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Still Lives
Year of Release: 1999
Director & Screenwriter: Jon Red
Producers: Pelipula Film Productions & Blue Cord
Cast: Joel Torre, Nonie Buencamino, Ray Ventura, Ynez Veneracion, Alan Paule, Caridad Sanchez, Archi Adamos, Soliman Cruz, Mel Martinez, Raymond Keannu, Mon Confiado, Richard Quan, Nathan Forrest, Randy Punsal, Benjie Felipe, Leon Miguel, Jun Ureta, Ian Victoriano, Raul Morit, Michael Angelo Dagñalan, Ruben Lee, Bombi Plata, Roberto Pangan, Larry Manda, Bong Rosario, Jason Red, Michael Red
Badong, a neighborhood drug dealer, seeks to maintain his dominance via the standard carrot-and-stick approach. He exudes friendly warmth toward his most productive earners, but metes lethal punishment when his clients displease him. He warns Enteng, his clean-cut personal assistant, that he cannot bow out of the business mainly because of the trouble caused by Paul, his thieving friend. An associate, Nardo, wishes to propose a money-making scheme although he also owes Badong for past unpaid transactions. Badong proceeds confidently, having paid off influential officials, but fails to contend with the reality that government authority never really operates as a monolithic entity.
Acknowledged as the work that initiated the independent-digital trend in the Philippines, Still Lives has managed to live up to its promise, despite a narrative resolution whose twist may have seemed too clever by half. Its longer-lasting feat is enabled by strategies that several generations of successors tended to take for granted from the get-go, thus resulting in more failures than necessary: an intimate familiarity with the culture that it engages with, and a commitment by its creative forces to serve the best interests of said social context, including a willingness to suspend judgment in order to more accurately depict its most difficult-to-access aspects. The facts that digital technology itself still had to evolve more fully and that the team could have benefited from a budget several times larger than what the presentation languished on: these become moot points when set against the onslaught of an inspired cast and offbeat elements introduced ostensibly to prop up a controlling gimmick, but ultimately implemented in order to augment the film’s entertainment value. When Philippine historical incidents began to mirror the film’s concerns, that should have served as proof that Still Lives was aiming at much more than purveying transient amusement.
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