oggsmoggs's Xanga

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 07:20:44 GMT

I've transferred my blog to blogspot... visit my blog here:

oggsmoggs.blogspot.com

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 00:35:20 GMT

Jologs - Gilbert Perez

The screenplay for Filipino hit film Jologs won first prize in a contest initiated by film producer Star Cinema. The award-winning screenplay was supposedly darker, more biting than what we have now. Also, the screenplay was supposed to be directed by Jeffrey Jeturian, one of the country's leading directors. But like almost everything that lands on the laps of ABS-CBN and its film producing arm Star Cinema, it's bound to be rewrapped, repackaged, regurgitated faux-Hollywood style to please the millions of eager fans who'd be willing to let go of their hard-earned peso to get a glimpse of not one, but a whole stable, of these manufactured stars strut it out in the big screen. Luckily, the factory-manufactured film is light enough to enjoy, entertaining enough to withstand, and pretty enough to look at.

The film is a mixture of different storylines interweaving in a neighborhood coffeeshop. Literary misgivings abound this youth-oriented tale and despite the fact of it being labeled as fashionably original, nothing is really new with this teen flick. Ruben (John Prats) works as a cashier for the coffee shop, while struggling to find money for his schooling, money that he has to beg from his estranged rich father leading him to plan a small-time heist. Mando (Diether Ocampo) is the security guard for the cafe, who is also the understanding boyfriend to a japayuki (a dancer who works in Japan) who would leave both Mando and her infant to work abroad. Cher (Baron Geisler) is a transvestite who is chanced upon by mean and sinister cafe-owner Trigger (OneMig Bondoc). Iza (Assunta de Rossi) is loud and sexy and has a secret crush on super-religious student, who surprisingly, takes the independent woman for a date. Kulas (Vhong Navarro) is in love with taekwondo fighter and is ready with an engagement ring, but is unready for rejection. Lastly, Dino (Patrick Garcia) is former seminarian who is about to engage in premarital sex with his longtime girlfriend Faith (Jodie Sta. Maria).

There are too many plots in this youth-oriented flick - too many plots with very little to say. Screenwriter Ned Trespeces' solution to that is to replicate the oft-used Hollywood conceit, the interweaving storylines. The problem here is that despite the fact that these storylines and characters connect, the focal point is pretty much pointless. Why a cafe? Why an explosion? Like a true Filipino film, such had to be explained and in a revalatory scene leading to the expected climax, Trespeces does. It is that lack of confidence with his work or his acknowledgement that he has very little to say that keeps Jologs from standing out. The little stories are your typical angst-driven drivels that are just magnified a dozen times by witty filmmaking and overuse of visual gimmickry. True, there are very interesting moments in the film, but in a film that has to spend some more time with a multitude of other storylines, a few interesting moments will not make a truly good Filipino film. The filmmaking mimmicks of P. T. Anderson rather than the true master of ensemble filmmaking Robert Altman. The result stinks of gimmickry than real filmmaking. Replicating Anderson turned the film a dozen notches below Anderson's Magnolia, a far more liberating and adventurous piece of work. Funnily, Perez decided to end Jologs with a clear borrowing of Magnolia's song number - only this time the result is cheese and schmultz, instead of hairraising wonderment.

The filmmaking is very much standard but it's nice to imagine how Jeffrey Jeturian would handle the screenplay. He'd probably defend the original screenplay and keep Star Cinema's sugarcoating paws from morphing it off of its relevance. Jeturian's finest traits as a filmmaker is his utmost respect for his screenwriters. His opus Minsan Pa bore screenwriter Armando Lao's name above its title rather than the traditional way of labeling it as a director's work. If Jeturian did get a hold of this script (and yes, Jeturian is good with teens and non-actors), it would've probably been more relevant instead of being your everyday teen angst film the Philippines hasn't gotten rid of since the 80's.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 10:55:09 GMT

