Cinema Regained: Noel Vera (Rotterdam Film Festival 2006)

In tribute to Gertjan Zuilhof (1955 - 2025) who made this program possible

Critic in Rotterdam

Some months ago, Gertjan Zuilhof of the Rotterdam Film Festival asked me right out of the blue to program films I'd written about in my book Critic After Dark. I originally had over ten choices, narrowed down to seven features and a collection of shorts, made a few compromises along the way but otherwise felt happy about what I'd been able to bring to festival audiences last January 2006.

Tikoy Aguiluz (1947 - 2024)

Pugilist

Tattooed gangster

As Tikoy put it he grew up in a penitentiary (the Davao Penal Colony, or Depacol, where his father was prison auditor) learning how to box from one of the veteran convicts. With his six other brothers, all of them wearing shorts instead of long pants and speaking in a funny Tagalog accent instead of everyday Visayan, they attracted the attention and ridicule of all the other kids, not necessarily starting fights but finishing them wherever they went. Tikoy's ambition in life was simple: to get a tattoo, and be a gangster; he ended up working briefly in Hollywood, then coming back to the Philippines to become one of the finest filmmakers in the industry. 

Bagong Bayani (Unsung Heroine, Tikoy Aguiluz, 1995)

Proxy mother
 

Tikoy Aguiluz's Bagong Bayani was made in two months on a shoestring budget, has been plagued by unaccountable production delays (due to pressure from Viva Studios, perhaps?); so far no theater has agreed to release it, so the closest you might get is this article. 

Which is a filthy shame: Bagong Bayani is the best Filipino film of the year. "But the year's only half over," you might point out; actually I think this is the best Filipino film since Orapronobis in the late 1980's.

Segurista (Dead Sure, Tikoy Aguiluz, 1996) twenty-six years later

Segurista twenty-six years later

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.  

Biyaheng Langit (Paradise Express, Tikoy Aguiluz, 2000)

All or nothing

Tikoy Aguiluz, who illuminated the world of toreros in Boatman, painted a portrait of the GRO girl in Segurista (Dead Sure), explores Manila's gambling casinos and railway communities in Biyaheng Langit.

The film was given an X rating twice by the Movie Television and Classification Board (MTRCB) for its frank sex and explicit violence, both of which have been described as “gratuitous.” Wouldn't know what “gratuitous” sex and violence looks like myself, but I do feel that if Aguiluz is to portray the heaven and hell of modern Philippine society with any sense of realism, he has to be free to show what  needs to be shown. Also don’t believe in giving an X rating to any film, especially when this prevents the film’s commercial screening; it suggests the rather insulting idea that there are some images or subjects the adult Filipino can’t handle.

NIda Blanca

Nida Blanca

What made her such a memorable actress? Her smile, which was unique; it had a queer twist to one side as if wanting to turn into a sneer, something worthy of Barbara Stanwyck in a noir thriller. It didn’t, not quite; it accompanied eyes that opened wide in surprise and wonder, or narrowed into an intense laser stare. The problem with those eyes--or the glory of them whichever way you saw it--was the twinkle you saw, a twinkle that said she was only kidding, that the near-sneer was a put-on, that the tough-girl image was merely a façade defending her from a tough world.

Best Films 2000

The best and the rest 2000

Been a strange year; can’t say great films have come out (other than in retrospectives) yet can’t really complain…and partly it’s because of the surprisingly strong showing of Filipino films this year. A quick round-up, then, of the year two triple-zero:

Best of 1998

1998: the good, the bad, and the ugly 

1998 is a good year for films, but the good weren’t the ones you’d expect, and  didn’t come from where you’d expect. 

Tatarin (Summer Solstice, 2001)

War of the sexes

Tikoy Aguiluz's Tatarin, based not so much on Nick Joaquin's famous short story as on the play he later adapted for stage, is about the oldest and longest-running war known to man, the war between the sexes. Joaquin's problem then was how to make this war relevant again to jaded audiences (the play was written in 1975); his solution was to set the play in the 1920s, when male-dominated Western Culture was just beginning to tremble. Aguiluz's adoption of Joaquin's stratagem is, I think, a smart move--this way he captures the very roots of the war (or at least of the 20th century edition of the war) as waged by our grandparents and great-grandparents; he photographs the combatants at a time when the battle is still urgent and raw, the stakes desperately high.

