Tessa Maria Guazon

Or indeed, this world has been made strange,cannot take no more and comes to its inevitable end.
We are not forgiven or spared.

Qiyamah haunts with staggering potency in its handling of the apocalyptic theme. It begins with an eerie, almost sinister cacophony of rural sounds to mark waking, progresses to burdened words and fecund silence through dreaming, and rounds out through solemn quiet the nothingness that has become of this somnolent rural village in the Philippine South. Its opening sequence swarms with sounds: the buzz of nocturnal insects meld with the crowing of chickens and birds, the transistor’s fluctuating feeds cut through the hum and buzz of farm life. Musali, a young Muslim boy, awakens before our eyes amidst this symphony. He is the first to recognize that something is amiss on what could have been an ordinary morning. The ill-tuned radio grappling for signal becomes a drone then a siren and the sun’s rays are cast from the West.

Thus begins the inventory of signs which hound the village: the sunrise, the war in Yemen, the earthquake in Mecca. Some flee to places thought to be spared and most seek the wisdom of the village elder. All of them strive to live through the routine of farm life albeit in disquiet. There is no rush to build shelters or hoard supplies, no energy wasted on futile readiness for an end that cannot be escaped. We encounter village folk working the fields, weaving, or gathered in the routine activities of life steeped in reserve and contemplation ushered by the spectre of an impending end. Adults are weighed down by their pasts, contends with the complexity of moral choices. The children of the village face severed friendships and through deceptively untouched innocence confront the spectre of strange events.

Nature is accurate pulse and exacting judge in Qiyamah. More than any other element in the film, the village environs stirringly depict the demise of earthly life. Nights in the village are strapped by howling wind, its high noons awash in unearthly pearlescent glow, the faintly stirring leaves transform into admonishing gestures across a still born landscape. Felled crops are set against skies slit by light, Armageddon of clouds shrouding twilit fields, a sudden rainstorm as if the heavens have been upturned before our eyes. Doom and rot are essayed in parched soil, loamy skies, the sparse air; earth made still and slow, grass appear like wagging tongues or rearing snake heads. The children are seemingly inured from these unfathomable signs. One striking scene has Musali swaying to the gas lamp inside their hut during evening prayers.

Evil however descends on the village. Imagined as the Devil or some hideous monster, it violates Samida’s daughter. Yet the nightmare does not end with her rape, her brother dies from attempts to avenge her. Men from the village hunt the monster and finally accosted, the sky damns him with a bolt of lightning. The scene is the most evocative from all the films viewed this year by the YCC. It is unexpected, bringing a powerful jolt that punctures the senses, rendering in lingering trace not only Qiyamah’s tightly wound plot but the larger questions concerning life and death, the elusive end to the raging conflict in parts of Mindanao, and the gulf between innocence and evil.

Musali trades his dream for a secret with Mona the crippled girl who is victim and witness to the doings of the Devil. He nurses a fever from which he recovers with acute feeling for the earth. The land, trees and caves all murmur and call to him. At this juncture, we imagine the end is aborted but director Gutierrez Mangansakan II orchestrates it in sheer poetry. Samida, the childless mother lets out a shrill cry of grief, groping dry earth to summon her dead children. She brushes earth on skin to appease the pain of loss. Village folk recognizes another sign, pauses in their farm chores with deadly calm. We see them gathered in a bunker next, after which the camera falters and moves, becomes perplexed by the numerous signs the heavens are sending our way. A barrel of smoke crawls up the darkened sky, after which the jolted lens settles on the huddled forms of Musali, his parents Wahab and Amina who were suddenly obliterated by a white, blinding blanket of light.

While Qiyamah partakes of the nothingness that shape apocalyptic films, it grounds it well within a local moral world; that of the small village, its council of men and the ties between women. It foregrounds tainted innocence as it tries to ferret out the workings of evil in a world which little by little has shrunk both in its physical realm and within the imagination of those who inhabit it. Qiyamah underscores the fickle nature of our individual desires and dreams, whose value and gravity becomes apparent only in context of relations with others. Without trace of anguish or regret, Musali and Mona imagine the afterlife, the crippled girl is majorette of a band whose leader is a boy with whom the earth about to vanish has whispered her final plea.

Lisa Ito

Brilliante Mendoza’s competing entry to the 69^th Venice International Film Festival and official entry to the 2012 Metro Manila Film Festival, Thy Womb, has been received in diverse ways since its first screening, ranging from institutional and critical acclaim to popular indifference to contentious critique.

Set in the island province of Tawi-Tawi, the landscape of Thy Womb slowly unravels through the aural: the sound of waves as a baby is birthed into the world, the whirr of a motorized banca cutting through the tide, the spatter of rain breaking the stillness beyond.

These waters of life are the very habitat and home of Badjao couple Shaleha (Nora Aunor) and Bangas-an (Bembol Roco). This floating world between sky and sea envelops the ironic barrenness of Shaleha, a respected  midwife in their humble village. The opening scene ends with Shaleha carefully putting aside the child’s discarded umbilical cord as a keepsake: a reminder of her own simultaneous power and failure to bring forth life.

Shaleha’s literal and figurative departures from the daily rhythm of living revolve around this perceived fall from grace: venturing to other shores with Bangas-an in search of a fecund second wife. This is a journey more transactional than personal, capped by the marriage to Mersila (Lovi Poe) and a substantial dowry that will sap not only their meager resources, but sever their remaining ties as well.

This whole conjugal narrative unfolds at a meandering pace, underscoring the tedium of waiting. The film intersperses its climactic points with cinematography representing the ecological and the social: panoramas and underwater shots abound with ethnographic portrayals of both social ritual and community life. It juxtaposes footage of wildlife, scenes and objects that are not only documentary but symbolic in function: pawikan eggs and rainbows, a desolate chapel and a busy mosque, the weaving of mats which subsistence fisherfolk turn to in the lean months.

At best, these scenes complement the symbolic silence that permeates throughout the film. There are no histrionics and thespian dialogues for most of the time. Much of the interrogations within the narrative remain unsaid and alluded to, like the currents of Thy Womb’s tranquil seas. The pristine underwater shots merely hint at the ruptures brewing beneath: a massive butanding hovering beneath the couple’s humble boat, the spurt of blood from a pirate’s gunshot wound dissolving into patterns in the water, a frantic carabao on the verge of drowning. What are made visible are merely ripples on the surface; sporadic interruptions—gunfire disrupting the pangalay dance at a marriage, a squad of soldiers passing by—merely hint at the real dissonance and turmoil unfolding beyond in this part of the archipelago.

The film presents undoubtedly poignant performances by Aunor and Roco, which have won for the former two other film citations for 2012. Their exchanges of words as husband and wife are sparse, whittled down all throughout the narrative by the screenplay (Henry Burgos); the real tragedies, jousts and departures are best left unspoken and seen. Roco’s stoic weariness betrays both a quiet desperation at the absence of progeny and sense of impending loss, suddenly sealed by Poe’s brief but pivotal presence in the end.

Much of the film’s power, however, is drawn from Aunor’s mastery of countenance and gesture: how her character becomes a disturbingly gendered embodiment of the maternal and the sacrificial. This is mirrored in the marriage ceremony she attends as a guest, where woman is transformed into bride. For my husband’s happiness, I’d do anything, Shaleha announces later, proclaiming an appalling selflessness in the face of her transactional and personal dealings. In the end, there are no words for anticipation, acceptance, and the finality of departure; indeed, Shaleha is painful to watch in her silence.

Yet it is also precisely in its very conception of silence that Thy Womb waxes problematic, if not potentially controversial, as a form of critique. For the semiotics of its breathtaking scenery, biodiversity and ethnographic documentation still point to the implied conception of Shaleha’s world as the Other: geographically and conceptually removed from urbanity, contemporaneity, and familiarity.

While the film consciously veers away from representing overtly and unabashedly exotic spectacles reminiscent of the early 20^th century colonial gaze, its representation of personal loss and pain as a largely aesthetic encounter transforms Shaleha’s story (and the geopolitical implications behind it) into an exquisite vista that one does not interrogate, but merely beholds. It is only in problematizing such silence that one can come to closer terms with Bangas-an’s real loss: there is no redemption, only rupture, in this final birth.

Tessa Maria Guazon

Numerous questions were thrown our way this year. Those worth answering included queries on the relevance of awards, on why we persist on awarding films viewed presumably only by us, and why we appear to lag in the writing of film reviews. All these questions (some phrased with refinement than others) lead us to the uses and place of criticism within the exuberant sphere that Philippine cinema has become in recent years. The Young Critics Circle Film Desk has been consistent in regarding film as telling measure of the overarching conditions wherein it is crafted and circulated. These include the immediate context of Philippine society and the equally proximate realm conveniently labelled global.

The first citations for film was organized by the Young Critics Cirle in 1991, the periodic conclusion to a sustained dialogue among its members. I say with pride that such conversations traverse around and intervene in our lives, blossoming in carefully calibrated degrees as we by turns view, discuss, debate, and decide on the films to which awards will be conferred. The object of such a long process, which at times can be adequately described as tense, is what the YCC’s founding members had described as “dynamic discourse” wherein the most “provocative,” indeed the sharpest, incisive texts that engage and invigorate the imagination are identified. This vetting process amongst colleagues ensures that our reviews are thoughtful reflections on films and the attendant issues they raise. I again note with pride they are exercises in thought, reflection and engagement as we are not after website hits or equally fleeting, even trivial measures.

Discourse can only be sustained through difference and conflict. The yearly citations aim for films often circulated beyond the orbit of the centre (may include mainstream, big budget production,spectacular awards circuit, are among its many inflections) be recognized by a wide array of audiences. Our reflections on film of course are accompanied by a fervent wish that more audiences can view them, in venues that may not necessarily be deemed mainstream. It is fitting to note that festivals answer this need, especially those organized in the regions. Hence, recognition and platforms for wider circulation in most contexts can be said to necessarily inform each other. The YCC Film Desk sustains several platforms: our website for writings, the yearly citations, our periodic film screenings, and most important the forums where ideas are discussed and positions on crucial issues are courageously made. Our unflinching position on the disqualification of MNL143 is recent illustration.

2012 had innumerable film screenings: 51 films variously produced by Star Cinema, ABS-CBN Films, GMA Films, or Regal in partnership with comparably smaller production outfits, 72 full run digital films coupled with 63 other releases, and close to a hundred screened for the film festivals Cinema Rehiyon, First Big Shot, the FDCP Sineng Pambansa, Cinemalaya, Cinema One, Cinemanila, and MMFF New Wave. These figures may appear daunting to the avid follower of Philippine cinema and indeed, makes apparent to film critics the need to be ever more judicious in choosing the best among the lot.

The YCC after arduous turns in viewing all films publicly screened in 2012 narrowed these numbers to about thirty-two for its initial roster. We finally came to the nine best works for our short-list. Interestingly, those nominated for best film (Qiyamah, Ang Paglalakbay ng mga Bituin sa Gabing Madilim, and Kalayaan) all focus on Mindanao, if not southern Philippines, as locus for their narratives. Impeccably depicted by way of visual and narrative devices, we chose Qiyamah as best work among the three nominees. We also recognize the contributions of film stalwart Nora Aunor through the citation of her performance in Thy Womb.

