(500) Days of Summer (Marc Webb, 2009) November 7, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in Hollywood, Music.35 comments
Written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber
Directed by Marc Webb
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Chloë Moretz
If I were to write this in the third person, I might not make it till the next paragraph. For a film like (500) Days of Summer I don’t think such distance in description is necessary. Prior to the film the last time I felt the need to talk with a lot of people to know what they think (or what’s wrong with me, friends?) is Slumdog Millionaire. It’s not like any other talk; it’s talk with laps of shouting and arguing, almost with a hint of endlessness. Thankfully, with one’s inability to articulate, which comes in the most appropriate of circumstances, the conversations had to end. I lean on emotional writing with regard to these things. Such expression of thoughts can be helpful to accept that the difference of opinion is healthy. But I am pretty sure that no amount of writing—and no power of persuasion in writing—can dissuade you from loving the film. Since we mostly relate to it emotionally, here’s what my wires have told me.
(500) Days of Summer may all boil down to J. D. Salinger. Tom and Summer love “Bananafish.” Whatever Tom is referring to when he said that, it brings to mind Salinger’s famous short story. To make matters weirdly incidental, the name of the actor who plays Summer alludes to one of the writer’s characters, Zooey Glass. But I’m not hitting on those. What I want to introduce for discussion is one of Salinger’s under-published stories, “The Heart of a Broken Story.” It ends with these words:
“And that’s why I never wrote a boy-meets-girl story for Collier’s. In a boy-meets-girl story the boy should always meet the girl.”
The boy should always meet the girl. Of course. It wouldn’t be a boy-meets-girl story if the boy doesn’t meet the girl, right? In Salinger’s story, the boy never actually meets the girl. The bulk of it tells what may have happened if they meet, narrated humorously in the writer’s wickedly deadpan voice. Salinger is said to be poking fun at the trend of short stories getting published in American magazines that time, thus his mention of Collier’s, and “The Heart of a Broken Story” makes it clear that one can get out of the box to write a meaningful yet entertaining play on the subject. With these opening lines how can that be disproved:
“Every day Justin Horgenschlag, thirty-dollar-a-week printer’s assistant, saw at close quarters approximately sixty women whom he had never seen before. Thus in the few years he had lived in New York, Horgenschlag had seen at close quarters about 75,120 different women. Of these 75,120 women, roughly 25,000 were under thirty years of age and over fifteen years of age. Of the 25,000 only 5,000 weighed between one hundred five and one hundred twenty-five pounds. Of these 5,000 only 1,000 were not ugly. Only 500 were reasonably attractive; only 100 of these were quite attractive; only 25 could have inspired a long, slow whistle. And with only 1 did Horgenschlag fall in love at first sight.”
That’s how it has always been. There is the observer; and there is the one being observed. The case of (500) Days of Summer is not the boy-meets-girl but the boy-meets-girls. It is the boy who makes the move, the boy who wants to meet the girl, and the boy who ends up alone but hopeful. But that’s clearly a matter of formula. The film follows that crazy old pattern of short stories that Salinger is making fun of, only in a different place and time, different films and music to allude to, and different ways to express acceptance or rejection. But as I mentioned, it is the boy-meets-girls.
In this context, the boy may actually represent all the boys in the world. Well, to make it specific, the boy may all be the boys who relate to the film (not gender-based, of course), all the boys who believe in true love, and all the boys who believe in happily ever after. In short, all the boys who believe. But in this subgenre of love stories, the girls are not similar to them in terms of what they want and who they want to be with. They are presented as vague, confusing, indecisive, fickle, and cruel beings who leave the boys in trauma. They are mostly beautiful—as what most of the popular boy-meets-girl films show, and as what most descriptions of fictionists want us to believe—because that’s what attracted them to the boys in the first place. Their beauty is not just physical though; they also possess a certain difference, a certain quality that makes their slightest movement like an elaborate sensual dance in the boys’ eyes, their spoken words like music to their ears. The boy pursues them. With the low-profile personality he possesses, unlike the jocks in school or the boy-next-door type that the girls swoon over, the boy uses his charm. The girls never show any hint that they don’t like to be pursued. And the boy and the girl, the first to be pursued, start to have a relationship.
In Tom’s case, the charm is music. The narrator tells us that Tom “grew up believing that he’d never truly be happy until the day he met the one,” a belief which stems from his “early exposure to sad British pop music and a total misreading of The Graduate.” He believes his affection for Summer was confirmed when she expressed her admiration for The Smiths. He wears Joy Division shirts. He sings Pixies in a bar. He dances in the street accompanied by a Hall and Oates song. Music, in (500) Days of Summer, is like the air that keeps resuscitating it. To stay on track, it plays music. To not lose us, it plays another cool song. When Tom decides to move on, it plays The Temper Trap again. Its constant allusion and incessant borrowing calls for the pastiche police—the hodgepodge lessening the otherwise meaningful use of music, and making it flat and disappointing upon recognition.
Expectations and reality work here. I expect that the music will hold water—considering my professed love not only for sad British music but also for sad music in general—but in reality it is just there to be played. Like when I was in college and I was making short films, I wanted to have that “La, la, la, la, la / La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la” hook in the refrain of Blur’s “For Tomorrow” to be included in my work because I thought it’s cool to have it there. And no one, conceited me thinking, would recognize it. I was looking forward that someone would ask me where’d I get the song, and they would think, “Oh, that guy, he listens to cool music,” and that would make me feel good. But that didn’t happen. I had more problems in writing the script than putting some good pop music in my film. Anyway, I wouldn’t dare accuse (500) Days of Summer of using songs just to make it look cool, but when I realize numerous times while watching how just a mere reference can unmake a beautiful story, and how a music played is different from a music usefully contributing to the film, I have to concede disfavor.
(*On second thought, hopping from one film to another, even if you remove all the songs in Pretty in Pink and leave only the Ottis Redding lip-synch number of Duckie or OMD’s “If You Leave” in the prom night ending, it would still be the most memorable love story of its generation. But not the same will happen to High Fidelity; you remove the music, and it’s butterfly effect.)
(**Also, take this obese word and you’d be surprised by its four-letter root word: OVERINTERTEXTUALITY. That’s the thought that crossed my mind, and it’s not yet in the Google search engine dictionary. (500) Days of Summer balloons the Text into a fat, fat idea. There is no disrespect in terms of music use—it’s sweet and pleasing—because there is nothing to say about it at all. And that’s I—I—first person, my opinion, so keep the gun in the holster, please.)
Tom and Summer break up after seeing The Graduate, the film whose ending he was said to misinterpret. He believes that love is like that, finding the right one and ending happily together. But where is the misinterpretation in that? Nichols has made it certain to be uncertain. It is us who interpret the fading smile, the uncomfortable look on the lovers’ faces, and the Simon and Garfunkel music as the bus drives away. Summer cries while watching that scene. Unlike Tom, she knows all along the sad reality ahead of her, the blank truth of love. That’s why she says to him, “There’s no such thing as love. It’s fantasy.” She lives in that state of reason, of pragmatism. Like Anna Karina in My Life To Live watching Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, she cries for reasons that the film has provoked in her, but she can’t tell what. She crumbles when that happens.
Going back to our Salinger reference, I am just saying that in the interest of this type of movies, the ratio is one to infinity. One boy is to infinite number of girls. That’s why it should be boy-meets-girls. The boy always needs to meet a new girl when the previous one dumped him. And the girl who dumps the boy, what happens to her? We don’t know. We don’t really know. Not that we wanted to know, but the film is not curious about her, so we are just as limited as the film itself. There is a conscious effort to make Summer appear mysterious—distant in such a way that knowing her more will gravely affect her image—because after all, as always mentioned in reviews, Summer is not just a person but a phase in a boy’s life, part of his growing up, of his maturity. It is the boy’s life that is regarded more importantly, his feelings, and his moving on. Girls are just around, waiting to be pursued.