Rizal Weather (or: Undressing Josephine Bracken)--an interview with writer and historian Austin Coates

Belatedly for Independence Day, an old article (note: any factual errors are strictly my own responsibility)

Rizal Weather (or: Undressing Josephine Bracken)  

WE WERE IN THE CHAMPAGNE ROOM of the Manila Hotel, talking to Austin Coates, Rizal biographer, novelist, historian, and a former high-level official of Hongkong. "We" were film director Tikoy Aguiluz, Monica Feria, managing editor of Graphic Magazine, George Asiniero, and myself. The weather outside was a blustery grey, sheets of rain splattering against the hotel windows.

"Rizal Weather," Coates declares. He was a neat, elderly man with immaculate white hair. "We were in Heidelberg one morning when we looked out the window and saw that the sky was pouring. We had plans in the afternoon, now the trip was spoiled. And--God--quarter past two, just when we were prepared to go, the sun came out. It always happens. The rest of the day was a glorious afternoon, and I remember we loved the sunset. When we got back at 6:30 it was pouring again. It rained for another three weeks. There you are--Rizal Weather." 

Segurista (Dead Sure; Tikoy Aguiluz, 1996)

Some 19 years ago: an old article about a remarkably deft erotic thriller from Tikoy Aguiluz, freshly banned by the MTRCB (the Movies and Television Review and Classification Board--basically the Philippines' once and still powerful censorship authority)

The Dirtiest Movie of The Year 

It's been the year of the bold: Priscilla Almeda pulled off her top in a horse's stable (Sariwa (Fresh)); Ruffa Gutierrez strutted across the screen in a wet t-shirt (Pinakamagandang Hayop sa Balat ng Lupa (The Most Beautiful Creature on the Face of the Earth)); Rosanna Roces modeled ladies' underwear in Patikim ng Pina (Taste My Pineapple) while co-stripper Natasha Ledesma mashed her breasts; Amanda Page swallowed the outflow from a phallic showerhead (Sobra-Sobra, Labis-Labis (Too Much is Just Enough) while co-star Ina Raymundo suffered rape via vibrator.

According to the MTRCB, the aforementioned titles are nothing compared to Segurista (Dead Sure). After all, those movies made it to the theaters, more or less intact; this film was given an X rating, effectively banning it from exhibition.

So--why Segurista and not Patikim ng Pina? Good question.

The Many Faces of Jose Rizal

The Many Faces of Jose Rizal

The Philippines has long been obsessed with Jose Rizal-- writer, poet, artist, intellectual, doctor, educator, martyr. Two of the earliest silent feature films made in the Philippines dealt with Rizal-- La vida de Jose Rizal (The Life of Jose Rizal) and El fusiliamento de Dr. Jose Rizal (The Execution of Dr. Jose Rizal)-- and Ramon Estella made a three-hour version in 1956: Buhay at Pag-ibig ni Dr. Jose Rizal (Life and Loves of Dr. Jose Rizal). Rizal's two novels, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo were adapted twice: the first time in 1915 and 1916 respectively by Edward Gross, the second time in 1961 and 1962 respectively by Gerardo De Leon, arguably Philippine cinema's greatest filmmaker. De Leon also directed Sisa (1951) a variation on Noli Me Tangere, which takes the story of one minor character in the novel and expands it to feature-film length (at the time it must have seemed like a dress rehearsal for De Leon's full-on adaptations; nowadays it seems to anticipate Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by seven years). Lino Brocka did his modern-day version of Noli with Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (You Were Judged and Found Wanting) in 1974.

Rizal seems to inspire both audiences (the two silents and Tinimbang were boxoffice hits), and filmmakers (El Fili has been described as De Leon's gothic masterpiece, while I consider Tinimbang to be one of Brocka's best-ever films). Now, with 1996 being the centennial of Rizal's death, and 1998 being the centennial of the country's independence from Spanish rule-- an independence to which Rizal contributed no small part-- the local film industry has made not one, not two, but three Rizal films, with one more in post-production at the time of this writing.

The first-- Tikoy Aguiluz's Rizal Sa Dapitan (Rizal in Dapitan)-- has already been discussed in this magazine. The second-- Marilou Diaz Abaya's Jose Rizal-- opened December last year, to widespread acclaim and huge commercial success. Why not? It's about Rizal, and at P120 million (US$3,000,000) the most expensive Filipino film ever made.