As we enter preparations for another round of viewing and criticism, we look with gratitude to the pioneers of film and theatre who passed on this year. I extend the cliché of “passing the torch” to include that the new generation of film makers, directors and actors in Philippine cinema rise to the challenge of devising new modes of film crafting, new ways of seeing and thinking. A fitting response from film critics is deeper engagement, a more encompassing and incisive discernment of the role of cinema in our times, an equally creative and keener survey of the sphere of imagination, and its most optimal mobilization, to adequately respond to issues that demand introspection and action.

This year, we introduce a new trophy for our awardees. Designed and crafted by artist Manolo Sicat, the trophy’s sleek silhouette emphasizes the ties between cinema and society. The undulating form on top of the base symbolizes fast-changing film formats and technology. And yet such flight that marks the deepest fathoms of the imagination are solidly anchored to reality, of which cinema is one of the more powerful prisms.

The design echoes the title of this report: a persistent desire to soar but deeply rooted to earth and the circumstances that make us.

The Living Dead

JPaul S. Manzanilla

We have seen this before. Poor people are gambling their lives with whatever they have to survive—guts, wit, and bits of sanity that remains. In fact, the scene where Makoy (Kristoffer King) steps on shit recalls the lead character’s same fate in Kubrador (Jeffrey Jeturian 2006), also about the binding connection of illegal gambling and the country’s slums. Those who do public commuting would see the long stretch of saklaan lines on the roads and streets of Caloocan, close to where the film is set and is actually their alternative venue for a wake being planned.

But Oros is not poverty porn. The basic problem with some of those who criticize films that deal with poverty is that they deny poverty whereas the problem with poverty porn films is that they delight in it. Poverty porn ties the poor to the image and enslaves them in it. In Oros, we are given the life of the poor in its utter normalcy. Others would see it as boring, bereft of action. But not necessarily bereft of imagination.

The cloud of smoke that envelops the place and serves as the opening scene would appear mystical but it is this shroud of haziness that the filmic project attempts to clarify. “All that is solid melts into air,” Marx metaphorically says of capitalist relations, and it is the filmmaker’s charge to grasp the liquid condition of human relations before it finally disappears from our sight. And so we see that Makoy dutifully takes charge of renting dead bodies for public wake in order to sponsor gambling; in the process, he trains his brother in the trade, even though the latter hesitates.

A middle class audience would scoff at many scenes, much more when they observe them in real life. Why the temerity to bear children when they can’t even feed themselves? Why lay bets when you don’t have the money to sustain your household? How can we pity and help these people when they swear at their parents, steal money, and fuck and kill one another? The moral economy of the slums does not need our help. And it is this truth which we can’t accept that is the central intelligence disputing the poverty of pornography. For the squatters (Illegal settlers? The urban poor? The underprivileged and deprived?) they make do with whatever they have. With or without us—or even despite us—they will because they must survive.

It is in this light that we learn that didactic proposals to alleviate poverty would fail. The film’s intertextual composing of the reproductive health bill in the radio news being broadcast, though of soft sound, becomes a sonic force that nags at their plight. Its editing also lacks the vibe of the setting, especially in chase scenes where danger is barely felt. What makes up for the film’s lapses are the outstanding performances of Kristoffer King as Makoy and Kristoffer Martin as a lad being prepared for the only job they know. There are also fine points in cinematography, even though many of the scenes are trite. When, at one point, the sea’s vista from the Baseco Compound in the most impoverished area of Manila was shown, we gather that there is still hope amidst all of these.

Yet death has already been foretold. It is the corpse of his brother Abet that Makoy finds in the end. How will they survive when the law that sometimes suspends its power to apprehend now enacts its full force to legitimize itself? They are the living dead in this set up that denies them the right to live.

—

Breaking the Circle

Jaime Oscar M. Salazar

Situated in the sprawling slums of the Bataan Shipping and Engineering Company (Baseco) Compound in Tondo, Manila, Paul Sta. Ana’s Oros configures a cinematic realm that is populated by those so desperate that they must depend upon the dead for their survival and sustenance: even though gambling is, as a general rule, illegal, the practice is tolerated at wakes, especially when the authorities are persuaded, by way of grease money, to look the other way, and it is within this context that Makoy (Kristoffer King), and his younger brother Abet (Kristoffer Martin), are able to eke out their living, as the two periodically procure unclaimed cadavers from funeral parlors—no great difficulty, apparently, in an area notorious for violent crime—and help their clients stage spurious vigils at which they then function as operators of sakla, a card game that is supposed to date back to the Spanish period, in order to generate sufficient revenue for division among all involved in the ruse.

The money is easy enough to make, but the expenses entailed by the saklaan, which include bribes for officials, regular shots of formalin to keep the corpse looking fresh, and the costs of eventual burial, coupled with the desire for just a little more income, are what drive Linda (Tanya Gomez), to push her luck, asking the siblings to assist her in extending to three weeks the wake of a man for whom she has had to concoct the rudiments of a relationship to make the ritual believable, and their efforts to fulfill this request are what set the events of the story into motion. Such motion is, over time, shown to describe a tantalizing circle of exploitation that may be fateful but is not inevitable—one that Makoy is challenged to break and alchemize anew.

Oros gives the impression of being backed by a certain amount of ethnographic research, and its attempts to avoid creating spectacles out of scenes of poverty by way of a matter-of-fact treatment are laudable; some of the pains that it takes, however, to evoke the textured materiality of its locale, as when cockroaches suddenly appear on a kitchen table to the startled cries of a homeowner; when a character inadvertently steps on a pile of feces and has to scrape it off his foot; or when it becomes obvious that the complexions of King and Martin have been darkened, come across as contrived and fail to convince—a significant limitation for a work that, in many respects, does not so much break new ground as tread territory already covered in compelling ways by other films. Its uneven tone and pacing, as well as the tendency of the narrative to telegraph key points well in advance of their actual revelation, compound the weakness.

What nevertheless makes Oros a gripping drama is King, whose performance, much praised by many quarters, is a revelation indeed. At once a hard-nosed entrepreneur and a compassionate brother to the often intractable Abet, who is a reluctant participant in the business and would rather occupy himself with other pursuits, Makoy is wonderfully complex and contradictory, and it is testament to King’s skill that it is in the countenance of his character that the hope for transformation, for a world moved by agency rather than by chance, longed for all throughout a film that is saturated with misery, is finally registered and proffered.

J. Pilapil Jacobo

It is rather amusing that Ekstra can imagine the debacle of its cinema as something like a most excessive accomplishment.

The plot tracks the forlorn effort of Loida, a “talent,” to follow her star, in spite of  the  culture industry that reduces her aspirations to a “fee” that would allow her daughter to finish college. That the screenplay had chosen to zero in on the commodity fetish of stardom through that figure of the “extra” is nothing novel. Neither is the critique of the photography that creates the mass media aura that entitles a consciousness to misrecognize the falsity as authentic spirit. Recent pretenses which allowed the exploitation of thespian Eugene Domingo and horror genre veteran Lilia Cuntapay need to be mentioned here, less for citing advance guard aesthetics in these parts than for iterating the futility of archiving a vapid independent filmography. Joji Alonso, Charo Santos-Concio, and Laurice Guillen can only be mistaken in assuming that a form of immanent critique is possible from their megalomaniac machineries. And Jeffrey Jeturian is no longer the filmmaker that can perform the role of a critic, much less that of an immanent imagineer. He has lost all manner of intimacy with an idea and dexterity with the image.

The writing sounds so pedestrian in its attempt to be contemporary, and the direction that intervenes in this foolhardy reportage can only be impoverished. The style is culled straight from the comedy club, a colleague quips. Now wonder it can elicit the most vulgar amusement from an alumnus of the bar who has joined the gallery of freaks entrenched in a prominent media company. The film narrates and describes the market compromises a soap opera production unit needs to internalize to survive the etiquette of commodity. This cinema’s choice to inscribe itself through televisual form cannot be argued to be strategic. Bereft of conscientious humor that casts irony as a “principle of structure,” the joke is on the signature, comedy.  Not even the high camp that is delivered by performers such as Cherie Gil and Pilar Pilapil can prevent the thought that comes after the failure of critique: television has reduced film to a narcissistic implement. This is hardly the cinema that is purported to thrive in self-reflexive practice.

The figure in question, the “extra,” should have been inspiring enough to yield a neo-realist argument on a crisis of cinematic representation in the post-colony mired in “combined and uneven development.” The“extra” should have performed a project of arresting articulation from the mass media product that is the “star” by letting herself act out the intellect of her marginal visibility. Stardom could have been laid bare as the surfeit of appearance in an exposure of the superfluous violence on the body hoping to be rescued from disposable labor and negligible talent. Instead, what the film does to this figure is fashion her into a victim of the predatory methods of a third world capitalist media outfit whose work ethic is based on product placements and the bonuses released for those who perpetuate this licence. She is subjected to the minutiae of abuse, which includes the defiles of slapstick. The productive possibility of allowing her to foreground the agency of the underside is annulled by exploiting the bathos of such a displacement. As a consequence,the argument on the extra as that irreducible—indeed the supplement that is no longer the addition, nor the replacement, in an anatomy of the motion picture that runs on delirium tremens—all that disintegrates among the debris of directorial neglect. The extra remains an aspect of the dismissible, almost the nil. Her humanity must be subtracted for fumbling over Anglophone legalese in a final confrontation scene. In an industry that favors the labors of antipathy, her fault is the sensible failure of a mechanical delivery.

Vilma Santos, whose star’s premise encompasses age, climate,even time itself, portrays this “extra.” It is time to report that the brilliance has failed. The consistency of her light years has been credited to a vigor whose basis is melodramatic competence. With the genre demolished at primetime, every night of our lives, the actress looks dissipated in the rehearsal, and what she can afford to muster is a middling energy. There was a time when her powers largely depended on this “extra,” which can be derived from the “over-” in her “overacting.” Even without training from the Peking Opera, Santos repeated this shrill technique from one project to another, for the manner somehow worked at the box office. Manner became the mannerism that launched a star most distantiated from the repertoire of an ensemble and the theater of an environment.  Ekstra ultimately fails in Santos’s inability to inhabit the supplementation that she has triumphantly supplanted, with total industrial patronage, all these absolutely industrious years. Her “extra” is a “surplus”: a defective product that deserves to be remaindeered. The catatonic performance in last year’s The Healing should have warned us of the affliction in Ekstra.  She is never “Loida”; she doesn’t possess the sentimental history to locate the interiority of such victimage. Frame after frame, “Vilma” remains the star who became an actress, by aspiration, then capitalist scheme, and, perhaps, through bureaucratic accident. The only feeling Vilma understands from Loida is despair, having realized that the industry has lost its charms to restore whatever has remained of recognizable talent. We can only hope Santos has known the extent of such violation, with those final eyes of a rather infinite regret.