Hinugot sa Langit - Ishmael Bernal

Ishmael Bernal's Hinugot sa Langit (Snatched from Heaven) is a very challenging film to watch. Right from the start, the audience is introduced with scenarios of complex problems pressed after other problems. The characters are drafted from your typical melodrama stereotypes. The center of the drama is Carmen Castro (Maricel Soriano), the impossibly patient victim of the screenwriter-created dilemmas. Revolving around Carmen's personage and dilemmas are other characters that are seemingly cut from traditionally established cinematic stereotypes. There is Stella (Amy Austria), the liberated and seemingly modern cousin of Carmen. Juling (Charito Solis) is Carmen's overly religious landlady, an avid member of a charismatic prayer group. Jerry (Al Tantay) and Bobby (Rowell Santiago), are the two men in Carmen's life, the former, an irresponsible playboy-gambler, the latter, a traditionalist who is stuck to his life plans. Hinugot sa Langit, in paper, sounds like your typical Filipino melodrama where histrionics and impossible scenarios abound, but fantastically, the film is far from that. Beautifully restrained, simple, and hardhitting, Hinugot sa Langit tackles a controversial topic with an uncontroversial control and a humanistic approach to a central character that has all the problems of the world to withstand.

During the first few minutes of the film, we are informed that Carmen is pregnant. Her cousin Stella scoffs and recommends abortion. The father of the child, Jerry, also recommends abortion. Her landlady, who is busy juggling her religious aims and her legal quarrel with the poor families illegally living in her land, suggests that she keeps the baby as killing it would be a sin against God. Carmen sees signs that would seemingly suggest an answer to her difficult decision. Her poor neighbors struggle for money to feed their children. She sees a physically malformed child vending goods outside the church. She loses her job at a financing company due to the struggling economy during that time.

Hinugot sa Langit may be branded as preachy and anti-abortion but in reality, while its focus is that controversial issue, Ishmael Bernal and screenwriter Amado Lacuesta, populates the film with sidestories that suggest a latter more pressing issue, which is societal hypocrisy. It just so happens that abortion is the most telling of issues. The Philippines being a prominently Catholic nation declares abortion as criminally and morally wrong yet funnily, the practice is unwrittenly accepted among women who are time-pressed with a decision. Such is the scenario here, Carmen is surrounded by suggestions of what to do but is left upon her own faculties in deciding. Each suggestion is clouded by a tinge of doubt. The characters surrounding her aren't naturally sure of their own lives. Stella is outwardly happy and wild but inwardly is insecure and lonely. Juling carries within herself an unerasable guilt which she tries to forget through her religious practices, forgetting that the world has deeper problems than her past. All the events and the characters have unnatural and seemingly impossible roots, but as a screenplay, as a dramatic film, Hinugot sa Langit works.

Thematically sound, Hinugot sa Langit also boasts of technical mastery. The music is sparse and controlled. Bernal foregoes the overorchestrated notion of what a drama should be and instead relies on his visuals and his actors talents to draw out emotions. The cinematography is simple but there are some very wonderful shots where the lighting, the blocking of the actors, and the framing, contribute to an impressive addition to Bernal's atmosphere of confusion and cynicism for this unsure Filipino society. The acting is very impressive. Maricel Soriano is wonderfully restrained, letting go of her usual histrionics for the more difficult style of acting that comes from what is felt within than what is outwardly presented. Charito Solis is a wonderful presence, and so is Amy Austria, who singlehandedly gives the film a lighthearted humor. ****1/2/*****

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Sun, 09 Jul 2006 10:23:54 GMT

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio - Jane Anderson

Last year's under-the-radar feel-good film The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio is an adaptation of a biographical novel of the same title written by Terry Ryan. The novel mostly recounts how a 50's mom was able to raise ten children with the primary help of prizes won from literary and other skill contests. The source material is an excellent example of woman power especially during the 50's wherein beauty contestants would proudly declare that women can never make good presidents since women are presumably emotional and high strung. The film adaptation by Jane Anderson however, while an enjoyable piece of fuzzy fluff, degenerates into typical period drama, more appropriate in television rather than the big screen.

Evelyn Ryan (Julianne Moore) used to work for a publishing company with a promising career ahead of her. However, she married erstwhile crooner Kelly (Woody Harrelson) who, after a car accident, lost his ability to sing and was left to working as a machinist to provide food for his family. Kelly is dependent yet extremely proud. He spends his last few dollars at the liquor store without thinking that he will not be left any money for tomorrow's milk delivery. Evelyn, now a full-time housewife of a household of ten children, has mastered the art of contesting. Prizes arrive at the Ryan doorstep at the most dire of circumstances, saving the family from hunger and inevitable embarrassment. Understandably, Kelly becomes antagonistic of his wife's family-saving talents.

