A Pilgrimage to Cinema

A film that unfolds entirely on computer screens (or any technological gadget) may sound like an uninviting idea, but " Searching " (2018, USA) makes sure that all of our first impressions are dispelled right away. A Sundance-launched debut by Aneesh Chaganty, the film hooks us immediately in the first few minutes in its montage, by way of video and photo clips, emails and Windows calendar reminders, of the particular milestones in the childhood and early teenage years of the main character's only daughter, up until the untimely death of his wife due to cancer. This part is surprising in itself, because while economically and ingeniously constructed, it manages to be surprisingly moving as well. Thankfully, the film is able to live up to the promise of its opening montage all throughout. A film that was almost rejected by John Cho (who plays the father David) had not the director been able to convince the actor the second time that he would handle the film's "...

Three years after " Heneral Luna ", Jerrold Tarog follows up with " Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral " (2018), a film about the life and death of another prominent historical figure during the Philippine-American War in the late 19th century, Gregorio del Pilar. This is the second film in an intended trilogy about Filipino heroes who are seldom, if not at all, portrayed in cinema (the third one being about Manuel Quezon, which is already hinted at in "Goyo"). As with "Heneral Luna", "Goyo" takes the liberty, as stated in the opening text, of combining fact and fiction in the presentation of historical events. It's like the fictional elements serve to enhance the facts, in as much as the latter intends to ground the former in reality. The result is yet another boldly entertaining and imaginatively directed historical drama, coming from one of the country's consistently good directors. But whereas Jerrold portrayed Antonio Luna as a l...

Various readings have been made about Robert Wiene's " The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari " (1920, Germany), the quintessential representative of the German Expressionist film movement during the silent era in the early 20th century (whose other films, sadly, appear to have been lost already for good). One such reading is that the silent film served as the precursor of the birth of National Socialism and Adolf Hitler's rise to power during World War II. Film critics and scholars saw that the silent film's despotic exercise of authority (as embodied by the madman Dr. Caligari) and mindless acquiescence to his evil biddings (as shown by the somnambulist Cesare) are no different from the primary nature of Hitler's Nazism. Further supporting the matter is the fact that the screenplay by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer was colored by their military experiences during World War I which led them to become distrustful of authority. Whichever way one looks at "The Cabine...