Now, to put an end to these thoughts, I am calling the attention of hipsters. A friend, whose generation is slightly behind mine (and by slightly, I mean that as a kind friend), called me a hipster for not liking it, and told me that otherwise, I’m just pretending to be one because I can’t be cool all the time. Damn, those S Club 7 and LFO songs he saw in my iPod gave me away. But then again, there is confusion as we deal with definition of terms. According to Wikipedia:
“Hipster is a slang term that first appeared in the 1940s, and was revived in the 1990s and 2000s often to describe types of young, recently-settled urban middle class adults and older teenagers with interests in non-mainstream fashion and culture, particularly alternative music, independent rock, independent film, magazines such as Vice and Clash, and websites like Pitchfork Media. In some contexts, hipsters are also referred to as scenesters.
“Hipster has been used in sometimes contradictory ways, making it difficult to precisely define “hipster culture” because it is a “mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, tastes and behavior[s].” One commentator argues that “hipsterism fetishizes the authentic” elements of all of the “fringe movements of the postwar era—Beat, hippie, punk, even grunge,” and draws on the “cultural stores of every unmelted ethnicity” and “gay style”, and “regurgitates it with a winking inauthenticity” and a sense of irony.”
Hipster, for sure, operates based on what is perceived as non-mainstream. It is meant to avoid the choices of the status quo. But since times are always changing, what qualify as hipster qualities also change, not to mention its slippery meaning, which varies depending on the place and the people who define the said culture. Essentially, there is the usual labeling and hierarchy—sub-hipster, sub-sub-hipster, pseudo-hipster, semi-hipster, punk-hipster, metal-hipster, rock-hipster, etc.—and there goes the perils of counterculture. There is always contradiction, and there is always ignoring the said contradiction. Summer doesn’t believe in love—that’s cool. But Summer got married in the end—that’s still cool. Perception changes, that’s hipster culture. As long as you are alienated, you are hip.
For a moment, I felt that my dislike for (500) Days of Summer is brought about by my backward mindset—that I was too old to appreciate it, that my love for lyrical movies will never be matched, and that I am just that: backward. I am thinking, if (500) Days of Summer is told chronologically, would I find it effective? If Summer’s character is explored, would I still be looking at Zooey Deschanel as the wife of Ben Gibbard singing “Sentimental Heart”? If I hadn’t known The Smiths and Pixies before seeing it, would I download their songs right when I get home and share with my friends how cool they are? And finally, if I were a believer of love as much as Tom is, would it strike me as heart-tugging the way it ends with such hope of finding an Autumn after Summer? But if all these ifs happen, would it still be the coolest film of the year?
* Salinger, J. D. “The Heart of a Broken Story.” Esquire XVI. p. 32, 131-133. September 1941.
The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh, 2009) November 4, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in Hollywood, Literature.1 comment so far
Written by Scott Z. Burns
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, Joel McHale
You can tell when the book you’re reading is going to end. You just look at the last page and see how close you are to it. You can likewise tell when the movie you’re watching is about to finish. You look at your watch, approximate the film to the usual running time of two hours, and there, credits at your prediction. But we watch movies to avoid that, to avoid thinking of the obvious, not to be aware of time. Often it is the movies that make us stay in the theater for long that we remember—out of experience. Importantly, it’s not the when but the how. The Informant! requires a lot of hows to be shown, but the good thing about it is that you just have to wait for it to finish, and it will all make sense.
Matt Damon is the ! in The Informant!—that’s for sure. The beauty of his character is that you want him to get caught and not to get caught at the same time. Here you have an executive of an agricultural company cooperating with the FBI against his own company, thinking in the end that he will be elected as CEO after the well-supported pursuit of his price-fixing allegation, and hoping to save himself when his scams are exposed. He’s loony—but it’s an understatement to call him loony after all the years he managed to continue dovetailing the company and the FBI. The crazy lies he makes, seemingly unaware but unadulterated, pile up like Uno Stacko waiting to collapse anytime.
Soderbergh avoids making another Erin Brockovich—the championing of human spirit, the tasteful blend of quirks and generalities—and fails. The Informant! is just like it turned upside down. Mark Whitacre and Erin Brockovich took their convictions with them till the end, and on their behalf, Matt Damon and Julia Roberts made them memorable characters. A film earns the right to be dazed and confused only when it is funny, and when it is so goddamn incredulous you start to believe it. When The Informant! ends I actually wonder why the hell I watched it. The music rolls everything into a snowball, which hits the pins in my head to turn me sober. But the trouble was worth it.
(PS. Let’s keep this a secret. I chose watching The Informant! over Jennifer’s Body and Astroboy because of the exclamation point in its title. The basis of the movie—The Informant by Kurt Eichenwald—does not have it, and I thought perhaps that will make all the difference. I suppose the movie can manage without it—but without the !, seriously, I may not be too keen on seeing it. I can be petty like that when pettiness is concerned.)
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (Dario Argento, 1970) October 31, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in European Films, Festival, Literature.add a comment
Directed by Dario Argento
Written by Bryan Edgar Wallace and Dario Argento
Cast: Tony Musante, Suzy Kendall, Enrico Maria Salerno
For some reason, the vivid image of crawling stays in my mind after watching The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, and up to now, weeks after seeing it, it is still that image that pushes me to write about it. I do remember a lot of crawling, but I can’t remember them specifically, except that scene when the girlfriend is trapped inside the apartment and the killer hacks the door to get in. The girl acts like she was killed already, wailing and not doing much to escape, but she tries to open the window at some point. When she realizes that her death is near, she crawls on the floor and cries. I can’t remember if she fainted, but when her boyfriend arrives, the killer walks away and her savior gets in to rescue her. There is something thrilling about that scene, yet there is also something funny about it—ludicrous even to the point of distraction.
What most fans say about Argento’s first film is not really false. In comparison with his latter films—Suspiria being the most immediate work that comes to mind—The Bird With The Crystal Plumage is too weak to fly, well, if you get the lousy figure of speech. But strangely, I still find it very entertaining. Not that the fans don’t find it entertaining, or my taste gravely matters, but I don’t find it as disappointing as most of them do. The genre that the film belongs to—the giallo, which in Italian means yellow, named after the series of paperback novels of mostly yellowish covers—is remarkable for pushing a tradition of suspense-thriller films that are characterized by their stylish visual elements, often too polished and theatrical, and unconventional use of music. The “cheapness” of the pulp novels is usually emphasized, although when giallo started to be popular in film, the language has been defined to offer an alternative to schlock horror, punctuating the use of technique to help the story achieve a distinct pacing and atmosphere. It is in this context that The Bird With The Crystal Plumage would be appreciated, as an early potent example of the genre.
Yet the crawling could have been Argento himself trying to figure out the aesthetics of giallo. Like his inquisitive main character, who is a writer like himself, he is risking discovery by being nosy, by relentlessly holding on to what he wants even if it means getting killed or, in Argento’s case, reaching failure. It’s helpful that he has two wonderful artists with him to lend a hand: Vittorio Storaro—whose photography moves even when the scene is static, and stays even when the scene is moving—and Ennio Morricone—whose “lalalala” music keeps ringing like a broken record, adding a bizarre texture to Storaro’s strong visuals. It’s more of miscalculation than consistency, come-hitherness than vapidness, and tenderness than stoicism, that make The Bird With The Crystal Plumage work. When the killer’s husband falls from the window, slipping from the hands of the main character, the camera, taking his point of view, falls too. It’s a classic Argento device—playing with the point of view to build up the tension—that still looks fresh and astonishing up to now.