The only other Jane Anderson work I've seen is her segment in These Walls Could Talk 2. The segment, a period piece about two lesbians meeting at a bar and eventually ending up in a relationship, is particularly decent. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio is Anderson's first feature film, a huge cross-over from her television and direct-to-video roots. Its direction is interestingly flat, with gushes of promise every once in a while. Anderson resorts to CGI distractions and other gimmickry (like making Evelyn Ryan the narrator plus the main character, using computer-manufactured doubles to create an illusion of two Julianne Moores in the picture) to keep the drama above the entrenched television-quality of the material. As flat as the direction is the obviousness of the intentions of Anderson. Her air of feminism blossoms in the atmosphere of the film and while I appreciate every bit of activism from filmmakers, I'd appreciate a bit of artistry in presentation. Her characters are drawn out in thick stereotypes. Evelyn is the well-loved mother who rarely gets mad and has the patience that would've instantly made her a saint. Kelly is the brooding, no-good father, who, while being pictured as loving and understanding, is still caricaturishly portrayed by Harrelson as the exact paper opposite of the perfect Evelyn. Even the sequencing gives the picture a quality bereft of purely and naturally emotional moments. The scenes are almost fantastically told, giving an air of a tall tale rather than a true story, without emotionality painted straight right there for all of the audience to see. In the end, The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio feels lacking, shallow, and undeniably preachy. **/*****

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Thu, 06 Jul 2006 04:47:03 GMT

United 93 - Paul Greengrass

Months before Oliver Stone releases his 9/11 film World Trade Center, Paul Greengrass, helmer of such thrillers like Bloody Sunday and The Bourne Supremacy released United 93, the director's take on the only hi-jacked plane that supposedly never reached its destination. If anything, Stone has every reason to give his finished product a final look before unleashing it to the world because Greengrass' film is very good, distinctly honest and objective in as much as it can be objective.

On September 11 of that fateful year, four commercial planes were hi-jacked. Two of the planes went straight through the twin towers of the World Trade Center, leading to its untimely collapse. One landed and hit one side of the United States' military center, the Pentagon. The last plane, United Airlines 93, landed somewhere in Pennsylvania. Just after the tragic events, rumors spread on why United 93 just went streaming down the middle of nowhere. Supposedly, the United States military, alarmed by the seemingly planned hi-jacks and attacks on centers of American power, shot down the plane to prevent it from reaching whatever target it's supposed to hit. In Greengrass' film, the reason for the failure of the terrorist's plan was due to the reactions of the plane's passengers.

The film is tightly woven, and paced in supposed real time. It starts out with the scene of the terrorists praying to Allah, and preparing for the day ahead. Calm and assured, Greengrass paces the introductory sequences in clockwork assuredness. The pilots arrive, along with the stewardesses, chatting away, and giving tangential clues as to who they are and whom they will leave behind. I acknowledge the fact that Greengrass never really gave us to chance to know these people. As far as he was concerned, his characters are merely passengers of an ill-fated flight. They might be husbands, wives, mothers, students, or children in their lives outside that plane, but Greengrass never really delves into such, giving us undivided focus on what is to happen. Greengrass segues his airplane scenes to the the FAA, then to the military center, then to the respective airports' air traffic controllers. This balanced attention to detail is exquisite and gives Greengrass an opportunity to tell his story in real time without boring his audience to death.

The visuals are almost documentary-like. Greengrass utilizes hand-held cameras and more often than not, appreciates imperfect visual impulses rather than pitch-perfect glossy cinematography to detail his story. The result is mixed. There's certainly confusion in the air, when the more action-filled scenes are plastered in hand-held, almost masturbatory camera movements. However, when the film centers in frenzied dialogue (which the film is mostly concerned with), the visual style is effective. It creates an atmosphere of uneasiness.

