Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme, 2008) July 6, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in Hollywood.3 comments
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Written by Jenny Lumet
Cast: Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin, Debra Winger
Come to think of it, buoyancy also applies to films. In Jonathan Demme’s riveting Rachel Getting Married, the characters take their turns in sinking and floating in the story, particularly the sisters who pull the strings in motion, and in the end all of them are left submerged, the families and friends and strangers that stay for the wedding, leaving you to wonder that everything just happens to be forgotten all along. There is that tendency for the characters to float or rise but Demme’s hands are quick to grab them, to put them all in place, to make them work in painting a portrait of a family pulled apart by both past and present. There is that tension we always see coming by the time Kym gets picked up by her parents and arrives home. Demme never hides that, but he also never lets it slip away from his hands and get out of control. Through the handheld shots we feel a certain intimacy to the family – - the protective father, the reactive sister, the distant yet overwhelmingly felt mother, the family of the groom, the friends of the groom, the supposed maid of honor – - but we don’t see all of them, we just get a glimpse of their differences, of how an occasion as gregarious as a wedding can show their vulnerability, their response to ugly situations that they need to confront. After all Rachel Getting Married is not about a dysfunctional family that tries to be functional; otherwise it wouldn’t make sense to end it with Rachel or to show those scenes when Kym is not at all a concerned party. It presents how the family, in all its noble intentions of keeping us away from harm and riding herd on us, also tends to corrupt us and make a bad situation worse. And at times that’s not far from the truth. Kym’s character is easy to bank on; she’s the dramatic figure, she figures to be where all the problems are coming from, she seems to be the one who’s stopping the other members of the family from functioning well. But she isn’t. Lumet weaves her characters in such a way that sympathy is out of question. She makes them speak like they were our own families or neighbors or friends, telling us to shut up or to get the dictionary to know the meaning of amends, summoning answers that will not be for everything. Resolution is not the filmmakers’ duty; sometimes the lack of it makes it more resounding to tell us what’s wrong.
Drag Me To Hell (Sam Raimi, 2009) July 4, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in Hollywood.3 comments
Written by Sam Raimi and Ivan Raimi
Directed by Sam Raimi
Cast: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver
For what it’s worth Drag Me To Hell could easily be one of the best and worst movies of the year. Sam Raimi’s gimmicks are not without fun; he delivers both humor and scare intensely – - and by intensely I mean laughing until my head comes off, screaming and cackling at the same time. I couldn’t stop myself from yelling when Mrs. Ganush’s face moves closer to the screen, or when her denture-less mouth falls to Christine’s, or when the seance becomes a moment of catatonic hysteria. Who cares if the narrative is far-fetched or if the continuity is non-existent? When you see Christine’s face with no blood, no wounds, and no bruises at all after an encounter it actually makes you laugh even harder. It would be unfair to mention it, and I don’t know which film would be unfair to which, but Drag Me To Hell reminds me of Jun Lana’s Mag-Ingat Ka Sa Kulam. . . - - the cursed woman as a subject, the disturbance in a seemingly peaceful urban life, the main character with such-and-such problems, the useless boyfriend that she has, the vision of hell as her destiny. While Kulam is unintentionally funny, Drag Me To Hell entertains without making you feel stupid. You laugh because of the execution, the hilarious cleverness of it, the thin line it bravely crosses to show both the absurd and the terrifying – - not because the scenes are awfully executed, not because the narrative is too terrible laughing at it makes you feel good. There are priceless scenes when you feel that Raimi is pulling your leg yet you’re not feeling it; its ridiculousness is its own law, and it abides by it up to the very end. You combine all the Spiderman movies and Drag Me To Hell would still be way, way cooler – - kids should really watch it, again, for what it’s worth.
Scotch Mist (Radiohead, 2007) June 30, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in Music.7 comments
By Nigel Godrich, Adam Buxton, Garth Jennings, Stanley Donwood, Hugo Nicolson, Dan Grech-Marguerat, and Radiohead
Three colours narrated by Ric Jerrom
December 31, 2007, New Year’s Eve. Two months after the release of the album for download, Radiohead broadcasted a pre-recording of all the tracks from In Rainbows through their website. Aptly called Scotch_mist, in the usual Radiohead-mordant-naming-fashion, it showcases the band in uncontrollable and unsteady drizzle. While listening to the tracks is more than enough to gift the ears, watching the band perform them is a booze like no other. From calm to fiery, hypnotic to belligerent, buoyant to suicidal, Scotch_mist captures In Rainbows in its most exquisite. Aside from the recording, the video also includes short lyrical pieces, fillers like love poems, quirky anecdotes, and animation that serve as intermissions between the songs.
