A Pilgrimage to Cinema

I was able to watch four of the nine competition films in the recently-concluded Cinemalaya (Aug. 4-13 at CCP and Ayala Mall cinemas), a yearly festival of independent Filipino films (which started way back in 2005). How I wish that I did like all the few films that I saw. As it turns out, only one really won me over. And that is, " Kiko Boksingero ", directed by Thop Nazareno. The director, whose short " Eyeball " was an entry in the short-film category of the 2013 edition of Cinemalaya, may have made just a small film (compared to the other films that I saw that have such "big" concerns), but it isn't without a big heart. Gentle and heartwarming, without being syrupy and didactic, this is the kind of film that will appeal to those who prefer their family dramas to be simple and quiet. The story, for all its worth, doesn't really break any new ground and somewhere along the way, we can already see how it will end, but the film isn't afrai...

One drawback perhaps of making a film as thrillingly original as " Baby Driver " (2017, USA) is that it may spawn a spate of inferior imitators, working under the guise of an admiration or an homage. Or when writer-director Edgar Wright, due to the film's box-office and critical success, makes another film of the same mold, with the result being that "Baby Driver" becomes just a mere hindsight. But setting aside such qualms, what we have here is a work of pure cinematic delight, oozing with a masterful command of the medium. The fact is "Baby Driver" is more style than substance. And it may even be remembered as such. But perhaps, this is the only film that we would get to see this year that utilizes such an incredible sound design. Every sound, noise, and beat that we hear and every action and movement that we see in the film translate into a kind of musical cue or track, or add up to one whole symphony. Such a style really stems from the nature of...