YCC is cancelling the Awards Ceremonies scheduled for today due to incessant rains and flooding across the city. We are coordinating with awardees for the new date and will update accordingly.

Despite the cancellation of the Young Critics Circle awarding ceremony on August 20 due to heavy rains and flooding, members made sure to hand trophies to Qiyamah director Teng Mangansakan and editor/sound designer Arnel Barbarona, who were due to fly back to Mindanao the morning after. The group met at a restaurant in Araneta Center.

Clockwise: YCC member Jema Pamintuan, Qiyamah creative consultant Sherad Anthony Sanchez, Arnel Barbarona, YCC member Skilty Labastilla, trophy designer/sculptor Manolo Sicat, YCC members Nonoy Lauzon, Lisa Ito, Jason Jacobo, Tessa Guazon, Director Teng Mangansakan, YCC member JPaul Manzanilla

YCC  is targeting September 3rd as the date of the awards rites. We are coordinating with awardees and will confirm here as soon as the date is finalized.

The Young Critics Circle has rescheduled the 2013 Awards Ceremony to September 3, 3 PM at the Jorge B. Vargas Museum, UP Diliman, Quezon City. Historian Dr. Francis Gealogo will be guest speaker.

Lisa Ito

Ang editing ay tumutukoy sa pagsasaayos ng ugnayan ng panahon at espasyo sa mga eksena ng isang pelikula. Sa pamamagitan ng malikhaing paggamit ng mise-en-scene at montage, may kakayahan ito na maglagom, ipakita ang tunggalian, bumuo at bumaklas ng mga pagkakaugnay sa loob ng pelikula.

Ang pagkilala sa Pinakamahusay na Editing ay pinagkakaloob sa mga editor. Ngayong taon, lima ang nominado para sa pinakamahusay na editing pampelikula. Ito ay ang sumusunod:

• Aparisyon, sa editing nina Jerrold Tarog at Vincent Sandoval;
• Jingle Lang ang Pahina, sa editing ni Aimee Apostol-Escasa;
• Kalayaan, sa editing ni Aleks Castañeda;
• Thy Womb, sa editing ni Kats Serrano; at
• Qiyamah, sa editing nina Arnel Barbarona at Gutierrez Mangansakan II

Sa mga pelikulang Kalayaan, Aparisyon, at Thy Womb, epektibong ginagamit ang editing upang ilahad ang mga naratibo ng paghahanap at pagkawala, lumbay at pag-iisa. Mahusay rin ang paggamit nito sa dokumentaryo na Jingle Lang ang Pahina, kung saan inilahad ang malayang palitan ng impormasyon, imahen, tunog, at interbyu na umiinog sa Jingle Magazine.

Ginagawad ang Pinakamahusay na Editing sa Qiyamah, kina Arnel Barbarona at Gutierrez Mangansakan II. Ipinalabas sa pagkakasunod-sunod ng mga eksena ang mga naratibo hinggil sa kapangyarihan ng kalikasan, tunggalian at kapayapaan, buhay at kamatayan.

Aristotle Atienza

Ang Pinakamahusay na Tunog at Orkestrasyong Awral ay tumutukoy sa paglalapat ng mga aspektong may kinalaman sa tunog sa pelikula: musika, likas na tunog, sound effects habang ang mga ito ay isinasalungat sa o inaayon sa lengguwahe ng mga imahen, at kung gayon ay nagiging makahulugang sistema ng pananagisag mismo.  Iginagawad ang Pinakamahusay na Tunog sa sound engineer at sa tagapaglapat ng musika.

Mahirap nang makita ang pelikula nang wala ang tunog.  Kinikilala ang musika at tunog hindi lamang bilang suporta o tulong sa makapangyarihang rehimen ng nakikita (visible) kundi bilang tauhang nakikipagtalaban sa galaw ng mga larawan.  Sa ingay na dala ng mga pelikula ng nakaraang taon, higit na mangingibabaw ang kahusayan ng musika at disenyo ng tunog sa mga pelikulang nominado rin bilang pinakamahusay na pelikula, Kinikilala ang mga pelikulang Ang Paglalakbay ng mga Bituin sa Gabing Madilim, Kalayaan, at Qiyamah, sa talaban ng ugong ng natural, ng mga naninirahan, ng mga taga-loob, at ang pakikipagtunggalian o pakikipagsabayan nito sa dagundong ng artipisyal, ng mga taong-labas bitbit ang mga bakal at makina ng siyudad.

Subalit dalawa sa tatlong pelikulang nabanggit ang tatanghalin ng Film Desk ng Young Critics Circle (YCC) na nagtataglay ng pinakamahusay na tunog at orkestrasyong awral sa dalawang pelikula.  Ipinagkakaloob ito sa mga pelikulang Kalayaan at Qiyamah.  Sa pagsasalita at pagsasalaman ng musika at tunog ng kalikasang sinasakop at sumasakop, upang punan ang panghihimasok ng pag-iisa sa pagtatanggol ng sarili at bayang nasa bingit ng kabaliwan, binibigyan ng pagkilala ang musika ni Teresa Barrozo at disenyo ng tunog ni Ditoy Aguila para sa pelikulang Kalayaan.  Samantala, sa paglikha ng tunog ng kapaligirang naninimbang sa loob at labas ng komunidad ng mga naniniwala nang hindi tumatahak sa posibilidad ng abusong maaaring bitbitin ng pangamba sa napipintong paggunaw ng mundo, tinatawagan ng pansin sina Raphael Pulgar sa musika at Arnel Barbarona sa disenyo ng tunog para sa pelikulang Qiyamah.

*YCC Awards photos courtesy of Nestor de Guzman

JPaul Manzanilla

Ang Sinematograpiya at Disenyong Biswal ay tumutukoy sa mise-en-scene at sa mga kalidad nitong biswal/plastic, disenyong pamproduksyon, pag-iilaw, direksyon ng sining, visual effects na nagbibigay-anyo sa anumang representasyon na inilalantad sa telon at ikinikintal ang pagsasaanyo ng mga puwersang panlipunan at mga kultura sa mga sandali ng kontradiksyon, pagsasanib, engkuwentro, pagtatagpo, pakikipagtunggali o pagkakaugnay sa bawat isa. Ipinagkakaloob ang Pinakamahusay na Sinematograpiya at Disenyong Biswal sa sinematograper at sa taga-disenyo ng produksyon.

Ang mga nominado sa Pinakamahusay na Sinematograpiya at Disenyong Biswal ay ang mga sumusunod: Ang Paglalakbay ng mga Bituin sa Gabing Madilim – Arnel Barbarona at McRobert Nacario (cinematography) at Bagwani Ampalayo (production design); Diablo – Tristan Salas (cinematography) at Cesar Hernando (production design); Kalayaan – Albert Banzon (cinematography) at Adolfo Alix, Jr. (production design); Kamera Obskura – Raymond Red (cinematography), Mikey Red (art direction), Daniel Red at Cesar Hernando (production design), Edrie Ocampo at Pablo Biglang-Awa (visual effects); Qiyamah – McRobert Nacario (cinematography) at Perry Dizon (production design); Thy Womb – Odyssey Flores (cinematography) at Brillante Mendoza (production design).

Sa Ang Paglalakbay ng mga Bituin sa Gabing Madilim, matalinong ipinakita na kaisa ng mga gerilya ang kalupaan ng isang bahagi ng Mindanao sa kanilang pagtakas. Tila ba kasama ang mga manonood sa pagtugaygay ng lupain at pakikiisa sa kalikasan upang manatiling buhay sa kanilang pakikibaka.

Inilahad naman ng Ang Diablo ang pakikihamok ng ina sa mga huling sandali ng kanyang buhay habang ang kanilang tahanan ay naging lunsaran ng pag-aaway ng kanyang mga anak. Ang kanayunan at bahay ay naging materyal na lunsaran ng kanyang mga gunita.

Kaaliw-aliw naman ang paglalaro ng mga imahe sa Kamera Obskura na masinsing nagpakita ng kasaysayan ng teknolohiya at sining ng kamera at ang nawawala, sinasaliksik, at patuloy na binubuong kasaysayan ng mga manonood sa ating bansa.

Ang itim-at-puting pagkulay sa Qiyamah ay matalasik na naglarawan ng kalagayan ng daigdig sa mga huling panahon nito. Sabihin pa, ang kidlat mismo ay kumatawan sa pagbasag ng karimlan ng paligid at budhi ng isang puwersa ng kaliwanagan na nanggagaling sa itaas.

Inilalangoy naman tayo ng Thy Womb sa katubigan ng Timog Mindanao sa paglalakbay ng dalawang matandang mag-asawa upang mabuhay at kanilang pagsusumikap na magsupling ng buhay.

Ngunit ang nagwagi ng Pinakamahusay na Sinematograpiya at Disenyong Biswal ay ang KALAYAAN na may sinematograpiya ni Albert Banzon at disenyong pamproduksyon ni Adolf Alix, Jr.

Panoramiko ang pagtanaw natin sa islang tila nasa dulo na ng mundo. Napakapayak ngunit napakayaman ng paglalarawan ng lumbay sa isang lugar na ang natitira na lamang ay ang mga elemento ng tubig, lupa, hangin, at apoy at ang indibidwal na taong nawawalan na ng halaga sa buhay. Doon, sa hangganan ng lupain at tubig, ng teritoryo ng ating bansa at pandaigdigang pag-aari na pinag-aagawan ngayong yugto ng napakalupit na kompetisyon sa mga yaman ng mundo, may manipis na pagitan na lamang ang katinuan at pagkabaliw.

*YCC Awards photo courtesy of Nestor de Guzman

Jaime Oscar Salazar

Ang dulang pampelikula ay tumutukoy sa retorika ng pagsusulat para sa pelikula na nagpapahayag ng kasalimuotan ng buhay panlipunan at personal na ligalig sa natatanging estruktura ng naratibo o politikal na paniniwala; o sa pamamagitan ng pinag-isipang dramatikong tensiyon na sumisiyasat sa tunggalian ng personal at politikal, ng indibidwal at ng kolektibo, ng pribado at ng publiko.

Anim ang nominado ng YCC para sa Pinakamahusay na Dulang Pampelikula para sa taong 2012. Ito ang mga sumusunod:

• Aparisyon, na isinulat nina Vincent Sandoval at Jerry Gracio;
• Kalayaan, ni Adolfo Alix, Jr.;
• Oros, nina Paul Sta. Ana at Obet Villela;
• Ang Paglalakbay ng mga Bituin sa Gabing Madilim ni Arnel Mardoquio;
• Qiyamah ni Gutierrez Mangansakan II; at
• Thy Womb ni Henry Burgos.

