebastian film festival, it can perhaps be said that "Alpha" is what happens beyond "Ma' Rosa", released two years earlier and penned by the same writer, Troy Espiritu.
In that film, we have the title-character, a wife and mother living in a slum area in Mandaluyong, who uses her sari-sari store as a front to sell shabu to users. Unfortunately, the law enforcement officers close in on them, who, corrupt as they are, see in the situation an opportunity to squeeze money out of the woman and her family. The film doesn't pretend to offer a solution to the social malady. Rather, it adopts a fatalist outlook: that the broken system is so much ingrained as to become a part of everyday life.
That kind of system - or life - very much continues in "Alpha". The drug problem is still prevalent and the filmmakers acknowledge it, but not in such a way as to point out that such a problem can be easily solved or eradicated - at least not in the shortest possible time. The system of law enforcement and crime punishment remains broken and people are pretty much helpless or apathetic when having to deal with it.
With that in mind, "Alpha" does not exactly have anything groundbreaking or radical to say. The director is essentially preoccupied with the same social ills that he has already dealt with in his previous works, with some even much better than the current one. Yet, by not sugarcoating or oversimplifying such state of affairs, the film actually proves to be rightfully brave.
The police officer in charge of the drug-bust operation (Allen Dizon) and his informer (Elijah Filamor), a young father living in the slums who is a drug dealer himself, do not complain about the social ill. They simply live with it - in fact, they actively participate in it. And the director does not pretend to offer a way out for these characters. For someone who once helmed the president's State of the Nation Address, picturing the government's anti-drug campaign in all its dreariness and rottenness is an undeniably daring move, like a fox running wild in a chicken farm.
Behind the policeman's honorable and loving-family man facade lies a corrupt and cold-blooded soul. While the lowly drug dealer, despite the vileness of his trade, proves to be a loyal decoy and a devoted husband and father. That is why the nasty deed inflicted upon the latter by the former in the film's later part - as a way to avoid blowing one's cover - has an added poignancy to it. It could have stayed that way if some kind of poetic justice had not been made to happen with regards to the policeman further down the narrative, as it feels incongruous with the overall downbeat outlook that the film has maintained up until that point. It is like settling after all with the comfortable idea that "crime does not pay" that rather feels forced.
If the filmmakers are actually trying to drive home the point that both the medalled law enforcer and the small-time drug dealer are mere pawns in an elaborate system of crime and corruption where the big fish remains untouched, the resolution (if it can be called such) that they have illustrated by the end does not feel organic to how they have primarily built up the narrative. Nevertheless, one cannot deny the fearlessness of the film when it comes to confronting head-on the fact that a social problem like illegal drugs is not something that can be easily sweeped under the rug. Granted that it can be done just like that, but the dirt still remains there. Not many Filipino movies are like that nowadays.
In that film, we have the title-character, a wife and mother living in a slum area in Mandaluyong, who uses her sari-sari store as a front to sell shabu to users. Unfortunately, the law enforcement officers close in on them, who, corrupt as they are, see in the situation an opportunity to squeeze money out of the woman and her family. The film doesn't pretend to offer a solution to the social malady. Rather, it adopts a fatalist outlook: that the broken system is so much ingrained as to become a part of everyday life.
That kind of system - or life - very much continues in "Alpha". The drug problem is still prevalent and the filmmakers acknowledge it, but not in such a way as to point out that such a problem can be easily solved or eradicated - at least not in the shortest possible time. The system of law enforcement and crime punishment remains broken and people are pretty much helpless or apathetic when having to deal with it.
With that in mind, "Alpha" does not exactly have anything groundbreaking or radical to say. The director is essentially preoccupied with the same social ills that he has already dealt with in his previous works, with some even much better than the current one. Yet, by not sugarcoating or oversimplifying such state of affairs, the film actually proves to be rightfully brave.
The police officer in charge of the drug-bust operation (Allen Dizon) and his informer (Elijah Filamor), a young father living in the slums who is a drug dealer himself, do not complain about the social ill. They simply live with it - in fact, they actively participate in it. And the director does not pretend to offer a way out for these characters. For someone who once helmed the president's State of the Nation Address, picturing the government's anti-drug campaign in all its dreariness and rottenness is an undeniably daring move, like a fox running wild in a chicken farm.
Behind the policeman's honorable and loving-family man facade lies a corrupt and cold-blooded soul. While the lowly drug dealer, despite the vileness of his trade, proves to be a loyal decoy and a devoted husband and father. That is why the nasty deed inflicted upon the latter by the former in the film's later part - as a way to avoid blowing one's cover - has an added poignancy to it. It could have stayed that way if some kind of poetic justice had not been made to happen with regards to the policeman further down the narrative, as it feels incongruous with the overall downbeat outlook that the film has maintained up until that point. It is like settling after all with the comfortable idea that "crime does not pay" that rather feels forced.
If the filmmakers are actually trying to drive home the point that both the medalled law enforcer and the small-time drug dealer are mere pawns in an elaborate system of crime and corruption where the big fish remains untouched, the resolution (if it can be called such) that they have illustrated by the end does not feel organic to how they have primarily built up the narrative. Nevertheless, one cannot deny the fearlessness of the film when it comes to confronting head-on the fact that a social problem like illegal drugs is not something that can be easily sweeped under the rug. Granted that it can be done just like that, but the dirt still remains there. Not many Filipino movies are like that nowadays.
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