View master
Early in Joselito Altarejos' Memories of a Love Story Eric (Oliver Aquino) and Jericho (Migs Almendras) lock gazes, and you hear a k-tchak! as the camera cuts to flashback. Annoying sound, but gradually you realize what Altarejos is trying to evoke: the clack of a View-Master stereopticon shifting from one photograph to the next, offering you-- in three-dimensional imagery, no less-- a glimpse into a brightly colored forever frozen past.
Eric (Awin Valencia) and Jericho (James Ramada) were childhood friends-- grew up together, played together, ate together in Jericho's mansion home, under the loving cary of Eric's mother Mamay Emmy (Joy Ras) and under the imperious gaze of Jericho's Lola Fuming (Dexter Doria). Then a rift occurs, and Eric and Emmy are driven out like Eve and her unwanted child being expelled from Eden. Years later an adult Eric (Oliver Aquino) revisits the little town and bumps into (or is literally bumped into by) an adult Jericho (Migs Almendras). Old memories old emotions come flooding back; will they meet as bitter adversaries or longlost friends?
Memories plays like a View-Master whose picture reels are all mixed up; past and present interchange, the present often triggering a goldtinted memory, the past foreshadowing drearier things to come. One thing past and present have in common is this: Eric was grievously hurt by how he was treated and carries the trauma into the present like a sagging sack of cement, a burden dragging on his feet and weighing him down.
As the adult Eric, Aquino is the film's governing consciousness: he looks at the world through wary eyes, past gently waving forelocks, expecting at any moment to be recognized, arrested, tossed out through some iron gate or another. He keeps to himself and only opens up to childhood friend Jericho who in some ways is more than a friend-- at one point they turned curious and experimented on each other, tasted of the forbidden fruit and found it irresistibly sweet.
The next thing that happens in a queer love story is that they're found out-- but this isn't like the typical queer love story. Besides being openly if not militantly gay, Altarejos is obsessed with other matters-- an intense consistently simmering resentment of the upper classes, for one; if Eric is quiet that's because he's afraid if he's not careful he'll lose his grip on that anger and he or the people around him will get hurt.
Aquino may be the main show but he'd be only half as impressive without someone to play against, and Migs Almendras' Jericho makes for a superb foil. Almendras pulls off a difficult feat: he makes fatuous insensitivity look charming, even sexy. His Jericho is both a spoiled brat and a decent soul, goodhearted and generous for as long as he feels like being generous-- because it's the basic flaw of any member of the upper class that they can only be kind for as long as they put their thoughtless softheaded minds to it. Kindness doesn't come to them naturally; it's not a skill they have honed through years of careful study and conscientious discipline but an indulgence they enjoy for as long as convenient; the moment they're in any actual danger they drop the pretense and play innocent, leaving it to someone anyone else to suffer the consequences.
Rob Guinto makes a brief but vivid appearance as an unnamed Traveller, a free spirit who yanks Eric and Jericho off their seats and dances with them in alcoholic abandon. For a moment she threatens to play Catherine to their Jules and Jim, but Altarejos confounds expectations yet again and whisks her away, leaving behind just enough of a spark of her sensuality to re-ignite their childhood relationship.
Dexter Doria plays Lola Fuming as the holy terror at the center of the film. Hair pulled back in an Imelda bun, long dress dyed Cory yellow, she dominates the household as only a matriarch with years of experience in wealth and entitlement can dominate. One can quibble and argue that Cory was not as repulsive-- that unlike Imelda she didn't order anyone killed-- and still agree with the essential truth of the portrayal.
Memories isn't perfect; Altarejos is (I'm guessing) too bighearted not to be able to take that extra half-step back refine his storytelling make use of quieter moments to help his story resonate the way, say, a queer artist like Terence Davies might use quieter moments to make his film resonate. The narrative suffers a bit from one too many righteous confrontations, is at points a touch too melodramatic-- but those are the flaws of a heedless hedonistic filmmaker, and I'd rather see an artist make missteps in the direction of ambition than in the direction of half-hearted second-guessing; Altarejos doesn't second-guess, and I doubt if he approaches anything half-heartedly. One of the better films of the year, I'd say.
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