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Boatman
Additional Language: English
Year of Release: 1985
Director: Tikoy Aguiluz [as Amable Aguiluz IV]
Screenwriters: Alfred Yuson & Raffy Guerrero
From a story by Tikoy Aguiluz, with additional dialogue by Jose F. Lacaba
Producer: AMA Communications
Cast: Ronnie Lazaro, Sarsi Emmanuelle, Suzanne Love, Josephine Manuel, Jonas Sebastian, Eddie Arenas, Bella Flores, Mario Escudero, Alfredo Navarro Salanga, Susan Africa, Dennis Marasigan, Cloyd Robinson, Ding Navasero
Felipe leaves his job as a boatman ferrying tourists to and from Laguna’s Pagsanjan Falls to try his luck in Manila. He ends up as a live-sex performer and falls in love with his partner Gigi. He also starts a relationship with Emily, an American woman who hires him as her boytoy. As city life consumes him, Felipe realizes that there is a price he must pay for his carnal exploits.
At the height of the people-power movement, critics of the Marcoses were eager to charge the regime with immorality, and the revitalization of the sex-film genre was meant to stand as proof. Admittedly the libertarian atmosphere of the time was cynically intended to demonstrate to foreign observers that film artists enjoyed crucial amounts of freedom and institutional support. Despite this unstable situation, the local industry did manage to yield a number of noteworthy outputs. Boatman, with its disturbing, fevered fusion of high-art aesthetics and underworld debauchery, counts as one of them. The talents behind the film overlapped with those involved in anti-dictatorship projects, so the spectacle of a commercially successful sex-obsessed product criticizing the same socio-political system that gave rise to it can now be better appreciated and evaluated in retrospect.
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Segurista
English Translations: Perfectionist; Dead Sure
English Title: The Insurance Agent
Year of Release: 1995
Director: Tikoy Aguiluz
Screenwriters: Jose F. Lacaba & Amado Lacuesta
From a story by Tikoy Aguiluz, Jose F. Lacaba, Amado Lacuesta
Producer: Neo Films
Cast: Michelle Aldana, Gary Estrada, Ruby Moreno, Albert Martinez, Julio Diaz, Pen Medina, Eddie Rodriguez, Liza Lorena, Suzette Ranillo, Teresa Loyzaga, Anthony Castelo, Roy Rodrigo, Manjo del Mundo, Celsar Bendigo, Evelyn Vargas, Melisse Santiago, Vangie Labalan, Pocholo Montes, Edgar Santiago, Mon Fernandez, Allan Garcia, Elan Villafuerte, Philip Lazaro, Ace Espinosa, Taka Musara, Maritess Fuentes, Tess Dumpit
To support her family devastated by the inundation of lahar from Mount Pinatubo, Karen hits upon the novel idea of selling insurance to the clients she encounters as a guest relations officer (the Philippine euphemism for bar hostess), through which she attains a level of success that makes her the highest earner in her batch of insurance agents. Her husband and daughter in Pampanga remain unaware of her less-than-savory strategy, and she knows enough about her patrons, from the example of her constantly lovelorn roommate Ruby, to keep professional distance from them even while allowing them access to her body. A number of clients, however, are attracted to her unattainability: one of them courts Ruby to get close to her while another decides to break up with his family despite her protestation. An even more dangerous obsessive, one that she fails to account for, is the person who conceals his desire for her.
Segurista is a film very much worth watching, for the most part. It starts out as a soft-core sex comedy, exceptional in the face of the usual tragic-moralistic depictions of carnal transgressions in Philippine cinema. It then takes a step forward without abandoning its observational wryness, into a laudable and women-sympathetic colloquy on social mores and inadequate disaster response, as well as on contrasts and parallels among various professions. Along the way it boasts of accomplished technique and performances, although it underutilizes the exceptional Ruby Moreno (who had made her own star turn in a 1993 Japanese masterwork, Sai Yôichi’s All Under the Moon). Its only serious misstep is when it opts for a (mercifully shortish) resolution that demonizes the lowest-ranking worker in its narrative universe—the usual exclusion of the lumpen proletariat from progressive concerns that orthodox leftists unfortunately still consider acceptable, and that has marred too many otherwise noteworthy works in the country.
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Biyaheng Langit
English Translation: Trip to Heaven
English Title: Paradise Express
Year of Release: 2000
Director: Tikoy Aguiluz
Screenwriters: Ianco dela Cruz & Rey Ventura
From a story by Tikoy Aguiluz & Mirana Medina-Bhunjun
Producers: GMA Films & Viva Films
Cast: Joyce Jimenez, Mark Anthony Fernandez, Susan Africa, Christian Alvear, Kent Ambos, John Arcilla, Jack Barri, Nida Blanca, Menggie Cobarrubias, Cholo Escaño, Bong Gutierrez, Jeanette Joaquin, Vangie Labalan, Rj Leyran, Bert Martinez, Ali Navarro, Robert Oliviero, Bembol Roco, Boy Roque, Shermaine Santiago, Bert Martinez
Bea, a Filipino-American visiting the Philippines without her parents, finds herself drawn to the world of gambling where her grandmother amuses herself as a senior citizen. She winds up losing the money she was hoping to save so she could live independently, and finds herself buried deeper in debt when an amount she borrows from her best friend also gets squandered on a bad bet. She hooks up with Danny, an orphaned enforcer who collects debts for Bossing, a gambling lord. Still hoping to recover, both of them splurge on funds that belong to Bossing. But their losses force them to hide out in Danny’s slum residence and work out ways to appease Bossing, who has taken an interest in Bea. Their confrontation with Bossing results in bloodshed, so Danny flees out of town with Bea to ask help from a semi-retired ganglord who also has a score to settle with Bossing.
Biyaheng Langit is atypically straightforward for a Tikoy Aguiluz film. That reflects as much on the anxieties that beset local practitioners ever since critical awareness and global validation became ideals to be cherished and pursued. It also indicates how consistently productive filmmakers can occasionally find coasting irresistible, with enough collegial support from local genre specialists to assure them that getting by has its own rewards. Pinoy action films during the late 20th century were at peak productivity, so enough personnel and actors could be conscripted to execute an undertaking with just the right amount of thrills and (courtesy of Aguiluz’s earlier specialization) ribaldry. Folks may be inclined to point out Mark Anthony Fernandez’s relation to his aunt Merle, who pioneered in bomba films, plus his father Rudy, a top action star. But the link goes farther and deeper: not only was his grandfather Gregorio an overlooked First Golden Age director, he was also a remarkable performer, although unfortunately only his supporting performances in his own films remain, and MAF proves himself fully worthy of the association. Beyond these admittedly incidental felicities (marred by the harrowing killing of Nida Blanca under resemblant circumstances), the film probes into the phenomenon of underworld-organized gambling—a concern that was already showing signs of infesting the higher seats of government by this time, and that would continue causing official vexations through subsequent administrations.
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