I can’t help but gush when it comes to these things, that for a band that has relentlessly defied musical boundaries for the last ten years, I can only be as truthful as how it feels having their music with me. I believe only a fan so serious can find it difficult to talk sensibly, or at least balance his words, when he is talking about his favorite band, that he is just happy to tell his thoughts, things he likes, things he doesn’t like that much, the little things he gets to notice, and with the pride of being able to share that feeling I think it is not his lack of writing talent to blame for, but his weak emotional control.
It has only been two years but it feels like I have listened to it all my life. In Rainbows is Radiohead’s answer to how far musical greatness can go. It is as infinite as the stars we can only see in a deep night, as borderless as the space where the rainbow meets its end, as immeasurable as time. And yes, that’s me exaggerating, but that’s how it is. Listening to this album now is like being transported to the days that are not yet spent, the months that will befall in unknown time, and the years that will only pass in millisecond. There are times when I wonder how it will feel after I listen to it decades from now. Will it still be the same? Will it still hold that feeling?
There is a lot of talking about the Radiohead model, the idea contested from Kim Gordon to Lily Allen, the main argument being the band belittling the music that the other bands are making, that they are assured to give the album away because they know they are huge, not caring about the artists that are not as successful as them. I know it’s an act of arrogance. It’s somewhat, on the surface – - selfish. But don’t artists of their caliber share an amount of courage to pull that act off? Which they did. Which the music world will always be grateful for because it widened the possibilities and challenged every artist to do much better.
There is still one more year left, but as other fans would also be pronouncing, as early as now In Rainbows has already reserved its place in the peak of this decade’s landmark pieces. It seizes the beauty of fear and anxiety that the turn of the millennium has brought to us, sublimating it into the glorious feeling of being alive.
Scotch_mist counts down that euphoria.
*
1. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi. Everybody’s warming up like an early morning jog. Thom’s hair still looks combed. Colin’s jumping already. Thom’s eyes are closed; he’s feeling it. Taciturn guy Jonny sidelines with the piano. Phil’s feeling the beat. Ed second voices. The walls are starting to feel the otherworldliness. They’re starting to crack. They get eaten by the worms.
>> Then we see four people (or is that five?) running towards us, wearing bonnets. The slowmo feels like they’ll be reaching us long enough when the set comes to a halt.
2. Bodysnatchers. The room heats up. Thom’s eyes are finally open. Ed looks bored. There’s a shot of the window, or is that to show a mic without anyone singing? The title of course reminds you of the pod people from Don Siegel’s film, which I become suddenly aware of since I’m watching the video through my iPod, and the awareness leaves a strange aftertaste. There goes Thom’s orgasmic noises that I love. Phil’s working it all out. I’ve seen it coming! I’ve seen it coming! In such twenty-first century pop bliss, I feel trapped in a Kraftwerk dream.
>> A short animation to lighten up, if we really need it, since the fire’s already started.
3. Jigsaw Falling Into Place. Jonny’s now playing with the synths. Thom’s voice shivers. Ed’s happy in his corner. Where’s Phil and Colin? Jonny’s the jack-of-all-trades; it earns him a million points. Thom looks tired but absolutely happy. I remember liking this song just like any other Radiohead song till I realize why it stands out for them to choose it as the first single. It’s the structure, the upbeatness, the accessibility of Thom’s words, if not how they sound, the dying relationship it describes. And Thom, in the middle of the madness, takes out the dagger and asks, What’s the point of instruments? Words are a sawed off shotgun. And then he thrusts more lethal words into your heart.
>> A man narrates about how one day he found out that his urine was acting like a powerful foaming agent, and he wants to take advantage of it by hosting piss-centered foam parties in pub toilets. The water image, as you guessed it, looks like urine but it isn’t. The idea’s funny though, not a bad idea after all. His landlord’s a spoilsport. Yellow guy.
4. Faust Arp. A change of scenery. No more walls. Thom and Jonny run to an open field. Jonny carries his guitar. Thom carries himself. Someone’s talking behind the camera. They talk. They argue about the place to record the song. Thom agrees. Jonny starts strumming. And the moment Thom opens his mouth his words get in and stop our blood flow. After telling us that the elephant in the room is tumbling, tumbling, tumbling, he looks at the camera and sings to us, his eyes expressing something indiscernible, his face unshaved. Is that happiness after sharing his misery? Or sadness after getting rid of it? It is sunset – - and he tells, I love you but enough is enough, enough, and now stop, there’s no real reason – - how miserly romantic. You can also hear the wind whistling through the microphone, like humming birds singing along. How lovely.
>> Here comes the four people running again, in slowmo, and then one is revealed. That’s Jonny in red!