What I really liked about United 93 is the fact that it does not draw emotions from extraordinary acts of courage and heroism. The psychological impulses and reactions of the passengers and crew of the hi-jacked plane are results of fear, of anger, of attacked pride, rather than nationalism or that oft-repeated notion of American pride. Their retaliation is not a result of dreams of glory, or even survival, but of animalistic vengeance, or perverted purges of passion. As much as the film's topic is of political value, the film is very apolitical. There is not a notion of anti-American sentiment or pro-Bush activism. Greengrass tells the events as it is, and as how he perceives them to be. Whatever communications of unreadiness of the American government, or the dilly-dallying of the presidency in its inaction is a result of the factual circumstances rather than of directorial leaning. Even the trespassers, the terrorists, are presented in a light of objective air. In the film, they are merely extremist Muslims, rather than political activists. Sure, they are presented as villains but such cannot be denied as human impulse dictates that one rallies for the ones denied of their rights - and in this film's case, it is the passengers of United Airlines 93. ****1/2/*****

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Sun, 02 Jul 2006 13:11:44 GMT

Inside Man - Spike Lee

Spike Lee's Inside Man starts with a Bollywood song playing over the opening credits, being displayed over the sights and sceneries of New York City. New York City is the quintessential melting pot of all races, cultures, and religions in the world, yet in a weird and almost humorous way, the alien Bollywood music seems to fit the scenery like a glove. Rhythmic, chaotic in a beautiful way, and arousing of xenophobic notions, the song sets the mood for what could be Spike Lee's most entertaining film to date.

The film formally opens in an everyday scene inside a busy bank. A number of lines of customers all waiting to be served by the tellers. It's a telling scene - a Latina woman talking loudly over her cellphone and snottily distancing herself away from an Asian customer, African-American guards telling her off, a Sikh teller conversing with a customer, a rabbi. Minutes later, the whole crowd is held hostage by a gang of four headed by a cool and confident ringleader, Dalton Russell (Clive Owen). The case is given to a journeyman detective, an African-American Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington), who is problemizing over his low pay, slow promotion and stunted love life. In another part of the city, the bank owner Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer) hires savvy Madeline White (Jodie Foster) to protect a certain safety box in the hostaged bank, containing a secret, a portion of the raison d'etre of the perfect heist.

Spike Lee directs a script written by first-timer Russell Gewirtz. The script, like the heist that it is centered on, is perfectly planned. Every minute burdens the plot with an information that finds resolution in the end. Amazingly, Gewirtz juggles everything in confidence and all the convulations, the added information fall into their right places. Heist films, nowadays, outdo each other with cutting edge technologies, brain-busting techniques, and plot twists over plot twists that end in dumbed down revelations. Gewirtz's script, while not exactly a heist, concerns itself more with the characters rather than the action. Create a film with fully breathing characters with individual concerns and goals, and you'll create a naturally breathing and living film where the characters' interactions with each other flow in an expected and realistic manner - and that is what makes this film very entertaining. Each word that comes out of the characters carry a surprising accuracy to who they are - the dialogues and results of such are filled with subtle humor and a creative commentary on social and racial reflexes that aren't so pushed forward that it'll leave a bad aftertaste in the viewers' mouths. The scenarios are so matter-of-factly put by Lee. Interrogations, while essential in the plot's movement, aren't shown in excrutiating detail but as background scenes that seque to major plot points.

Lee is in his proper form here. The last Lee I saw is The 25th Hour, which was more concerned with America as a whole, rather than racism, Lee's favorite focal point. Here, Lee's racial concerns aren't the end-all of his product, instead it is the pickle relish of his sandwich. The racial crashes, the social commentaries are the spices that make this heist film into a wonderfully delicious meal. Inside Man is a delightful surprise. A perfect piece of entertainment when one gets sick of all the CGI, the flying men and women, the explosions and the needless gunslinging that Hollywood has been offering us this summer season. ****/*****

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Sun, 02 Jul 2006 04:08:23 GMT

Superman Returns - Bryan Singer

Superman has returned after being gone for five years, in the film's universe, and a decade more so, in our own universe. However, unlike in the film's universe, where his return was unexpected, his return in the cineplexes was expected, anticipated and eagerly awaited. And like almost everything expected, anticipated, and oh so eagerly awaited, the film flew and fell flat in a wilderness of overdone plots, overemphasized characterizations, and overly budgeted special effects. I'm not saying that Bryan Singer's Superman Returns is a bad film, it's just that the film's pre-opening buzz did it a huge disservice by creating an aura of event movie over a film that could've just flown across the public's consciousness with a breeze.