To Siomai Love (Remton Siega Zuasola, 2009) October 28, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in Asian Films, Cinemanila, Noypi, Short Cuts.add a comment
Directed by Remton Siega Zuasola
Written by Dona Gimeno, Marvin Rubio, Remi Sola
Cast: Dona Gimeno, Marvin Rubio, Nathaniel Rubio, Gerard Piodos
Love knows no weather. It will barge into your door come hell or high water, even if the door is locked, or even if there is no door to begin with. Doors—we have a lot of them. We keep them locked, we keep them open, we keep them free for anyone to enter, we keep them ajar sometimes, but we always keep them where they are. We don’t want to change the location of our doors because we’re thinking someone might visit again—wishful, of course, but that’s how we are. Only a few bother to believe that love not only enters through doors. We have windows, dog doors, doorknob holes, peepholes everywhere. And the unexpected goes into one of them, To Siomai Love included. It’s like watching an eclipse, except that we don’t have the sun, the moon, and the earth. But three elements are still present: the two lovers and their newly found love. The lovers choose their role—be the moon, or be the earth. Love will always be the sun. The sun gives the two lovers the excitement to get to know each other, the rush of blood to their heart, the flow of words to their tongue. Considering that beautiful moment—when the couple talk and talk, talk and talk and talk, flirt and flirt, flirt and flirt and flirt, laugh and laugh, laugh and laugh and laugh—there are no other variables of failure, except chance. Or maybe human error. Or just plain assholeness. Or life. Departure has to happen. No numbers exchanged, just the gut feel of seeing each other again, trusting the sun, the moon, and the earth to meet again, to be pulled by gravity. But things happen—and things don’t. Wanting love is not even wrong; but not forcing it is not even right. The film bursts into melodic tune when it ends, Fran Healy singing “Take me, don’t leave me, Take me, don’t leave me,” only you hear it virtually, looping till the next short.
Biyaheng Lupa (Armando Lao, 2009) October 27, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in Asian Films, Cinemanila, Festival, Indie Sine, Noypi.6 comments
English Title: Soliloquy
Written and directed by Armando Lao
Cast: Jaclyn Jose, Julio Diaz, Coco Martin, Angel Aquino
In an interview by Fanny A. Garcia, entitled “Armando ‘Bing’ Lao: Mula Mainstream Films tungo sa Indie Films, Mula Scriptwriter tungo sa Creative Producer,” Lao expresses his dismay on the lack of credit given to writers, of which he cited how local and foreign film communities regard directors as the sole authors of films. It is a culture, according to Lao, that even the academe is responsible for. Writers are often seen as secretaries of directors, they are obviously treated inferior to them, and most of the time they are neglected in the festival entourage. The writer creates the material, the director interprets it, so how come the director takes most of the credit?
Upon seeing Biyaheng Lupa on its premiere in the 11th Cinemanila Film Festival, I am both a proud student and a pleased audience. His attempt to prove his point in Garcia’s interview clearly shows his sterling ability not just as a writer but also as a director, as he risks to make his strengths and weaknesses visible. For a first film, it is always a good sign to see some weakness. Weakness dictates following, and weakness is truth. Once the disbelief is suspended, Lao starts to guide his characters one by one as their stories unfold and, interestingly, overlap.
The surface of the story initially rests on interest. The bus carries the characters from the city to Legaspi, Albay. Along the way, it picks passengers, halts at bus stops, and drops them off to their destinations. As far as the narrative is concerned, the story is just that, plain and simple. But here’s the trick, when the door of the bus closes, after that moment when the mute character gets into the vehicle, we get to hear what these passengers are thinking. We get to hear their thoughts, their intentions, their motives, their past and their present, their future, their musings on everything—their stories. Lao runs a risk in doing this, as it appears as a limited experiment, but the touch of quirk has made it serious and complex. There is the huge probability of failure—more likely if the material is not handled by the writer himself—but the sensitivity of the “dialogues,” the familiarity of the characters, and the relationship that comes out of them dominate.
What makes it work is that Lao did not take the writer’s cap off his head. He is practically in control. It is a writer’s film by all means, an exercise that shows his range and ability to share a world he created, to allow us to enter it, belong, and mingle with his characters. Through the unconventional storytelling, he has able to deliver a credible introspection of these people. He has also managed to study them more intimately, closer to their heart, and deeper to their soul. We respond to their thoughts—we laugh at them, we feel bad about their chances, we bully their stinking attitude, and we commiserate with their troubles. Lao not only gives them legs to stand, but also an extra pair to stroll around and have fun. The humor connects and pinches, making its style look effortless, believable—praiseworthy.
In Lao’s use of symbolic time, three important points become clear. First, time is very relative to the characters. Second, the characters are one with their realities. And third, the subject is equal to the environment. In our class, Lao barely discussed symbolic time since he was more concerned with real time, pushing us to explore more about our chosen milieus. But he left a short note about the subject, and here it is, in bullets:
> Story is phenomenological
> Timeline is condensed
> Plotting is rhizomic
> Character is subjectified
> Exposition is impressionistic
> Resolution is existential
There are theories involved in Lao’s writing process. He is scrupulous. He tries every possible turn that his story can take. He dresses his characters and puts them in different situations. He checks their credibility, if they speak right, if their problems are reasonable, if their actions are believable. These things are necessary regardless of time mode—dramatic, real, or symbolic—and regardless of the writer’s choice to overlap the three, which is what most of the time happens. Unlike his usual scripts, Biyaheng Lupa is essentially symbolic; the form is noticeable in its use of time, and the handling of the characters in relation to each other. While form is favored, content does not suffer. Each has a story to tell, and each contributes to the portrait that Lao is trying to paint. The tone is carefully sustained, especially when it shifts to “reality”—when the characters are out of the bus and start to talk, when we hear “real” conversations as opposed to meandering thoughts and private musings.
Only in the end it chooses to be dramatic. The execution is poetic, alright, but the effect is out of place. While it could have chosen to end in the long shot of the bridge—that slow, uncertain feeling of staying in the middle of something, the night clad in pitch black, the road ahead enigmatic, the moon and the stars sleeping—it chooses to awaken the emotions we tried to keep away while watching the film by ending with tragedy. It disturbs the beautifully-set mood with a drastic turning point, which pounds my ear with a bit of betrayal, of making the unpredictable and unsatisfying turn. Clearly, this is a writer’s decision.
But what I recognize as weakness in its conclusion is part of Lao’s growth as a writer-director—something inevitable, something natural and understandable. The annoyance to the culture of authorship has pushed him to wear both hats; and seeing him now control his own material, imagining him taking chances with the possibilities not only with words but also with sounds and images, is welcoming. It is every writer’s dream: his contribution to be acknowledged. And Biyaheng Lupa—with the ripeness of its concept and the completeness of its thought—makes every writer in this side of town happily proud.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (John Hughes, 1986) October 25, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in Festival, Hollywood.2 comments
Written and directed by John Hughes
Cast: Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, Jeffrey Jones
Truth is, at some point in our lives, we all want to be Ferris Bueller. We want to be the cool guy. We want the admiration of people we don’t know. We want everything to work out for us. We want a bestfriend like Cameron and a girlfriend like Sloane. We want parents who’ll wake us up every morning and check if we’re sick, and if we are, we want them to tell us not to worry about school because we’re more important than school, and we don’t deserve school when we’re sick. Ferris Bueller is too big to enter the dictionary, too big that he isn’t used in common conversations. But he has easily passed into our consciousness—even into our unconsciousness. He has penetrated our minds, our idea of life, our dreams, our fantasies, and their fulfillment. But Ferris is not the incredible—he is the impossible. Hughes gives him the perfect day off to tell us that it is alright to dream—that a day off is just that: a day off. But now we’ve grown up, still coping with mostly similar degree of problems, we don’t want just a day off. We want weeks off, months off, years off, decades off, a life off. That one day in Ferris’s life impressed its euphoria on us, and we hear the little voices in our head cheering us up, wanting to do the same. Like the bands Save Ferris and Rooney, we want that day to stay in our memory, to linger, to have a piece of it for us to remember. We want to give it a name.
