A Quiz on Cinema (answered exclusively with titles and names from Philippine Cinema--and it works, too)

Quiz thanks to Dennis Cozzallio

1) Best transition from movies to TV (actor, actress, producer/director, movie/show)

Marilou Diaz-Abaya, whose urbane wit and persistent humanism came out most brightly and entertainingly (far more than in her films, I thought) in The Sic O'Clock News, a satire on contemporary Philippines that ran from 1987 to 1992.

2) Living film director you most missing seeing on the cultural landscape regularly.

That's easy: Mario O'Hara, possibly the greatest of Filipino filmmakers, who considers himself more a stage actor than filmmaker; hence the long wait between films.

3) Eugene Pallette or Charles Coburn

Joel Lamangan.

Will always remember the stylized evil of his military officer in Mario O'Hara's Bagong Hari (The New King, 1986); the more realistic evil of his Col. Mateo in Lino Brocka's Orapronobis (Fight for Us 1989), and the wonderfully over-the-top evil of his Col. Simon (what is it with Lamangan and the military, and why is he so good at maligning their officers?) in Lav Diaz's Hesus Rebolusyunaryo (Jesus the Revolutionary, 2002), where he throws in a great, larger-than-life reading of one of Lav's poems for free.

4) Fill in the blank: “I pray that no one ever turns Lualhati Bautista's Dekada '70 into a movie.”

Oh wait--someone did.

But as Frank Rivera once told me (and which I happen to agree with), a film or stage version should really be a one-woman show--and unless O'Hara or Laurice Guillen ever get around to remaking it (or maybe Raymond Red suddenly wanting to do something both feminist and theatrical in his inimitable visual style), may it remain imperfectly adapted.

5) Jane Greer or Veronica Lake




Charito Solis, who was not only sexier but more talented than both of them put together...

6) What was the last movie you saw in a theater? On DVD? And why?

On DVD--Eddie Romero's Aguila (1980), which I hope to write more about; haven't seen a Filipino film on the big screen for a long time--well, Lino Brocka's Insiang (1976) in the New York Film Festival.

7) Name an actor you think should be a star.

Just one? Well, Irma Adlawan, who's been great (and beautiful) practically forever (check out Dennis Marasigan's North Diversion Road (2006)).

8) Foxy Brown or Coffy?

Quark Henares' Keka (2003)

9) Favorite TV show still without its own DVD box set?

The 1896 mini-series, produced by ABS-CBN 5 about the 1896 Philippine Revolution. Actually, it's really worth watching for one episode: Mario O'Hara's Alitaptap sa Gabing Madilim (Fireflies in the Dark Night), from a story by Lualhati Bautista, about the women involved in that revolt.

10) Jack Elam or Neville Brand?

Ruel Vernal, who played Dado in Lino Brocka's Insiang (1976)--a boor and bully in the film's first half, a startlingly poignant victim in the film's second. He also figured prominently in Mario O'Hara's Bagong Hari, where his character paid a high price in the quest for the Golden Balisong (Golden Butterfly Knife), the prize awarded to the Bagong Hari, or The New King of underground violence.

11) What movies would top your list of movies you need to revisit, for whatever reason?

Top it? I don't know--I need to see Eddie Romero's Ganito Kamin Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon (This Was How We Were Then, How Are You Doing Now?, 1976) again; when I saw Romero's purported masterpiece, I wondered what all the fuss was. Then I re-saw his Aguila (1980) after so many years, and made me wonder: maybe he is a master, after all.

12) Zodiac or All the President’s Men?

Rather, Lino Brocka's Bayan Ko (My Country, 1985) or Orapronobis (Fight For Us 1989)? Not his best works, but Brocka makes both Fincher and Pakula look as if they were confined to wheelchairs. The very act of making the films represented considerable personal courage--the former having been made in the final but still frightening years of the Marcos dictatorship, the latter in the face of the Aquino administration's near-invincible popularity.

13) Using our best reviewer-speak, what is an “important” film comedy? And what is to you the most important film comedy of the last 35 years?

Important film comedy? Comedy that exposes or breaks open attitudes and prejudices we hold dear.

In the Philippines it's slim pickings--but I'd say Mike de Leon's Aliwan Paradise (Pleasure Paradise, 1993), for the film anthology Southern Winds. It's a satiric look at the Philippines' future, and may yet prove to be prophetic (look at the success of slum pictures in international film festivals). It's also a witty, imaginative, sardonic take on a film that in many ways established de Leon's reputation (he produced it, and was responsible for its crucial (even great) cinematography)--as if de Leon were nipping the rear end of the film that made him.

14) Describe the ideal environment for watching a movie.