After discovering that his home planet is no longer around, Superman (Brandon Routh) has returned to Earth only to discover that the citizens of that needy planet no longer need a hero. His love interest, Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), who is already a mother to a sickly yet irresistably cute kid, is already in a relationship with journalist Richard White (James Marsden). His archenemy, Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey), also returns from a five year prison term and joyless wooing of needy widows. In a plan to dominate the world, he steals the powerful crystals in lieu of his plan to sink North America and recreate a continent he would own as ruler and business manager. After a dazzling rescue of a space shuttle and the people on board a passenger plane, Superman returns in heroic fashion, garnering standing ovations and news columns from all over the world.

The first thing one would notice with the new Superman film is that most of the original cast have been replaced (either due to the deaths of the actors, or just plain disinterest and old age). Brandon Routh, who played bit roles in soap operas before landing this break, looks the role and tries his best to fill in the shoes of Christopher Reeves, who is almost impossibly irreplacable as the iconic superhero. However, there isn't much for Routh to work on. Superman, as I've mentioned, is an iconic figure - just look the part, make sure you fit the costume, and voila, you can fly and parade around the universe as the red caped wonder. My problem with Routh is when he transforms to Superman's alterego Clark Kent. Reeves was funny, geeky, and ultimately different as Clark Kent. He could've easily fooled anyone into believing that he isn't Superman. Routh, on the other hand, feels more like a jock posing as a geek. His mannerisms are too savvy for a Clark Kent, and when he does go overboard with the geeky front, he indeed goes overboard, in true soap opera fashion. Bosworth is a pretty addition to the cast but she doesn't do much and her Lois Lane is far too relaxed and modernist as compared to Margot Kidder, who validly represents the stressed-out woman who decided to pursue a career in the field of cutthroat journalism. Spacey, is as always, good, but is then again, here, just a welcome presence.

The film, on the other hand, is not very well organized. It follows the present-day trend to humanize all superheroes. My problem with humanizing Superman is the fact that Superman already has a very human alterego, Clark Kent. Kent's persona in this film wasn't utilized much - it's mostly done for laughs and reverence to the entire concept. Singer decides to concentrate on the caped hero, foregoing the need to delineate the two personalities of the superhero. I'm part of those who think that the caped hero does not need too much humanizing lest the film turns into an outright soap opera, complete with paternity issues and love triangles. Superman is an icon who's iconoclastic standing is enough to rouse audience passion without the need for further characterization or needless persistence for complex plot movements and psychoanalysis. That is the primary reason why there is Clark Kent, so that the icon can remain an icon. That statement might arouse reactions but heck, I like my superhero films simple, exciting, and straightforward.

Now that Singer has validly made the franchise into an all-out melodrama, he has all the reason to go pondering into dramatics and giggly quotations. And that, I believe, lessened the film's wow factor. The pacing rises and falls, and without the beautiful visuals, could've put me to sleep. Singer's love for the superhero has invaded his talent. His need to be original betrayed the icon's reason to be there. Not all superheroes require a deeply convulated plot involving romantics and histrionics, Superman can do just fine saving people, battling villains, and probably weakening, then nearly dying once or twice for your everyday cinematic experience. ***/*****

Friday, June 23, 2006

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 06:31:31 GMT

Cars - John Lasseter

Last year was a learning experience for the CGI animation studios. After churning out a handful of animated flicks, it was the traditionally animated and claymation films that got the attention of the critics and the audience alike. Most of the CGI animated films (from the wretchedly unfunny Robots to the dull time-waster A Shark's Tale) fell flat on their faces, achieving only embarrassment for their respective studios. This year seems more fruitful for the CGI films (except for Ice Age 2 which was a lifelessly unhumorous piece of junk) with the entry of the surprisingly Pom Poko rip-off and slap-on-your-face critique of American food-worshipping Over the Hedge and now, John Lasseter's sentimental tribute to the yesteryears Cars.