Jose Rizal is a vast exercise in logistics-- hundreds of extras, dozens of locations, Steadicam rental for over six months. Diaz-Abaya's most impressive achievement is in marshaling all the elements together into a comprehensive view of Rizal's life-- his university days; his exile in Europe; his writing the two novels; his arrest, trial, and ultimate execution by firing squad.

If there's a flaw in Rizal, it's not in the technicals-- photography, costume, and production design are as perfect as three million dollars can make them-- but the utter conventionality. There are speculations that events in Rizal's life inspired his novels (not exactly fresh insight), and one scene has a character from his novels urging him to support the revolt against the Spaniards-- Hollywood epic filmmaking at its most tasteful, in the grandly thudding tradition of Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, or David Lean's Doctor Zhivago.

Doesn't help matters that Cesar Montano is miscast as Jose Rizal. Diaz-Abaya must have had Montano's action-star persona in mind when she chose him, as a way of emphasizing Rizal's vanity; but after a few witty and regrettably short scenes, nothing much is made of Rizal's egotism-- all we're left with is an action star trying to act the intellectual. Better is Jaime Fabregas as defense lawyer Luis Taviel; in his soft-spoken way Fabregas gives a subtler performance than Montano. His defense summation-- understated yet intense, spoken in fluent, effortless Spanish-- upstages Montano's own climactic trial speech.

Mario O'Hara's remake of Gerry De Leon's Sisa couldn't be more: where Diaz-Abaya took six months and three million dollars to shoot, O'Hara did his in ten days, for about sixty thousand dollars.

There's much to dislike about Sisa: the sets are basically of the plywood-and-Styrofoam school of production design; the acting-- sex star Gardo Verzosa plays Rizal, sex starlet Aya Medel the title role-- is crude, if not a bit embarrassing. The story is difficult to follow, shifting from past to present to fantasy to supernatural reality, with little preamble and no apologies whatsoever.

Yet there's something about Sisa. As all Filipinos know, she's is the madwoman who haunts the margins of Rizal's Noli; dressed in filthy rags, calling out the names of her two lost children, she's easily the single most memorable character in the novel. O'Hara believes that memorable characters aren't created so much as they are based on people the writer knew in real life (Rizal once spoke of a "Miss L., who has the most enchanting eyes"). It's O'Hara conceit (and the crucial difference between his film and Gerry De Leon's) that this "Miss L." was the basis for Rizal's Sisa, and that she was the great love of his life.

In a sense O'Hara has been telling Sisa's story all his life. He not only wrote the screenplay for Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (Brocka's version of Noli) he also played Berto the Leper, lover of the Sisa figure in the film. O'Hara may have revealed more of his feelings than he intended in Tinimbang, both in the screenplay and in his acting; his Berto (like his screenplay) is compassionate, infinitely loving, infinitely tender towards the helpless Kuala. From writing a great screenplay for Brocka (and giving, incidentally, a great performance) to writing a great screenplay for his own film must have been an inevitable, all-too-tempting step.

I've never really liked Rizal as a dramatic character; he's always been too passive, too intellectual a hero for me to believe in. Except for his execution he lived a meandering, uneventful life-- hardly ideal stuff for film biographies. I've never really understood what drove him to write his novels, or believe what he believed. His family was maltreated, yes, and he saw Spanish injustice firsthand...but that was years ago, when he was a child. Could there have been someone closer to him-- some woman, perhaps-- whose tragedy drove him to what he did?

This is Sisa's greatest audacity-- to explain Rizal in such a way that he comes to vivid life before us; everything O'Hara does complements and reinforces this ambition. He knew he couldn't create the world of 1896 on a two-and-a-half million budget so he deliberately creates an unrealistic one out of painted plywood. He knew he couldn't get topnotch actors to play his Rizal and Sisa, so he reconceived them as a pair of crudely intense, emotionally passionate lovers (Verzosa and Medel for all their 'crudity' are ultimately affecting). O'Hara has reimagined Rizal's life the way Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard reimagined Shakespeare's in John Madden's Shakespeare in Love-- as a grand, once-in-a-lifetime love affair. If you don't buy it, you find yourself hooting helplessly in laughter; if you do buy it, you find yourself believing in Rizal for the first time, as a fully human being.

Rizal sa Dapitan was the first, Jose Rizal the biggest; coming soon is Mike De Leon's Bayaning Third World (Third World Hero), invited to this year's Cannes. Sisa will probably fall between the cracks opened up by these three works; it's too ambitious for its own good, a project that fails (though fails magnificently) to live up to the promise of its wildly innovative screenplay. It may end up forgotten in the flood of Rizal films, relegated to the more obscure dustbins of film history...except by those who can respond to its magic, or thrill to its unfettered imagination.

