C1 Originals 2016, part 1: A soldier, a poet and a creature
A month after QCinema, it was now Cinema One Originals' turn to offer the latest in independent Filipino feature films and documentaries and the best in world cinema, fresh from their triumph in prestigious international film festivals. Here are some of the world cinema features that I was able to see during the festival run (Nov. 14-22).
• "Frantz". François Ozon. 2016, France/Germany.
There has always been a consistent homosexual theme in François Ozon's films (his early shorts, "See the Sea", "Sitcom", "Water Drops on Burning Rocks", "A Time to Leave", "5x2", to name some). But in "Frantz", he seems to "tease" the audience with that theme, in order to connect with the film's overall preoccupation with the twisty dilemma faced by humans in regards choosing between covering up with comforting lies and expressing hurtful truths. Just when we suspected that there's more than male-buddy camaraderie between the titular fallen German soldier Frantz (Anton von Lucke), who died in battle during the First World War, and the French soldier Adrien (Pierre Niney), who appears to harbor guilt feelings over his death, such suspicion is outrightly reversed by a crucial dramatic revelation which, had it been known by the former's parents, would have rubbed more salt on the wound of grief being suffered by them. Such further aggravation could actually have been brought about by Anna (Paula Beer), Frantz's fiancée, to whom the truth was revealed by Adrien. Ozon and co-writer Philippe Piazzo retold "Broken Lullaby", a 1932 film by Ernst Lubitsch which was in fact an anti-war melodrama. I have yet to see Lubitsch's film (and to find out as well if it has a homo-erotic subtext, however faint it may be), though from what I can glean from Ozon's film, it was never the French director's agenda to make an anti-war statement (a telling reminder of the differences in the respective eras in which each of the films was released). Rather, Ozon is mainly concerned with the complexity and ambiguity of human relationships as being defined by both truths and lies that we ourselves propagate.
"Frantz" is a well-sustained and exquisitely-photographed mystery-drama, somewhat defying audience expectations at every possible turn. We somehow have set in our minds that a particular character will behave or react in this or that particular way given his/her particular situation. But then, it would turn out that he/she will act differently or that the circumstances surrounding him/her would yield results in contrast to what he/she had expected. And this, depends on how much truth or lie a particular character has brought into the situation or circumstance. Which, in turn, presents a tricky moral dilemma: Will it be much better if comforting lies are said if it would bring forth peace and happiness or if hurtful truths are known despite the pain and sadness that they might cause? It's like the end justifies the means. It's been noted as well that though "Frantz" is a remake of the Lubitsch film, Ozon significantly departs from the latter in the second half. And this, by transporting the story entirely to Paris and by having the perspective taken from Anna, who now appears to becoming torn between dedicating herself to a loving yet mournful past (Frantz) and opening up to the possibility of another chance at love (Adrien). To better appreciate the eventual outcome of the film, it's best if we let the story flow on its own (which it does gracefully and assuredly), devoid as much as possible of any set expectation.
• "Neruda". Pablo Larraín. 2016, Chile.
The film is not so much an autobiography of the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda as a depiction of a specific event or period in his life, as "imagined" or "reconstructed" by Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín. During the reign of Gabriel Videla as President of Chile in the late 40s, communism was outlawed, leading to the arrest of many of its key figures. Neruda (portrayed in the film by Luis Gnecco), who was then a senator, was one of those ordered to be arrested. This, after he openly denounced the President for betraying the Communist party, resulting to his immediate impeachment by the latter. But his friends helped him to go in hiding, which would lead to his eventual escape from the country (no matter how stubborn he could be sometimes in heeding the advise of his friends). A young and ambitious police officer, Oscar Peluchonneau (Gael Garcia Bernal), has been tasked by Videla to lead in the manhunt for and eventual arrest of Neruda. Admitting to himself that he's no more than a "blank paper", Oscar will stop at nothing to find and capture the world-renowned fugitive, which will become the "black ink" to be written on the paper. Neruda being impeached, ordered to be arrested and his period of hiding and exile are based on facts, as we all know;it's his being pursued by the moustache- and fedora hat-wearing Pelochunneau, whose expressionless and dumb looks invite ridicule rather than command authority, that's wholly spun out of Larraín's and writer Guillermo Calderón's rich imagination. Or is it in fact Neruda's imagination?
