A Pilgrimage to Cinema

The French Film Festival, organized by the French Embassy, Institut Francais, Alliance Francais de Manille and Film Development Council of the Philippines, has just held its 22nd edition in the country (June 8-17, Central Square and Greenbelt cinemas). This is the festival that brought to Filipino cineastes on the big screen such acclaimed French films as Jean-Luc Godard's " A bout de souffle " and " Pierrot le fou ", Jean Renoir's " La grande illusion ", Louis Malle's " Ascenseur pour l'echafaud ", Eric Rohmer's " La boulangere de Monceau ", Marcel Carné's " Le Quai des brumes ", Olivier Assayas' " Late August, Early September ", Patrice Chereau's " Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train ", among many others. For the 2017 edition (the only time that I was able to attend again the festival after many years of absence), I was able to watch three contemporary films from the n...

For François Truffaut, great cinema is "part truth, part spectacle." If we are to abide by the French master filmmaker's dictum, then Gianfranco Rosi's documentary " Fire at Sea " (2016, Italy) can qualify as great cinema. While the film documents the truth about the Sicilian island of Lampedusa being the major European entry port for migrants and refugees coming mainly from the African and Middle East countries, it likewise provides a cinematic spectacle of the lives that are being encompassed by such a truth. "Fire at Sea" isn't a documentary in the traditional sense that there's a talking-head and there are interviewees who provide context and insight to the images being shown. Rather, it's a naturalistic reportage of people and events - of life itself - wherein we, the audience, are there to simply observe, absorb everything in and perhaps form our own insights and conclusions afterwards. It may take some getting used to though, ...

German auteur Werner Herzog's second narrative feature " Even Dwarfs Started Small " (1970) seems to exist in an altogether different dimension. It's a world completely inhabited by small people. And by small people, I mean midgets, diminutives, the vertically-challenged, indeed the dwarfs indicated in the title. Some may be taller or shorter than the others, but they are dwarfs all the same. There's a complete absence of "normal-sized" individuals who might possibly oppress or abuse these small people. But it doesn't follow that the dwarfs are not cruel to one another. On the contrary. Within this distinctive cosmos, there's a conscious desire to usurp, control, humiliate or abuse one's own kind. They may be diminutive in size, but their mode of thinking and action could possibly go astray and be blown out of proportion. The film's opening panning shots clearly establish what will remain its setting all throughout: an unnamed white-dr...