Middle row, centrally located seat, no one seated in front of you, reasonably good sound system, 35 mm print (that's going to become more and more of a rarity, I predict), and munching on either a bag of fried porkskins (that you squirted with chilied vinegar), or a balut (fourteen day old duck egg, with a fully formed fetus inside) sprinkled with a bit of rock salt.

15) Michelle Williams or Eva Mendes?

Lolita de Leon, especially in Maryo J. Delos Reyes' Laman (Flesh, 2002)

16) What’s the worst movie title of all time?

Wow--I don't know.

There's Nagalit ang Buwan sa Haba ng Gabi (The Moon Angered by the Length of the Night, Danny Zialcita, 1983, though the title could apply to anything by Bela Tarr or Lav Diaz, I imagine);

Kapag ang Palay Naging Bigas, May Bumayo (When Grain Turns to Rice, Someone's Been Pounding, Roland Ledesma, 2002);

Pag Dumikit, Kumakapit (When It Sticks, It's Stuck, Humilde 'Meek' Roxas, 1998);

Patikim ng Pinya (I'd Like To Try Your Pineapple, 1996, which has an interesting history behind it. The censors objected to the original title (Patikim, meaning 'to taste'), but when they approved this one, it was pointed out that pinya can be read as a pun on 'p' niya (or 'her pussy'));

Bakit Kinagat ni Adan ang Mansanas ni Eba? (Why Did Adam Bite Eve's Apple?, 1998);

and my favorite:

Diligin Mo Ng Suka ang Uhaw Na Lumpia (Sprinkle with Sourness the Thirsty Eggroll)

17) Best movie about teaching and/or learning

Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (You Were Judged But Found Wanting, Lino Brocka, 1974). The first major film of the '70s Golden Age of Philippine cinema has an innocent young man learn about morality and mortality not from his father, but from an outcast leper and his insane lover; not through professorial lectures and classroom lessons but through real-life examples.

18) Dracula (1931) or Horror of Dracula (1958)?

Kulay Dugo ang Gabi (The Blood Drinkers, 1964) or Ibulong Mo sa Hangin (Blood of the Vampires, 1966)?

19) Why do you blog? Or if you don’t, why do you read blogs? (Thanks, Girish)

To reach my audience. To get my message out (see 'about me')

20) Most memorable/disturbing death scene

The finale of Lino Brocka's Maynila sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (1975)

21) Jason Robards or Robert Shaw

Pancho Magalona, who gave arguably the greatest performance in Philippine cinema as the sinister Simoun in Gerardo de Leon's great El Filibusterismo (The Filibuster, 1962).

22) A good candidate for Most Blasphemous Movie Ever

Kisapmata (Blink of an Eye, Mike de Leon, 1981). Not perhaps the bloodiest, or most repulsive or even the most shocking Filipino film ever made, Mike de Leon's masterpiece does do what few if any Filipino feature dares, to strike at the heart of the (as Tikoy Aguiluz once proposed to me) twin central themes of Philippine cinema: the love of the mother and the survival of the family (here the former is impotent, the latter--well, you have to see the film).

23) Rio Bravo or Red River

D'Wild, Wild Weng (Eddie Nicart, 1982)

24) Werner Herzog is remaking Bad Lieutenant with Nicolas Cage—that’s reality. Try to outdo reality by concocting a match-up of director and title for a really strange imaginary remake.

How's this--Celso Ad. Castillo doing a remake of El Filibusterismo? Bared maiden breasts, dwarf altar boys, priests whipping themselves to exhaustion--it could be the Filipino equivalent of Ken Russell's The Devils (1971)!

25) Bulle Ogier or Charlotte Rampling

Jaclyn Jose

26) In the Realm of the Senses— yes or no?

No--much prefer Scorpio Nights (Peque Gallaga, 1985), myself

27) Name a movie you think of as your own (Thanks, Jim!)

Pangarap ng Puso (Demons, Mario O'Hara, 2000)

In many ways it's still my own. It's barely been seen, outside of its initial film festival run, and has attracted scant attention since. But as far as I'm concerned, this little film is the finest work of cinema to come out of the Philippines in recent years.

28) Winged Migration or Microcosmos

Not a documentary, but Lav Diaz's Heremias (2006) comes closest of anything Filipino I can think of to approximating the nonverbal feel of these two films. Without the nonstop music, of course.

29) Your favorite football game featured in a movie

We don't really play football in our country (at least not American football). We barely have any sports movies--the occasional boxing biopic, maybe.

30) Wendy Hiller or Deborah Kerr



Anita Linda

31) Dirtiest secret you have that is related to the movies

Dirtiest? Uh--never had sex while watching in theaters. But not for want of trying.

32) Name a favorite film and describe how it is illuminated and enriched by another favorite film.

Watching Gerardo de Leon's Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not, 1961) sensitized me to the presence of Rizal's novel throughout Philippine cinema--I'm talking about de Leon's Sisa, Lino Brocka's Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang, Mario O'Hara's own Sisa (1998), among many others.