We have imbibed Ferris’s outlook as we mature, only to realize that it is starting to wear off. We become Cameron—though truth is, we really are Cameron since the beginning. Cameron is not the antithesis of Ferris, he maybe is Ferris late in his life, or Ferris when he is not in a day off. Should we think of Ferris as a wonderful creation of Hughes, we should also not dismiss Cameron’s charming role because he makes Ferris work. We relate to Cameron’s personal and family problems even if we don’t see them, even if we don’t see his father smother him after crashing the Ferrari into the ground. Whereas we see Ferris’s problems—in school, Ed Rooney chasing him, his sister’s jealousy upon seeing him get away with all his mischief–we know he is not going to end up caught. On the other hand, we know Cameron will get the beating not only from his father, but also from life. Reality bites, but reality could be bitten back. Cameron learns he can also choose not to care.
While Ferris is busy entertaining the crowd with “Danke Schön” and insaning them afterwards with “Twist and Shout,” Sloane asks Cameron about his plans. She asks, “What are you interested in?” He answers candidly, “Nothing!” That scene, crowded by a certain tinge of merriment and dysphoria, feels so sincere and familiar that we try to convince ourselves that Cameron’s character was inspired by us, despite knowing that we were not born yet when the film was made. Cameron admits later that the day off was indeed the best day of his life. Come to think of it, the day off—which is an effort to escape from life’s dragging monotony, its consuming sadness and its common troubles—is a display of resignation, of submission to life, of embracing all the Ed Rooneys in the world after the only day when we’re allowed to be free.
We look back in the 80s and we notice the beautiful garden of high school movies that John Hughes, whose stories remarkably stood out, has written. We remember the actors—Molly Ringwald, Andrew McCarthy, Emilio Estevez, Matthew Broderick, Anthony Michael Hall, Mary Stuart Masterson—and we want to be their friends, we love to be their boyfriend or girlfriend, we want to be in their school—to see them, to stare at them as they pass in the hallway, to be their friend in the detention, to be their seatmate in European Socialism class. Even if we were not born yet that time and we watch them now, it is impossible not to connect, not to feel the slightest tinge of nostalgia, of innocence, of love. His plots are tightly written, conceived with a broken heart but an intelligent mind. He blesses his characters with painful truthfulness, that again, at some point in our lives, while watching and crying our hearts out, we remember having spoken their lines, delivering their heartaches, confessing their love, crying their tears, embracing their embrace, kissing their kiss.
Hughes’s feat is making it appear so light and simple yet every single plot in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off delivers a complex appropriation of truth and ironies. We have institutions willfully ignored, parents being lied to, good friends getting swayed by a truant, a city parade interrupted by a smart aleck—and it’s all fine; in the end, everything just follows the path of pleasure, where leisure rules. We write a letter to the Pope, asking, Dear Pope, what in the world is wrong with self-gratification? Films like these don’t age. When Hughes died, someone made a banner that says, Comedy is when your movie is still funny twenty years later. And here it stands, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, as large as life, as hedonic as the ending of Some Kind of Wonderful. It’s like hearing someone say the words cellar door, and the door in our minds immediately open to lock the good memories in. And like being mesmerized by “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” we realize that turning points are always along the way.
Lola (Brillante Mendoza, 2009) October 21, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in Asian Films, Cinemanila, Festival, Indie Sine, Noypi.3 comments
Directed by Brillante Mendoza
Written by Linda Casimiro
Cast: Anita Linda, Rustica Carpio, Tanya Gomez, Jhong Hilario
Rumor has it that Lola was admired in the Venice Film Festival because the audience there was moved by the glaring similarity between their city and our own. The sight of the surrounding waters and the boats that transport people from one place to another in the film may have reminded them of the lovely canals and gondolas of their city. They may have been particularly impressed by our gondeliers who don’t wear shirts even if the weather is cold. Seeing the rows of houses built on these high waters may have caused them to cringe—because they lack the beauty of their own monuments and buildings, the bridges that connect them together, and the romantic feeling that one gets while looking at them. Surely, our Venice is no place to propose a marriage. The audience may have also related to the strong rains and flooding, which they have come to regard as common occurrences in their everyday life since their city was built. They know how it feels like living above water. They even have tourists visiting them just to look at their life. The stories about the sinking of Venice may have also crossed their mind. But supposing the rumor is true, what could possibly be wrong with their emotional familiarity with the film?
Just to clarify, we don’t call them gondolas. We call them boats because boats are used in our small rivers in the province. We don’t call them canals too. They’re just plain and simple “flowing water” to us, not “streets paved with water” because we really have streets—they’re just covered with water. What we refer to as canals are often clogged with garbage that has been there for thousands of years. “Estero” is often used, though it is pejorative, which apparently the Spanish origin of the word is not. We just love to address things in their pejoratives. When you live near the “estero,” you live in the shanty district of the city. Flies mix into your food, rats run beside you as you sleep, and you’re fine with it. It’s easy to get used to the smell. The rows of houses built on these high waters are houses for sure, mostly made of concrete and metal, but some are makeshift shacks made of whatever things their owners can find—scraps of wood, tin cans, cardboards, fabric, tarpaulins, anything to cover their homes from the sun and rain. Their foundations may be strong but we can’t be sure in ten years. We are not sure if Sitio Ilog in Malabon is sinking but aquifers are impossible to find there. We are not sure what the ground is made of because we haven’t really seen how it looks like for a long time. Interestingly, we call these shacks “barong-barong,” and we call our national dress for men “Barong Tagalog.” Furthermore, it is politically incorrect to call these people living in shanties “squatters.” We are advised to call them “urban settlers” because they really are urban settlers.
We have tourists, and they also come to visit us to look at our life but we’re sure they are not happy about it. Yes, they admire our resilience, our smiles amid the misery, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’re pathetic. At the height of the relief operations for the victims of typhoon Ondoy, we see American soldiers stoked by the gleam in these people’s eyes as they receive the goods to feed themselves with after the disaster. But until when they’ll have something to eat we’re not really sure. We can only be sure that the relief goods are temporary. After a certain period of time, as if taken hostage by ailing memory, we go back to the state of calamity that is not caused by natural calamity, but by political calamity, historical calamity, and calamity by natural selection.
We also eat typhoons for breakfast—we have them all year long. Like Venice, we are used to periodic flooding, heavy downpours, and high tides, but we are more wary of tsunamis and landslides. We have landslides even in the city, and recently it is taking its toll on wealthy subdivisions. Flood is one thing; but flooded all year ’round is another. Sitio Ilog in Malabon, Metro Manila, which is the main setting of Lola, is one of our little Venices, with floodwater that never subsides even during summer. The film’s main emotional thrust comes from the mere sight of the place, and while it does not attempt to make the situation of its people dramatic, it appeals like a news story, made compelling just by its telling and the footage that comes along with it.
Brillante Mendoza has always been up for challenges, and among those challenges is either choosing a subject that will fit his location or choosing a location that will fit his subject. Whichever way, he gets the benefit of his interesting subjects. But unfortunately they don’t always work. The danger of his realism is knowing that it can break down any minute, that its fragility can open its doors to failure anytime. There are times when being fragile works though, if it is carefully sustained like Kinatay, but upon seeing Lola and looking back at the experience of seeing Foster Child two years ago, Mendoza seems to go back to that safe road of throwing in brilliant moments to make up for his inability to be terse.
When an argument is repeated, it is meant for emphasis. But when an argument is already sound, and this argument is repeated a number of times, it can only account for indulgence, which is not bad if the intention reaches out to emotions other than anger and depression. But what if that is the intention? And what if that has always been the intention? In the arts, realism often equates to the sordid. Fundamental to the realists are truth and accuracy. While realism, especially in the Philippines, is naturally depressing, it should also be awakening. But realism, if it still needs to be pointed out, should not only be reflected—it should also be interpreted. Unfortunately that’s when Mendoza takes his realism for granted, the part when he has to interpret, the part when he has to lobby the underlying advocacy of his films, the part when he not only needs to put his ear to the ground but also every part of himself.
