My most vivid memory of Tikoy Aguiluz's erotic noir was of its censorship by the MTRCB-- the imposition of the feared Adults Only rating, effectively banning it from commercial movie theaters.
The film started as an idea-- actually a true story, of an insurance saleswoman from Hong Kong. Turned into an outline and early draft by Amado Lacuesta, restructured and polished into a final script by Jose 'Pete' Lacaba Jr. (with contributions by the director) the film was a low-budget potboiler by Viva studio's new outfit Neo Films. Of the cast-- Michelle Aldana, Gary Estrada, Ruby Moreno, Albert Martinez, Julio Diaz-- Albert was the most recognizable name, but none were box-office stars. Well, Ruby would be familiar to a few cinephiles, having won an acting award at the Yokohama Film Festival for her lead role in Yoichi Sai's All Under the Moon.
Aguiluz once said of his films that they're really two in one. Here his protagonist Karen Fernandez (Aldana) straddles two worlds: the booming yuppie economy of the Ramos Administration, and the near-forgotten small towns that survived the Pinatubo Eruption-- Asian prosperity, provincial disaster; Japanese-inspired capitalism, Filipino despair. Aldana gives what may be the performance of her career playing a beautiful, vaguely mysterious woman who somehow keeps it all together despite her 16-hour work schedule: selling insurance by day, grooming wealthy clients by night.
Aguiluz started his film career with a documentary short on Mt. Banahaw, continued with a docu-drama on the life of Flor Contemplacion; he shows his verite background here, in the largely wordless tracking shots roving the nocturnal realm of Metro Manila karaoke clubs-- the mirrored rooms, the 'aquarium' (a holding chamber where male clients can safely view their prospective companions for the evening), the chosei-style group cheer complete with Japanese and Filipino national anthems that begin the shift (Karen is a GRO-- a 'Guest Relations Officer,' meant to entertain male guests). The insurance office is more conventionally photographed-- presumably because it's a more familiar milieu-- mostly tastefully expensive offices and conference rooms. The film's color palette I'd describe as bottle-glass green and girder-steel blue by day, pulsing dance-club red by night.
In Bacolor the palette shifts to an unending sea of gray. In 1991 Mount Pinatubo fired millions of tons of volcanic ash in the air, the ash mixing with heavy rains brought by Typhoon Diding, the resulting lahar-- a quick-drying mud that resembles concrete-- burying nearby towns. You see rusty corrugated rooftops peeking from the ground; you see people climbing into buildings through second-story windows; you see worshipers stepping on sandbags piled before the lancet windows of a local church (San Guillermo Parish if I'm not mistaken). Clinging to the remains of this town are Karen's husband Eddie (Julio Diaz) and daughter Winnie (Melisse Santiago), who live largely on the earnings Karen sends back home.
This is Karen's secret life, the force that drives her to carve out a career in Manila by any means necessary. Aguiluz and Lacaba have dealt with this issue before-- the lone Filipina* forced by family need to work in a strange land and send money home. Call this their attempt to refashion the issue into a genre film-- yes a more commercial effort, but intelligently made, with not a few pertinent things to say about capitalism and its subversion.
*(Statistics suggest 60% of OFWs are women)
Of course in the world of noir, plans always go wrong-- in this case the sex Karen wields like a scalpel wounds her too, in the form of Sonny (Gary Estrada), an up-and-coming car dealer who falls for Karen hard and offers her a more comfortable alternate life, upper-middle-class apartment and all. Karen is tempted and that's her downfall-- she starts thinking emotionally instead of strategically.
Ruby sparkles as Karen's best friend (also Ruby)-- she quips as if making up her lines on the spot, lives her hedonistic one-man-after-another lifestyle like she don't give a fuck (later we learn that she does after all, and the character's energy level dies a little, but our affection for her if anything grows). Albert Martinez as Ruby's dance instructor boyfriend Jake matches Ruby spark for spark, with a hint of danger sparking under all the fun and charm-- just the kind of bad boy good girls love, as the cliche goes.
For the film's climax Aguiluz stages a drinking party at Ruby and Karen's apartment, in a series of shots that don't seem to end; the woozy movement of drunken revelers suggest the slowed-down footage of an impending car crash-- the vehicle edging closer and closer to the precipice and there's nothing you can do.
The men in Karen's life represent the choices she has. Family man Eddie is honest if passive (tho he seems to rely a little too heavily on Karen's income); sales rep Gary is more aggressive, with more financial resources (tho one might note that his upperclass lifestyle really depends on his wealthy neurotic wife Grace (Teresa Loyzaga)); dance instructor Jake-- O you don't want to mess with Jake. Each pulls her a different direction, none offer any real freedom, though perhaps it's a failure of imagination on her part not to think of a fourth fifth even sixth alternative. Like the classic noir protagonist, she's caught in a trap largely (if not entirely) of her own making.
Would Segurista fly in today's more politically correct times? Karen you might argue represents the kind of madonna/whore dichotomy too often found in erotic noir-- but she's also a budding capitalist who plays the game as well as any of the men she sleeps with. That's what appealed to me, the seductiveness of the premise: Karen's setup looks like it would work if one had the stomach and audacity; it must have worked for that Hong Kong salesgirl (till it didn't). Aguiluz in person comes off as a gruff figure who likes to feature strong women in his films (see Bagong Bayani, Tatsulok, Tatarin); collaborating mainly with Lacaba, who insists on writing scripts grounded in realism (Orapronobis, Bayan Ko, Sister Stella L), the two have produced a thriller that isn't just stylish but plausible, even reasonable-- a rare creature, I submit.
Perhaps the film couldn't be made today, not without provoking an outcry. But I like to think that should the gods of noir happen to look down on poor Karen, they would nod their tacit approval.
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