33) It’s a Gift or Horsefeathers

Kakabakaba Ka Ba? (Does Your Heart Beat Faster? Mike de Leon, 1980). Admittedly, Philippine comedy represents very slim pickings.

34) Your best story about seeing a movie at a drive-in

We don't have drive-ins; if we did, the mosquitos would swarm about us and carry us away...

35) Victor Mature or Tyrone Power

Leopoldo Salcedo

36) What does film criticism mean to you? Where do you think it’s headed?

It's my mission, in effect. Where is it headed? I don't know, but I don't really like the general direction--major papers letting their top names go, film blogs of inconsistent quality popping up everywhere like 'shrooms, a sort of flattening of our perceptions that goes along with the broadening (our scope may be worldwide, but is it worthwhile?). We're looking at the fragmentation of film criticism into a million little voices, instead of a few big ones (not entirely untalented) dictating what's good and bad, and there's good and bad in that (and not a little relief I managed to survive the shakeout, at least for a time). I still have films and filmmaking talent to discover, write about, champion the best I can; afterwards,who knows?

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Andrew Adamson, 2008)

Not just another hobbit movie

In Andrew Adamson's The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) the Pevensie children (Lucy (Georgie Henley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Peter (William Moseley), Edmund (Skandar Keynes)) come back to Narnia, only it isn't Narnia, at least not the one they know: no one they know is there, the landscape and coastline are unfamiliar, and just what are these ruins overgrown with vines and undergrowth doing here?

Turns out that during the year they'd been attending school in England over a millennia has passed in Narnia--and here is where Lewis' classic fantasy departs radically from the better-known, more popular Lord of the Rings trilogy. Our world is linked to Lewis' (we first see the Pevensies on a railway station about to go back to school before they're whisked away by some magical wind) but it's not a simple correlation: time passes at a different rate between the worlds (at about a thousand-to-one ratio, it seems), a rather sophisticated concept for a 'mere' fantasy--and in fact Lewis didn't rely solely on traditional mythology for inspiration: he was familiar with science-fiction writers like H.G. Wells and Olaf Stapledon (whose imaginations he admired, even if he deplored their unChristian morality). Lewis (who also wrote science fiction--Out of the Silent Planet; Perelandra; That Hideous Strength) would be familiar with Einstein's theories; oddly enough, while his grasp of time and space is flexible enough to encompass chronological relativity and spatial paradoxes (Tolkien's is more the straightforward type: big is big, little is little, and time moves in a strict straight line), his notions of good and evil stand firm, whether on another planet or another universe entirely (the real moral challenge is in the practice--the ethics of a particular situation, and their many nuances and ramifications).

Lewis wasn't content with throwing yet another supernatural menace at our heroes; this time the threat is strictly human--an entire nation in fact. Narnia has been conquered and populated by the Telmarines; Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) is the youngest descendant of the ruling line, and was to be heir to the throne until a son is born to Caspian's uncle King Miraz (Sergio Castellitto), who consequently makes an attempt on Caspian's life. Lucy, Susan, Edmund and Peter's mission is to restore Caspian to his rightful place on the throne, allowing Narnians and Telmarines to live together in peace.

It's great fun on the printed page, with a small puzzler posed towards the reader: why is Aslan so coy about making an appearance in the story, and why only to Lucy and not the others? This little subplot bears much of the novel's ethical and theological weight (let's not pretend--as Lewis himself put it, the Narnian stories are a re-imagining of the Christ story in a fantasy setting), and is actually the key conflict: not the struggle between usurper and rightful ruler, but between belief and disbelief in the existence of a long-absent, long-awaited Aslan.

But that's the book, the second in the series (which--hope I've made it clear by now--I much prefer to Tolkien's trilogy); how does the movie fare? Not as successfully as I would have liked; director Andrew Adamson is no Peter Jackson, even if I did think Jackson's adaptation of Tolkien for the big screen was too reverential. Opening with Caspian's kidnapping is a mistake; it starts the movie on a note of action and suspense, but loses the crucial transition from the quotidian (the Pevensies, sitting in a '40s train station) to the fantastic (a beach, a cliff, the remains of a long-dead castle), and diminishes the contrast between our world and Narnia.