He is an observer alright. But observers, to be effective, must relay their observations clearly and punctiliously. These observations are used to come up with assumptions—hypotheses which, no matter how far-fetched and maligned, help to find solutions to the problem. Mendoza has strong observations on old age, on human suffering, and on the dragging inefficiency of our political system in general. Suffice it to say that the details of Lola are overwhelming. Problems ooze from various directions: social (robbery and prison), economic (the grandmothers’ struggle for a living), spiritual (faith and resilience), personal (relationships of the characters with each other) and environmental (rains and flood). These are well-founded observations. These happen. These are real. But Mendoza has not able to put them to good use. He hasn’t able to capture the interest in their conflicting realities and the force to make them coherent—that while the theme itself is embracing these stories to drive his point across, the narrative suffers from his graceless hand, from his haphazard way of making us feel the agony of the grandmothers’s fate.
It is easy to be carried away by some of the scenes because they are really effective. The closeups of Anita Linda and Rustica Carpio are like images of endless grief, the lines on their faces trace every hardship they had to bear. The expression of weariness seems to be sculpted on them. Anita Linda walking in a small alley, calling out her grand-grandson, shouting, and eventually glimpsing at a corpse, is harrowing to the bone. The funeral procession also holds the same feeling, only magnified to achieve a cruel epiphany. The aerial shot of boats moving forward makes it poignant, during which the silence among audience members could only mean commiseration. Rustica Carpio’s tedious walk down the stairs, holding on to the rail in every step, validates our sympathy to her. That oddball sequence of catching fish in their flooded house—with every family member delighted by the strange discovery—seems more like an inadvertent parody of Mendoza’s popularity in foreign festivals. In Lola’s brilliant moments, clearly, Teresa Barrozo’s music becomes their life.
There is a reason why people advise you to take your time. There is a reason why some films take years to be finished, and ultimately there is a reason why some films are not finished. To finish a film just for the sake of finishing it—or to be able to participate in a prestigious festival, perhaps—isn’t criminal, in fact it’s mostly reasonable, but it also risks the respect of your peers. While foreign press will not be able to discern the cities of Manila, Mandaluyong, and Malabon, and how they are illogically connected in the narrative, your fellow countrymen will. Foreign festivals are gluttons for punishment, and sadly the film community in your country is slowly turning into that too.
Now we go back to our question in the beginning. What could possibly be wrong with the foreign audience’s emotional familiarity with Lola? Nothing. Film appreciation is interesting because it is personal,and not entirely cultural. It is solely dependent on the person’s taste—his individuality. And Lola is a good example to illustrate this, a pressing case that will fuel discussions on perception. It is impossible not to be moved by its reality, but it stops when it has already accomplished that reality. We ask, should a film cease from continuing its social study when its objective of representing reality is already done? Isn’t that hit and run? Is the film helping our condition if it only continues to dignify our resilience? Our patron saint of words Conrado de Quiros says, “The other face of resilience is a long-suffering people. Or worse, the other face of resilience is an uncomplaining people.” Because when the credits start to roll, we just sit back there and give the film a courtesy clap.
Tag-ulan sa Tag-araw (Celso Ad. Castillo, 1975) October 17, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in Asian Films, Noypi.5 comments
Directed by Celso Ad. Castillo
Written by Mauro Gia Samonte and Celso Ad. Castillo
Cast: Vilma Santos, Christopher de Leon, Eddie Garcia, Lorli Villanueva
Tag-ulan sa Tag-araw is the first screen team-up of Vilma Santos and Christopher de Leon. That fact alone gives the film a unique importance. This partnership paved the way for a string of memorable films together. They played notable roles, shared celebrated scenes, delivered unforgettable dialogues, and reaped acclaim for their performances. Theirs is the ripest love team in Philippine cinema, transcending cheap romance in exchange of maturity, often appearing as a couple in the hardest of circumstances. In Tag-ulan sa Tag-araw, they play cousins who fall in love with each other, and knowing it is socially unacceptable, they try to fall out of it. It seems awkward for a first team-up, considering its taboo subject, but seeing young Vilma and Boyet weep as they fight for their impossible love story, it only shows that they only get better the harder their roles are.
It is already clear in the beginning that their romance is doomed. Rod and Nanette meet in a beach house owned by her parents, who bring Rod along to stay in their place in Manila to study. It is love at first sight—Rod sees her playing along with her friends in the beach and as she runs to get her dog, they exchange names, glances, and affection. Right that very moment, they are in love. They walk around the place, holding hands, sharing their surprise on how comfortable they already are with each other. There is nothing really malicious about it. We all know that their affection is sincere. They have longed for it—and it came.
They enjoyed their freedom. That brief moment when they manage to share that love, untainted, without knowing the limits they are crossing, proves how difficult for them to part. In a maudlin scene that characterizes the softness of the film, the rain falling in a downpour, she asks, “Kuya Rod, puwede bang ibulsa ang ulan?” He answers, “Bakit?” “Gagawin ko lang souvenir.” You can imagine the rain cringing while soaking them wet. But it is more than cheese. It is desperation, the impossibility worsened by the fact thay they will have to see each other everyday after that.
From there it all becomes a matter of control. They are teenagers, both very passionate about the idea of companionship, so control is something new to their senses. And love, at that age, is all-powerful. Even if they will themselves to like other people, they cannot ignore the attraction that pulls them together. That’s the law of magnetism, south poles and north poles attract even if they don’t like being south poles and north poles in the first place. And seeing Rez Cortez as Nanette’s suitor, and the school’s ultimate crush, makes that certain. Their chances are close to nothing, and the film explores that “close to nothing” by situating their relationship in the context of family values—of morality and the implications of not following it. Nanette and Rod, in the middle of everything, their feelings even made stronger by the forbidden, eventually give in to their desires.
The elements needed for a kiss to happen are present. The cold weather is there—it’s as if the rain will pour forever. The sneaky situation is present—the parents go out and and they are stuck somewhere else. The couple will have more time with each other, and yes, only the two of them are left in the house. The tension is rising—the lack of definite solution to their urges, the memory of frolicking in the beach, their sensual mental conversations, their glances when they meet outside their rooms—they all pile up consuming their anxieties. Rod walks out and cries in the rain. Nanette follows him, looking so sexy as the rain wets her clothes. She goes near him and asks why, and they kiss—but it’s no ordinary kiss. Celso Kid blocks our view using a tree! We hear them lock lips for the first time, breathing heavily, nervous, saying I love you, hesitantly kissing yet enjoying it. A clip of Rod making a speech interrupts the scene. Incidentally he is declaiming in front of fellow students about morality as a superstructure, saying, “Morality, like art, like politics, is simply a reflex of the real world,” and even quoting Napoleon Bonaparte, “Morality is indeed on the side of the heaviest artillery.” Whatever that means, their kiss leads to sex—and the sex leads to the parents beating up the devil out of them.
(*On a side note, in Philippine cinema, getting a woman pregnant is the fastest way to denote the passage of time. And there are no rules about it! Even after the couple had sex, the next scene could show the woman puking in the sink, like in the case of Tag-ulan sa Tag-araw. Someone catching her puking is the likeliest scene to happen next, and her mother is the likeliest person to catch her, and the likeliest action is to keep the pregnancy a secret.)
The chances play against the couple, of course. On the parents’ part, knowing that their only daughter is pregnant is bad enough, but knowing that their only daughter is pregnant with immorality (and in this case, both in literal and figurative terms) is unacceptable. It is the violation of all violations, the destruction of all their beautiful dreams. The utter disregard of kin deserves absolute contempt. The dinner scene when the exposition happens is notable for the build-up. Since the father is the only person in the family who doesn’t know it yet, he talks like he is the happiest person in the world. The contrast works. He looks like a complete fool amid the silence of his wife and children. And when he notices it, he becomes very sensitive and vulnerable. He not only flares up—he blows up. We already anticipate the war of the worlds. All hell breaks loose.