5. 15 Step. Ready? Ready, Freddie. Thom must really love this song. He is high every time he sings it. The album version pales in comparison, but that’s just me easily wowed even by a twitch of Thom’s eye. I feel happy when Thom is happy. Ed is seated, clapping. Jonny’s back with the guitar. Phil’s back in action. Thom is guitarless so he can move. Now he is making some boxing moves. God, he’s moving a lot. And he’s flirting with the camera a lot too. The worms have finally eaten up everything. Elvis has left the building. Scotch_mist title appears.
>> Branches moving (or are those treefingers?) in red hues. Loops and loops until the poem ends. A midsummer’s day in a graveyard. What is there but love? Every time I hear bunches of words that sound like a love poem, my mind automatically turns off. I don’t know; that’s just how I was programmed. Then I see rainbow colors spiraling downward. . . and upward. . . Is my head being cut open?
6. Videotape. The piano begins the silent murder. Thom, like Jack White in the closing song of Get Behind Me Satan, only much more woeful and somber, is determined to kill; he is even calling for Mephisto’s help. Jonny’s fixing some dials. Ed’s in his usual corner. Colin is. . . actually there. <My mind just went off.> I can’t note anything except that the song is taking my mind off somewhere. It is spooking me out, haunting me till god knows when.
>> The running people again. Wait, that’s Phil! And that’s Thom!! Their bonnets fall off. So who’s left?
>> A random pixel animation, like volume equalizers moving up and down, comes in with some bedroom sounds.
7. Reckoner. Everyone’s back. Ed’s the tambourine man. Colin and Jonny the shakers. Thom and Phil love closing their eyes, as if telling, don’t connect with us, connect with our music. Reckoner was known before as Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses, and it is so fitting that after listening to the the song you feel numb because the horses pulled so strong they ripped you apart. Jonny’s Super Dry Gasoline shirt catches my eye, and he is all that I remember.
>> Closer running. I am sure that’s Ed on the farmost left ’cause he’s taaalllll. Thom’s neaaaarrr. Hollly smoookkeeesss. Fireworkksss.
8. House of Cards. Thom’s jacket says it all: BLUE. Like Joni-Mitchell-Blue. Like A-Case-Of-You-Blue. Like The-Last-Time-I-Saw-Richard-Blue. Like I-Wish-I-Had-A-River-I-Could-Skate-Away-On-Blue. This is blue. Again, I am suddenly in free fall, I can’t concentrate. Why is Jonny tapping his guitar?
>> Oh, that’s Colin at the back! Thom runs with his hands wide open, like an embrace he only gives in his songs.
>> The head and shoulders anecdote, in monochromatic blue. The narrator moves to his new flat and finds out that he hears whispering voices when he puts his head under the water when he takes a bath. Sounds like the same guy who wants to host piss-centered foam parties in pubs a while ago. Admiration had the better of me, I want to be his neighbor!
>> The cute animation’s back, longeeerr.
9. All I Need. Thom stretches. I am losing all my will to write a decent entry in this journal. Need to stand up to reverse the hypnosis. Wait, Jonny is piano-ing AND xylophoning! The jack-of-all-trades! This is a song about being clingy and all, the type that most people dislike, but if someone tells you, I only stick with you because there are no others, would you still push him away? This song is unbearably tolerating, like a bestfriend supporting you to commit suicide. I adore it.
10. Nude. Out of the basement. The band is out in the dark, their bodies in slow motion. I gather that the concept is intimacy; we can almost touch each one of them with our fingertips. Thom says that Nobody Does It Better is the sexiest song ever written; I say he wrote a sexier version of that with Nude. The song feels like stripping you bare, naked to the bone, all the blemishes of your soul revealed. It’s a sexy, sexy song, despite its seeming nastiness. And it’s indeed a very uplifting song, Don’t get any big ideas, They’re not gonna happen. Thom wants everyone miserable. I’ll have an upsize. Damn, the splash of feathers.
>> GOOD NIGHT >>
>> The cute animation moves closer, farther, closer, upside down, very, very much closer, then away and away until it’s gone.
Independencia (Raya Martin, 2009) June 18, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in Asian Films, French Spring, Indie Sine, Noypi.33 comments
Written by Ramon Sarmiento and Raya Martin
Directed by Raya Martin
Cast: Tetchie Agbayani, Sid Lucero, Alessandra de Rossi, Mika Aguilos
The first thing you notice in Raya Martin’s Independencia is its color. Assuming that before you enter the cinema you see things in their usual hues, your eyes are quick to tell you that betraying them should be the last thing in your mind. The sudden adjustment of your eyes to its palette, as if revolting to the uncommon sight of moving black and white images in the big screen, suspends early judgment, for whatever it is that Martin has yet to prove to make his films “accessible” to “common” moviegoers only becomes relevant to people who consider themselves superior to the films they watch. I am not everyone, so I suppose if I may speak against the few whose bias is cultural, and whose thought balloons argue that if a recent French film is shot in black and white it is art, but if it is a Filipino film it is pretentious, my dear friends, I tell you, modesty is overrated. Let the film argue for itself.
