Cinemanila 2006

Cinemanila 2006

Nora Aunor: actress or robot?

Something I wrote to the Nora Aunor egroups thread, in reply to the charge that she's eccentric and inconsistent:

I understand where the wish that Nora Aunor would be more sociable and cooperative is coming from and I sympathize; in a perfect world, we would have Nora with all her passion and volatility wrapped in a perfectly malleable package...just like a lot of actors and actresses out there with proven staying power but just not that much talent, who have careers because they do what their agents tell them to do, say what their agents tell them to say. It's a career...but is it a life worth remembering?

But...let me put it this way: how do you bottle a bolt of lightning? Nora is just like any other great artist, she has this incredible talent, and with that talent flaws and foibles just like any other human being; if anything, flaws are worse in a great artist, maybe because they have this power in them that they always (but not always so successfully) have to manage, to control.

So she's eccentric and inconsistent; the way I see it, that comes from her insecurities, from the demons inside her, and I suspect so does her great talent (I'm thinking of her performances in Bona (Lino Brocka, 1980) and Bakit Bughaw ang Langit (Why is the Sky Blue? Mario O'Hara, 1981) among many others; not to mention producing such films as Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos (Three Years Without God, O'Hara, 1976)). Take away the demons, and you probably take away the talent.

I'm not saying my reading of her is true, just that I suspect it is. So what do we want? An inconsistent, eccentric star actress who also happens to have given us some of the greatest performances (and films) in Philippine cinema, or a professional hack who performs like a robot? I don't know, but I personally prefer the actress to the robot.

Lino Brocka: The Heart of Philippine Cinema

I could fill this and several pages over with scenes and images, and every Filipino who loves cinema--and perhaps a few foreign film critics--would know exactly what I'm talking about: Ruel Vernal, plunging the dagger in the pig's throat in Insiang; Hilda Koronel in the same film with flat iron in hand, ready to smash it into Mona Lisa's face; Anita Linda pawing drunkenly at her long-lost American lover in "Hello Soldier;" Nora Aunor staring at a pot of boiling water while a carefree Philip Salvador sings in Bona; Bembol Roco, mouth frozen in a silent scream.

Lino Brocka was the first child of Regino Brocka and the woman for whom he left wife and family, Pilar Ortiz. When Regino died (possibly a political killing), Lino was taken to his mother's hometown in San Jose, Nueva Ecija, where he spent an unhappy period of his life. You might say many of the themes found in Brocka's films were sparked in this early moment of deprivation and loss: the scathing view of ossified small-town hierarchies (bastard children having little, if any, status); the protagonist looking in at society from the outside (even when, as in Tubog sa Ginto (Dipped in Gold, 1972), said protagonist is undercover--a business executive who is secretly gay); the simultaneously loved and hated father, or father figure; the eternal wanderer drifting through life in helpless solitude.

This life of crisis may have also sparked Brocka's tendency towards melodrama (his own life would have made an excellent Brocka film). He was an illegitimate child, and for years a closeted homosexual (he reportedly came out in 1975, after staging the play Hanggang Dito na Lamang at Maraming Salamat (Up Until Here and Thank You Very Much)); after being a model student in high school he dropped out and lived a somewhat aimless life; he eventually discovered theater, and beyond theater, filmmaking. From Cecille Guidote of PETA (Philippine Educational Theater Association) he learned how to block actors--a skill he would find invaluable on film, where an actor's position onscreen often declared his significance in the scene, and rather than move the camera to reframe the actors (increasing or decreasing said significance accordingly) he would as often have the actors move. This, of course, under the baleful eye of the film camera, ever quick to pick up any hint of artificiality or awkwardness in a scene's staging (in his best works you rarely found any).

Beyond blocking and directing the performances and often rewriting the dialogue (he wrote the screenplays of his first three films has reportedly rewritten the scripts of most of his films), Brocka didn't really spend that much time worrying about the technical side; for photography he depended on Jose Batac, on Romy Vitug, on the great Conrado 'Carding' Baltazar, or in the case of Maynila sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Neon, 1975, easily his best-known and most highly regarded film), on the incomparable eye of cinematographer-producer Mike de Leon; for editing he depended on Augusto Salvador or the Jarlego brothers (Ike and Edgardo). Yet these collaborators, especially the cinematographers, when working for other filmmakers (Celso Ad. Castillo, Mario O'Hara) would give us a different impression, display a different emotional palette. Brocka, despite not being so concerned with the technical aspects of filmmaking, communicated an unmistakable sensibility to the big screen--of footage shot just outside the theater then delivered, raw and bleeding, to the projector for immediate screening.