Cinemaya magazine, Issue #44, Summer 1999

Jose F. Lacaba receives lifetime achievement award

For the 40th anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law, a belated reposting of a piece I wrote on one of the dictatorship's more hardcore adversaries:

Jose "Pete" Lacaba receives Lifetime Achievement Award from the 10th Osian's Cinefan Film Festival

Sincerely hope he had the chance to visit the Taj Mahal in nearby Agra. Shah Jahan's monumental tribute to matrimonial love (actually it's less romantic when you learn that Mumtaz Mahal (hence the name) was his favorite wife, and that when his son Aurangzeb deposed him for overspending and imprisoned him in nearby Agra fort to spend the rest of his life gazing at his great love's tomb marker, he had his harem to console him in his loneliness--but still).

The article goes on to mention Lino Brocka, for whom Lacaba penned many of Brocka's best-known works--Jaguar (1979), a superbly structured drama based on Nick Joaquin's news article "The Boy Who Wanted to Become Society," and featuring great noirish cinematography by Conrado Baltazar; Bayan Ko (My Country, 1985), which took genuine courage to write during the last few years of the Marcos dictatorship; and Orapronobis (Fight for Us, 1989), which took courage of a different kind, saying that the then hugely popular Corazon Aquino (not a dictator, but she had so little control over what was happening it was practically chaos) was "worse than Marcos"--an accusation currently being leveled against present president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Written during this period as well was his one screenplay for the Philippines' one genuine genius filmmaker ('genius' with all the virtues and limitations the label implies), Mike de Leon: Sister Stella L. (1984)

What to say about the films? Lacaba has a strong voice in his scripts, I submit, so strong that otherwise powerful personalities like Lino Brocka and Mike de Leon (and if you think the reclusive de Leon doesn't have a powerful personality, ask the men and women (especially the women) who act or work for him) are subsumed under his intense, no-nonsense sensibility. Melodramatic Brocka becomes coherent and even understated (?!); De Leon loses the baroque edge of cruelty of his more personal works (Kisapmata, 1981; Batch '81, 1982). I don't believe the films show either director at their very best (they become, I submit, Lacaba's translators to the big screen), but they are strong, well-shaped pictures--superb examples of agitprop--with an electric political awareness and unselfconscious modesty I wish I could see more often in other Filipino films.

Lacaba does when given the opportunity to do so (which doesn't happen very often--his filmography is relatively spare, compared to more prolific Filipino writers) uplift the work of almost any other filmmaker. Chito Rono, for example, was inspired to create what I would consider his masterpiece from Lacaba's script for Eskapo (Escape, 1995)--the early scenes of paranoia and fear, when Marcos' freshly declared Martial Law hung silently over every Filipino head, are unmatched in any of Rono's other pictures (or almost any other picture in Philippine cinema, for that matter).

With filmmaker Tikoy Aguiluz, I submit they brought out the best in each other. For Rizal sa Dapitan (Rizal in Dapitan, 1997) Lacaba wrote what I thought was an honest, beautifully spare historical drama, perfect for Aguiluz's no-budget guerilla-style filmmaking (full disclosure: I wrote a draft of this film (a rather improbable affair full of conspiracy intrigues and arnis combat and scenes of Rizal exorcising the demon out of a possessed woman, of which only a little of the dialogue and even less of the plot was used)). For erotic noir thrillers like Tatsulok (Triangle, 1998) or Segurista (Dead Sure, 1996), Lacaba brought tautness to a well-structured plot that Aguiluz (and Aguiluz's longtime collaborator, writer-editor Mirana Medina-Bhunjun) exploited for maximum tension and (thanks to Aguiluz) memorably unglamorous eroticism.

Bagong Bayani (Unsung Heroine, 1995), about the trial and execution of Singaporean domestic worker Flor Contemplacion, is part dramatized footage, part documentary, almost all masterpiece--an innovatively structured film (Aguiluz claims the inspiration was Ian McNaugton's And Now For Something Completely Different (1971)) sprinkled with Lacaba's no-nonsense dialogue (Lacaba once said he strove to write the way people talk), dealing with an urgent Filipino issue (the plight of our overseas contract workers--source of much-needed foreign currency, backbone of our fragile economy, target of an endless number of employer abuses).

