A Pilgrimage to Cinema

A vengeful agent provocateur , a weak-willed intellectual and poet, a desperate and lost revolutionary's wife, a guilt-stricken collaborator, a guitarist whose feelings are slowly being flared up by the revolution, a trio of creepy and tricky tikbalangs - these and more. One can't get enough of these characters even in a film running for eight hours such as " Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis " (2016, Philippines), written and directed by Lav Diaz. These are rich and interesting characters;there's nothing so vague or oblique about them as to confuse or exasperate the viewers. These characters help us in finding our foothold in the film, which is in itself rich and interesting. It shouldn't be otherwise, for "Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis" is all about us Filipinos, our nation, identity and soul.  In fact, there's nothing so vague or oblique about the film as to confuse or exasperate us. It directly confronts and probes everything. Everything is there for us to se...

In 2013, the now-defunct Cinemanila showed Joshua Oppenheimer's " The Act of Killing ", a stunning documentary about the 1965-66 Indonesian genocide in which the director asked the aged former squad leaders to re-enact the killings they committed by way of their favorite movies. It is essentially an exploration of the psychology and pathology of a murderer in the grip of a dictatorial regime. This is one uncomfortable viewing experience, especially when one sees how the perpetrators of the mass killings show no remorse and are even proud of their deeds. Now, its companion piece, " The Look of Silence ", winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2014 Venice Film Festival , was shown at the UP Film Institute last March 17. How essential is this companion piece? How does it differ from the first documentary?  While "The Act of Killing" takes the point of view of the executioners, "The Look of Silence" shifts its gaze upon the family of one of the v...

This third feature film by Randolph Longjas (a participant in the 1st edition of CineFilipino) is about a single mother (Candy Pangilinan) who is facing the challenges of raising a son with Down's Syndrome. Of all the features that I saw so far at the festival, this one is the most pleasantly surprising. The film's trailer makes you think that it's a light-hearted and goody-goody story of a special child who dreams big. Well, it's still light and feel-good, but not after it wrenches your heart and plays a rather melancholic and downbeat tone. If there's really such a thing called beautiful sadness, then this should be it. Not to mention that the film also serves as a wonderful eye-opener. Because come to think of it, we haven't really seen a Filipino film about Down's Syndrome, much less about such a special child that takes to heart its subject. I can think of one, but it's from another country: " The Eighth Day ", from Belgian director Jaco V...

This new film by Lemuel Lorca (" Intoy Syokoy ", " Water Lemon" ) is about a lesbian tattoo artist, Ned (Angeli Bayani), who was betrayed by her live-in partner and who still dreams of having her own child. The film's title is in reference to that dream and how Ned strives to raise the money needed for an artificial insemination, by way of joining a televised talent contest for lesbians (the "natural" way of having an offspring just won't do for her). As one watches the film though, one realizes that it isn't entirely revolving around the "project". In fact, it isn't being dwelt upon or mentioned for most of the time. The film is more of a meandering character study and slice of life, its parts made up of small and seemingly uneventful moments involving the title character and the people around her (one affecting instance is Ned's interaction with a sick lesbian friend, Max (Lui Manansala), who's about to die alone). The f...

After 3 years, CineFilipino  Film Festival is back for its 2nd edition. The event is spearheaded by ABC TV-5, PLDT-Smart, MediaQuest and Unitel. Back then, there were 8 full-length films and some shorts. Now, aside from the full-lengths and shorts, there are 5 documentaries as well, making this year's edition much bigger. I won't begin to talk about the festival's 1st-day hassles (better leave them behind and hopefully such can be avoided in the future editions, or in any other film festival for that matter). I'll just go straight to the features that I saw.  • " Ang Tulay ng San Sebastian ", written and directed by Alvin Yapan This is about a nurse (Sandino Martin) and an ambulance driver (Joem Bascon) who, while travelling back in an ambulance from a Manila hospital on a Good Friday night, get to encounter strange and horrifying things on a bridge in a province somewhere down south. The two men are virtually trapped on the bridge as they just inexplicably g...

War is always being depicted in cinema in all of its ugly aspects. But perhaps, war as hell on earth is no more vividly and unapologetically, if not also more poetically, portrayed than in Kon Ichikawa's " Fires on the Plain " (1959, Japan). It is set at the tail-end of World War II (particularly in the Leyte province of their once-occupied country, the Philippines) and takes the vantage point of the imperialists (the "enemy", if one may say so) - the Japanese themselves. But the perspective isn't of the mightily victorious kind, but ironically of the hopelessly defeated one. The film centers the defeat on those who immediately carry the brunt: the frontline army soldiers, who are haplessly abandoned by their superiors after the imperialist reign has totally collapsed. We particularly meet here one such frontliner, Private Tamura (played by Eiji Funakoshi), a sickly soldier.  At the film's start, we see Tamura being reprimanded and sent away by his comma...

A lot of natural disasters, both fictionalized and true-to-life, have already been depicted in cinema: whether on land, on air or at sea. Though perhaps nothing could be as thrilling as those happening at sea, due to its all-encompassing breadth and depth. The latest natural-disaster film " The Finest Hours " (2016, USA), directed by Craig Gillespie (" Lars and the Real Girl ", starring Ryan Gosling), is an old-school sea-bound adventure tale that's both thrilling and satisfying. Hearing the word "old-school" might turn off some of us, but being that every now and then has its own pleasures and surprises. I myself was initially quite reluctant to see the film, being already used most of the time to the so-called radical, innovative or post-modern specimens of cinema, the pretentious arthouse snob that I'm trying hard to be (now, you can shoot me!). But to my own pleasant surprise, "The Finest Hours" delivers. It may not be a classic-in-...

There's a somewhat subversive idea lying behind " Risen " (2016, USA), co-written and directed by Kevin Reynolds: that Jesus' (referred to in the film as "Yeshua") resurrection on the third day after his death on the cross wasn't really a miraculous event, but was rather an anomalous act, that is, his body was stolen by his disciples to give the false impression of the second coming of the Messiah. From this hypothesis, the director and co-writer Paul Aiello go on to spin a biblical "detective" tale in which a highly-regarded Roman tribune named Clavius (played by Joseph Fiennes) does the investigation, upon the orders of the Roman chieftain Pontius Pilate, into the body's "whereabouts" after it disappeared from the thoroughly-sealed and -guarded sepulchre. The film manages to be interesting and engaging in this instance, as Clavius interrogates all possible sources of information - which include the disciple Bartholomew and the p...