Lewis himself was never able to top the series of images that introduce readers to Narnia--the mysterious wardrobe (which (and I'm willing to bet money on this) inspired Dr. Who writers to create the TARDIS (a police box with a cavernous time-and-space spanning ship hidden inside)); the lamppost standing in the heart of a snowy forest; the fawn with an umbrella. But Lewis does follow the Pevensie's return to Narnia with a scene almost as strong, if not stronger: the gradual realization that the abandoned building the children are exploring is in fact what's left of their beloved castle Cair Paravel, and that momentous changes have occurred during their time away. To his credit, Adamson rises to the occasion, filming the scene with sufficient gravitas and a becoming simplicity; would that he had tried harder to resist updating the children's dialogue (heard between Susan and Caspian, who is visibly smitten: "We would never have worked anyway" "Why not?" "Well, I am thirteen hundred years older than you") to the point that they sound more like modern-day brats than '40s youths; or eschew any and all digital and visual similarities to the Lord of the Rings movies instead of playing them up--the battling trees, for example, or the raging river digitally animated to resemble some Neptune lookalike. Narnia has its own unique charms, and needn't pander to the hobbit crowd.

Still, Adamson does get a few things right: medieval castle architecture, for example, and its means of defense (the castle's gatehouse, the structure's supposed 'weak point,' lures invaders into the courtyard--which with the shutting of the portcullis is quickly turned into a killing field by archers in the upper galleries); the Telmarines' extraordinary wooden log bridge, which looks to be modeled on the bridge Julius Caesar built across the Rhine; and tactics (i.e. the extensive network of underground catacombs, and how they're exploited in battle) not quite seen before, even in the Jackson pictures. Adamson also does well by the Pevensies, who are shown to be as flawed and fragile as in the previous picture, Peter most of all (Peter's strategy of pre-empting Miraz by attacking his castle (a scene invented for the movie) doesn't make sense by any standard, let alone the military's). One might call the picture a children's fantasy version of Henry V, with Peter standing in for Henry, a study in leadership virtue and vice. Actually every Pevensie has his or her moments--Lucy insisting (despite the others' disbelief) that she had seen Aslan (and quietly weeping when she's voted down); Susan quietly flirting with Prince Caspian; Edmund confronting the White Witch (Tilda Swinton in a magnificent, too-brief cameo), knowing all too well of the seductive spells she can cast on a young man.

Even Miraz manages to develop into a nicely rounded character, with strong motivations (he's determined to protect his newborn heir), not inconsiderable flaws (aside from being ruthless and cruel, he's also sarcastic), and even moments of comic vulnerability (challenged to a duel by Peter, he's goaded by his fellow generals into accepting). Only Caspian remains stubbornly wooden; the way Barnes plays him, one can see why Susan is attracted (he's handsome, with a perfect cleft chin), the same time one can see why she'd ultimately refuse (after all is said and done he's a dull boy-toy).

All in all a decent second effort, with much of its appeal coming from the greatly underrated source material, in many ways a darker, more sophisticated effort than its children's literature-oriented predecessor. One looks forward to the third movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; where Prince Caspian emphasized the disparities in time flow between our world and Narnia, Dawn Treader goes in yet another direction--the very edge of the world, which looks entirely different from what we know exists in our universe (yet another feature Lewis' fantasies have that Tolkien's lacked). To be directed, it's said, by Michael Apted (Coal Miner's Daughter (1980) the Up documentaries (1970-2005)), Apted isn't known for special-effect extravaganzas, but he does well enough if not better with films strong on character and human relationships. We shall see; we shall hope for the best.

(First published in Businessworld, 6.6.08)

Raya Martin in Director's Fortnight, Brilliante Mendoza in Cannes

The director of the brilliant Indio Nacional (2005) has made it not to the official Cannes festival, but to a parallel festival, the Quinzaine des realisateurs, or Director's Fortnight, which has its own more eclectic reputation, that of being the discoverer new, quirkier talent, where the Cannes festival is more likely to screen the works of established filmmakers. This meant the French debut of directors like Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jim Jarmusch, Nagisa Oshima, Michael Haneke, the Dardennes brothers, and many others, and has screened the films of Robert Bresson and Manoel de Oliveira, Stephen Frears. I think Martin makes for an excellent addition to their ranks.

The links lead to two of three (apparently the third isn't available as of this time) video interviews of the filmmaker, who talks about his filming and logistical methods, his scriptwriting style (for his first two features, he didn't have any), and how Indio Nacional, Autohystoria and Now Showing form not a trilogy, but the beginnings of three separate trilogies. Ah, youth! And more power to him, for his ambitions...

Raya Martin talks about his new film Now Showing (2008) Part 1

Raya Martin talks about his new film Now Showing (2008) Part 2

Briliante Mendoza, on the other hand, is an entirely different creature, a teller of conventional yet intense narratives about Philippine life (Kaleldo (2006) was about the lives of three daughters in a provincial town; Manoro (same year) is about a young girl who teaches her illiterate townsfolk how to read, to enable them to cast votes in a coming election; Foster Child (2007) is the quite moving story of a woman who makes it a business to raise parentless children for adoption; Tirador (same year) about slumdwellers in Quiapo). His stories are told in the kind of handheld, cinema verite of the Dardannes brothers, making full use of his uniquely Filipino settings. His latest film Serbis (Service, 2008) was chosen for the Official Competition in Cannes.