Its color is not only noticeable. It is salient; it leaps out of the screen to claim your attention, to hold you still, as if bringing you to the setting of its narrative despite seeing its artificiality. There is consent, but it is not given sincerely. When one is not paying attention, there are many things that get lost, that are not appreciated, that are preempted by the fact that we are seeing a film that is clearly out of our league, whose world is some place we already left to move on. My first viewing of Independencia had me close my eyes because I could not stand Martin’s images. I was not disinterested; I just felt the need to close my eyes to focus more – - and it actually worked. There is an admirable effort to make the dialogues sound faithful to its time – - that is, during the early part of the century when the Americans took over – - and the stories of its characters bring to mind some childhood tales our friends used to tell us during recess, or legends our grandparents used to tell us to put us to sleep. The sound feels less natural, which like the painted backdrops used throughout the film, aims to mimic the filmmaking trend of its time: the use of studio and the theme of resistance. The disbelief is suspended, but other things are also cut loose.
One clever part of the film is when the narrative is interrupted by a newsreel, the partly tragic and the partly humorous account of a boy with “unquestionable motive” shot dead by a soldier, who supposed that the kid was stealing some fruits in the market. I find the reel particularly amusing, that aside from the fact that Martin uses it to simulate the period when watching movies in theaters also meant reading the papers in between and contrary to the fact that the news is not particularly amusing, it has also worked for the narrative, allowing us through the pause to follow more clearly the young man’s life as he bounces from his mother’s lap to his wife’s arms. The dream sequences and animation, which are also quirkily used in Indio Nacional, soften its uptight texture and provide humor to its somewhat humorless facade.
Martin is severely criticized in his previous films for his storytelling – - or as some would say, his lack thereof – - his indulgence to non-importance, his narratives that reek of boredom, his stubborn ambition. Independencia proves that he can do well with a plot as thin as a hair strand, a linear story that recalls early cinema, especially when the plot is only used to say other things, to suggest multitude of ideas, to bring to life a universe of histories. He tells the story the way his requirement needs it to be told, but he is still in touch with the style that he is hated for. While last year’s Now Showing really begs for walkouts, Independencia earns its right to be taken seriously, with less diabolic murmurs and more indicative silence (does sleep fall under silence?).
That he has put his four characters in isolation – - each portrayed wondrously by its actors (except for my complaint about the kid’s rather incredible tone) – - is both logical and ironic. Our geographical location gives the logical part away, and the thousand islands that constitute our land intensifies it even more. The ironic part is that we are also isolated within, that we are trapped in our own isolation, and that we are running away from that thought. Again, the use of color in the end becomes crucial in showing that.
But what becomes significant is not the story but the events that caused them to happen, which I believe Martin has the least concern to tell. In his films he has strived for the heart of subtlety by connecting with the tangled wires of our identity, not by untangling them but by going through them, following the knots till he reaches the end – - the understanding. I will not claim liking Martin’s style – - liking them will make it more complicated to explain, and liking them risks more dishonest statements – - but I am surely affected by them, confounded by their distinct voice, pained by their torturous storytelling, excited by their newness, amazed by their defiance. Independencia, all things considered, cracks open another feeling for me, and that maybe is the guilt in doubting it.
As an audience it is depressing to be hounded by questions instead of answers, that while films may not be entertaining they should at least be modest enough not to pain us emotionally, or confuse us to the point that even the simplest questions like Did you like the film? comes out like the most difficult question in the world to answer. In fact the question Did you like the film? seems rhetorical, and if one obliges to answer it he will soon realize that another question is required to be answered, like If you didn’t like it because it is not entertaining, I wonder, should films be entertaining to be liked? Things like that. Independencia, like Martin’s previous films, poses questions that are not unanswerable but they are difficult to answer because I think Martin doesn’t know the answers to his questions either, so why should I bother? Why should we bother?
And I guess that’s where I see the point of his films, and the reason why he should continue doing them. He stands alone as the hopeful one, the peerless storyteller of Philippine history that forces us to see the image that we refuse to look at, even for a second. We complain that we are always seen as a poor nation, that the films that represent us in foreign festivals are always about poverty – - how tremendously poor can we really get? – - that Kinatay isn’t exactly the proper image of the Philippines that we should project outside. We do not complain about Independencia’s subject because it alleviates our guilt – - our guilt for not caring, our guilt for not letting these things matter – - because it is fed to us that history is important yet we do not really know why. But Independencia also shows how poor we are, how malignantly distant we are to our past, and how unrecognizable it is, as if our past is only what our textbooks tell us. If Martin’s films represent the true Filipino, then maybe that’s the reason why we choose to be another, to imbibe the culture of another, to become another. That’s why his films are such agony; it is easier not to recognize their power because they leave us powerless. They are not a source of enjoyment because otherwise we should redefine enjoyment.