Interesting is the use of Nanette’s father’s words: “Kasehodang pinsan mo, pinakialaman mo!” Pinakialaman in Filipino is usually used to refer to objects. When someone says, “Pinakialaman mo na naman ang gamit ko!” it means his things were touched without his permission, perhaps disarranged or misplaced from their proper location. The root word is “pakialam,” which denotes interfering without consent, usually quipped when the person is annoyed by the action of the “nangingialam.” But in Nanette’s father’s usage, the word is more serious. What he meant was her daughter was violated, her innocence abused, she was raped. Personally, the use of “pakialam” when referring to a woman makes it more visual, thus the effective figure of speech.
Okay, let’s skip what happens next because it is easy to guess what happens next. Let us examine the two characters. Nanette still uses Kuya Rod to call her lover. She sticks to calling him Kuya, apparently because it doesn’t matter to her whether he is her cousin or not. She resorts to how she has known him, as a brother. The fact that they’re hiding the relationship, they have to be discreet. But when he calls him Kuya, it sounds very natural—like a name.
Nanette’s willingness to hold onto the relationship is stronger than Rod’s. She fights more, and probably pains more. We remember Nanette shouting recklessly at him when she desperately tries to win their relationship back in the bus. She screams as he walks away, “Sige tumakbo ka. Baka akala mo hahabulin kita. Sobra ka namang magpa-importante a. Akala mo metrong sinusuyo ka lalo ka namang nagpapakipot. Tingnan natin, balang araw hahanapin mo rin ako baka akala mo! Sobra na ito a! Madapa ka sana! Masagasaan ka sana ng bus! Masagasaan ka sana ng dyip! Ng taxi! Masagasaan ka sana ng karitela! Masipa ka sana ng kabayo! Pagsakay mo sana ng elevator mahulog ka sana! Mahuli ka sana ng pulis! Yung wag ka sanang pumasa sa pag-aaral mo! Lumagpak ka sana! Masagasaan ka sana! Magkasakit ka sana! Huwag ka na sanang gumaling! Yung grabeng-grabeng sakit! Yung grabeng-grabe! Mamatay ka na sana! Mamatay ka na sanaaaa!” The whole dialogue deserves to be transcribed because the eternal use of “sana” drives the point across.
Given the circumstances, does it mean she’s stupid? Or she’s more mature? She’s just in love, that’s all—why should this devil called morality get between them? Her mind follows logic, yet the logic that stops them is far stronger than her will. To be fair with Rod, he is like a glass that is about to break anytime. But his fragility is less obvious. He leans more on the “thinking side.” While both Nanette’s feet are ready to jump into the all-or-nothing romance, he keeps one of them on the ground. Not that he doubts the love they have but he realizes the ugly consequences of their actions if they continue. He acts rationally, but there comes a point when he also cannot contain his feelings. Prior to Nanette’s outburst, he also had his moment of shouting while everyone was asleep at night. He was drunk and rambling, and he walked until he got to Ayala Bridge when the police ran after him. The whole dialogue need not be transcribed, but the subtle hint on the political curtain during that time is effective, considering its parallelism.
The problem of love in Tag-ulan sa Tag-araw stems not from the lovers per se but from their ill fate as cousins. The factors are both socially dictated and morally stringent, situations that they cannot change no matter what they do. Even if they go on living together, they will still be hounded by the truth. Wherever they go, that truth cannot be proven false. Fate did two unpardonable things to them: bring them together and break them up. It is inevitable to question if it was their fault—or if their love was a fault at all, or if it was the society’s fault, for imposing the way things should be. The film makes a point of raising doubts on our moral attitudes and obligations, without telling us what is right or wrong but simply showing what happens when the doors of people’s minds are closed forever—when refusal to understand ruins happy couples’s lives.
All desperation peaks in the end. The heartbreaking ten-minute chase stands as a powerful statement on what love can do in the harshest of circumstances. It is a perfectly executed sequence, that aside from showing the extent of possibilities that they are willing to get themselves into just to be together, it also delivers the horror of the couple’s misery, of the inability of their love to win—of losing each other forever. First we see Nanette being dragged down the stairs by her father and brother as she begs for her child not be aborted. Rod, coming from the hospital, arrives and screams for mercy. Not to be moved by their plea, the father drives the car out of the house. Rod runs after it, limping, and chases the car in the middle of the road until he catches up. He hits the car, kicks it, and breaks the window. A lot of bystanders look after them. When he is able to jump into the rear of the car, he struggles to hold onto it, as the father willfully swerves the car to drop him behind. He kisses the window. Nanette struggles against her mother and brother holding her. She tries to touch his face in the window. And he falls—he falls hard on the ground. Getting up, he runs again. Levi Celerio’s “‘Yan Ba’y Kasalanan” plays in the background. Everything feels so real and timeless, it can only be real and timeless.
In My Life (Olivia Lamasan, 2009) October 10, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in Asian Films, Noypi, Queer.9 comments
Directed by Olivia Lamasan
Written by Raymond Lee, Senedy Que and Olivia Lamasan
Cast: Vilma Santos, John Lloyd Cruz, Luis Manzano
It is easy to blame it on distance. They say distance kills families. Distance breeds rebellious children who account their parentless childhood for lack of love towards them. It breeds children who don’t finish school and do drugs instead. It breeds children who would rather party all night than call their parents and ask them how they’re doing. It breeds children who complain they can’t find time to call their parents because it’s so late, why don’t they just call me instead? And when the parents call, Oh, shit, tell them I’m busy. Studying. These children who have always thought that the lack of attention given to them, like Claudine Barretto’s character in Anak, is more important than the attention given to them. They don’t need material things, they don’t need tuition for school, they don’t need extra allowance, they don’t need a secure home and steady future: what they need is the only thing not given to them. Their parents rearing them, being with them, seeing them everyday.
That response to parental distance is not exactly wrong, but the movies made out of it make it appear that distance is the only reason why families break up, and why children lose their lines of communication with their parents. No one wants to go away, no one wants to work abroad and leave their children behind, no one wants to see them brought up by somebody else. But a family has to eat, kids have to go to school, young ladies need nice clothes for the prom, boys need boy things, the house must be repaired, your cousin Boyet has cancer, your Lolo Tasyo died and we have to pay for the coffin and the funeral parlor, and so on and so forth. Necessities pile up, so parents try their luck abroad and stay there for years. Children are left to stay with their lolos and lolas, or titos and titas. Parents send money once or twice a month, send boxes of imported goods, chocolates, clothes, love letters. Years go by. They go back. They see the worth of their sacrifice. Their children have all grown up. They don’t even recognize them, even if they send pictures once a year on their birthdays. But some things are lost, some things are left unsaid between them, or rather, some things are preferred not to be said. The distance mattered. From geographical to emotional, the distance continues to separate them.
But as I said, it is easy to hold the distance responsible. The homebreaker. The murderer of good relationships. We are so acquainted with these overseas worker stories that we tend to limit our understanding and segregate them into labeled “lucky” and “unlucky” boxes. In My Life closes the deal for me upon setting this matter straight. In this case, the son works abroad and the mother follows him, initially for a vacation. After mulling things over, or as it seems, she plans to stay for good. She thinks she has nowhere to go. Her daughter is migrating to Australia. Her former husband and her children prod her to agree to sell the house more than its worth. Staying in New York wouldn’t be a bad idea, especially that she is an American citizen by birth.
The baggage of family problems she carries dents the narrative. Apparently, working in another country is an issue here. But it is not what keeps her family apart. For one, her daughter and her family want to stay in Australia holding on the promise of better life. Her son works in New York after an opportunity given to him by his employer. Or—he chooses to stay because he wants the hell out of his boring life in the Philippines. Or—sounding more judgmental, maybe he just wants to have fun, collect strangers, knit love stories out of them and make himself happy. Or—we just don’t know how many reasons we can come up with. But I wish to raise my tone here. Distance is not the problem. It is the mother’s failure to bring up her children well.