In the following video clips, Mendoza talks about the source material for the film (the porn theaters that inspired his premise), and the sound problems noted by some critics, which he maintains is actually an immersive statement, and how surprised he was to have shocked the Cannes audience:

Brillante Mendoza talks about his new film Serbis (Service, 2008) Part 1

Brilliante Mendoza talks about his new film Serbis (Service, 2008) Part 2

Brilliante Mendoza talks about his new film Serbis (Service, 2008) Part 3

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Steven Spielberg, 2008)

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Anniversary of Doom

Almost twenty years after his last onscreen outing, Henry Jones Jr., better known as "Indiana" ("Indy" for short) Jones, has been pulled out of the mothballs, dusted off, and put through his paces one more time. Does lightning strike a fourth time? Well--

Santiago! (Lino Brocka, 1970)

Action reaction 

It's odd thinking of Lino Brocka directing a big-budget action epic, much less directing the late action-star-turned-presidential-candidate Fernando Poe, Jr. in a World War 2 epic--but there you are; even if you watched Santiago! again and again, it still feels odd.

The film is difficult to like at first. Oh, it starts well enough, with Brocka taking a page from Jules Dassin's Du Rififi chez le hommes (Rififi, 1955): a nighttime attempt to sabotage a Japanese munitions store in the little town of Santiago, done without music or dialogue. But then comes the shock: Gonzalo (Fernando Poe, Jr.) discovers that the schoolhouse they are about to blow up is filled with women, old men, and schoolchildren (put there discourage exactly what they're trying to do); the school explodes, and Gonzalo is knocked unconscious.

Almost wished I was knocked unconscious too. At the moment of Gonzalo's realization Brocka cuts to the children, to the saboteur's panicked face, to the sparking fuse, each shot shorter and shorter in length as if to suggest the increasing sense of urgency building up inside the man. Problem is, it isn't very well edited--Brocka's films are almost never sharply edited (the one exception being in my opinion the French financed (and edited) Orapronobis (Fight For Us, 1989))--this sequence in particular is cut as if Fernando Poe's thought processes suffer from mental hiccups. Doesn't help that Brocka pours on the music, and it's a typical Lea Productions score, full of bathos and easy emotion; doesn't help either that Brocka shoots footage of the school burning in excruciatingly slow motion, as if he knew that this was a money shot, and he'd better have as much of it onscreen as he can.

Doesn't help that Gonzalo upon coming to his senses seems hysterical, or at least as hysterical as Poe is able to manage. FPJ (as Poe is affectionately called) is a gift of an action star, in that he's exactly as he seems to be: no facades, no Method acting, none of that nonsense. He's metal of the purest kind, and asking him to do something beyond the chemical properties of his particular element is like asking a fish to walk or a pig to fly; the fish just lies there, flopping, and the pig will patiently wait for you to feed him. You can ask FPJ to suggest a surprisingly large palette of emotions through his ever stolid face, but you cannot make him act them out for you, clearly and explicitly, as if in a soap opera or on a theater stage.

It does help that Brocka had for cinematographer the great Conrado Baltazar. You could tell it's Baltazar from the way he shoots domestic night scenes--he was a master at creating incandescent lighting, at making you believe a room was lit by two thirty-watt bulbs and little else. For the burning schoolhouse he manages to capture the rich orange glow, the lazy way the flames lick at the rooftop--like some fiery predator squatting atop the school, feeding on the people underneath.

The film's second half shifts the action to a small coastal town. Gonzalo has found amongst the wreckage of the schoolhouse a survivor, a seriously burnt girl (Hilda Koronel, in one of her earliest roles). Gonzalo asks a young man (Jay Ilagan) for help in carrying the girl to the young man's home; there for the next few months, Gonzalo with single-minded intensity nurses the girl back to health (shades of Douglas Sirk's Magnificent Obsession (1954)). During the few months the girl spends under Gonzalo's care she falls in love with him--which is a problem, as the young man has in turn fallen in love with her. To complicate things, the young man's older sister (Boots Anson-Roa) has also fallen for Gonzalo, even if she's already engaged to another man (Dante Rivero).

Outside of the young man's home, Gonzalo walks among the villagers like an out-of-place titan; the locals look at him with awe, and not a little jealousy. Rumors fly, of course, and quite a few malicious stories are cooked up and spread around. It's interesting watching Brocka orchestrate the dynamics of rumor-mongering, and how the community's sentiment seems to waver, then draw itself together against Gonzalo. It helps that Gonzalo's character has been backed into a role Brocka identifies with intensely, the outsider who provokes local gossip (Brocka was born an illegitimate child, and for a time lived with--and was maltreated by--his mother's relatives). Brocka would deal with the subject on a broader yet more detailed canvas in his first genuine masterpiece, Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (You Were Judged But Found Wanting, 1974); here it's interesting to see Brocka direct a community's scorn not at a leper, or a mayor's illegitimate daughter (as in Tinimbang), but at a folk superman. Poe as Gonzalo handles the burden with becoming grace and humility, and it's in these later scenes that his performance, well within his comfort zone, really shines.