From the looks of it, "Neruda" is designed as a cat-and-mouse chase thriller, where the pursuer is always one step behind the fugitive, being able to escape literally right under the nose of the former. In this regard, the film is exhilarating, inventive, hallucinatory and even fun to watch, often interspersed with surrealist moments and maneuvered by cinematographer Sergio Armstrong's swirling and tracking camera. But on a meta-textual level, it could likely be that Pelochunneau is a "figment" of Neruda's own imagination, considering that the latter is a literary person by heart. Or that Pelochunneau is Neruda's own way of confronting his own demons, especially at this stage in his life where he's confronted with some major sociopolitical changes in his country. Whatever doubts we might have in regards the fugitive and the pursuer being one and the same person might be allayed in a couple of mind-boggling scenes in the film's later part: first is when Pelochunneau meets Neruda's wife Delia for the first time and thereby interrogates her;second is when a bloodied Pelochunneau trails Neruda through the snow-covered Andes as the latter makes his escape into Argentina. Both of these climactic moments inhabit a stream-of-consciousness vibe that reveals something about the exact nature of Neruda's and Pelochunneau's "relationship" with each other. Had there been a swapping and then merging of identities in a metaphysical kind of way, the film could've been the male counterpart of Ingmar Bergman's "Persona".
• "The Untamed". Amat Escalante. 2016, Mexico.
Three years after winning the Best Director prize in Cannes for the crime drama "Heli", Mexican enfant terrible Amat Escalante comes up with a new film just as provocative with "The Untamed" (which bagged the Best Director award in this year's Venice, together with Russian Andrei Konchalovsky for "Paradise"). Though this one also borders on the strange and the freaky. This is the kind of film which the mere description of plot won't do it justice. It has to be seen to be believed. Even then, the film may not be to everyone's taste. Its combination of a creepy creature sci-fi thriller and a drama of drab domestic relationships is an odd pairing at best. It's like Escalante and co-writer Gibrán Portela are trying to craft two movies altogether, comparable to a chemist experimenting with two different chemical formulas to see if it could produce a totally new substance. The good thing is that the method isn't an improbable idea at all. As a matter of fact, it's a method that needs to be tried in cinema, just like in science, to see if something novel in terms of plot, characterization, etc can be told onscreen, thereby contributing to the enhancement of the entire art and craft of film. "The Untamed" opens with a shot of a meteor seemingly about to "crash" somewhere in our planet. A strange shot, really. And from there on, things will only get stranger - and freakier.
I won't go into plot details (perhaps at another time, when I get to write extensively about the film), but will just say that on a closer look, the multi-tentacled creature (octopus? squid? alien?) serves to be the source of unimaginable pleasure that will change the way the main characters navigate through their domestic relationships that are already on a downward spiral anyway. Such an ignition of their sexuality and desire would only ironically drift them away from their immediate relations, leading, when extremes are already reached, to pain and death. Escalante is the kind of filmmaker who's blunt and assaultive when it comes to a graphic depiction of his filmic scenarios;his slow-burn approach only adds to the intensity of those. And "The Untamed", needless to say, more than fulfills its quota of graphic - and grotesque - imagery (again, I won't go into details here). But more than the guilty pleasure and shock value is a dreary examination of machismo, chauvinism and homophobia that are deeply ingrained in Mexican society. Perhaps, the "creature" serves the function of providing a temporal bliss away from the nightmares of day-to-day domestic life. Kind of like Ozon's "Sitcom", in which the arrival of a rodent (an "outsider") in a family household seems to have unleashed the inhibitions of every member, to the point that taboos are broken. It's only that in Escalante's film, the "creature" appears to tip the delicate balance of not just the basic unit, but of society as a whole.