Our history, if I may borrow Paul Simon’s words, is like a distant constellation that’s dying in a corner of the sky. Like the young man’s failing eyes as he looks at his home, vaguely making anything out of it, his feet barely moving, leaving him at the mercy of leaves and thunder, it all becomes a matter of recognition, of our memory failing us or us failing our memory. And Martin, if I have not yet expressed my sincere admiration, for taking the road less traveled, has surely made all the difference.
Sa North Diversion Road (Dennis Marasigan, 2005) June 9, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in Asian Films, Cinema One, Festival, Indie Sine, Noypi.add a comment
Directed by Dennis Marasigan
Cast: Irma Adlawan, John Arcilla, Rolly Inocencio, Kalila Aquilos
Based on Tony Perez’s play
Sa North Diversion Road, Dennis Marasigan’s first shot at filmmaking, is perhaps one of the earliest instances when the shortcomings of the digital as a medium become almost irrelevant to talk about, because it proves that the story, its level of maturity and intelligence, will always be the king. Marasigan may have been attracted to Tony Perez’s play for its structure – - ten vignettes of adultery played by different couples traveling along the expressway – - but it could have also been its weakness, provided that the actors who will play the ten couples have varying degrees not only of exposure but also of talent. Monotony has always been an issue in the staging of the play because the couples share the same face – - that of the betraying husband and the betrayed wife – - and seeing it ten times with incompetent actors will surely not be the best two hours of your life inside a cold theater.
The idea of letting the same actors play the roles, which would only matter less since Marasigan has chosen the finest fruits in the first harvest, is possibly the greatest honor it has given to the material, for he has altered it without losing its strength. It is more than versatility that Irma Adlawan and John Arcilla have; I believe it is experience, something that is unique to every one, something that no other actors can do the same because they all lead a different life. All great performances are imperfect but this is the closest that one can get to flawlessness. Adlawan, with all the mightiness she can throw to outshine Arcilla, is gifted with such wonderful poise that is never tiring; one can never take his eyes off her for fear of missing a wink or a slight narrowing of her eyes. She delivers ten faces of a betrayed woman with different eyes, different ears, different hearts, and different acceptance of truth. We see her play each one of them but we see different women – - different wounds, different voices, different husbands, different pasts, different futures. She is all of them, all the wives that the betraying husband chose to ignore.
Arcilla, on the other hand, and despite the inferiority of his position, handles the role with exemplary control; the usual tone of apology, denial, and remorse of the unfaithful husband he shows is credible; we can almost see where he is coming from and what made him do it. Whether he is an old-school poet who chimes sweet words and piles promises on promises or the ill-fated praying man who gets shot in the head at the end of his prayer, Arcilla’s force is unwavering – - we see the sinner through him. I find it completely unfair when people compare his performance to Adlawan’s; that she has shown a far more memorable portrait of the wife, that she is outstanding, that she almost knocks him out in every scene. That Adlawan’s great is absolutely true, but she wouldn’t be great without him as her partner.
It is easy to credit the successful film adaptation of a play to its playwright; after all, in stage plays, directors are often billed after the writer and the actors. But when you give someone the liberty to interpret the material through images and music that can be controlled and modified to suit his intentions, regardless if he’ll be faithful or not, two things can only happen: he’ll make us sleep or he’ll make us think. If people want to see a play, they’ll go out of their way to attend performances in formal concert halls or theaters. If movies strike their fancy, the malls are the most convenient place to go. But if a play is adapted into film, how can that attract viewership, in this country if I may be clear, except for die-hard cinephiles or the curious followers of the filmmaker?
Good thing that festivals welcome these ideas with warm embrace. The funding may be insufficient but it could still go a long way especially if the utmost intention is to expose an excellent literary piece to the public, which I believe Marasigan’s objective in the first place. How many of you would still consider infidelity a taboo if almost every marriage is wrecked by it? How could it still be unacceptable if it is too commonplace? We always see it in the movies – - the unfaithful husband, the crying wife, the vacationing mistress, the destroyed marriage, the rounds of loud conversations, the kids who grow up parentless – - and perhaps some people have come to realize that committing the sin once would not crucify them as much as other people who are committing it more than once. Even in infidelity people still think through levels of transgression.