If in the film's early parts we glimpsed bits of Brocka's immaturity poking through all the glamorous production values (the fast (if erratic) cutting; the attempt at making FPJ 'act;' the frequent and at times unnecessary flashbacks*), several later scenes reveal early signs of Brocka the great Filipino dramatist. One sequence I particularly admire begins with Gonzalo's adopted family sitting around in their living room. It's a quiet scene, with not much action--dramatic or otherwise--going on; the younger brother, guitar on hand, starts to strum the lovely folk song Ikaw (You). Yet from the despondent expressions on the peoples' faces; from their body language and languid gestures; from the way they seem to listen--and yet not listen--to the song; most of all from the way the seated figures are arranged (like ikebana cuttings) before the camera, you can tell that there's a tension in the air, a sense of electricity, of anticipation.

And then you realize it's not that they're waiting for someone that's coming, it's that they're waiting for someone that's missing. And just when that realization blooms in one's mind, Brocka (with--this time, anyway--a supreme sense of timing) cuts to a shot of Gonzalo sitting outside, the camera angled just so that to the upper left of the screen you see the window of the very living room where the people who care about him sit, waiting.

A beautiful sequence, and not the least among its achievements is the fact that if the scene works no one should notice anything--yet everyone watching is undeniably, if unknowingly, moved.

The film's latter half devolves--harsh word, I suppose, but after a scene like that--into a series of standard-issue (if well produced) action sequences, including some low-key if impressive stuntwork, and a lengthy tracking shot of villagers crossing a flooded underground tunnel to safety. FPJ mows down his share of Japanese villains--you know the drill: a vigorous sweep of the semiautomatic and everyone with slanted eyes drops to the ground. Interestingly, when Celso Ad. Castillo directed FPJ in Asedillo (1971) the star refrained from any superhuman acts of killing; he was just a schoolteacher turned rebel hero, and if anything seemed outsized and near-mythical about him it was probably due to Ad. Castillo's expressive direction (the film's theme, after all, was the making of an ordinary man into a legend) and Sergio Lobo's larger-than-life cinematography. Interesting too, that when Gerardo de Leon and Eddie Romero directed FPJ in Intramuros: The Walls of Hell (1964) the film had realistically staged (if inventive, even tense) action sequences. FPJ there was like a Latin James Dean, all tilted head and youthful arrogance and the camera (and audience) can't help but love him, but no, no wholesale slaughter of the Japanese at the pull of a trigger.

To be fair, De Leon, Romero and even Ad. Castillo when they worked with FPJ were already veterans; Brocka on the other hand was a neophyte director making his sophomore effort. He was lucky to land an assignment with FPJ, and if the star of the production wanted to kill scores of soldiers in a single sweep, who was Brocka to say otherwise?

Still, Santiago! has its place in Brocka's oeuvre: an early draft for Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang; a rare moment in the man's career when he stepped outside of his melodramatic domain; an honest attempt at epic period filmmaking a la Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos (Three Years Without God, Mario O'Hara, 1976). And one can see how Brocka, even with the burden of a large-scale production full of extravagant special effects (unlike Tatlong Taong or Intramuros, this film boasts of large, intricately detailed models of churches and bridges being blown up with genuine explosives, not New Year's Eve firecrackers--always an expensive undertaking), even with star producers dictating terms, even with the limitations of the war drama genre, still manages to make the film somehow personal, somehow his own.

* On those flashbacks--I'd say they were mostly unnecessary save one, a black-and-white, wordless interlude where Mario O'Hara and Caridad Sanchez play a married couple whose happiness is torn asunder by the Japanese. What is it with Brocka's intensely told side-stories (especially when O'Hara is acting in them (see also: Tinimbang)), that they often steal attention from the rest of the film, and are often more interesting than the main narrative line?

Perfect Creature (Glenn Standring, 2006)

Perfect stinker

Perfect Creature (2006), which Glenn Standring singelhandedly wrote and directed, apparently did not get a decent commercial release in the United States; none of the major papers reviewed it (New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, so on and so forth), none of the major critics (Roger Ebert for one (not that I consider him authoritative in any way on matters of cinema--only that he has a popular TV show and some pull at the boxoffice)) gave it any attention (or even a brief mention). "Straight to video" is the term I'm looking for, I think, which does not bode well for the movie's quality.