Iginagawad ng YCC ang Pinakamahusay na Dulang Pampelikula sa Ang Paglalakbay ng mga Bituin sa Gabing Madilim ni Arnel Mardoquio. Matalinong inilialarawan ng pelikula ang iba’t ibang suliranin at tensiyon na umuusbong buhat ng paggalaw sa partikular na lokalikad—lokalidad na kadalasa’y walang-ingat na itinatanghal. Mabisa nitong nilalahad ang masalimuot na pagtatagpo ng politikal at personal sa dinadanas na realidad ng mga tauhang kinikilala ang pangangailangan para sa pakikibakang Bangsamoro sa isang dako, at minimithing mbuhay at umibig nang payapa sa kabila. Mahalaga sa tagumpay ng pelikula ang matatas na paggamit ng katahimikan, na kung tutuusin ay hindi default na wika, kung hindi mas matalim na wika.

*YCC Awards photo courtesy of Nestor de Guzman

Patrick Flores

Sa taong 2012, limang estilo ng pagganap ang napili ng kasapian ng Young Critics Circle upang itanghal na pinakamahusay mula sa lahat ng pagsisikap na maisakatuparan ang bisa ng katauhan na kinatha ng manunulat at isinalin sa pelikula ng direcktor.

Tahimik ngunit taimtim ang paninindigan ng yumaong si Amable Quiambao sa kaniyang pagsinop sa papel ng isang babaeng nililigalig ng alaala ng kaniyang asawa sa pelikulang Diablo ni Mes de Guzman.

Bagaman mukhang di matinag ang diwa ng isang madre superyora na ginampanan ni Fides Cuyugan-Asencio sa pelikulang Aparisyon ni Vicente Sandoval, naipamalas ng aktres na ang loob pala nito ay mabuway at marupok.

Matingkad na ipinahiwatig nina Kristoffer Martin at Kristoffer King ang asal at pag-iisip ng mga magkapatid na kinakailangang maging magilas at maparaan upang mabuhay at umiral sa mundo ng looban na pugad ng sugal at mga sugapa sa pelikulang Oros ni Paul Sta. Ana.

Isang tanyag na pangalan sa tanghalan, isang haligi ng opera sa Pilipinas, at dalawang baguhan sa industriya ng pelikula ang nagpapatunay na masigla ang buhay ng pagganap sa pelikulang Pilipino.

Ngunit sa larangan ng sining, tila laging may nakahihigit na paraan ng pagsasakatuparan ng pangako ng talino. Malalim ngunit payak lamang ang ibig ng isang kumadronang Badjao na malaaanan ng isang anak ang kaniyang asawa yamang di niya ito maalayan ng sarili niyang dugo at laman. Sa pagturol niya sa mithiing ito, tinawid niya ang dagat, sinuyod ang talaan ng mga pangalan, naglikom ng yaman, nakiusap nang  mataos, at ibayong nagparaya. Sa pagsabuhay ni Nora Aunor kay Shaleha sa pelikulang Thy Womb ni Brillante Mendoza, pinatunayan niya na higit pa sa pagsabuhay ng katha, nilalayon din ng pagganap na masumpungan ang tunay na damdamin ng tauhan at ang maaari pa nitong makamtan. Sa makulay na daigdig ni Shaleha at Nora Aunor, ang paghugot ng supling ay hindi para sa isang lipunang bihag ng mga batas o sa isang asawang hindi maigpawan ang itinadhana ng pagkalalaki. Ang tunay na kaloob ni Shaleha ay para sa isang ipinagpalang pagluwal ng buhay na nagsisimula sa isang mahiwagang silid na mistulang sinapupunan ng mga tinilad-tilad na pusod sa pagitan ng laot at langit.

Tinatawagan ang walang kaparis na si Nora Aunor upang tanggapin ang natatanging gawad sa pagganap.

*YCC Awards photo courtesy of Yuki Honorable

Tessa Maria Guazon

Nominado para sa Pinakamahusay na Pelikula ang mga sumusunod: Ang Paglalakbay ng mga Bituin sa Gabing Madilim ni Arnel Mardoquio, Kalayaan ni Adolfo Alix, Jr. at Qiyamah ni Gutierrez Mangansakan II.

Kapansing-pansing ang mga naratibo ng mga nasabing pelikula ay umiinog sa mga lunang malayo sa sentro, sa mga lugar na nasa laylayan ng arkipelago. Ang kaakibat na kamalayan sa mga lugar na ito ay hinubog ng layong dikta ng heograpiya pati ng mga balitang madalas kakambal ang digma at gulo.

Sinuong nina Amrayda at Fatima kasama ng batang si Faidal ang pasikot-sikot na landas mula gubat hanggang dagat sa Ang Paglalakbay ng mga Bituin sa Gabing Madilim, masalimuot at puspos ng bagabag ang kanilang pagtakas mula sa tumutugis na militar. Ngunit ang pagtakas na madalas balot ng kaba ay nilapatan ng saya, lumbay, at panglaw kung kaya’t nagmistulang kuwento ng buhay; walang tiyak at minsa’y walang kasagutang mababanaag.

Estasyon naman ng sundalong si Julian Macaraig ang isang isla sa pinag-aagawang Spratlys. Wari’y payapa, ang isla ay nakatagong yaman; hindi natitinag ng anupamang ingay o gulo. Ngunit puno ng ligalig ang katauhan ng halos hindi umiimik na si Julian, hawak sa isang madilim na sulok ng isip ang isang lihim pati ang mito ng kayamanan ng isla.

Sa isang bayan naman sa Maguindanao iikot ang malikhaing bisyon ng katapusan ng mundo sa  Qiyamah. Iipuning unti-unti ang mga signos ng gunaw, isang hantungang mangyari’y pinaghahandaan at hindi maiiwasan.

Bagama’t lutang ang mga naratibo sa mga pelikulang ito, hindi tali sa dayalog ang mga bahagi nito. Nakaangkla sa malikhaing paggamit ng tunog, matalas na editing, sa malalim na kaalaman ng lunan pati ng kapangyarihang humubog ng kuwento ang mga pelikulang Ang Paglalakbay ng mga Bituin sa Gabing Madilim, Kalayaan at Qiyamah. Karapat-dapat sa papuri ang epektibong pagkakatagni-tagni ng mga direktor sa mas malawak na konteksto ng salungatan pati ng mga personal na kalagayan or dilema.

Iginagawad ng Young Critics Circle Film Desk ang Pinakamahusay na Pelikula sa Qiyamah, idinerehe ni Gutierrez Mangansakan II. Ang masinop na paglalahad, matalas na editing, at ang mahusay na paggamit ng tunog at sinematograpiya ang nagpahatid ng ligalig na dala ng kamalayan ng gunaw. Unti-unti tayong inilapit sa nakabubulag na liwanag ng katapusan ng mundo, ang dulo na manao’t madali’y darating din. Nakapaloob ang ating agam-agam at takot sa komunidad at lipunan, isang ugnayang hinabi sa paraang pino at poetiko.

YCC gave the trophies to Mr. Mangansakan and Mr. Barbarona at an earlier date.

(l-r): Ditoy Aguila (Best Sound, Kalayaan), Adolfo Alix Jr. (Best Production Design, Kalayaan), Nora Aunor (Best Performance, Thy Womb), Arnel Mardoquio (Best Screenplay, Ang Paglalakbay ng mga Bituin sa Gabing Madilim), Raphael Pulgar (Best Music, Qiyamah)

Not in photo:

Gutierrez Mangansakan II (Best Film and Best Editing, Qiyamah)
Arnel Barbarona (Best Editing and Best Sound, Qiyamah)
Albert Banzon (Best Cinematography, Kalayaan)
Teresa Barrozo (Best Music, Kalayaan)

*Photo courtesy of Nestor de Guzman

Review of On the Job (Erik Matti, 2013)

J. Pilapil Jacobo

On the Job preoccupies itself too much with the techniques of cinema which make “action” a legitimate object of Filipino film that its so-called treatise on Philippine violence barely works even as police reportage. Recent cinema is entitled to its own illusion—that it is intelligent enough to launch a “critique” of establishment, but as far as commentaries are crafted, this attempt is bad writing.

However enervated, the film tracks the Bildung of Mario Maghari (Joel Torre) in his last days as an assassin who eliminates, without deliberation, but with utmost derring-do, enemies of a military general whose grand ambition is to swagger and stutter at the Philippine Senate. I write Bildung (a German word that means “maturation” or “development”) as the story pertains to a life at the cusp of  integration into the social or alienation from its space. And I write “last days,” because Mario, the inmate, has been granted his date of release.  Two documents signify two stipulations of  “freedom” then: 1) the photograph of the target that orders a occasional foray into the “outside” and 2) the parole that sends Mario back into the life before penalty and all manner of privilege projected from the semblance of power distributed to those singled out as deft from among those punished. The rewards of the latter release may be amorphous, far from pecuniary, but it should be worth a shot for Mario, who is still able to hold on to the assurance of an idea or a prospect becoming concrete in spite of its abstraction. The love from a wife and a daughter is a chance to be finally free from mercenary subsistence.

Without a doubt, there is thrill, frisson (French this time), in the demonstration of the ethos that is born and bred from this character who slouches, with de rigeur conviction, toward soulful deliverance. Notwithstanding the temporal promise that is hinged upon the date of release, that calendrical sign becomes a premise to digress into melodrama, particularly the defiles of the domestic lumpen, and into the Bildung of the apprentice Daniel (Gerald Anderson). The writing could have just concentrated on the scenarios which persuade Mario to train Daniel into becoming a death machine, and on the sequences which drive Mario to meet his “social” death on the verge of his reprieve, but a final digression sends the story spiralling into its nadir: a heroic narrative dramatized by lawyer Francis Coronel, Jr. (Piolo Pascual). This is where the thrill becomes cheap; the action that is produced by such titillation is found out as derivative of what has been done in more rigorous,albeit less lustrous lifetimes of the action film. Coronel’s Bildung proposes the figure of the redeemer who is only fulfilled after going through the motions of a naïveté that will be subjected to an epiphany on the crisis of the republican state and revised by a savoir-faire that drives the practitioner of skill to self-destruct in righteousness.

The way Coronel’s deplorable character is essayed sends the film to the pits. Pascual tackles the role as though he had the finesse to acquit himself in the polytropic milieu of a crime scene. He poses and tries too hard to pass as investigator, resorting to musculature, apparel, coiffure, gadgetry, choreography, all manner of gimmickry that his studio allows him to claim just to be legible as suave hero. His hysterical sheen is the film’s principal technical achievement. The gifts of Jay Halili as editor, Erwin Romulo as musical scorer, and  Ricardo Buhay III are wasted here. Their sophisticated knowledge of the state of film art has been instrumentalized to conceal the deficiencies of Michiko Yamamoto’s writing, the imposture of Erik Matti’s direction, and the hallucinations of Piolo Pascual’s acting (he is almost endowed with extra-sensory perception when the smoothest of criminals is within a strut away). As far as technical excellence is concerned, On the Job should prove that cinema in these parts has come a long way. And yet, one must call out expertise, when its role is merely prosthetic, dissimulating the offenses of a visual politics whose hermeneutics of suspicion is an ideological chore that “manufactures consent” through the erotic appeal of a hyper-realized metropolis. Ishmael Bernal must be turning in his grave,after that allusion to his “tropical traffic.”  The disarray is sensuous, but it does not mark out a sentient cinema complex.