As you see, the same producers who gave us Milan, Dubai, and Caregiver also made For The First Time and Love Me Again. Once love and work are set in another place, they become special. And In My Life is special in the virtue of the mother’s character as a failed one. She spent time with her children trying to raise them like any good mother does. She hardly listened to what they wanted because she thought she knew what’s best for them. She was there, as they all grew up. Along the way, her children made choices, and she was unaware that she was neglecting things that were important to them. Her son’s sexuality, her daughter’s dream of becoming a doctor, her husband’s unknown reason for splitting up. In defense of her character, she did her best. But she failed, and it took its toll on her. Gravely.
She had to realize it—so there goes the fish-out-of-the-water setup in New York. She meets her son’s partner who willingly guides her in the city. The partner is heavily used as a device to reveal her nature. Personally, it is the mother’s relationship with him—as opposed to the mother-son or mother-daughter or mother-herself relationship—that is integral to the film’s premise. The most beautiful part of the film is not when her son confesses to her about his childhood, but when she and her son’s partner exchange snide remarks after the wake, and they argue and throw rocks of guilt at each other. From then on the doubt we raised on her character becomes truth. She has no one to blame for her suffering but herself.
The woman who plays the mother tries hard to be young, which might be the pattern of her recent films. It is not a bad path after all, for one has to graduate from doing the same things for a long time. She has comedic timing, and she has dramatic prowess. When she complains, “Ginagawa niya akong turista! Ikaw ang pinunta ko rito, hindi ‘yung tour!” we laugh because she is witty. When she throws a tantrum after getting lost in the subway, we hate her. Apart from knowing that it was her fault, we can’t stand the charming partner being blamed despite his niceness by an ingrate. It crossed my mind to call her character one of the weakest roles ever written for her, but that’s just because Shirley Templo isn’t too likable. She is repulsive most of the time. Reflecting, the actor has portrayed “unlikable” characters before, even taboo roles for that matter, yet we still like her. But in In My Life, her role tends to go beyond understanding; you just need to be her to understand her. Yet the actor delivers; she deceives us.
But the blood of the film flows from the actor who plays the son’s partner. Amid the histrionics and uneven noise of the film in general, he shows his restraint without fuss. Apparently the writers intend to make his character subdued. He exists in the periphery without losing his grip. When he cries at his partner’s back as he hugs him on the bridge, he is the equivalent of sacrifice. Never show the pain, never show the loneliness. That’s us, on the screen. The brief exposure of his family’s life is enough for us to connect with him. Contrary to the emphasis given to the mother’s family, we would like to know him more, know if the lump in his mother’s breast is just a false alarm, know if he’s just fine after crying overnight. We learn about his troubles in staying in the States, how he juggles work and hobby, how he struggles to earn for his marriage. God forbid, we don’t want him to fall into the arms of Pamela. His issues are more interesting, yet what makes him special is that like most people around us, we only get to know him up to a certain extent. He comes and goes. We miss him. We want to see if he’s fine. His distance unsettles us, in a good way.
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that these locations that the producers choose are just a way to make more money. They could show it abroad and Filipinos there would flock to the theaters, filled with expectations of connecting with the film one way or another, see their lives projected on screen, see themselves in the characters. It’s some sort of self-discovery. They want to be intimate with themselves, see how it works, see their situations from afar, observe how other people react. Their identification with the characters is what they paid the tickets for. If they don’t shed a tear, that’s disappointment. But more often they just find ways to connect. They look at the nuances with affection, checking if the characters reacted the same way they did in similar situations. Audiences seek connection, and if they don’t find it, they create it. Even if the film is more of an examination of their faults as parents and children than the circumstances that brought them where they are.
On Street Art and The Works of Italian Artist BLU October 5, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in European Films, Short Cuts, Street Art.1 comment so far
A portion of the wall in Managua, Nicaragua
Words can’t fully express how much I appreciate Blu’s works. I have to shrill and make some childish noises as I look at them, and at times I utter string of incoherent phrases which I myself cannot believe came from my mouth. The mechanism of amazement, as always, innocently humiliates.
So I let my five-year-old niece watch Muto and I look at her as she watches it. She mutters “Angaleng!” countless times and in varying tones and loudness. Her eyes gleam as she exclaims her delight, never wanting to miss a frame by glancing at my direction. She watches first in silence, perhaps allowing the moving images to get into her senses, and after realizing the spark of creativity she’s seeing for the first time, she yells to me her own version of appreciation. After watching the film, she asks if she could see another one. I let her watch Combo and I look at how she reacts again. She is thrilled. This is our little bonding session before she goes to bed.
When she’s set to sleep I ask her what she thinks of the films I showed her. She seems to be pondering what to say but after a brief silence she tells me again, “Angaleng, Tito!” She must love the word. I insist for at least a five-word explanation, but I believe I am being too hard on her so I just let it go and bid her good night. Now I want to write something about Blu’s works, and to express it at least a notch higher than “Angaleng!” or “Gaaaaaarhhh” or “Anganda, Tito, isa pa.” I hope I can manage though, because even a bit of disservice is a shame.
Prato, Italy
FRAGMENTS OF A MUSEUM IN THE CITY
There is not much information to find about Blu on the Internet, except that he is an Italian painter who recently became known in his street art. His graffiti works are marked by an incredible amount of talent and ambition, often breaking the literal and aesthetic boundaries of his canvas. Not only he makes the fullest use of the walls provided to him, he also makes them appear like fragments of a museum brought to the street for the locals to see. Aside from punctuating the value of street art in urban anthropology, Blu’s works also show that the limitations of art could also work at its advantage.
Exposure of works to the metropolis allows discussion on the subject of “consumption”, since the public has little choice not to see them. In the case of museums, one needs to pay, on his own volition, to view art works exhibited in galleries. Century-old questions like, Should art be free? or Does it matter if art is free? or Does it make an artist less of an artist when his works are out in the open? come up and become relevant.
Apparently, the importance of street art doesn’t stop at appreciating its aesthetics. It is also necessary to recognize its role in developing a community, particularly its members’ understanding and judgment of the arts, and the many ways it can challenge common beliefs and practices, as well as educate young and old minds alike, the same way more popular forms of visual arts are regarded.
But how about MMDA art, I ask, how does it make sense to you? Does it reflect our idea of art? Is it a collective concept that we agreed on or just a reflection of our political surroundings?
What makes street art extremely interesting for me is that a great number of people (it’s tempting to say most) look down on it. (Fair enough, some of them, particularly with the one I used above as an example, are based on good reasons.) A graffiti could be anything from the scribbles in the men’s room or the writings on the bleachers in school to the sprawl of histories and splash of emotions painted on the Berlin wall.
Some call it vandalism – - a crappy way to mess up the walls and leave them appallingly untidy – - and they respond to it like a crime committed to their society. I recall having seen a documentary in television about Filipino hobbyists who do street arts by commission. Since it is the head of the community who talked to them, by the time the work was finished, the residents were surprised when they saw it. The documentary eggs on the negative response, with some respondents going out of their way to call what the artists draw an act of visual terrorism. The commissioned street artists are into rap and hip-hop music, so perhaps that is where the prejudice hops from. Still, maybe even if they are not, the people wanted it to be erased.
Barcelona, Spain
THE SPITTING IMAGE OF BLU IS HIS WORKS
One’s understanding of art is the spitting image of his intellectual and emotional ability to distinguish the good from the bad. And taste, which is more of an acquired property than an innate trait, is not something defended to be proven right. It stands on its own as a reflection of one’s mind, its breadth or its lack thereof, its predilections, and its lenience. I don’t think it’s necessary to argue with people who call a certain street art “terrorizing” but a contrary opinion is always welcome to hear, especially when it is well founded. It takes a consensus for a street art to be done, the community being a shared responsibility, because the long-term effect of it goes beyond the “coolness” of seeing it everyday, or the repulsion one feels while looking at it. Balance and choice of location are important factors that the artist must also consider.