Or does it? Sometimes one finds a gem in the discounted DVD bin. King of the Ants (2003) suffered a similar fate: Stuart Gordon's compelling little exploitation flick showed us the kind of terror that can be conjured from a malevolent George Wendt (unrecognizable without his overstuffed business suit, or the calls of "Norm!" trailing in his sizable wake) and a simple golf club. The film took Gordon's gift for Lovecraftian grotesquerie in films like Re-animator (1985), From Beyond (1986), Dagon (2001) and inserted them into decidedly more realistic (read: suburban) settings; it gave us a charmingly sympathetic hero (Chris McKenna) doing decidedly unsympathetic things (stalking women, murder), provoking all kinds of complex feelings from us along the way (Is McKenna a creep? A horrifically helpless victim? Some inextricable combination of both?).

Perfect Creatures doesn't inspire that kind of fascination, but does show considerable ambition--it's not our future the film depicts, but some kind of steampunk variation of it. High-tech dirigibles glide across the sky; policemen wield what look like Luger pistols; people drive '40s-style cars down streets overshadowed by towering Gothic constructions. Vampires are not just real, they're an accepted and vital part of society. They have formed an elite class called The Brotherhood and established a comfortable symbiotic relationship with their mortal brethren: humans (in a parody of the Catholic Eucharist) offer up their blood willingly for consumption, while The Brothers offer theirs as a means of curing human diseases and prolonging life.

It's a conceit worthy of Joss Whedon, that master integrator of wildly different genres (vampirism and the teen angst flick (Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003)); Westerns and pirate flicks with science fiction (Firefly, 2002, and the feature film made from it three years later)) in such a way that they comment on each other, mutually reinforce each other, give each other fresh nuances that each alone otherwise wouldn't have. Would that Standring have imbibed some of Whedon's wit, or consistent hand with a story. Standring posits a world with vampires and humans in harmonious balance; that balance is thrown off by Edgar (Leo Gregory), a vampire gone berserk: he goes around openly attacking people and drinking their blood (the victims obligingly spray their blood around in arterial spurts--startling at first but you'd be surprised how quickly that gets old).

Edgar turns out to be a pawn in a greater conspiracy staged by The Brotherhood--but the details don't really matter, because when all is finally revealed it doesn't carry a lot of dramatic weight. Partly that's because the actors (Dougray Scott as Edgar's dour older brother Silus; Saffron Burrows as Silus' equally dour love interest and police-officer-slash-crimefighting-partner Lilly) have been ordered to pitch the emotional tone in their performance at a level slightly above icewater (only Edgar is told otherwise, with his emotional dial nailed at "massive landscape mastication"). Partly it's because the details are so fuzzy: The Brotherhood, we're told, is corrupt, evil, repressive, but aside from the odd revelation here and there, we don't really see what they do (it doesn't help that other than Silus and Edgar, no other member of The Brotherhood really stand out--it's like fighting shadows, only shadows in the right director's hands (Stuart Gordon comes to mind) might present a more palpable threat). And the battles are predictably one-sided: Silus sets up one trap after another, some of them well-planned; Edgar pops up and promptly whips Silus' butt; Silus barely escapes by the skin of his teeth. Pause; repeat cycle again, and again, and again. One wonders: are the two really brothers, or has Silus been less than straight with us? Is Silus congenitally incapable of at all handling his younger brother, or has the virus brought everyone's IQ level except Edgar's down to single digits?

There are compensatory scenes, I think--Edgar's escape, for one (he's held prisoner in one of the picture's genuinely brilliant designs, a personal restraint system built on the principle of the falcon's claw: struggle, and sharp projections dig deeper into one's throat); Edgar and Silus facing each other down (Gregory's and Scott's glowering brows are a memorable match) and taunting the other to make the first move. Sometimes a moment feels right, like when Silus contemplates Lilly's sleeping arm--he gazes at a gently pulsing vein, then gives the wrist a cautious sniff.

For the most part, though, Standring pads out the picture's running time with gimmicky camera moves borrowed from Sam Riami's Evil Dead movies (you know what I mean--point-of-view shots that skitter from one ventilation shaft to the next, sometimes nosing past a squeaking rat, sometimes zooming close on a man cocking his gun) to indicate superhuman senses, and fills the many dead spots with aforementioned pointless fight sequences where Edgar keeps winning. Perfect Creatures comes close to being a good movie; it comes so close one could almost smell with one's nose how close it is, missing a few centimeters at a time, all the time.

First appeared in Businessworld, the Weekender section, on 5/15/08

Deception (Marcel Langenegger, 2008)

De suction

Noel Vera

Marcel Langenegger and Mark Bombeck's Deception (2008) is some kind of minor camp classic. It posits Ewan McGregor as Jonathan McQuarry, an accountant too shy to get laid--which, considering the man's filmography (there was a point before he started playing Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucas' excruciating prequels when he seemed contractually obligated to bare his bottom in every project), is reason to start sniggering right there.