(Cinema One Originals 2016 World Cinema features: François Ozon's "Frantz", Pablo Larraín's "Neruda" and Amat Escalante's "The Untamed")
• "Frantz". François Ozon. 2016, France/Germany.
There has always been a consistent homosexual theme in François Ozon's films (his early shorts, "See the Sea", "Sitcom", "Water Drops on Burning Rocks", "A Time to Leave", "5x2", to name some). But in "Frantz", he seems to "tease" the audience with that theme, in order to connect with the film's overall preoccupation with the twisty dilemma faced by humans in regards choosing between covering up with comforting lies and expressing hurtful truths. Just when we suspected that there's more than male-buddy camaraderie between the titular fallen German soldier Frantz (Anton von Lucke), who died in battle during the First World War, and the French soldier Adrien (Pierre Niney), who appears to harbor guilt feelings over his death, such suspicion is outrightly reversed by a crucial dramatic revelation which, had it been known by the former's parents, would have rubbed more salt on the wound of grief being suffered by them. Such further aggravation could actually have been brought about by Anna (Paula Beer), Frantz's fiancée, to whom the truth was revealed by Adrien. Ozon and co-writer Philippe Piazzo retold "Broken Lullaby", a 1932 film by Ernst Lubitsch which was in fact an anti-war melodrama. I have yet to see Lubitsch's film (and to find out as well if it has a homo-erotic subtext, however faint it may be), though from what I can glean from Ozon's film, it was never the French director's agenda to make an anti-war statement (a telling reminder of the differences in the respective eras in which each of the films was released). Rather, Ozon is mainly concerned with the complexity and ambiguity of human relationships as being defined by both truths and lies that we ourselves propagate.
"Frantz" is a well-sustained and exquisitely-photographed mystery-drama, somewhat defying audience expectations at every possible turn. We somehow have set in our minds that a particular character will behave or react in this or that particular way given his/her particular situation. But then, it would turn out that he/she will act differently or that the circumstances surrounding him/her would yield results in contrast to what he/she had expected. And this, depends on how much truth or lie a particular character has brought into the situation or circumstance. Which, in turn, presents a tricky moral dilemma: Will it be much better if comforting lies are said if it would bring forth peace and happiness or if hurtful truths are known despite the pain and sadness that they might cause? It's like the end justifies the means. It's been noted as well that though "Frantz" is a remake of the Lubitsch film, Ozon significantly departs from the latter in the second half. And this, by transporting the story entirely to Paris and by having the perspective taken from Anna, who now appears to becoming torn between dedicating herself to a loving yet mournful past (Frantz) and opening up to the possibility of another chance at love (Adrien). To better appreciate the eventual outcome of the film, it's best if we let the story flow on its own (which it does gracefully and assuredly), devoid as much as possible of any set expectation.
• "Neruda". Pablo Larraín. 2016, Chile.
The film is not so much an autobiography of the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda as a depiction of a specific event or period in his life, as "imagined" or "reconstructed" by Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín. During the reign of Gabriel Videla as President of Chile in the late 40s, communism was outlawed, leading to the arrest of many of its key figures. Neruda (portrayed in the film by Luis Gnecco), who was then a senator, was one of those ordered to be arrested. This, after he openly denounced the President for betraying the Communist party, resulting to his immediate impeachment by the latter. But his friends helped him to go in hiding, which would lead to his eventual escape from the country (no matter how stubborn he could be sometimes in heeding the advise of his friends). A young and ambitious police officer, Oscar Peluchonneau (Gael Garcia Bernal), has been tasked by Videla to lead in the manhunt for and eventual arrest of Neruda. Admitting to himself that he's no more than a "blank paper", Oscar will stop at nothing to find and capture the world-renowned fugitive, which will become the "black ink" to be written on the paper. Neruda being impeached, ordered to be arrested and his period of hiding and exile are based on facts, as we all know;it's his being pursued by the moustache- and fedora hat-wearing Pelochunneau, whose expressionless and dumb looks invite ridicule rather than command authority, that's wholly spun out of Larraín's and writer Guillermo Calderón's rich imagination. Or is it in fact Neruda's imagination?