Cars' concept is far-fetched. The setting seems like an alternate universe wherein human beings never existed and these mechanical vehicles are as biological as you and I. The cars have eyes (with genetic qualities such as eyecolor size). Their front bumpers morph into mouth shapes, and lastly, these car-creatures have personalities, histories, and romantic interests. The main character here is Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), a rookie celebrity race car who has found himself in the middle of nowhere, in a forgotten off-interstate highway town called Radiator Springs. The citizens of Radiator Springs consist of outrageous personalities. There is the rusty tow truck Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), who immediately befriends the unfriendly newcomer. There is Doc Hudson (Paul Newman), the town leader who holds a mysterious past. And then there's the love interest, Sally Carrera (Bonnie Hunt). In a matter of days, Lightning McQueen needs to fix the town's road, and learn some qualities that will help him win the Piston Cup in California.

Cars is definitely not Pixar's best film, I'd hand that out to Brad Bird's The Incredibles. If anything, Cars feels more like a rehash of the themes already discussed in Toy Story 2. Lasseter comes off as an overgrown kid who seems to be stuck in an age wherein all that he can do is reminisce. Cars is too busy reminiscing about the days of old that it frequently forgets to say something substantial about the present. Sure, there's the whole lot about personal connections being overtaken by the needs of progress and speed, but that point also has to do with nostalgia. Pixar should learn to jump away from the confines of its safety zone if it truly wants to be novelle. The only thing that Pixar shows that it's a progressive studio is the fact that its films grow more beautiful and beautiful every year. The details in this film are marvelous, almost life like. Despite the unsatisfactory character designs of the cars, the animators were able to insert an adequate amount of humanity to the windshields and the bumpers of these human-like machines. However, technology does not make a good movie studio. It is guts, it is daring and Cars is just one and the same as all its predecessors. It's always about the inevitability of change and its reminder of our solid resistance of not forgetting the virtues of the past. It's the same with The Incredibles wherein superheroes and the virtues they stood for were outlawed and are forgotten, but are sought to be rediscovered. It is the same with Finding Nemo where the memories of a traumatic past hound the growth of a future hope. Pixar should do something a little bit more socially conscious rather than its well-made, well-told yet fluffily safe films. However, with its merger with the junk factory Disney, i doubt Pixar will ever grow out of the mold it has steadily attached itself to. ****/*****

Monday, June 12, 2006

Mon, 12 Jun 2006 14:34:03 GMT

Maicling pelicula nañg ysañg indio nacional (O Ang Mahabang Kalungkutan ng Katagalugan) - Raya Martin

Southeast Asian cinema is an oft neglected area in world cinema. Outside the confines of your typical J-horror rip-offs or your muay thai stunt extravaganzas, Southeast Asia probably has the most progressive and most interesting films that are produced. Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul uses cinema to mystify social and cultural issues (or even non-issues) in a freeflowing, seamless, and almost natural resonance. Pen-ek Ratanaruang borrows Hollywood conventions, and later on world cinema (mostly French and indie American), to discuss Thailand and most of Asian in its present form of disconnect. The most maverick of all Southeast Asian filmmakers is Lav Diaz who foregoes conventions of commercially imposed running times in favor of real time immersion leading to a fully comprehensible reckoning of his themes. Probably the most promising is Raya Martin, who at 22, has already made a masterpiece, Maicling pelicula nañg ysañg indio nacional (O Ang Mahabang Kalungkutan ng Katagalugan).

Raya Martin's film can be divided into two parts. The first part, or the prologue, is in color and is accompanied by sound (mostly the barking of the dogs in the background). The prologue focuses on a woman who is unable to get some sleep. The woman's inability to sleep is a difficulty to watch. It's as if a huge burden is imposed upon her consciousness that it would be difficult, almost a sin, for her to lay to rest. She wakes her husband and begs for a story. The husband then tells his wife a story about a young boy who meets an old man who is carrying a coffin. The old man asks the boy if he can help him bury the coffin, which supposedly contains the remains of all the fake leaders who poisoned the land. The boy scoffs which makes the old man reveal himself as the Philippines. The monologue of the husband is prolonged and very emotional. The storytelling session is as painful to watch and listen to as the wife squirming in her mat, troubled and unable to sleep. The lamp dies and the second part of the film begins.