There is a particular painting Blu made in Barcelona that I liked, and since then I felt the need to take him seriously. It is a painting of a shark whose body is designed with paper bills. The use of bills makes it appear like the shark is moving, and its green color clearly points out his message. The video that records Blu painting the art is interesting for its conversations, especially the part when the kid mentions, “It shouldn’t be on a wall, it would be better on a billboard. Maybe I’d like it better if it were an ad.”
I find it striking for the insight, and the honesty and the keenness that the kid shows as he reacts with the art being done in front of him. Then an older man, perhaps his father, interrupts, “Look at Goya, Picasso, and Velasquez, all those abstract paintings that make no sense, and still people pay fortune for them.” And so I thought, would it hurt if we talk about something like that without people accusing us of highbrowism? I really believe that if we try to cultivate art appreciation at a young age, the way we look at ourselves and our country’s history would be different.
A short clip called Grottaglie shows Blu on a rooftop, painting a side of an apartment with red and white hues. The design brings to mind a sort of a mythic figure with a covering filled with holes. It records a day-to-night work, and the final shot reveals a view of the painting from afar, situating its location with the neighboring community.
Blu has done numerous works in Italy – - in Grottaglie, Modena, Prato, and Milan – - but he also travels his art with him. He has done paintings in Linares, London, Wroclaw, Eindhoven, Berlin, and a lot more cities, and has made collaborations with other artists as well. Pictures of these works can be viewed in his lovely website.
But talent, even if you are gifted enough to draw with your eyes closed, could not be everything. Blu is also very passionate and devoted to explore the possibilities of street painting. He makes use of wall corners and surfaces, from apartment windows and parking walls to granite doors and metal driveway entrance, to create a sense of movement in his outlines and a stunningly bizarre character in his design. From simple strokes and sketches to elaborate mix of colors and playful textures, he draws like the wall is an infinite universe.
Moreover, his works break the monotony of the city. He makes passing in sidewalks something to look forward to, something which cities in Metro Manila lack: the pleasure in everyday travel, from simple walks to public transportation. I imagine passing by these places just to look at them, to marvel at his figures, to dream of them when I go home, and to come back again the next day to look again.
Muto: An Ambiguous Animation Painted On Public Walls
Animation and Editing by Blu
Assistant: Sibe
Music by Andra Martignoni
But he doesn’t stop at painting. He also creates animation pieces of his projects. His early sketches, from a transforming bulldozer to an exhaust fan that drives a man away, are remarkable in their deadpan humor. Most are only ten seconds long, and the humor is criminally strange. A more recent work called Morphing, which runs for less than a minute, shows a side of a warehouse painted with the signs and symbols of the Euro, the Dollar, the Swastika, and the Hammer and Sickle. He combines these things together to appear as if they are morphing, accompanied by a looping sound of a factory hiss. I find it peculiarly interesting when I notice that at the back of the warehouse is a construction site.
But it is upon seeing Muto when my admiration turns into fanaticism. Like his sketches, Blu morphs into an artist we haven’t seen before, and here he presents a fascinating succession of shapeshifting characters on his favorite world of walls. Painted in Buenos Aires and Baden in Argentina, Muto is memorable in its phantasm, primarily the fusion of visuals and music that creates a stunning fare of entertainment. From headless bodies and huge legs to hands that come out of nowhere and their reproduction of smaller and stranger figures, I am completely awed by the richness of its creativity and imagination. The floor and ceiling are also used, to my surprise and delight. The passing cars along the road can be seen and heard, evoking their participation in the film.
There are two important transitions that Blu has able to maximize in Muto. First, the transition among the figures. Since Muto basically depicts the transformation of one figure to another, the consistency of execution is crucial. It appears to me that while the execution is almost seamless, what holds the piece together is the element of surprise that Blu injects into the transformations, as well as the realization upon watching the painstaking effort it took him to deliver it. Watching the figures taking form unpredictably fast, birthing and devouring, shifting and dissolving, is a visual treat.
Second, the transition among the walls. From left to right and top to bottom, from brick wall to concrete wall, from wall to floor to a small corner to another wall and to the ceiling down to a wall, and from long shots to extreme close-ups, Blu makes a point of emphasizing movement. The wall not only breathes the character: it is the character. The little details you notice in its jumpy continuity only add to its playfulness. Blu is telling a story – - not just feelings, as far as the medium and style are concerned – - and through his transitions he has able to narrate a really tight one.
The images also stick to your mind: the walking pairs of hands and feet in the beginning, the running teeth, the perky diamond, the falling heads, the creepy bugs. But credit also goes to Andrea Martignoni for the ambiance. Her music renders these images elegantly, fittingly, and indescribably surreal without going overboard. The immediacy of the images goes hand in hand with the colorful texture of the music, their details evoking subtle hints on historic events. “Muto” in Italian means “mute,” but apparently Blu wants to make use of contradiction.
Combo: A Collaborative Animation by Blu and David Ellis
Music by Roberto Lange
Made at Fame Festival 2009
While fractals dominate the imagery of Muto, Combo makes particular emphasis on structural space. The trademark figures are still there but Blu sets aside the design to pronounce the confinement. He goes around it, paints the ground, paints wall figures, connects them, makes coltish skits, and rolls with the fun of putting them all together. Whereas before, we have the idea that the wall belongs to the “real world” and the figures painted on it to the “unreal world”, Combo breaks that thought. Everything is on the same plane. Everything is on a parallel universe, effortlessly shown.
The concern on movement moves up, now providing a tangible coexistence of the realistic elements and the “non-realistic.” But the term “non-realistic” is not only insufficient but also not completely true. The paint, the bricks, the scraps of wood – - these are all real. But Blu and David Ellis use them as if they are not. The movement created out of them makes them appear unrealistic. The green laser, the dripping paint, the enormous feet, the wandering hand, they all seem to walk out of the pages of Dave McKean’s illustrations or Svankmajer’s pad of sketches. To top it off, you get to watch the film twice. (By then, the question mark escapes out of our heads. What gives?)
Modena, Italy
APRES-GARDE
The term “avant-garde” is used when describing works that break new ground in arts and culture. Blu’s works are innovative, cutting-edge, and progressive, so is it avant-garde? Absolutely. But with the misuse and overuse of the term in both mainstream and marginal communities I opted not to bring the word up to avoid hanging on the stereotype.
Creativity breaks borders. And perhaps that’s why expounding on Blu’s avant-gardism is needless, if not unimportant. What I find interesting are observations, the response towards his works, the interpretations made by people out of them, and the relevance of these images to their lives. The immediate reaction of my five-year-old niece is not different from the response of my fifty-something mom when I also showed the films to her. They both express their admiration, but only up to a certain extent. They think they are beautifully made and entertaining, but they can’t say why. (Or maybe they do know, they just don’t want to tell me.)
But really, is there more to it than that? Or should there be more to it than that? I don’t mind gibbering when I see a work as amazing as Muto. In fact, I do it most of the time, and I have always believed that the most beautiful films and the most thought-provoking ones (those that move you think to the point that you can’t think anymore) are the hardest to write about. Because really, when you write about it, you are bound to fail. The best review of Blu’s works is the smile you see from someone else’s face while watching them, which you wish you can put into words but you can’t, which you wish you can describe or share with other people but you just can’t. Ah, such pity.
Never mind. Blu needs more paint than reviews. To echo a comment, “For it takes strong shoulder muscles to push that much paint, long health to you, Blu!” And more paintings and animations to come.
* Blu’s website
** Blu’s Youtube site where you can watch his films