The supporting actors need to be cited for their participation in this folly. There was something facetious that worked for Leo Martinez as the irreverent politician in a forgotten satirical film. None of that comic timing should have been transported into this film. Michael de Mesa languishes as the senator who has invented a philistine lexicon of political savvy. Shaina Magdayao’s exposures can be compared to her sister’s futile campaign to intuit the possibility of an actress in an obscure Viva Films experiment. Angel Aquino is a banshee, but her shriek could have been calibrated by no less than the premier technician of today’s vocal contest (even if she doesn’t have the range to show for it).Gerald Anderson looks and sounds the part of a Filipino American deprived of his Adidas in a Palawan penitentiary. Joey Marquez interprets the ineffectual policeman type along the lines of imbecility. Vivian Velez botches an opportunity to bring the film into noir terrain. One must remind her that wearing black and speaking in a smoky tone are not enough to resurrect the femme fatale image.

Lito Pimentel’s vignette on fear is instructive, a counterpoint to Joel Torre’s opera on the menace that devours all manner of hope in a man who discovers that freedom taken away can never be taken back once one commits to the occupations of violence.

The selection of the film at the Director’s Fortnight in Cannes is a travail to the mind. Can sheer technical tenacity elide the most alienated consciousness of crime and punishment in this hapless country? The surface is enthralling, yes, but only because visceral content that is inevitably bloated has been neutralized, if not almost “always already” negated. Such technology of thought can only be savage.

*

Image source: http://www.lemonde.fr/festival-de-cannes-2013/article/2013/05/25/norte-the-end-of-history-death-march-et-on-the-job-le-cinema-philippin-une-quete-violente-d-identite_3417328_1832090.html

Criticism involves separation, which takes place not only in the realm of its production where distinctions are established between specific objects of interest, but also in the realm of its reception, where these distinctions, though deployed in the interest of generating concurrence as to their validity, may instead invite dispute—and all to the good. If criticism is to be vigorous, meaningful, and responsive to its times and climes, then it requires dissensus as much as it does consensus.

This is not to make a case for careless commentary, sophomoric opinionating, gratuitous provocation, or vicious harassment in the expression of disagreement. Nothing ought to be beyond remark, and everyone, as the old saw would have it, may be a critic, but these are not pretexts to dispense with a sense of accountability for what one says or does.

It is in view of the foregoing that we, the Film Desk of the Young Critics Circle (YCC), condemn the spate of mindless hatred and hostility that has been unleashed in the wake of the publication of “Frisson Break”, a recent review of On the Job (Erik Matti, 2013) by one of our members, J. Pilapil Jacobo.

We believe that Philippine cinema—an arena, we realize, where we are merely one of many publics—deserves keen, insightful, and, most importantly, responsible exchange, which we seek to cultivate by way of our essays and our annual citations. That the situation here has not been so, given the decision of many reactors to refuse engagement on the level of argument, to participate in the fomentation of a mob mentality, and, worst, to cloak their identities, as has happened in the comments section of the review in question, speaks of cowardice and is deplorable in the extreme. While we have never considered our work exempt from scrutiny, we fail to see how vacuous savagery can help the discourse on cinema to prosper.

We stand by the entirety of “Frisson Break” as written, uphold the right of each of our members to evaluate films in the manner that he or she sees best, and underscore our commitment to sober, thoughtful, well-informed dialogue.

Review of Lihis (Joel Lamangan, 2013)

Skilty Labastilla

Lihis wants viewers to care so much for the travails of its protagonists without bothering to ensure that said protagonists are worth caring for in the first place. These days one never expects to enter a cinema showing a Joel Lamangan feature expecting subtlety (see, for instance, Medor de Edad, The Bride and the Lover, The Mommy Returns), and, sure enough, the director elects to dwell on the predictable melodrama generated out of the film’s controversial topic rather than on pursuing heretofore uncharted possibilities inherent in the material. It’s quite a shame because Ricky Lee’s script has the potential to traverse junctures between private and public, personal and political, and the irony of the Left’s rejection of the dominant political ideology while repressing sexualities that deviate from the dominant sexual regime.

The film recounts the doomed story of Ador (Joem Bascon) and Cesar (Jake Cuenca), two rebels who fall in love in the mountains of Quezon Province during the Marcos dictatorship. The story is told in flashback from the perspective of Ada (Isabelle Daza), the grown-up daughter of Ador, and a fellow rebel, Cecilia (Lovi Poe). For the first act of the film though, we are treated mostly to unnecessarily lengthy love scenes (in slow-mo for maximum erotic effect – note to Mr. Lamangan: there’s nothing less exciting than overly directed sex scenes.) between Ador and Cesar, between Ador and Cecilia, and between Ada and her boyfriend, at times intercut with one another. Even if this film fails on so many levels, at least it can boast of a memorable, if laughable, scene of Bascon pounding away at Cuenca on a huge river rock.

In the heat of the two men’s romance, Ador decides to marry Cecilia (Lovi Poe), mainly because, up until that point at least, homosexual relationships are frowned upon in the movement. For a substantial portion of the screentime, we are made to see Cesar beg and cry and flail for Ador to not leave him.  This pathetic behavior would have been a little bit more palatable for viewers had Cuenca not been both so comical and so annoying in his portrayal of desperation. He falls right into the trap set by Lamangan, who is known for eliciting capital A ‘Akting’ from his actors (which is baffling because Lamangan is an excellent actor himself). Here, Cuenca goes beyond capitalizing just the A to making it all caps ‘AKTING!’ He grimaces, grunts, groans, and grovels, and through it all, his expression reminds me so much of a pained version of Zoolander’s Blue Steel pose.

I feel though that this is more Lamangan’s fault than Cuenca’s. Of the three lead actors, Cuenca has the least experience in acting in indie films. Bascon and Poe are both able to give appropriately textured performances here mostly because they have been handled by less stagey directors in previous indie films. Even newcomer Isabelle Daza (who fares better than her mother here) acquits herself well, though it’s pretty obvious that she’s still having a hard time speaking in straight Filipino. Cuenca hasn’t had much experience in non-mainstream films (though he was quite good in this year’s Tuhog), and it is Lamangan’s task to remind him that he is almost always trying too hard in most of his scenes. Cuenca could not even be bothered to modify his in-fashion hairstyle (shaved sides, longer top) to something that resembles 1970s men’s hairstyle, as if he just came from a Bench photoshoot.

Lee and Lamangan have been reminding everyone in press interviews that Lihis was conceptualized way before Brokeback Mountain (2005), to which the film has been compared to, not unfairly. Both films have straight-acting gay men whose intense love for each other consumes both even when one of them gets married and builds a family as a result of societal discrimination. Yet Lihis does not possess even a tinge of the power of Ang Lee’s film because of two reasons. First, its lead characters are not even likable: aside from the cloying neediness of Cesar, Ador doesn’t seem to be motivated by anything, making his relationship with Cesar seem one-sided; and Cecilia knew before marrying Ador that he was gay and in love with Cesar, yet left him when she realized he was still… well, gay and in love with Cesar. In Brokeback Mountain, viewers understand Jack Twist’s neediness because Lee painstakingly shows us the devastating impacts to Jack’s life if he would spend it sans Ennis del Mar.

Which brings me to the second point: Lihis fails to establish to the viewers the two men’s spiritual connection, why they need to be with each other against all odds, beyond the momentary call of the flesh. The first time they meet, at a meeting, they were seen vehemently arguing about how to pursue their armed struggle against the regime. The next scene has the two of them alone at night on some clearing where they, again, fight, physically this time, until they kiss. The following scene has Cesar give Ador a pair of boots. The next scene introduces Cecilia flirting with Ador while Cesar is seen sulking in the corner. Then Ador tells Cesar that he wants out, that he is now with Cecilia. Cesar refuses to accept this and stalks him in the river, where they eventually have sex. Then Ador and Cecilia leave for a new place. That’s it! Where is the love? Lamangan makes the viewers assume the inevitable without giving us visual cues of attraction between two souls. (Note: Spoiler in the rest of this paragraph) That is why that overly melodramatic final shootout scene (where Ador and Cesar are surrounded by soldiers firing at them) not only fails to elicit the intended emotions out of viewers: instead of feeling sorry for the lovers whose lives were about to end (simultaneous last breaths at that!), viewers were laughing out loud at the predictable lines and slow-mo last hurrahs: once one of them is hit by a bullet, the other rushes to him then stands up in super slow-mo to face the soldiers and shouts “Mga putang ina niyo!” Ador and Cesar do this exactly four times (four times!) in the scene, alternating between each other.

It’s fair to say that Lamangan’s direction is one of the production’s weakest links because most of his production crew bring out their A-game: the cinematography, editing, sound and music are commendable. The other weak department is the production design, specifically make-up. The characters are supposed to age by more than two decades, yet Raquel Villavicencio and Jim Pebanco only had their hair dyed white without the accompanying wrinkling of facial skin. The casting choice of the Putol character is also confounding. He was about ten years old in the 1970s but they cast a 60-year old man to play his contemporary counterpart!

My biggest disappointment with the film though is with its failure to explore the exciting possibilities of its premise. Lamangan, a former political dissident, has always been critical of government and the military in his serious films (see, for instance, Burgos, Patikul, Deadline, Sigwa, Dukot). In Lihis though, both are not targets, at least not directly (a side story on extrajudicial killings only serves as weak backdrop). Because there’s no clear-cut “villain”, the film channels all its angst inward, particularly in the Cesar and Cecilia characters. Ador, because he is an indecisive gay man, is made the unwitting villain. Cesar gets so hung-up when Ador leaves him and Cecilia’s failure to convert Ador to heterosexuality leaves her too frustrated. As it is, the film is not unlike a National Geographic special that features a cheetah and a lion battling for a piece of meat (Ador) in the savanna. It’s all very carnal. The film never attempts to show how the larger sociocultural forces are at play in the private sexual politics of its characters. Lamangan and Lee should have realized that there IS actually an obvious villain: society at large, that the Left’s struggle against hegemonic political ideologies would not mean anything if it would still succumb to the dictates of hegemonic masculinities, of homophobic patriarchy.

Just when we need Lamangan to be critical/political, he settles for the tried-and-tested, because flashy, appeal of bedroom melodrama.

#

 Francis A. Gealogo, PhD
Ateneo de Manila University

(Talumpating binigkas sa 2013 Young Critics Circle Awards Ceremony, 3 Setyembre 2013)

Maraming salamat sa Young Critics Circle sa pagpapahalaga sa akin bilang panauhing tagapagsalita.  Bagaman nagtataka pa rin ako hanggang ngayon kung bakit ako ang napili ng mga kasapian ng YCC na gumampan ng ganitong atas, inisip ko na lamang na lagi namang makasaysayan ang mga panahong pinagdadaanan ng lipunan at pelikula, lalo na ngayong ipinagdiriwang natin ang sesquicentenaryo ng kapanganakan ng Supremo ng Katipunan na si Andres Bonifacio, kinailangang historyador ang maging kaniig ng mga batang kritiko ng pelikula upang maiangkla ang gawain sa kabuuang kontekstong pangkasaysayan na ating ginagalawan.

