A Pilgrimage to Cinema

A couple of months before " Dunkirk " (2017, UK) was released, director Christopher Nolan reiterated in an interview what has long to be known as the absolute essence of a film: that a film is meant to be seen in the cinema. Nothing, absolutely nothing, really compares to watching a film on the big screen, inside the cold and dark theater, being fully immersed in the distinctive cinematic world while being virtually "shut off" from the outside world, even for just a number of hours. It greatly helps if the film that we're watching provides us with a truly wonderful experience. "Dunkirk" is one more reason for a film to be really experienced inside the cinema. Regardless of the fact that Nolan shot the film on 70mm, "Dunkirk", simply put, is pure spectacular cinema. Seeing it in another medium would definitely be a lesser experience. To my mind, this is Nolan's best work since the time- and mind-bending " Memento " (and this w...

Of the few films that I saw in the just-concluded ToFarm Film Festival (July 12-18), " Instalado ", written and directed by the Pampanga-born Jason Paul Laxamana (" Babagwa ", " Magkakabaung "), is what I find to be the most intriguing, ambitious and imaginative. If only the director was able to consistently maintain his vision, then it would've made for a truly compelling cinema. As the film goes on, it turns out to be a rather bumpy fare. Fairly speaking, the film has its merits, but then it can't be merely the sum of its parts. The film imagines a not-so-distant future where going to the classroom and learning from the teachers are rendered near-obsolete to give way to that mode where studying a course can be done in just the blink of an eye through the installation of a "portable" module in a person's brain, for a hefty cost. Those who avail of such a procedure are called "instalados", as opposed to the "gra-gra...

The 20th Eiga Sai, a festival of contemporary Japanese films (Shang Cineplex Cinema 2, July 7-16), has included in its lineup two films where food is a major character. The one is a love letter to an institution in danger of fading away, while the other is an ode to life and human kindness. " Tsukiji Wonderland " (2016), a documentary by Naotaro Endo (and his debut full-length film), brings us to what is considered as a world-famous and venerable wholesale seafood market in the Tokyo district of Tsukiji, home to an astounding array of fish and other seafood products and the popular tuna auction. As one food critic in the film points out: If the Pyramids of Egypt is a required destination for archeologists, so is Tsukiji Market a required destination for chefs. Even if one has not (unbelievably) heard of the market before (like myself), the film still holds our interest and attention because of the way Endo tackles his subject (and besides, who wouldn't be interested in...

Despite being awarded the Grand Jury and the FIPRESCI Prize in the 1990 Cannes film festival, the Japanese film " The Sting of Death " (1990), written and directed by Kohei Oguri, based on a 1960 autobiographical novella by Toshio Shimao, seems to have rested in obscurity already. If one is to search about the film online, there's only a handful of reviews about it (nothing published in such known film magazines like, say, Variety and The Guardian) and there are no trailers to be found, not even in YouTube. If anything, the director himself (already in his 70s) has only made five films thus far, with the last one back in 2005. But obscurity doesn't mean that there's no reason for the film to be rediscovered. That's why it's a good thing that "The Sting of Death" was recently screened in Eiga Sai, organized by the Japan Foundation Manila, as part of its 20th-year anniversary (the film was part of the line-up of the festival's first edition h...