Mario O'Hara as Berto , Christopher de Leon as Junior, in Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang

It's this immediacy, this concern for documentarylike realism, this tendency of Brocka's camera to look around him (the drunken idlers in Insiang, the pious mothers in Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (You Were Weighed and Found Wanting, 1974) that marked his melodramas and enabled them to transcend their pulpy origins. Tinimbang is the story of a young man discovering his father's dirty secrets (again, that love-hate relationship between the naïve young man (the Brocka figure) and his powerful, charismatic father)) while Insiang is even simpler, about a slum girl raped by her mother's lover (since when did a Filipino film fail to depict or at the very least mention a rape?). But where in the former you're supposed to feel the young man's self-righteous anger, you come away with is an overwhelming sense of pity and tenderness for the town leper (a great performance by Mario O'Hara, who also wrote the screenplay); in the latter, instead of feeling vindication or a sense of justice fulfilled (the rape victim avenged, many times over), you feel horror--the victim has become the victimizer, and the now-hapless rapist actually makes a strong claim for our sympathy. Brocka at his very best--and it must be admitted, of the roughly sixty films he made not all of them totally escaped bathos and sentimentality--at his best stared into the melodramatic heart of the Filipino soul, and found redemption and damnation both.

                                                                    Macho Dancer

People often consider Brocka's finest works to be the films he made in the early bloom of his career, from 1974 to 1976 (Tinimbang; Maynila sa Mga Kuko; Insiang); Angela Markado (1980) is often called Brocka's version of Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black, only transposed to the Philippines, and imbued with Brocka's trademark sense of immediacy. Essentially it's a chance for Hilda Koronel (who played the eponymous role in Insiang) to push her femme fatale character further, from surrogate murder to actual murder, and for Brocka and "Carding" Baltazar to play with light, shadow and color according to the conventions of noir--not perhaps first-tier Brocka, but it stands head and shoulders above almost any other attempts at the genre, by almost any Filipino filmmaker. Macho Dancer (1989) is to my mind somewhat better noir, a reworking of the storyline of Maynila sa Mga Kuko, where the innocent provincial boy (played by Allen Paule) arrives in Manila and, instead of looking for his lost love, takes an extended journey into the gay strip joints; more interesting than the erstwhile protagonist is the protagonist's best friend, played with understated intensity by Daniel Fernando. Fernando's character harbors two secret wounds: a sister lost to the city's prostitution rings, and a possible unrequited passion for Paule's character. Much of the film is taken up by frankly homoerotic dance numbers--including a startling number (at least in the uncensored version) where the dancers line up in a row, playing with themselves onstage--but the thread of conflict in the story (a man maybe in love with his best friend and searching for his lost sister) is strong enough to cut through the frankly exploitative footage.

                                        Gina Alajar and Philip Salvador in Bayan Ko

Of his later films, Bayan Ko (My Country, 1985) is arguably the most courageous. Done during the latter days of the Marcos Administration, when the dictator's hold to power was seriously weakened, it was nevertheless uncertain just how weakened that hold was--and hence considered dangerous to speak out against the regime. Brocka did, loudly and clearly, through Jose F. Lacaba's no-fat, no-nonsense, rigorously developed and brilliantly structured script, laced with only the thinnest trimmings of noir to disguise the politics from the censors (even then this film went through hell and high water for approval). Brocka, through Lacaba's inexorable sense of logic (in a way Lacaba was the voice of the early '80s) demonstrated how a man, cautious and not truly awakened politically, can still be snared by economic and social circumstance into a downward spiral of crime and violence. It would be the last great collaboration between Brocka and 'Carding' Baltazar, the latter giving the film its memorably gritty look--urban noir at its darkest (it was shot mostly at night, because Brocka was busy attending protest rallies in the daytime). It would be one of five Brocka-Lacaba collaborations, each one memorable in its own way (Jaguar (1979), with its wonderful simplicity (and Baltazar-blessed noir look); Orapronobis (Fight for Us, 1989)--perhaps the most intense of Brocka's late works, with its white-hot fury directed against an impotent, chaotic Aquino administration); of the five, Lacaba would consider Bayan Ko his personal favorite.

