Author Archives: Joel David

About Joel David

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Teacher, scholar, & gadfly of film, media, & culture. [Photo of Kiehl courtesy of Danny Y. & Vanny P.]
December 12, 2024

Canon Decampment: Conrado Conde

By Joel David

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Talipandas

English Title: Traitor
Year of Release: 1958
Director: Conrado Conde
Screenwriter: Ding M. de Jesus
(From a serialized komiks story by Francisco V. Coching)
Producer: Sampaguita Pictures

Cast: Rita Gomez, Luis Gonzales, Van de Leon, Carlos Salazar, Rosa Mia, Bella Flores, Zeny Zabala, Bert Olivar, Ely Roque, Art Morado, Lydia Correa, Jaime Javier, Pablo Raymundo, Willie Dado, Sabas San Juan, Matimtiman Cruz, Marcela Garcia, Loida Medina, Apolonia Aguilar

Having taken the fall for his brother Andy, Bien Lopez confronts his sibling for betraying him by cohabiting with his wife Stella while he was still in prison. Although Stella insists that she was forced into the arrangement, Bien’s rejection drives her to stab Andy and commit suicide. Unaware so far of what his wife did, Bien watches a striptease number at Moonlite Cabaret; the performer, Esperanza, migrated to Manila to work at the same place where her mother once performed, to track down the man who ruined her mother’s life. Bien and Espie manage to provide comfort and support for each other and develop an alliance just when a besotted customer provides Espie with better lodging and a gang leader named George Mendez takes a prurient interest in the nightclub’s hit performer.

The fact that two komiks-sourced melodramas from the same year—this and Gregorio Fernandez’s Malvarosa—featured slum residents living by railroad tracks must have been more than coincidental. Intensely psychological where Malvarosa was sociological, Talipandas eventually abandons its expository locale when its central female character upgrades to better housing (courtesy of a loaded patron); but the opening scene’s train not only brought her to the city in the first place, it also ended the life of her would-have-been rival, the narrative hero’s wife. The plot’s twists and reversals affirm the serial nature of its origin, although it would take over a decade, with the emergence of Lino Brocka, before such irregular dramatic arcs could be tempered by an adequately prepared talent. What Talipandas provides in recompense for its directorial unevenness is a willingness to embrace material that Hollywood’s Hays Office would have rejected as extreme if not beyond-legal, from white slavery through suicide and fratricide to incest. The heroine contends with a pair of concerned surrogate mothers, one benevolent (Ely Roque) and another malignant (Bella Flores); but Rita Gomez’s sensuous and fiery reading ultimately draws the strands together in an impressive braid, while making it clear why the directors of the next Golden Age considered it a treat to work with her.

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November 19, 2024

Counteractive

By Joel David

Kontrabida [Villain]
Directed by Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr.
Written by Jerry B. Gracio

After completing work on Kontrabida, Nora Aunor was finally declared National Artist, minus the execrable intrusion of any political leader or showbiz rival (essential disclosure: in June 2014, The FilAm was the first publication to criticize the ill-advised decision by President Benigno Aquino III to drop her name from the list of submissions). What should have been happy news, however, turned out distressing for her followers: she endured a severe medical emergency, declared dead at one point but revived through the intervention of an understandably panicked health team.

Anita as a haughty society matron, in her opening dream sequence. [Screen cap from Kontrabida, courtesy of Magsine Tayo!]

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11011Kontrabida might therefore be the last opportunity to watch a consummate Aunor film, although the hesitation of casual viewers would be understandable. Its director’s track record has been spotty, and the Metro Manila Film Festival’s consistent rejection of its participation is reminiscent of its judgment on her own auteur project, Greatest Performance, in 1989. Yet what traces remain of GP suggest an ambitious and exemplarily performed work, one of the MMFF’s gravest missteps in a long list of embarrassments. Kontrabida’s an even more egregious instance of insider politicking and institutional negligence.

11011Any initial viewing will instantly distinguish the film as reminiscent of Aunor’s case history during her peak premillennial years, when filmmakers would be able to realize significant achievements by simply having her on board; her skills in streamlining, clarifying, and amplifying character attributes was (and remains) second to none, ascribable to her intensive experience in creative processes and immersion in her compatriots’ sociological concerns. Kontrabida has also turned out to be her first millennial project that references her stature as queer icon, resisting the typical indie practitioner’s tendency to recognize her considerable store of gifts by unnecessarily pedestalizing her.

Jaclyn Jose as Dolly, a devoted fan of Anita. [Screen cap from Kontrabida courtesy of Magsine Tayo!]

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11011The best way of extracting the film’s potential would be by focusing on the persona that she proffers, inasmuch as Aunor appears in every scene. Early in the plot, her Anita Rosales prepares to dispose of the bric-a-brac she accumulated as a movie supporting player, including her only acting trophy. Any devoted Philippine cinema observer would readily recognize that the object happens to be Anita Linda’s only Maria Clara award, the first institutional prize ever handed out for local film achievement. A fan of hers shows up to purchase it, and it turns out to be played by the recently departed Jaclyn Jose – who professes so much devotion that she decides to return the item to its owner.[1]

11011The parallelisms with film history are profound and moving, yet unobtrusive enough to remain hidden for those who prefer to ignore them. Aunor was the actor who set out to challenge Linda’s First Golden Age stature as the country’s greatest performer and succeeded due to her marshaling of her own privileges as the most successful star in Pinas cinema as well as the upgrade in resources and sensibility of the Second Golden Age; Jose meanwhile carved out her own niche in depicting characters ravaged beyond redemption by poverty and managed to snag the much-coveted Cannes Film Festival best actress prize in the process.