Kaiba rin sa mga naging ginampanan ko bilang tagapagsalita dahil ako ang paksa ng aking talumpati.  Maraming salamat sa YCC dahil napilitan ako ng pagkakataong ito na dumanas ng introspeksyon sa aking pang akademiko at pang intelektwal na buhay na hinubog ng panahon at mga institusyong aking ginalawan.

Kung mayroong hahanaping Martial Law baby sa ating kasaysayan, malamang sa hindi na mapabilang ako sa henerasyong ito.  Ipinanganak ako apat na buwan matapos maluklok sa unang termino si Ferdinand Marcos sa pagkapangulo ng Pilipinas.  Apat na buwan pa lamang ako sa Grade One nang ideklara niya ang Batas Militar noong 1972.  At sa huling dalawang buwan na lamang na nalalabi sa aking pag aaral sa kolehiyo ko lamang naranasan na hindi na pangulo si Marcos noong 1986.  Masasabing ang buong panahon ng batayang pag aaral na naranasan ko at ng aking henerasyon ay ipinaghele ng batas militar, ng awtoritaryanismo at diktadura.

Maraming personal na ala ala ang ganitong kalagayan.  Iba ibang nibel ang magiging lapit ko sa karanasan ng martial law ng diktadurang Marcos.  Lumaki kaming ipinasaulo ang mga awit ng Bagong Lipunan, at sambitin ang mga katagang isang bansa isang diwa, at ng pangangailangang tingnan ang the true, the good and the beautiful sa buhay at pag iral.  Ilang ulit na gumawa ng mga banderitas at mahabang panahong tatayo sa gilid ng kalsada kasama ang iba pang mga paslit na mag aaral sa paghihintay na darating si Madame sa aming bayan kasama ang mga kaibigan.  Masilip lamang ang maraming convoy ng mga magagarang itim na kotse ay sapat na sa amin upang makakuha ng dagdag na puntos sa klase.  Ilang suspensyon din ng klase sa elementarya ang naranasan upang makapanood ang buong bayan sa Miss Universe at Thrilla in Manila.  Sa aking paglaki at pag aaral sa mga publikong paaralan sa Cavite, halimbawa, hindi katakatakang magkaroon ako ng pitong kaklase na Ferdinand ang pangalan, apat naman ang kaklaseng may ngalang Imelda.  Sa pamayanang malapit sa base militar ng Sangley Point na nakaranas ng pag alis ng mga hukbong Amerikano, naging malapit ang reyalidad ng digmaan sa Mindanao dahil sa higit na malaking bilang ng mga batang sundalong nagsasanay sa pakikidigma at naghihintay ng deployment sa pakikipaglaban sa gyera.

Pero ang lahat ng mga ito ay naranasan sa panahong marami ang bawal.  Bawal manood ng kinagiliwang Voltes V sa kadahilanang hindi mawawaan ng murang isip.  Bawal magpuyat at lumabas ng bahay dahil may curfew.  Bawal magsalita ng laban sa pamahalaan dahil babawasan ng grado ng mga gurong bumibilib kay Marcos.

Kaya nga kakaibang karanasan ang magiging kalagayan bilang probinsyanong gradwado ng pampublikong paaralan sa pagpasok ko bilang freshman sa Unibersidad ng Pilipinas.  Lahat ng bawal ay pwede palang tanungin.  Lahat ng hindi pwedeng makanti ay pwede palang ipagsigawan at maaari palang sumama sa napakaraming kolektibong naglipana sa Diliman.  Sa ikalawang taon ng pag aaral sa unibersidad, lalong naging matingkad ang pagtantao na pwede palang sambitin at gawin ang mga bawal matapos ang pagkakapaslang kay Ninoy Aquino.  Sa kontekstong ito maaaring sabihing napakababaw ng dahilan kung bakit pinili kong mag aral ng Kasaysayan – dahil isa ito sa mga kursong maikli ang pila tuwing registration. At sa pamantasang madaling maging trahedya ang karanasan sa pagpila sa pagkuha ng mga subheto, lohikal lamang na piliin ko ang kursong walang gaanong pila sa rehistrasyon.  Magkagayunman, ang kalayaan at kritikal na lapit ng akademya at pamayanan ng UP ang nakapagbigay ng lalim at lawak sa mga pinagdaanang karanasan.  Napagtanto ang pangangailangang iugnay ang mga pananaliksik  sa mga usaping kinakaharap ng kasaysayan at lipunan.  Ang pagpapalalim ng pag unawa sa nakaraan ang magiging susi sa higit at ibayong pakikisangkot sa lipunan.

Dahil dito, ang pagkahilig sa pag aaral ng mga kilusang gerilyero matapos ang pagsuko ng tropa ni Aguinaldo ang naging tutok sa pananaliksik sa mahabang panahon.  Sa una, binalak ko lamang na pag aralan ang Republika ng Katagalugan ni Macario Sakay bilang salamin ng kabalintunaang lumalaganap sa ating kasaysayan kung saan ang mga tunay na bayani ay binabansagang tulisan at ang mga pinunong bumabandila ng kanilang sariling kadakilaan ay mapag aalamang maraming pekeng medalya na sila sila rin ang gumawa.  Sa impluwensya ng kilusan, ang pagbaling sa kasaysayan mula sa ibaba, mula sa pananaw ng mga pinangingibabawan at pinagsasamantalahan, hindi lamang sa aktwal na karanasan sa nakaraan kundi sa pagturing ng mga historyador sa kasaysayan ang magiging tutok ng pananaliksik.  Hindi lamang si Macario Sakay ang dapat kilalanin.  Naririyan din sina Faustino Guillermo, Luciano San Miguel, Lucio de Vega at Felipe Salvador na pawang mga biktima ng nakaraan at ng pagturing ng kasaysayan.  May talaangkanan itong makikita sa kasaysayan at kaisipang popular.  Kaya nga, ang usapin ng pagiging kriminal at tulisan ay nagiging usapin din ng kung sino ang tumutingin sa kasaysayan.  Hanggang sa panahon ng pagkilos na Nardong Putik sa kasaysayan at sa pelikula, na magiging paksa din ng aking pananaliksik, magiging inspirasyon ng maraming pag aaral.  Malaki ang impluwensya ng mga kasaysayang sinulat nina Amado Guerrero, Teodoro Agoncillo, Renato Constantino at ang nagsisimula pa lamang na maging kontrobersyal noong si Reynaldo Ileto – mga gurong hindi ko naging guro kailanman –  sa mga ganitong usapin ng pagpapalawak ng pag unawa sa nakaraan.  Hinubog ng kanilang mga ideya ang maraming mga kaisipang dala dala ko pa rin hanggang ngayon bilang historyador.  Ang tunggalian ng mga uri, kalagayan ng pakikihamok at istruktura ng pangingibabaw – mga batayang kaisipang Marxista – ang magiging pundasyon ng mga pagsusuri at pag unawa sa nakaraan.

Bilang pagpapalawig, marami pang kuryosidad pangkasaysayan ang mapagtatantong kailangang saliksikin.  Sa pangangailangang unawain ang buhay at karanansan ng mga itinuring na mga tulisan at taong labas sa kasaysayan, nakita ang pangangailangang sumuong sa pag aaral ng mga tinatawag na pang araw araw na kasaysayan (history of the everyday).  Ang pagkahayag sa mga historyador na Pranses mula sa mga gurong kababalik lamang mula sa kanilang pag aaral sa Pransya ang magiging daan para dito.  Ang lawak ng saklaw ng kapangyarihan na hindi lamang makikita sa mga istruktura ng pamahalaan kundi sa mga istruktura ng kalusugan, paaralan, piitan at hospital (impluwensya ng noong naging sikat na si Michel Foucault) ang isa pang magiging pananaw na pagkakaabalahan.

Dahil dito, susundan ang kapalaran ni Macario Sakay mula sa larangan hanggang sa Bilibid na magiging pook ng bibitayan.  Ang kalagayan ng mga detenidong politikal ng kasalukuyan ay pagpapatuloy lamang ng mahabang panahon ng kasaysayan ng detensyon at pagkakakulong bilang isa sa mga napipipilang tinig sa ating kasaysayan.  Ang kasaysayang panlipunan ng mga piitan bilang lokus ng ugnayang pangkapangyarihan ang magiging lohikal na inanak ng mga naunang pananaliksik.  Bibigyan ko ng pagtatangkang tingnan ang mga institusyon ng Bilibid, Iwahig at San Ramon hindi lamang sa kanilang operasyon at istruktura, kundi sa paggamit nila ng espasyo, ng mga regulasyon ng paghuhubog ng gawi at pag uugali kaugnay ng mga usapin ng imperyal na kaisipan ng kontrol at pagmamatyag.

Bukod dito, marami pang ibang mga pagtatangkang palawakin din ang aking pag unawa sa kasaysayang panlipunan sa kanyang buong lawak at lalim.  Tinanggap ko ang hamon ng demograpiya upang makita naman ang kalagayan ng populasyon, pagbubuo ng mga kabahayan, pagkakasakit at epidemya sa panahong kolonyal.  Magiging isa ring paksang malapit sa aking pag iral ang mga pag aaral ukol sa kasaysayang demograpikal ng iba ibang bayan sa Pilipinas, sa paggamit ng mga teknikal na metodolohiya at teorya ng demograpiya, sinimulan ko ang pagsusuri at pag unawa kung paanong ang kalagayan ng populasyon ang isa sa mga hindi kinikilalang paksa sa kasaysayan.  Muli, ang kalagayan ng mga pinangingibabawan, ng mga pinaghahariang uri ang magiging tutok ng pananaliksik.  Paano nga ba kinakaharap ng mga maralita ang pagkalat ng mga sakit at epidemya?  Ano ang kalagayan ng mga kababaihan at mga bata sa kalusuang pangreproduksyon at pampamilya?  Paano nga ba, gaya ng sinabi ni Constantino sa kolonyal na edukasyon, ginagamit ang kaalaman sa kolonyal na kalusugan sa bilang pamamaraan ng pagpapalawak ng kolonyal na kapangyarihan.  Ito ang mga pangunahing tanong na nagpalapit sa akin sa iba ibang dimensyon ng mga pag aaral sa kasaysayan ng populasyon, medisina at epidemyolohiya.