But Perez believes otherwise. Adultery, from whichever angle you look at it, may it be the howling couple in “Baliuag Exit” who finds breathing less important than screaming and throwing profanities or the sweet couple in “Meycauayan Exit” who teases each other, communicates almost wordlessly, with only the wife shouting “Kaliwete!” in the end to reveal her exact feelings, has only one face. The feeling is all the same, regardless of how it’s done. It is painful because it destroys the contract – - not the paper that states that the two people are married, blessed by god, and all those holy things but the foundation of the relationship, the house of trust it has able to build through the years, the experiences that can never happen again, the past that can only serve as a painful memory of a has-been. The varying tones of humor and seriousness in the vignettes are clearly used to draw the conclusion that looms above these contrasts: experience is unique but the feeling is not; that misery is not something we can eliminate but something that we can always keep to a minimum.
The comparison will always show up so I think it would be better to discuss it anyway. In 2002, Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami released Ten, a film whose main character is a woman driving around Tehran, talking with her passengers like her son, her sister, a prostitute, and a bride. As the title suggests, it is divided into ten parts; the numbers appear on screen like a countdown. Like Sa North Diversion Road, Ten was shot in digital. All throughout the film the camera was only placed in two angles: the driving woman’s angle and her passenger’s. What Kiarostami has pulled off is that his technique has managed to blend with his film’s politics; the confinement that his characters feel is reflected on how limited we could see them, limited to the four walls of his frame.
While it could have also worked in Sa North Diversion Road, I believe it is a good call that Marasigan has not overtaken the material’s wisdom by embellishing it with such technique. It is enough that he makes good use of what the medium can offer, the close-ups, the necessary flashbacks, the overlapping of narratives, the convenience of lighting, and the use of sentimental music. Marasigan’s modesty and discipline reflect very well despite the constraints. The close-up of Adlawan’s face as she looks at her husband and his other woman kiss, as her suspicion finally receives its long-awaited confirmation, as all her reasons to fight against it suddenly took a vacation and left her alone, has allowed us to hold onto her heart to comfort her, even for a brief moment.
The ninth segment, which shows the title of the film unlike the usual exit points named after each episode, has put forth the film’s knockout punch. The singer and the songwriter talks about their life, his marriage, her mixed happiness and disappointment to his marriage, his songs, her admiration to his craft, her love for him ever since. Before the scene fades out, he says, Alam mo, sa lawak ng pag-ibig ko, alam ko maliligaw din ako e, paulit-ulit. . .walang katapusan. Everything changes, even the road is bound to change its name. And then a question walks closely to our ear: do exit points really take us to an exit, or do they just take us back from where we started?
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Park Chan-wook, 2005) June 2, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in Asian Films.4 comments
Korean Title: Chinjeolhan Geumja-ssi
Directed by Park Chan-wook
Cast: Lee Yeong-ae, Choi Min-sik, Kwon Yea-young
Park Chan-wook’s second win in the Cannes Film Festival not only validates his position in world cinema but also secures the heightened interest of people who are new to his films. Recognition from two different sets of jury means his win wasn’t a fluke, and the fact that he beat the man who almost gave him the Palme d’Or six years ago adds to the wind that waves the South Korean flag triumphantly in the West.
This following could prove to be disappointing for his Asian audience though, particularly to some of us who are used to the mix of drama and action that the Western critics find “very unique.” Park has big ideas and a cool way of presenting them but his storytelling dismembers these concepts and scatters them all over the place. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, the last installment of the Vengeance Trilogy that followed the hugely successful Old Boy, seeks completeness that it hasn’t found until the end. Somehow the potential of it being sold for a Hollywood remake and producing a hit is already its handsome payoff.
They say it’s good when a film offends you, for what has been agreed upon to be the filmmaker’s biggest nightmare is if he failed to elicit any type of reaction from his audience. That scene when Mr. Baek rapes his wife on the dining table is brutally offensive, even if Park himself defends that it is shown to assert Mr. Baek’s evil and misogyny. I already have that impression before the scene happens, the silence during the meal, the flashback of Geum-ja shooting him point-blank in the wintry background, and the empty eyes (Park’s talent is in his overflowing details) so I find the fabricated violence too much, not disturbing, but too much.
There is beauty in its violence but no balance; he spins unnecessary gimmicks left and right, he takes time to develop his action but to little avail, and he pushes his unrealism to the point of absurdity. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with these – - a competent director may have turn this quirkiness into a stunning piece – - but the film suffers from inconsistent dramatic execution. One doesn’t need to watch hundreds of films every year to be aware of that overstatement of violence; you just need to turn the TV on all day and fry your brain. I believe that is something that Park should learn to minimize, or at least handle maturely.
It is faulty, nevertheless it still has its share of brilliant moments, like when you start to ponder that in Korea the killers reenact their crime in front of the media, or towards the end when the families of the children whom Mr. Baek murdered watch the video and discuss whether or not to kill him themselves, or just the extreme silliness of the stream-of-consciousness flashbacks, the humor being the most valuable asset of Park’s films.