Fifteen years after Brocka's death (he died in a car accident, a couple of years after Orapronobis came out), the question stands: what is Brocka to Philippine cinema? His shadow as perhaps the Philippines' best-known, most loved, most respected filmmaker looms over all, and many a pretender has stepped up to take the crown--only to see it slip and dangle foolishly around the neck. Ishmael Bernal, easily the best-known Filipino filmmaker besides Brocka, has not survived him (one is tempted to say Bernal died due to the sheer pointlessness of outliving his greatest rival--but his fatal heart attack was a full five years after Brocka's passing). Of Brocka's contemporaries Lupita Aquino-Kashiwahara survives, but beyond a not-so-recent melodrama (Babae (Woman, 1997) starring Nora Aunor) remains relatively inactive; Celso Ad. Castillo continues erratically, on occasion brilliantly (his Lihim ni Madonna (Secrets of Madonna, 1997) was both an eyebrow-raiser and a jawdropper); Mike de Leon continues working in his inimitably brilliant way (his last was Bayaning Third World (Third World Hero, 200) a Jose Rizal film that proves the impossibility of making a definitive Jose Rizal film); Mario O'Hara unfussily continues to make films his own way, both realist (Babae sa Bubungang Lata (Woman on a Tin Roof, 1998); Babae sa Breakwater (Woman of the Breakwater, 2004)) and fabulist (Sisa (1998); Pangarap ng Puso (Demons, 2000)). More recent filmmakers include Jeffrey Jeturian (Pila Balde (Fetch a Pail of Water, 1999); Tuhog (Larger than Life, 2001)) who has carried on in the Brocka tradition, making realist melodramas albeit in a lighter, more comic-satiric vein (Brocka, it must be said, isn't big on humor). Lav Diaz, perhaps the best of the newcomers, has said we must move beyond Brocka (something, come to think of it, Mike De Leon and Mario O'Hara have been doing all along), and proceeded to create both realist (Kriminal ng Baryo Concepcion (Criminal of Barrio Concepcion, 1998), Batang West Side (West Side Avenue, 2001)) and fantastic (Burger Boys, 1999, Hesus Rebolusyonaryo, (Jesus the Revolutionary, 2002)) cinema.

What is Brocka to Philippine cinema? Maybe the present state of the industry is the answer. Where Brocka has been forgotten (and it's sad, how thoroughly the young have forgotten him) the films made are futile attempts to mimic Hollywood formula; where Brocka is remembered filmmakers either carry on the good work, or survey what ground Brocka has not covered and forged on ahead. Either way, those who remember the man do the interesting work, those that don't imitate and ossify. And so the industry goes--grows--onwards and upwards, despite daunting odds, carrying on from the heart of Philippine cinema.

Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos (Three Years Without God, 1976) film locations

Majayjay Church, Laguna

I went to St. Gregory the Great in Majayjay, Laguna back in--well, I think it was in 1998--and we did a tour of the Laguna churches for the Holy Week. There were other churches in better condition and more ornate, but the one in Majayjay was the most awe-inspiring, with its simple yet gigantic stonework, its mantle of shrubbery (even the top of the belltower was overgrown, and I wonder if someone climbs up there to prune the branches, how strange it must feel to trim a church's fuzz), its ancient interior (it was a bamboo and nipa structure first set up in 1571 and has grown ever since; the last major work was done in 1912).

I talked to this old man sitting at the steps of his house in front of the church, mentioned how Majayjay was a popular location for movies, and rattled off some titles--Maruja, Ganito Kamin Noon Paano Kayo Ngayon (You Were Thus Then, How Are You Now? 1976), so on and so forth. The old man was very polite. Then I mentioned Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos and he goes "Oh yes! That movie! Did you know Nora did her makeup in this house? Did you know that's the church in the movie? Did you know the elementary school is down that road? Did you know the bridge is over there? Did you know the house she lived in is over there?" Di naubusan ng kuwento (he couldn't stop talking).

We went to the bridge, the Puente del Capricho (Bridge of Whims). It was a twenty-minute hike through a path, and hardly anyone used it. The bridge itself was overgrown but still impressive in a massive, brooding way.

On the way home, we were looking for the house Nora lived in; it was on the road we used driving into town, but I never recognized it. We went down the same road looking for it, and not five minutes out of town, I spotted it; earlier, I must have been looking at it from a different angle than the one I remember from the film.

It was closed down, but someone was living there--the window shutter opened, part of a woman's face peeped out. We said we were visiting it because of--well, Nora had filmed here for Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos, does she remember that picture? The woman in the window smiled and waved.

11.6.06

Nigel Kneale (The Quatermass Experiment, Quatermass and the Pit), 1922-2006

The Quatermass Anomaly

I had copies of the scripts of his three classic Quatermass series: The Quatermass Experiment; Quatermass II; and the great Quatermass and the Pit. I've only seen the film versions of the first and second series. I think he's one of the greatest scriptwriters to ever work in the medium of television.