Ang ilang personal na pakikisangkot din ang naging daan para palalimin ang pag unawa sa iba ibang usapin at kilusang panlipunan na magiging paksa ng iba iba pang mga pananaliksik.  Ang kilusang guro ang magbibigay sa akin ng ilang espasyo upang muling balikan ang mga usapin sa edukasyon, pagpapalaganap ng teksbuk at ang ideyolohiya ng pangingibabaw na sinasalamin nito.  Ang pagiging mason ang magbabalik sa akin sa pag aaral ng mga kaisipan ng mga ilustrado at rebolusyonaryo, mula kina del Pilar, Jaena, Bonifacio, Mabini at Aguinaldo – na magpapakita ng panibagong pagtingin sa kasaysayang ideyolohikal at organisasyonal ng huling bahagi ng ikalabingysam at unang hati ng dalawampung dantaon.  At higit sa lahat, ang pagiging Aglipayano ang maghahawan ng landas upang tingnan muli ang mga kasulatan nina Isabelo de los Reyes, Gregorio Aglipay, at Felipe Buencamino.  Sa mga nabanggit, hindi na kasaysayang panlipunan kundi kasaysayang pangkaisipan ang magiging pagkakaabalahan.  Paano nabubuo ang mga ideya ng bayan at nasyon; anong larangan nagtatalaban ang paniniwala at modernisasyon;  ano ang papel ng agham at rasyonalidad sa paghuhubog ng kaisipang makabago sa bayan – ang ilan sa mga katanungang kinaharap sa mga pananaliksik.

Ang paggunita sa kasalukuyang taon ng sesquisentenaryo ng kapanganakan ng mga bayani ang mga huling pinagkakaabalahan.  Dahil palasak nang sabihing nakapagbubuo ng mga bagong cottage industry ang mga historyador sa panahon ng mga seremonyal na pagdiriwang, sinikap kong sakyan ito nang hindi lumalabas sa dati nang kinasangkutan – na ang pananaliksik at pakikisangkot ay may maigting na ugnayan.  Dahil iisang henerasyon naman ang kinabilangan ng mga ilustrado at rebolusyonaryo, ang sesquisentenaryo nina Rizal noong 2011, Bonifacio ngayong 2013 at Mabini sa 2014 ang naging malawakang tutok sa mga bagong pananaliksik.  Mayroon pa bang bago na mababanggit sa mga ito?  Hindi kataka takang masasabi kong marami pang bagay na hindi nasasaliksik sa mga ito, at marami pa ring mga bagay na matutuklasan habang may kuryosidad pangkasaysayan na umiiral na naghahain ng mga katanungang kasaysayan lamang ang makapagbibigay ng diwa.  Gaya ng sa kasalukuyan, ang mga pagdiriwang at paggunitang isinasakatuparan ay mga paalala sa kalagayan ng nakaraan at kung paanong nabibigyan ng dokumentasyon ang mga karanasang ito bilang salamin ng mga inihaing posibilidad ng kasalukuyan.

Gaya ng mga gumagawa ng pelikula, nakikibahagi lamang ang mananalaysay sa pagtalunton ng mga kaganapang siya lamang ang tagapaglimi gayong lipunan ang lumikha. Kabahagi ang historyador sa lakarang hiniram lamang sa mga paksa ng pakikibaka at tunggalian ng bayan. Sa panghuli, ang pakikibahagi at panghihiram na ito ang maghahayag ng mga tunggalian at trahedya, ng mga gawi ng mga sawi, ng mga saysay at istorya ng lipunang saksi sa napakaraming sangandaang kanyang pinagdaanan para lamang matamo ang mga posibilidad ng ngayon.

This exchange, begun in the interest of exploring a different format for evaluating films, was conducted from September 4 to 14, 2013 via e-mail. The messages were then compiled into a single document, edited, and sent to the participants for review before posting.

The goal of this exercise was not so much to form a consensus, but to bring to the surface observations, questions, and concerns that the participants, as well as the various audiences of On the Job, could think through and about.

For readers who have not watched the film, what follows contains spoilers.

Tessa Maria Guazon

Taking off from our after-dinner chat last night, I initiate the thread on Erik Matti’s latest film, On the Job [henceforth OTJ]. I watched it on opening day and was initially thrilled by the idea of Gerald Anderson being cast in the role of a prison inmate. And who can ignore such a film, when my television news screen was peopled by the many versions of a beaming Anderson?

Anyhow, let us get the conversation going.

As I recall, we agreed that the merits of OTJ were its superb editing and sound design, but Jason sharply noted that its screenplay was its biggest flaw. I found discomfiting OTJ’s “sleekness”; the title for the review I have yet to write is “The Lures of Sleek”. The apparent gloss is what made it tick, yet it was also what made it weak. And the biggest fissures were in terms of narrative and characterization.

JPaul was right to note the sudden revival of action films, but compared to those from the eighties, the current spate of mainstream action films are inherently flawed. JPaul, can you remind us again why you said this? I think this can lead us to the comic presence of Piolo Pascual’s character, the wisp that was Shaina Magdayao’s OTJ persona, and even the contentious appeal of Joey Marquez’s hardened police officer.

Thinking back on the melange of the big-name actors: it reminded me strongly of Hollywood or NYPD dramas!

Jaime Oscar Salazar

I saw the film last night. The visual and aural aspects are what drew me in—it is indeed slick and sleek—but in the wake of the thrill, I found the screenplay, despite its intriguing premise, rather inept. The characters are generally badly developed; the attempt to provide expository information on all of the main players has a flattening effect. Also, many of the events are simply unable to withstand logical scrutiny.

The performances of Joel Torre and Joey Marquez are noteworthy, but everyone else was miscast, or had poorly written parts, or both. Considering the size of his role, Gerald Anderson was particularly grating in my view. His playing eager puppy to Torre’s battle-scarred wolf lacked the grit and the hunger that I would expect from someone who has presumably been imprisoned for a long enough period to establish his potential as a hired gun. That there is a training sequence, which includes lessons on jailbird decorum, is just one example of the poor writing; shouldn’t Torre have tutored Anderson in all these areas even before the latter started coming along as back-up on assassination assignments?

Tessa Maria Guazon

Thanks for the sharp insights, Jay!

Jason has crafted a beautifully written review; I think he plans to post it today.

Indeed, such sleekness is intriguing. It can even be riveting. However, such surfaces may also appear lifeless, even dead. Donald Kuspit makes a similar observation of hyperrealism in contemporary art.

Yet the very same forms are alluring for some reason, and I must admit there is ambivalent joy in cruising along such surfaces. I am intrigued by the affect birthed by this motion—viewing/cruising, skimming the film image.

Jay says he was “drawn in”. Did anyone else feel the same about the film?

JPaul Manzanilla

First, the slickness/sleekness: “sleek” is always a come-on in the action genre. It makes violence attractive and, more importantly, worth doing in the pursuit of justice. Indeed, the gloss of guns, cars, and the manners of enacting crime are material pictures of the hired gunman’s professionalism. These are not his resources, though, but his bosses’ (the “bosses” in this country as stated by Leo Martinez’s character)—the latter provide the polish, the sleekness in the enactment of crime. Still, they just give the raw materials but it is Joel’s character’s intelligence and efficiency that craft the sleekness. There is a class divide in this making of sleekness. The smoothness of the politician’s image is superficial—slick, relying on the hard and cruel labor of the hired gunman.

We need to attend to this sleekness because the materiality of the image is its meaning. Had the film shown at considerable duration the political economy of its violence, we would have gained a significant moral benefit from it. Sadly, the politics was just that, politicians, and the economy we had was the transaction between the politicos and the gun-for-hire prisoners and the diffusion of financial benefits to their families. Aside from sending allowances to their families, do Torre’s and Anderson’s characters invest in the future, of a life possibly without crime?

Tinatanong ko ito kasi ang character ni Joel Torre ay lalaya na, kaya kailangan niyang tantiyahin kung irereporma pa ba niya ang sarili. Sana naipakita pa nang maigi ito. Kapani-paniwala naman na makapapatay siya dahil sa pangangaliwa ng asawa, pero puwede naman silang mabuhay nang maayos ng anak niyang nag-aaral maging abogado, bilang kalaban-kakampi ng mundo ng kriminalidad na kinapapalooban nila.

Was the choice to remain a murderer for such a calculating man brought about by the emptiness, the hopelessness, outside of the prison, in the real world where he is not simply a hired killer anymore but subject to the degradations and nobility of normal life?

Wala kasing nobility sa paggawa ng karahasan. Sa mga pelikulang bakbakan, igagalang mo ang ibang gumagawa ng krimen dahil ginagawa nila ito para sa kanilang mga pamilya, na temang Pilipino naman talaga. At dapat ipinakikita na wala na silang mapagpilipilian, kaya ginawa nila ito. Hindi ko naman sinasabing dapat maging squeaky clean (again: glossy/sleek) ang karakter ni Torre pagkatapos, pero dapat kauna-unawa at katanggap-tanggap ang desisyon niya sa bandang huli.

Or, was he rational and professional to the very end because killing Anderson’s character wins him the competition, preserves his life and makes him the best hired killer after all?

I need to watch the film again. Ito na lang po muna.

Tessa Maria Guazon

I am thinking, the “sleek”/”slick”/”smooth” also translates to “hype”, especially in the context of producing and promoting the film. While it is an overarching trope within the film, it permeates the film beyond material form. I watched numerous interviews with Gerald Anderson, director Erik Matti, more Gerald (until his unusual “lisp” assumed a certain appeal), and these prove my claim.

I will have to disagree with the idea that Joel Torres’s character should strive for a life of so-called nobility—or a life of redemption, if we wish to put it another way. Perhaps that is our moral aspiration. And I really liked the thought of you ending the piece with a question.

I think Torres’s character’s choice of carnage at the very end earns him a chance at nobility. In the end, while he remains alive, he is transformed into Atlas who bears the burden of the world’s excess and amorality, who lives through this burden—someone who has to strangle every last morsel of conscience within his person. And this painfully transforms him into an unfeeling machine who suffers the rest of his remaining years.
Can this be resonant with typical action film characters—this twisted Robin Hood persona?

Jaime Oscar Salazar

Though Mario does assure his family, particularly his daughter, that he will soon retire from his work, giving rise to the impression that he looks forward to a peaceful life, there is also a scene where he informs Thelma of his imminent parole and manifests his eagerness to take on more jobs, which suggests to me that Mario is uninterested in a life free from crime—after years of assassinations, perhaps he is so hardened as to be irredeemable? Certainly the film is not a hopeful one; the most that one can aspire toward is a beautiful death under the bougainvillea. (Were they bougainvillea? Some kind of flowers, at any rate.)

Mario is immediately rebuffed, of course: Thelma tells him that, to the interests she represents, his freedom will make him a greater liability than an asset, as he will be much more difficult to control—if nothing else, he would become a loose end in the entire operation, just like the people whom he has been assigned to eliminate, and might be marked for death at any time. Hence, his later decision to turn against his apprentice, Daniel.

Mario’s expectation that he will still have a career as a killer beyond the bars speaks of incredible naïveté, especially in light of his experience, though he is not unique in that regard—it is possible to argue that many of the characters suffer from this baffling affliction (witness, for instance, Francis and Joaquin), notwithstanding the circumstances of their lives, which brings us back again to the glaring deficiencies of the screenplay.