But festival luck is not only the thing on Park’s side. Of course he has talent, but the support that the Koreans give to him is also something to admire. The Koreans are very passionate about their cinema, and that’s something I wish we could also do with our own. Their films gross more than the Hollywood movies that screen in local theaters, and that’s not only during festival months. Even their regular screenings rakes in millions. Their filmmakers win abroad and they celebrate it. They feel proud, they continue doing films, they support them. And while the world is still stuck with doing what it believes is “original,” they never mind. Perhaps that’s too much to ask for the Filipino audience and filmmakers to do as well.
Rain Dogs (Ho Yuhang, 2006) May 25, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in Asian Films.5 comments
Malaysian Title: Taiyang Yu
Directed by Ho Yuhang
Cast: Liu Wai Hung, Kuan Choon Wai, Cheung Wing Hong
The poster for Rain Dogs somewhat prepares you to a film that involves gruesome fights. It shows five men posing for the camera, with the two on the left bearing dirt marks on their clothes and faces. Though it misleads, it does not actually disappoint. Rain Dogs, like the Tom Waits’ album that it automatically brings to mind, is melancholic to the bone. The atmosphere is charged with waywardness, sometimes bleak, sometimes beautiful, sometimes pretty indulgent with little reward of narrative push, but the intention more or less is to present its dispossessed main character through his inaction. Tung, coming from the town to visit his brother in the city, is not only shown alienated from his environment but also from the people around him, his mother, his brother, his aunt and uncle, his cousin, and his cousin’s friends. His brother’s death only makes him more estranged to the world; he is at the phase of his life when he starts to discover things on his own, to feel things without the guidance of an adult. Ho Yuhang has chosen to substantiate his film in the periphery instead of attacking it through rising action, that’s why we always see shots of the Malaysian countryside, the clouds, the trees, and the greenery of a landscape every time a sequence ends. He has able to make these elements work with the aimlessness of his main character, providing a distinct tempo to his listlessness. Not only its characters are aimless, the film itself also doesn’t know where it is going. From start to finish, it still explores the story it wants to tell. But that is the joy of seeing it for the first time: the trying despite the possibility of failure, the youthfulness, the willingness to experiment. In one scene, Tung says that he had slept for ages but it felt like he hadn’t got any sleep at all. That’s how it feels after watching Rain Dogs. It leaves you in limbo.
A Day in the Life of Gloria Arrovo (Southern Tagalog Exposure, 2007) May 11, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in Asian Films, Essay, Indie Sine, Noypi.add a comment
Directed by RJ Mabilin
Tell me frankly, on what condition should we tolerate and continue to tolerate the bigotry of an obtuse, overly conceited, and politically motivated institution that dictates the movies we watch?
It ticks me off that some people are inclined to believe that these are just movies – - not even films I tell you - – movies that merely serve to entertain us for two hours or so, movies that only exist while we are watching them. Yes, we do remember them when time requires us to tell about them, like when friends ask us what movies we saw over the weekend, the usual questions, the usual how-was-its, the usual comments we tell like, Yeah it was fine, it was not exceptional but it was fine, I think I should read the book first before I comment. But do we really care about them? Do we really value the movies that have touched us deeply, moved us like they were narrating our life in front of us?
Over my really short years of watching movies, I feel an intense hatred to people who disparage the power of movies to inspire and challenge common beliefs, something that not even our kangaroo statesmen can do for us. Movies of whatever kind, romantic-comedies, thrillers, Hollywood, Bollywood, B-movies, Z-movies, arthouse, documentaries, animation, experimental, propaganda, straight-to-DVD movies, Youtube movies, everything – - whatever movies that move you to reflect – - I speak for them. (If I may be more personal, I actually fear that in my relatively short stint as a writer, my readers will be led to believe that arthouse movies are all that I care about. A good writer shows his partiality well; that is, if he tends to favor arthouse movies, he should, for the life of him, watch not only arthouse movies, because the constraint of his judgment would be very dangerous for all the movies he writes about. Somehow, in my short life, that’s what I have always wanted to achieve.)
The rudiments of a free society hold strongly on expressing beliefs without fear of getting shot in the head right after. We owe our freedom to democracy, but what does democracy owe to us? What have we done to let it endure? This obtuse, overly conceited, and politically motivated institution still standing is just one of the reasons why we are weak, why our foundations continue to weaken, and why our future reeks of weakness. Any action to mutilate the vision of filmmakers, regardless of what grand or atrocious vision they have or if they even have any vision at all, is a crime to freedom, to freedom that they, the so-called members of the classification board, also enjoy. If they are our watchmen, then who watches them? They don’t even have costumes to hide their inanities, for Christ’s sake. I can almost buy the defense of constitutional duty, that social safekeeping bullshit, but if something is not worth the trouble, or worse, if this something is causing the trouble, then there’s no reason for it to exist. Its betrayal of its name already gives it away: it doesn’t classify, it censors. Who are they to impose their morality on us? Who are they?