So: Jonathan has trouble meeting girls (pffftkhkhkhkh…'scuse me); enter Wyatt Bose (Hugh Jackman, refreshingly villainous after doing all those heroic X-Men sequels and gloomy romantic leading roles). Wyatt introduces Jonathan to The List, an exclusive club whose members (all good-looking and smashingly successful) call each other, arrange a meeting, and have hot yet discreet sex in expensive hotel rooms (sort of like a cross between eharmony.com and American Express).

Jonathan meets a slew of beautiful women, played by everyone from Paz de la Huerta to Rachael Taylor, though easily the most remarkable of the lot (their cover-girl glamour tends to get monotonous fast) is Charlotte Rampling, she of the unsettling cool grey eyes and mysterious smile, still a stunner at the age of sixty-plus (they have to put her on a Forbes magazine cover as a "Wall Street Belle," of course, to explain the fact that she looks far too intelligent to have ever walked a fashion ramp).

Now, if Jonathan had stuck to the Belle we might have had something, but instead he meets "S" (Michelle Williams, looking as trashy as ever), a woman who he had caught a glimpse of in the subway a month back, and has since been obsessing over. This should have lead to some extra-steamy sex, but Jonathan is so lovestruck he can't even pork his inamorata; he has to sit up in bed looking at her while she (and a good portion of the audience I saw the movie with) sleeps peacefully.

So far, so lame. Turns out this isn't some profound exploration of human sexuality and obsession; turns out it's actually a financial thriller, with a blackmail plot involving Jonathan's accounting job so elaborate and unwieldy one imagines it would have been easier to be appointed into the present Bush administration and steal money straight from taxpayers (Jackman is certainly handsome enough, and it isn't as if Republican candidates have never been drafted from Hollywood before). Jonathan's head spins so fast he can't even follow-up on the water pipe leek in his overexpensive apartment bedroom (a detail so blatantly and repeatedly noted it's bound to figure in the plot--and Langenegger's such a hamfisted moviemaker you can hear him dragging said detail into position a mile away). The moviemakers are so worried about keeping their elephantine extortion scheme moving forward they forget along the way to make our hero care about the death of an innocent bystander (which is okay, I suppose; we forget to care about our hero, too).

If you think the blackmail is ridiculous, wait till you see Jonathan's designs for revenge and reversal (Hint: he manages to obtain a fake passport, an airline ticket, and a way of blocking Bose's electronic fund transfer to a bank in Madrid. All this born full-blown, seems to me, within the few seconds that Jonathan stares at a photograph--and still he has to depend on "S" not just changing her unreliable mind, but showing up at the right place and right time with a handy pistol in her purse)).

I didn't care; I really didn't. I'd given up about an hour before, and just sat back to enjoy the many moments worthy of catcalls and flung popcorn bags (this amidst the several patrons with their heads bent back, snoring unashamedly). I'm ready to go so far as to call this a cult classic, only poor Langenegger (whose feature debut this is) doesn't have the talent to make the picture as delirious visually as it is narratively (Langenegger can't generate much thrills out of the suspense sequences, while the sex is shot and edited to resemble perfume ads).

It's not as if erotic thrillers have to be logical to work--Alfred Hitchcock's great Vertigo (1958) featured an absurdly cumbersome murder, and a film as recent as Richard Rush's much underrated Color of Night (1994--which, come to think of it, owes much to Vertigo, or at least Hitchcock's earlier Spellbound (1945)) manages to juggle half a dozen suspects and still make the real killer's unmasking a surprise.

Then there's Brian De Palma, who not only uses ridiculously intricate storylines but makes a fetish of them. Take something like Femme Fatale (2003)--the real suspense isn't whether or not Rebecca Romijn-Stamos will come out okay in the end; it's if De Palma can (after the bizarre whirls and twirls of his hypernoirish postmodern narrative) still land right-side-up on his own two feet.

These films transcend their hoot-worthy storylines through a prodigious use of style--through throbbing reds and oily golds and luminous greens splattered across the big screen, through unforgettable uses of light and shadow (a nun's startling silhouette; an image-multiplying prism; a gemstone's brilliant sparkle) while intricate, largely wordless sequences unfold in their own hypnotically sweet time, revealing filmmakers every bit as obsessed as their protagonists with their one great, true love (cinema, of course).

Looked at on those terms, at the tremendous platters of moist flesh on display (and if you think there aren't any in Vertigo, look again--at Hitchcock's lovingly giant close-ups of Kim Novak, dunked (in seawater) and undunked, rouged (thickly) and unrouged), Deception is more like a weenie on a toothpick--but a tasty weenie, nevertheless, full of spice and odd, at times off-putting, flavors. Not bad for a quick, unnourishing nosh.

First published in Businessworld, 5.9.08