Skilty Labastilla

“…beautiful death under the bougainvillea”! Like na like!

Kagaya ni Jay, gusto ko rin ang teknikal na aspeto ng pelikula. Akma ang paggamit ng masilakbong editing at propulsive photography sa istorya at hindi lang siya ginamit na gimik dahil kaya itong gawin ng mga filmmakers (at dahil may pera ang Star Cinema). Medyo naingayan lang ako sa music, na ginawang masyadong in-your-face, kaya minsan nagmumukhang rock music video ang pelikula.

Kahit sang-ayon ako sa karamihan na may kahinaan ang screenplay nito, na-appreciate ko naman ang istruktura nito—’yong pag-juxtapose ng good vs. evil (na hindi kailangang black-and-white). ‘Yon nga lang, hindi masyadong nagalugad ng mga manunulat ang mga posibilidad ng kakaibang senaryo na kanilang hinulma.

Siguro mas forgiving ako sa inyo kasi sinusuri ko ang pelikula sa konteksto ng Pinoy action film genre, na ang priority kadalasan ay hindi naman talaga ang paglalahad ng nuanced na kuwento at mga tauhan kundi ang pagpukaw sa mga prurient interests ng mga manonood nito. Kung tutuusin, kahit ginastusan ang at maayos ang craftsmanship ng OTJ, B-movie naman talaga ang sensibilities nito: it revels in its hypermasculinity to the point that you can smell the testosterone from your seat. At siyempre sa Pinoy action genre, par for the course ang sex scenes na wala naman talagang silbi maliban sa pag-pander sa mga kalalakihan, kaya obvious na tacked on lang ‘yong karakter ng old girlfriend ni Gerald, at dinagdag ang bed scene nina Piolo at Shaina para sa Pinoy audience.

Sa madaling salita, hindi ko siya masyadong sineryoso kaya siguro hindi ako nadismaya.

Tessa, ‘di ako sure kung tama ang pagkaintindi ko sa issue mo ng sleek/sheen ng pelikula. Mas gusto mo ba na rawer and grittier ang production values?

Tessa Maria Guazon

Thanks, Skilty, for your thoughts!

On the contrary, though, I think that the soundtrack and the editing are the redeeming points of the film.

Regarding “sleekness”, I think it is not about what one expects from a film of a certain genre. It is not that I wanted it to have more grit or rawness.  I am looking at “slick”/”sleek” as a given characteristic of form, and because it is to some degree alluring, I doubted it. There is devious seduction in OTJ’s use of gloss. And much to our disappointment, this very same slickness weakens, flattens its inherently weak structure.

Sure, we know the much vaunted good and evil trope; it has been worked to death—how else can they be presented in an ambivalent manner?

Skilty Labastilla

In terms of performance, consensus yata ang papuri kay Joel Torre, hati kay Joey Marquez, at thumbs down para sa natitirang cast. Isa ako sa humahanga sa pagganap ni Torre dito. Buong-buo ang characterization niya at makikita ang emotional investment niya sa karakter. Tingin ko ito ang pinakamagandang role ng kanyang career.

Kay Marquez medyo on the fence ako: kahit bilib ako sa kanyang pagganap, ‘di ko maiwasang maisip na nagawa na niya ang ganitong klaseng pagganap—ang nakakatawang everyman—sa iba niyang pelikula, most recently Tiktik: The Aswang Chronicles (Erik Matti, 2012).

Sinubukan naman ni Gerald Anderson na maging kapani-paniwala bilang preso, pero ipinagkanulo siya ng kanyang pisikalidad. Ibang-iba ang hulma ng katawan niya sa mga katawan ng mga ka-edad niyang preso. Tingin ko’y walang gym sa ganoong klaseng kulungan. Kung susundin ang sinabi sa script na matagal na siyang nakakulong, hindi kapani-paniwala na ganoon na kalaki ang katawan niya noong nakulong siya. Iniisip ko na lang ang mga posibilidad kung ibang aktor ang gumanap sa role niya: unang nasa isip ko ay si Alex Medina—ordinaryong mukha/katawan, pero nakakatawag-pansin pa rin dahil sa husay ng pagganap.

Wala naman akong problema sa performance ni Piolo Pascual. He did what he could with the role, which only means that his character is not fleshed out very well. Masyado siyang ginawang goody-two-shoes to the point of being boring.

Regarding the script, Jay, can you cite other events that you believe are illogical?

JPaul Manzanilla

Quotable quote: “Ipinagkanulo siya ng kanyang pisikalidad…”

Lisa Ito

I finally watched OTJ last weekend, with a still fully packed crowd.

I’m still trying to follow the thread (naipon ang e-mails, sorry), but offhand, I was blown away, so to speak, by the weight of Torre’s performance. This was balanced by the unease and occasional comic tension between Joey Marquez and Piolo Pascual.

I am ambivalent about Gerald Anderson’s casting. It also strikes me as unbelievably, painfully naive. But this is a quality that dovetails with his intended character, as it is precisely this naïveté which makes his downfall imminent. As for the other characters: too many problems to mention one by one! Gerard’s love interest, for instance, seems to have been inserted for the sole purpose of having a sex scene to offer, fading away after the act.

What I do particularly appreciate about this film is its timing, aired during the height of the Napoles scam brewing outside the cinema. For all its narrative gaps, it aptly conjures the complex web of real-life collusion by the military and police bureaucracy with the so-called bureaucrat-capitalists who dominate the scene, capped by their mercenary enlistment of the lumpenproletariat. Furtive reference is made to how the web reaches “all the way to Malacañang”, but this remains largely hidden and unexplored, for to know is to become a target oneself.

A bit of coincidental trivia: I think the film’s opening sequences included a news clip of my husband joining a protest march. The faces of those who joined are pixilated, but I spotted him right away holding a placard. Pleasant surprise!

Jaime Oscar Salazar

That’s a good point you’ve made, Lisa, regarding how OTJ resonates with the PDAF scandal; it may well be one reason that the film has become so popular. However else it might be understood, it certainly confirms, and may even deepen, the widespread suspicion and distrust with which people view our political system. Finally, though, it seems to me that OTJ suggests that opposing said system is futile, which is objectionable.

Skilty, here are the other illogical events that I observed, in no particular order:

First, the sex scenes—which we all agree on, I think. Even the slightly more believable one with Gerald was introduced clumsily. (These scenes, to my amusement, have been made much of in the press: Gerald and Dawn’s scene apparently took eight hours to shoot, while Piolo and Shaina’s took two days.)

Second, the ability of Joaquin to make connections, despite being a bungling cop. He is able to track Mario down merely on the basis of a cartographic sketch—are our criminal databases that good, particularly considering Mario has supposedly been in jail for the past 13 years?—and, toward the end of the film, just happens to come upon the general (Leo Martinez) and his henchmen while madly driving around.

Third, the confrontation scene between Francis and the general. As you’ve already pointed out, Francis is insufficiently fleshed out, and so his motives do not register clearly. Sure, there are references to his father, whose bad reputation he would like to shake off, and whose wrongful death he would like to avenge, but these fail to come across as persuasive drivers of his behavior, which may be the result not only of weaknesses in the script, but also in the performance.

Fourth, the decision of Michael de Mesa’s character (his name escapes me at the moment), supposedly a veteran politico, to trust an impossibly naïve Francis in the first place. Francis doesn’t display any real venality or greed or ambition, just vapidity.

JPaul Manzanilla

Thanks, Jay, for reminding me of parts when the possibilities of hope were given, which are, again, the problem of the screenplay’s plausibility. Napanood ko ang Eseng ng Tondo (Fernando Poe, Jr., 1997) sa Channel 2 noong Sunday, at masasabing simplistikong Manichaean ang pakikibaka ng mga tauhan sa Pinoy aksyon. Masama lang ang masama at mabuti lang ang mabuti, at hindi pinalalalim ang pagsama at pagbuti nila. So OTJ is a progressive step, Skilty, in presenting a nuanced playing out of the nature of crime.

I’m thinking of nobility here, Tessa, as central to the contradictions of the Philippine action genre. We are given Torre’s character as a coolly calculating one; hence, his decision for a perpetual life of crime is determined by the loss of hope in a post-prison scenario. In this case, his is the most solidly grounded struggle of all the characters in the movie—hardened by crime, as Jay said. And this is perhaps the strongest point of the screenplay. His frustrated attempt to have sex with Angel Aquino’s character is more believable owing to the changing nature of their relationship, compared to the two tacked-on sex scenes.

What is excellent in the film’s making is the representation of the fraught nature of crime and violence in this country, which almost all people know, and ought to be presented to us in myriad ways. Crime is pervasive because those that have already been punished are illegally set free by legally constituted authorities in order to execute their own kind of justice. It seems that crime is always about to happen, because it comes from everywhere: a poor people’s fiesta, in the dirty kitchen of a legitimate business, on the streets, in the presumably safe domesticity of homes. And yet justice comes from nowhere, because those elected to uphold it as part of the affairs of the state—Martinez’s and de Mesa’s characters—preclude the meting out of such.

The film at least gives us spaces of hope, found in Joey Marquez’s character who clumsily—and therefore, “truthfully”—ferrets out the truth. His character doesn’t die in the end. It is Piolo Pacual’s character who is killed, which may be taken as a kind of critique of all those failed attempts to resolve corruption from deep within, in the hierarchy of police and investigative bodies, and the thick blood of family relations.

Nagustuhan ko ang pelikula at malaking abante nga ito sa Filipino action genre. Iyon nga lang, nakulangan ako (na repleksyon pa rin ng patuloy na pag-aaral ng mga pelikula) kaya may kritisismo, at layunin naman ng kritisismo ay ang pag-unlad, ‘di ba?

Skilty Labastilla

JPaul, I wouldn’t exactly describe the ending as hopeful. Buhay nga si Joey, pero tinanggal naman siya sa trabaho, at walang nahuling higher-ups.

The very last scene, with Rayver Cruz taking Piolo’s cell phone out of the file box, can be interpreted in two ways: that Rayver, on a noble personal quest, will act as a whistleblower; or that he has been requested to destroy the phone by his higher-ups.

JPaul Manzanilla

Kaya nga “space of hope” lang, Skilty. At nakita ko iyon sa karakter ni Joey Marquez, kahit paano. And even then, the ending with Rayver Cruz’s character has, at least, a glimpse of freedom, or further entanglements.

Skilty Labastilla

I agree. Hindi siya totally hopeless. Baka may Part 2!

JPaul Manzanilla

Hopefully. Or other films by Matti and others which we expect to be as highly, if not more, attentive to form as this one. The cinematography is exceptional for me.

Jaime Oscar Salazar

We are told little about Rayver’s character, but I am disinclined to entertain the notion that he might become a whistleblower in light of what precedes his act of retrieval. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I think that OTJ ultimately proposes that resistance is useless and reform is impossible. If there is a space of hope to be had, it lies in rejecting this vision of monolithic malevolence. #