The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, 2006)

The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, 2006)

Excerpt:

Christopher Nolan's "The Prestige"--an adaptation of the novel by Christopher Priest--has a lovely premise at the heart of it all; not so much the notion of two professionals locked in a life-and-death rivalry (that's been done to death several times over), but the secrets that lie at the heart of their respective trademark acts: Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) with his "The Transported Man," and Rupert Angier (Hugh Jackman) with his "The New Transported Man." Like all of the best magic, the respective secrets are simple, and it's actually possible to guess them beforehand (I knew the trick to Angier's act the moment he spotted a pile of hats; I realized Borden's when I saw one of the minor characters onscreen for the nth time (and in fact someone blurts out Borden's secret--which is promptly dismissed as unworkable)). The real trick and true secret of a great magic act is how the trick is presented, in such a way that you know, and are enchanted anyway.

The rest of the film isn't so bad. Borden and Angier are co-workers, employed by a competent if old-fashioned magician named Milton (Ricky Jay); when someone dies as a result of a possible slip-up in preparation, a rivalry sprouts between the two, in all aspects of life: career, family, even the love of a woman (Olivia Wenscombe, played by Scarlet Johanssen as yet another object of desire (she's so many she could open her own wax museum)). They show up in each other's acts, sometimes prying into inner workings and snooping around for secrets, sometimes assuming a disguise and sabotaging the act while in progress. This part of the film is given the majority of screen time, but in terms of what seems to interest Nolan they're really given very little weight; at one point a woman hangs herself and the husband concerned can barely bother to work up the energy to regret what happened (he seems more bothered by the obligation to be bothered). You tend to suspect that the wives, lovers, children and various career highs and lows are really a piece of misdirection--Nolan and Priest pointing our attentions elsewhere, until they're ready to present the story's true secrets.

Keka (Quark Henares, 2003

From my old blog--Quark Henares' Keka



I can see where Quark borrows--basically, Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black with maybe a little of Brocka's Angela Markado (which takes off from Truffaut), some heavy influencing by Mike de Leon's Batch '81 and, I'm guessing here, deadpan black-comedy tone via the Coen Brothers. I wouldn't know where "Kill Bill" comes in--I'd say Quark and Tarantino just followed parallel muses.

Nothing wrong with borrowing; as a matter of fact, Tarantino's bag is bigger and more varied. But there's borrowing extensively and there's making a film; one requires knowledge, the other talent. Tarantino's knowledge may be far bigger, but I'd give Quark, smaller budget and all, the credit for being the better talent, somewhat. He knows how to cut and frame his images, he knows how to put together his shots and make them flow. It's not just a style cobbled together by an expert cinematographer and a good editor; it's a look that's an extension of the filmmaker's sensibility. Well, I suppose Tarantino has an edge on scriptwriting--though I'd say that's an extension of his grab-bag knowledge.

But Quark's young--damned young. He'll grow, for sure.

Some flaws: the Bhong character feels more like a plot function, and his and Katya's conversations seem unbelievable, talking so breezily about murder and all; I thought it would have streamlined matters better if she went at it alone, and the relationship be mainly a triangle betwee murderer, cop, and intended victim.

Also, the psychology isn't deep; this isn't much of a character study of a young girl turned vengeful psychotic. The motive felt weak--Angela Markado had a far better reason for cracking up and killing (so did The Bride in Kill Bill, come to think of it). There are some plot loopholes--the cop when he realizes the answer shouldn't have gone elsewhere to confirm his suspicions, he should have gone straight to the girl. I'd like the confrontation between girl and final victim to have been more physically inventive.

But those are minor cavils, especially the ones about psychology--at least, they don't totally destroy enjoyment of the film per se. Quark, unlike say fellow Filipino filmmakers Erik Matti or Yam Laranas, know how to juggle his storyteling, to inject just enough style to make the film watchable, pay enough attention to the story so that it's not blatantly stupid, give enough emphasis to character and story so that your interest is sustained. He knows how to keep his balance, in other words.

It's fun; I think the best part is the musical number, which makes fun of and at the same time is an affectionate tribute to all those musical numbers in local commercial films (I think Quark's best humor comes from his knowledge of his social class and age group, and from his knowledge of local cinema).

I think the final final scene is fairly original (at least I don't remember anything exactly like it, if someone could tell me otherwise please do so), a sort of joke about what kind of film this really is.

No, there's not a lot of profound social comment in this film. Some acid commentary, some satiric subtext of among others male models, untouchable politicians (or their sons), policemen, and the state of morality of the Filipino youth.

The film IS, however, a pretty accurate portrait of the state of mind of a certain kind of middle-class youth today, one that I'm sure the professors of a certain educatonal institution holds in utter contempt. Well, this is their movie, nor do I think they care about who would feel contempt for them. It's one more film to add to the diversity of Philippine cinema.

(The film is available on Netflix)