From the looks of it, "Neruda" is designed as a cat-and-mouse chase thriller, where the pursuer is always one step behind the fugitive, being able to escape literally right under the nose of the former. In this regard, the film is exhilarating, inventive, hallucinatory and even fun to watch, often interspersed with surrealist moments and maneuvered by cinematographer Sergio Armstrong's swirling and tracking camera. But on a meta-textual level, it could likely be that Pelochunneau is a "figment" of Neruda's own imagination, considering that the latter is a literary person by heart. Or that Pelochunneau is Neruda's own way of confronting his own demons, especially at this stage in his life where he's confronted with some major sociopolitical changes in his country. Whatever doubts we might have in regards the fugitive and the pursuer being one and the same person might be allayed in a couple of mind-boggling scenes in the film's later part: first is when Pelochunneau meets Neruda's wife Delia for the first time and thereby interrogates her;second is when a bloodied Pelochunneau trails Neruda through the snow-covered Andes as the latter makes his escape into Argentina. Both of these climactic moments inhabit a stream-of-consciousness vibe that reveals something about the exact nature of Neruda's and Pelochunneau's "relationship" with each other. Had there been a swapping and then merging of identities in a metaphysical kind of way, the film could've been the male counterpart of Ingmar Bergman's "Persona".
• "The Untamed". Amat Escalante. 2016, Mexico.
Three years after winning the Best Director prize in Cannes for the crime drama "Heli", Mexican enfant terrible Amat Escalante comes up with a new film just as provocative with "The Untamed" (which bagged the Best Director award in this year's Venice, together with Russian Andrei Konchalovsky for "Paradise"). Though this one also borders on the strange and the freaky. This is the kind of film which the mere description of plot won't do it justice. It has to be seen to be believed. Even then, the film may not be to everyone's taste. Its combination of a creepy creature sci-fi thriller and a drama of drab domestic relationships is an odd pairing at best. It's like Escalante and co-writer Gibrán Portela are trying to craft two movies altogether, comparable to a chemist experimenting with two different chemical formulas to see if it could produce a totally new substance. The good thing is that the method isn't an improbable idea at all. As a matter of fact, it's a method that needs to be tried in cinema, just like in science, to see if something novel in terms of plot, characterization, etc can be told onscreen, thereby contributing to the enhancement of the entire art and craft of film. "The Untamed" opens with a shot of a meteor seemingly about to "crash" somewhere in our planet. A strange shot, really. And from there on, things will only get stranger - and freakier.
I won't go into plot details (perhaps at another time, when I get to write extensively about the film), but will just say that on a closer look, the multi-tentacled creature (octopus? squid? alien?) serves to be the source of unimaginable pleasure that will change the way the main characters navigate through their domestic relationships that are already on a downward spiral anyway. Such an ignition of their sexuality and desire would only ironically drift them away from their immediate relations, leading, when extremes are already reached, to pain and death. Escalante is the kind of filmmaker who's blunt and assaultive when it comes to a graphic depiction of his filmic scenarios;his slow-burn approach only adds to the intensity of those. And "The Untamed", needless to say, more than fulfills its quota of graphic - and grotesque - imagery (again, I won't go into details here). But more than the guilty pleasure and shock value is a dreary examination of machismo, chauvinism and homophobia that are deeply ingrained in Mexican society. Perhaps, the "creature" serves the function of providing a temporal bliss away from the nightmares of day-to-day domestic life. Kind of like Ozon's "Sitcom", in which the arrival of a rodent (an "outsider") in a family household seems to have unleashed the inhibitions of every member, to the point that taboos are broken. It's only that in Escalante's film, the "creature" appears to tip the delicate balance of not just the basic unit, but of society as a whole.
(Cinema One Originals 2016 World Cinema features: François Ozon's "Frantz", Pablo Larraín's "Neruda" and Amat Escalante's "The Untamed")
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