The Arroyo government aims to multiply itself in every way possible, to see itself applied from the biggest to the smallest unit of political power, from the tip of our hair to the heels of our toes, inside out, making sure that every one knows her policies by heart. To say that this obtuse, overly conceited, and politically motivated institution is reflective of the government sounds so easy a statement to make, but if it’s true then I see no reason not to say it. They are remodeling us to suit their fascistic rules. We cannot express our dissent against them; it is, as what news reporters during the Magdalo coup grinningly say, inciting to rebellion.
The fact is they are not belittling the power of cinema; they are scared of it, the diverse lengths it can go through. They are scared of what it can stir up in us, the massive ball of protests that can overthrow this decaying administration. If making films that directly oppose the government destroys its credibility, then certainly it is not even strong in the first place. It doesn’t deserve our trust, our heed, and our support. If they are dictating the films that we could only see, then we get both the ends of bad luck: we are poor, and we are not free. I wish I do not sound preposterous but a few years from now, after cauterizing our eyes and ears, I’m sure they’ll be cauterizing our souls as well, if they still haven’t.
From life to death, from the rising cases of extrajudicial killings to the number of desaparecidos increasing every year, from the campaigns to amend the constitution to the shameless pocketing of public funds, from the altered National Press Club mural by the Neo-Angono Artists’ Collective to the recent move to tax imported books, from the narrow idea of promoting arts to the oppressive situations that our artists face just to have their work exhibited, I am beguiled by the strange predicament we, Filipinos, are in. What could we have done to deserve this government? These islands are not united by culture; we are united by rusty barbed wires that detain us like a dog leashed in the front yard until the day it dies. The great Doris Lessing remarks, “Our time has the honour of narrowing what were broad and generous and complex definitions; ‘political writing’ meant, for decades, communist writing. We have still to recover from that habit of mind: Political Correctness is its heir.” But when would that happen, in this hopeless place and time?
Till then I believe I’ll just continue to vomit.
Proof (John Madden, 2005) April 30, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in Hollywood, Literature.add a comment
Directed by John Madden
Cast: Gwyneth Paltrow, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anthony Hopkins, Hope Davis
Based on David Auburn’s play
If human emotions were represented by imaginary numbers, then mathematicians will have a lot of equations to die with, knowing, in their lifetime, it is impossible to prove our intelligence without qualifying our actions that mirror our stupidity in the first place. That stupid people have their own intelligence and intelligent people have their own stupidity is something we should all be grateful for, at least, at some point. Intelligence, or the lack of it, is every man’s unique torture.
Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, 2008) April 29, 2009
Posted by Richard Bolisay in Hollywood, Literature.1 comment so far
Written by Kelly Reichardt and Jonathan Raymond
Directed by Kelly Reichardt
Cast: Michelle Williams, Will Patton, Wally Dalton
One can’t help but remember the classic Reader’s Digest story “Cipher in the Snow” by Jean Mizer after watching Wendy and Lucy. It is a tragic story of a child named Cliff Evans who dropped dead after getting off the school bus, as told by his teacher who reflected on the circumstances that turned him meaningless, thus the cipher in the title. His death was largely ignored by his family and classmates, his mother even telling the teacher that her child never even spoke to her about being ill. Reichardt deftly peruses that ostracized feeling through minimalism and a savage control of material. She takes the risk of being too simple – - from plot to treatment, from the hard-hitting rawness of the story to the humming used in the tracking shots, from the consistently blasé distance to the heartbreaking conclusion that isn’t even presented as heartbreaking – - and comes up with a depressingly fascinating and brilliantly nuanced critique of life in exclusion, the anger and hopelessness of it, the casualness and cruelty of the situation, the desperation of hanging onto things that matter to a woman we only know as Wendy – - her dog and her car, which to her means everything, her life, her dream of going to Alaska to find work, to start anew. Reichardt keeps us far from knowing more about Wendy’s life, but Michelle Williams, in an incredibly moving and controlled performance, and in the role that she will always be noted for, gives us an indelible impression of her past – - that of departures and pain – - and shows us the desperation of living on the edge on your own, the utmost difficulty of connecting with people and seeking their help when they are filled with doubt and apathy. That it has kept its brave politics without losing its artistic merits is already a feat on its part; what more if it tells us the truth, and how we cannot avoid it.
Richard Bolisay. He dreams of becoming an ambassador of good cinema.