One remembers the film for the power of the dramatized scenes (Contemplacion's farewell to her family) the power of the documentary footage (the interviews of various overseas workers and Singaporean citizens), and for the image of Flor pressing hand against window, trying to feel the touch of her children's hands through the glass. A great film, easily the best of the collaborations between Lacaba and Aguiluz (arguably, Lacaba and anyone).

Congratulations, Pete; you deserve the honor many times over (not to mention the financial rewards--Hollywood rarely pays its writers well, much less the Philippine film industry). God willing we'll get to see more of your work, and of the same rare calibre, for years to come.

All I want for Christmas is the Director's Cut

Everybody pauses and stares at me
The Director's Cut is gone as you can see
I don't know just who to blame for this catastrophe!
But my one wish on Christmas Eve is as plain as it can be!

All I want for Christmas
is the Director's Cut,
the Director's Cut,
see the Director's Cut!

Gee, if I could only
have The Director's Cut,
then I could wish you
"Merry Christmas."
It seems so long since I could say,
"Action movies are so good!"
Gosh oh gee, how happy I'd be,
if I could only see it (shhhh, shhhh, I'm watching)!

All I want for Christmas
is the Director's Cut,
the Director's Cut,
see the Director's Cut.

Gee, if I could only
have the Director's Cut,
then I could wish you
"Merry Christmas!"

Please sign the petition: LET OUR ASIONG GO!!! 

Have yourself an 'Inasiong' Christmas

(For a recap of what happened, please check out this blog post, its sequel, and its second sequel) 

And just like that, apparently, game over.

Aguiluz had managed to file a court case against the producers of Asiong Salonga. A TRO (Temporary Restraining Order) was issued against the film's December 25 screening. It looked as if Aguiluz's complaints were finally to be taken seriously. 

And they were, to a point--the producers agreed to remove Aguiluz's name from the credits. No print of the director's cut, however, is forthcoming, and the MMFF will be screening the reportedly butchered and tarted-up producer's version. The same version will be sent to film festivals and film markets all over the world; as far as the rest of the world is concerned, the producer's cut is the one and only version of Manila Kingpin: The Asiong Salonga Story in existence...

And that, apparently, is that. 

It was pointed out in a comment to one of my previous posts that Aguiluz should have expected what happened to him when he dealt with Governor Ejercito--one thinks of the saying "He who sups with the Devil should have a long spoon." 

Well--one tries; the thing about the Devil is that he can make things happen for you, or at least that's the well-known motivating detail that accompanies the classic narrative. Yes, you're going to get burned, yes the outcome is never worth the trouble, and yes you only realize this when all has been said and done (or at least that's how the classic narrative goes). But in the real world, if you want to wait for a decent, straightforward producer to hand you the money to do your dream project, you'll never get started--that's the nature of the business. At least Aguiluz dared and nearly succeeded.

The real loser here, of course, is the Filipino people. As far as Philippine cinema is concerned, the action genre is dead; has been for some time. Aguiluz hoped to clear away the hoary cliches, the l, the ridiculous acting tics and gestures that have encrusted the genre like so many barnacles on an outdated sailing vessel; he had hoped to do a radical redesign, and came close to succeeding. 

It may be small comfort to him, but when it comes to filmmakers who have attempted to remake a genre and were undone by their producers, he is in good company (Erich von Stroheim, Orson Welles; Sergei Eisenstein--and that's just including the obvious few).

Maybe someday that director's cut will be seen and, better yet, appreciated. Someday.

Have yourself an 'Inasiong' Christmas, folks. 

(As for the online petition, it may have little to no effect, but I for one would like to be on record as wanting that Director's Cut released in whatever form. I'm not planning to have my signature removed; if anything, I'm proud to keep it there. You can see it in if I remember correctly the number five position on the list...and you're invited to add your own anyway, for principle's sake)

Asiong Salonga--the Director's Version

Asiong Salonga--The Director's Version

(Please take the time to sign the petition asking the producer to release a Director's Cut of the film)

So here is the story the way I heard it:

A film was shot based on the story of Asiong Salonga, a notorious Filipino gangster who ruled Tondo in the late '40s and early '50s. The film was directed by Tikoy Aguiluz, and starred Jorge 'ER' Ejercito, Governor of Laguna, who was also the film's producer.