The second part is a series of silent film vignettes, accompanied by a live piano recital of Schumann, Chopin, Ligeti, Beethoven and Mozart. The vignettes hint of a plot regarding a young boy (a church bellringer) who is joked by his fellow youngsters which side he is on. Then follows the story of a teenager who signs up to become a member of the Philippine Revolution but is later disappointed when, upon dreaming of a sunrise for his beloved nation, goes into battle, not knowing that such attack was postponed. The second part ends with the story of a young barrio actor who spends most of his time rehearsing for a Spanish play while the barrio is in the midst of war. Interspersed within the thin plotlines are vignettes of the everyday actualities of rural life during the time of the Philippine Revolution. Interestingly, the vignettes are mostly about religion, revolution, and death. The film ends in a sudden, and suggestively pessimistic note.

The film is an imperfect yet tremendous piece of work. While the second part hints of whimsical, almost humorous tales and adventures of the young pre-revolution Filipino, it is also suggestive of the Filipinos' lack of identity, of its fickle-mindedness, which brings about a fate of prolonged sorrow. The film is elyptical. It begins with prolonged woe, with the wife's troubles and the husband's suggested sorrowful past, continues with a recounting of history, and ends with a conclusion of a nation's destiny of sadness. Raya Martin is of an age of Filipinos deprived of its history. History is learned through schools and books whose own sources are questionable results of centuries of colonial rule. Simply put, Martin is of an age where the history learned is the history of the privileged. The heroes of the Philippine Revolution are the illustrados, the wealthy, the learned and the titled. The indios (commoners) are merely pawns, foot soldiers of a revolution that led to the nation's supposed freedom from the clutches of colonialism. But has the nation outgrown its colonial masters when its own history is clouded by foreign historians who neglect the common people. Sadly, I think Martin believes that ours is a nation that is bereft of a national identity. That is why he fashions his film as something a native Filipino will make if he is handed a primitive motion camera in the midst of the Philippine Revolution. He will not capture the drafting of treaties or the promulgation of constitutions, what he will capture are the less than grandiose, if not droll and mundane, non-effects of the War. There will be an abundance of religious articles, as that is what he was forcefed with. There will be a lot of deaths, as such is a natural effect of poverty and slavery. There will be humorous sketches that display the Filipinos' ignorance and deprivation of knowledge. That is the magic of Martin's work - it is a recreation of a past that was never recorded because such is not what made this nation the Philippines. In a depressing note though, the deprivation of such and the reliance on written history based on the actions of the privileged is what made this nation what it is now - sorrowful, impoverished and in the verge of being hopeless. *****/*****

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 12:14:18 GMT

The Ballad of Cable Hogue - Sam Peckinpah

After staining the cineplexes with images of bloodied cowboys in The Wild Bunch and confirming his reputation as the director who unflinchingly depicts violence, Sam Peckinpah follows it up with a lyrical tale of the most unlikely survivor, Cable Hogue (Jason Robards). After being robbed by two men of all his belongings including a canteen of water, Cable Hogue was left hungry and thirsty in the middle of the desert until he miraculously discovers a watering hole. Hogue, relying on his intuition and sparse social skills, befriends a travelling lecherous preacher (David Warner), who helps him establish a business of providing refreshments for passers by. In town, he falls for the local whore Hildy (Stella Stevens). Even after years of steady business, Cable Hogue still keeps in his heart the desire to take revenge on the two men who robbed him and left him for dead in the middle of the desert. The Ballad of Cable Hogue is a curious Peckinpah film. First and foremost, violence here, or even the notion of such, is very controlled. It is as if Peckinpah is washing away all the blood he has directed to be spilt in his previous films by making a film that is almost entirely contrary to his cinematic principles. Surprisingly, despite the lack of violence, The Ballad of Cable Hogue still remains to be a true Peckinpah film. There is still the upfront eroticism, the playful sexual comedy between Hogue and Hildy which replaces the visual delight of red blood gushing out of human flesh. The character of the preacher is a mighty ingenious commentary on hypocrisy - that the word of religion does not necessarily translate to miracles, that one can only trust the world no matter how dry and dead it looks. The Ballad of Cable Hogue is set during the time where automobiles are starting to take the place of horse carriages. In the end of the film, Hogue decides to leave the desert and see the world then the film won't let him. It's as if Peckinpah is signalling the end of the Western film - that the cowboy stays with the earth that gave him new life and survival. It's very beautiful and I'd like to think of the film as one of Peckinpah's masterpieces. *****/*****