Neophyte film fest undergoes a rites of passage

Whenever there's a film festival being held here in our shores, especially if it's on its neophyte year, we avid cineastes are always ready to support. Just like the very first World Premieres Film Festival, which had its inauguration last June 30 (and is about to run until July 8 at SM Cinemas). The festival boasts of new films (in the Main Competition, at least) that have never been shown in any film event elsewhere except in this one.

Here are some of the films that I was able to see thus far: 

• "Romantic Nostalgia" (Iran) by Reza Azamian 

This film could have been titled "Love in a Time of War and Cancer" as well. It's about a young university student who falls in love with a car mechanic/soldier-in-waiting. Despite the initial refusal of the girl's parents due to her tender age, the two eventually get married. But the sociopolitical conditions of Iran at that time (1970s-80s) would stand in the way of the couple living a blissful life as the man is called to duty to defend the country. This is where innumerable challenges and hardships come in as the wife must mainly contend with a husband who is away from home for most of the time and whose life is consequently always at risk. What we may take notice in the film is how the screenplay shifts its tone from being political in the first half to being personal in the second half. Though it doesn't mean that there's a disconnection or inconsistency that happened in the narrative flow, as the film seems to argue that one of the long-standing effects of a social conflict such as war and revolution is the toll that it takes on our physical health, from which follows the inevitable decline of everything else (emotional, mental, etc;though on this point, the film doesn't expound much). 

This could have turned into a mopey miserablist cinema, as the wife must now take care of a husband struck with a malignant disease. Thankfully, the film doesn't go the path of "The Fault in Our Stars", in that when a situation falls into the risk of becoming sappy, the director has the discipline enough to contain the possible overflow of bathos, like in the husband's death scene. In its own way, the film is still grounded in a nuanced interplay of human emotions. "Romantic Nostalgia" may not be that kind of work that could put its director along the ranks of acclaimed Iranian filmmakers such as Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, Majid Majidi, Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Asghar Farhadi. But with its kind of disciplined drama, it is certainly commendable enough. 

• "Open Wound" (Ecuador) by Alfredo León León

Ibero-American cinema (that is, films from Ecuador, Peru, Nicaragua, Cuba, etc) is rarely encountered in this part of the globe. We are not completely familiar as to the artistry and sensibilities of their cinema. It is for such reason that the Ecuadorian film "Open Wound" (one of a number of Ibero-American films featured in WPFF) is something to look forward to. Gladly, the film does not disappoint. Just like "Romantic Nostalgia", the film has as its backdrop a particular turbulent historical period of the country (the war between Peru and Ecuador in the 1940s). The director handles the material with irony:the absurdity and futility of war are evoked not through the battles in the major cities (which is commonly expected in films like this), but through the sense of ennui, hopelessness and entrapment prevailing upon a group of young men being trained for the army deep within the Ecuadorian jungle. The result is equally harrowing and moving, for even in a location as "remote" from the war as the jungle, the horrors and hardships are still inescapable. The immediate destruction and casualties may not be outrightly seen by those involved, but the inner turmoil is something that can be readily felt and is equally destructive. 

Thus, in the manner of its portrayal which is both unflinching and evocative, "Open Wound" becomes somewhat of a cross between a Werner Herzog and a Terrence Malick film. This film by a first-time feature filmmaker may probably be just a "little" work to be noticed at this time, but once taken into consideration we will be gifted with some surprising rewards. 

• "Mula Sa Kung Ano Ang Noon" by Lav Diaz

The Filipino film presents another rarity in WPFF (at least something not seen in the last ten years or so):the premiere of a Lav Diaz film no less here in our own country. Before it becomes highly likely that "Mula Sa Kung Ano Ang Noon" gets the round of various film festivals abroad, the film gets to be seen first by the filmmaker's own kababayans. Afterwards, we could only imagine how the film would sit well with the international audience. Just like the much-acclaimed "Norte, Hangganan ng Kasaysayan" (2013), "Noon" is surprisingly accessible. That is, less are the hazy abstractions, but more is a perceptive humanism, a quality which made "Batang West Side" (2001) and "Norte" the great films that they are. Yet, even if arguably accessible, the film's formal aesthetics (given in the director's oeuvre) is still a test of the casual moviegoer's patience (well, probably still that of those who are already accustomed to Diaz' distinct brand of cinema):it runs an epic length of nearly six hours (much longer than "Batang West Side" and "Norte") and longueurs are aplenty. Time and space are once again germinal to the film. But I can say again that it's sensibly justified. One may notice how the film brings to mind Michael Haneke's similarly monochrome-hued "The White Ribbon". A film that is almost dialogue-free and filled with riveting and haunting black-and-white mise-en-scène, "Noon" takes place in an unnamed provincial barrio, surrounded by mountains and whose regular weather consists of ominous winds and melancholy rainfall, during the few years before the entire country was placed under military dictatorship. 

A sense of grim foreboding insidiously seeps into each of the villagers' lives, hazily sensing but still unwary of the "dark curse" (as one of the characters describes it) that is about to befall them soon - we have mainly two sisters, a farmer and his orphaned nephew, a liquor-maker, a priest, a balik-bayan poet, a village female shaman. And when the "day of proclamation" has finally come, tragedy has already defined each of the characters that the main event itself merely appears to cap things off. Before the iron rule has been finally made official, the village itself has long become the "village of the dead" and its inhabitants, the "dead of the village". I'm not exactly sure if it could be considered as a "flaw" of the screenplay, but with all the silences that the film has uncannily evoked beforehand, there comes a moment wherein a particular character (say, the priest) delivers a speech or a monologue that appears to "summarize" what has wordlessly transpired before. But well, even "Norte" has such moments too. I'm not in a position right now to elucidate the national archetypes that each of the characters is probably embodying or the collective consciousness that probably runs through certain events depicted in the film. In fact, "Noon" is still in the process of sinking in within my humble psycho-emotional system, if ever such is likely to happen. But one thing should be cleared of any doubt:the film is another major cinematic art and manifesto in Lav Diaz' filmography. 

(Lav Diaz' "Mula Sa Kung Ano Ang Noon":Where do we go from here, or what has become of us since then?)