There were disagreements between director and producer as to the direction the film should take. The producer--naturally--wanted a commercial product; Aguiluz wanted something that would meet the criteria of good storytelling, with a minimum of cliches and an original attack on the classic Filipino action film. This is the compromise they came up with:

Working with his editor and longtime collaborator Mirana Medina, Aguiluz put together a 115 minute cut. This cut, as Ms. Medina outlines in careful detail in her blog, trimmed or edited out scenes that 1) had little to do with the story; 2) included melodramatic (her term was telenovela, or TV soap-opera) acting; 3) involved melodramatic dialogue; 4) employed traditional Filipino action film fighting cliches; and 5) retained traces of Governor Ejercito's former acting persona, which comes across as negative (her term is mala-demonyo, or demonic).

The producer, wanting his own cut, worked with Medina's assistant editor and put back in most of the elements Aguiluz and Medina took out, arriving at a 2 hour 30 minute cut. This was the cut Ejercito is apparently complaining about as 'boring' and 'slow,' not to mention 'overlong' (that's the running time of a Transformers movie which, when you think about it, is boring and overlong). Ejercito claims to have hired four additional editors, who have trimmed down their long version to a reported 108 or 110 minutes. According to Aguiluz some additional footage was shot without his knowledge, footage which included gunfights and an explosion, and this was included in the producer's version.

This was the version that was shown to the CEB, and while the response was good (the film was rated "A") the report noted  "underlying melodramatic tendencies," and that "there are just too many fight scenes." They further noted that "E.R. Estregan seems awkward in some scenes."

Medina in her blog wrote "after watching the raw footage during the first shooting days, we could already see the great chances of Gov (Governor Ejercito) to win an award as Best Actor." I'm guessing his performance could only be improved by the trimming done by Medina and Aguiluz (removing the melodramatic excess, the traditional action film cliches, the former acting persona to reveal a new man altogether).

It probably won't help that, according to Aguiluz, the music composer the producer brought in created a totally unacceptable music score, one that as the director puts it is "meant for a soap opera and not for Asiong."

Things apparently got ugly after the two edits were made. Aguiluz was not informed that Ejercito was unhappy with the film. He was not informed that additional footage was to be shot. He was not invited to the December 17 premiere. His name was not removed as per his explicit request, but the names of his two editors, Mirana Medina and Rolando Eucason were removed and replaced by the name Jason Cahapay. 

It's hinted that Aguiluz was paid a hefty sum for his name, hence their refusal to remove it. I've heard horror stories of this happening before, but it's a shock to hear it still happening--a man can't even control the use of his name? Something seems wrong about that. 

Something equally wrong about removing Ms. Medina's name. As I noted in a previous blog post, Ms. Medina is not only Aguiluz's only acceptable choice to edit his films, she is easily one of the finest editors in the world, let alone Philippine cinema.

Incidentally that hefty sum isn't exactly correct. Aguiluz was contracted to work for eighteen days, and shoot extended up to thirty-six; he should have received P450,000 for the extra eighteen days, but his pay was negotiated down to P200,000 (roughly $4,500--American filmmakers, indies included, please note).

There are claims that a director's cut as Aguiluz has requested is too expensive, roughly P2 million ($50,000.00). Aguiluz points out that this isn't true--the Director's Cut exists in the Bangkok post-production outfit used; kinescoping has already been done with the producer's cut. Assembling the cut, scoring and mixing it shouldn't cost too much more--an estimated grand total of P500,000 (less than $11,500). This in fact is the agreement director and producer arrived at in the first place, before the producer began his extracurricular activities.

It would be in the producer's interest to do this cut. He may be interested in recouping his costs here in the Philippine, but the international film festival circuit, and the market available through this circuit, is a whole different animal. Aguiluz has the experience--he's attended many a festival, not just as guest or juror but as competitor, and directs his own international film festival (Cinemanila); he knows the criteria by which international film jurors and distributors judge entries. He knows the lay of the land, so to speak, and should be the most qualified person around to judge how and in what form the film should be presented abroad.

The word 'respect' has been bruited around, sometimes a bit too often; Aguiluz is known to be pugnacious and unafraid to stand up for his rights, but in this case I think he's also in the right. What was and is still being done to him is too much, and should not be tolerated--not by Aguiluz, not by any filmmaker, Filipino or otherwise. 

(Again, if you feel there is the least bit of rightness to our cause, please take the time to sign the petition asking the producer to release a Director's Cut of the film)

E.R. Ejercito tries to defend his interference in 'Asiong Salonga'

Update on the Asiong Salonga controversy:

(If you're coming to this only now, please read the petition letter for a summary of the situation and if you agree, please sign the petition)

An article dealing with Governor Ejercito's reaction to Tikoy Aguiluz's request.

Some reactions off the top of my head.

"Hindi, basta ako, ang comment ko Direk Tikoy, magaling si Direk Tikoy.

Pero dagdag niya rin, "Pero yung editing and music, hindi niya linya yun. 

"Huwag niyang pakialaman yung area na yun sa movie."

(For me, my comment on Director Tikoy, he's great. 

Then he added: "When it comes to editing and music, that's not his line.

"He shouldn't interfere with those areas of the movie").

Difficult to respond because I haven't seen the film, but we're talking here of Tikoy Aguiluz and his long time collaborator and editor Mirana Medina. She has edited his films since his first feature, Boatman in 1984 and as far as I can see they have never varied their editing style or philosophy when it comes to pacing, rhythm, shot length. And I can say, having seen almost everything they have done, that theirs is some of the crispest, most no-nonsense editing in Philippine cinema.

Aguiluz's practice is to bring in Medina not just at production stage, but pre-production stage, and they plan out the editing almost from the point when they work out the script. 

This has several advantages: Aguiluz knows what's essential to telling the story, what to leave out or fight to keep when money's short, or when things go wrong. He (and Medina) know the bare minimum needed to tell the story properly, even when they're missing several days' footage, or when the production is chaotic. That preliminary edit they share in their heads is their lifeline, to keep things clear, to recognize when they don't have a film and need to shoot some more, and what can be improvised when things don't work out. 

So when Aguiluz says that his film's damaged because a few scenes were added (see this article for an explanation of the changes), my impulse is to believe him. He knows the film's structure, along with his editor; they've lived with this structure for the whole time, from the writing through pre-production, through the shoot, to post-production. To add or detract from a Tikoy Aguiluz film is like, in effect, slicing away or stitching on various appendages to a beautiful woman's face--the result is hideous, no matter what you think of the original visage. You do serious damage to what is essentially a finished product.

In a later article Ejercito declares that he found the pacing too slow, and he hired younger editors (he repeats the word "younger" at least twice) to (presumably) pick up the pacing. To this I reply: but at what cost to the storytelling? Are we to have Bourne Identity style editing when the story is set in the '50s? Will the audience marvel at the 'faster pacing' or laugh their heads off at the inappropriateness of the faster cuts? Does Governor Ejercito  consider the Filipino people to still be cinematically and visually illiterate--that they wouldn't know good or appropriate editing when they see it? I don't declare--haven't seen the final product--I only ask.

Boatman, Bagong Bayani (The Last Wish), Segurista (Dead Sure), Tatsulok (Triangle), Biyaheng Langit (Paradise Express) for all their flaws have all been excellently edited, fast-paced films; the actions scenes are exciting to behold and never self-indulgent. Based on Aguiluz's filmmaking record, I frankly can't see where this is coming from. 

Any filmmaker will tell you this; the idea of anyone adding to or cutting from their film can have them shuddering. I've already mentioned Mario O'Hara as having experienced this several times, but everyone from legendary Mike De Leon to maverick Celso Ad. Castillo to the late Ishmael Bernal to Lino Brocka himself has suffered interference, and all to a man will say they don't like it (Brocka has said so frankly in many interviews). It smacks of second-guessing, of mistrust. It suggests the producer has no confidence in his decision to hire the filmmaker in the first place. 

(Again, if you agree with any of this or if you believe in artistic freedom in general, please consider signing the petition)

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO RELEASE TIKOY AGUILUZ'S 'ASIONG SALONGA' UNCUT AND UNALTERED

From the website, a letter describing the situation and what is being demanded. If you agree--if you believe in artistic freedom, and the right of the director to be final arbitrator as to the status of his work--then please sign the petition.

 

We want Tikoy Aguiluz's Asiong Salonga!

Dream Factories of a Former Colony: American Fantasies, Phiippine Cinema (Jose B. Capino)

Nora Aunor in 'Merika

 My article on Jose Capino's Dream Factories of a Former Colony: American Fantasies, Philippine Cinema is available online, at the Cineaste website.

It was a pleasure to read the book, and a pleasure to write about it. Go, buy, read, enjoy!