Anita comforts her intellectually challenged neighbor Jai after his father went berserk during his mother and her new partner’s wedding. [Screen cap from Kontrabida courtesy of Magsine Tayo!]

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11011Linda had been gone by the time Kontrabida was made (her final starring role was also in an Alix film), but neither Aunor nor Jose, just like Linda before them and unlike a long list of their contemporaneous performers, make an effort to recapture their appearance during their Golden Age glory years. The weight they put on, the wrinkles, lumps, and veins on their faces, their slower movements and weaker physical capacities – all affirm their lifetime aspiration to enable their audiences to identify with them. In this instance, they constitute a redefinition of glamour for those who care to ponder on these matters: that it might mean conforming to a near-unattainable youthful ideal for the vast majority, but it could also mean the fulfillment of long-cultivated potential offered for widespread and long-term public consumption: talent, to paraphrase Pauline Kael, will always be a surer guarantee of glamour.

11011Alix of course had collaborated long enough with Aunor to be able to provide unintrusive details that function like humor devices, and then some: Anita begins by slapping someone in her high-camp dream where she plays a society matron, but gets slapped symbolically by her working-class existence in a crisis-ridden administration; she may have retained ownership of her acting trophy, but we eventually get to see how Aunor herself regards these empty symbols of triumph;[2] she lives in a world where those who recognize her adulate her for her past attainments, but she pays the closest attention to people taken for granted by everyone else.

After helping her rehearse for her comeback role, Ramon asks Anita to dance with him. [Screen cap from Kontrabida courtesy of Magsine Tayo!]

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11011Toward a later part of the film, Alix introduces Bembol Roco, one of her few male contemporaries who has perfectly understood that one must complement Aunor in order to survive a scene with her, in the role of her infirm ex-husband Ramon. The exchanges of scripted lines between them play on their characters’ real-life circumstances and display the warmth and collegiality that their long-time immersion in Philippine film culture has enabled. Anita then forms a pistol with her fingers and aims it at Ramon, then reflexively remarks “bad acting” about herself. The gesture’s payoff is earth-shattering but doesn’t have to be spoiled in a review. Kontrabida nonetheless deserves to be watched for all the tremendous pleasure and pain that the full life of a genuine film artist has brought to the project.

Notes

First published November 18, 2024, as “Nora Returns Minus the Glamour of the Glory Years,” in The FilAm.

[1] Dolly claims that Anita turned her life around by inspiring her to avenge herself on her wrongdoers. In her real-life career, Jaclyn Jose became a much sought-after camp presence in TV drama by specializing in comically snobbish aristocrats, similar to the characters that Anita dreams that she portrays, but directly opposed to Nora Aunor’s actual movie persona.

11011Her first significant interview was titled “Walang Bold sa Langit [Bold Not Allowed in Heaven]” (1986), conducted by Ricky Lee, retitled “May Bold Ba sa Langit? [Is Bold Allowed in Heaven?]” and reprinted in his 2009 anthology Si Tatang at Mga Himala ng Ating Panahon: Koleksyon ng mga Akda or Old Man and the Miracles of Our Time: Collection of Writings, pp. 70-74). In it, Jose mentioned watching Ishmael Bernal’s Himala [Miracle] (1982) for her lesson in acting excellence and described how she wished she could perform on the same level that Nora Aunor had demonstrated, attaining maximal impact via the smallest of gestures. A final Noranian intertext occurs in Emmanuel Dela Cruz’s 2005 film Sarong Banggi [One Night], where Jose’s character, also named Jaclyn, professes fanaticism toward Aunor, her fellow Bicol-born native. (Thanks to Deo Antazo for this vital recollection.)

Nora Aunor on the set of Kontrabida, with Anita Linda’s memento. [Photo by Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr.]

[2] I am indebted to critic-archivist Jojo Devera, not just for providing access to Kontrabida, but also for pointing out the function that Anita Linda’s Maria Clara trophy signifies in the plot of the film.

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November 15, 2024

From Nightfall Jitters to Morning Calm

By Joel David

My first trip to Korea, as an exchange professor from the national university, was strictly transactional: I had a number of student and personal loans to repay from nearly a decade of graduate studies in the US, and a state institution would be incapable of assisting me no matter how hard I worked. Engaging in corruption, petty or otherwise, was out of the question for me, regardless of how many instances I saw people openly practicing it, using the rationale that “we never get paid enough” as essentially government personnel.

11011My personal quirk as a traveler was that I abhor touring. I prefer to remain for as long as I could tolerate a place, so I could learn what makes it tick for its native population. As an academic, I could not avoid the usual swift passage for the purpose of participating in some scholarly event or other, but whenever I had a program to complete, I always attempted to maximize my stay without bothering with the usual tourist spots. I only visited the World Trade Center in the Financial District of Manhattan when some foreign visitors insisted on sipping coffee at the Windows of the World (I told friends then that for me, the towers diminished the impact of the Manhattan skyline).

11011This was how I reached the conclusion that the first item to check out in a new place is the people. I arrived in Korea a few years before one of the Presidents was honest enough to remark that the country had the worst appearance among the OECD members: rows of buildings that looked like yellow shoeboxes stood end-to-end, with red crucifixes atop many of them at night like distant hilltop cemeteries. The same President said that the country should aspire to attain the title of world design center, just as he later said that the country’s recovery during the last global financial crisis should take less than a year. The fact that these and other declarations of national purpose happened, sometimes ahead of schedule, clued me in to the culture’s ability to focus attention on whatever was the common-good goal of the moment.

11011This made my teaching and advising difficult in ways I did not anticipate, since the premise of Western-sourced instruction is always individual growth and excellence. I quickly realized that encouraging outstanding candidates to consider higher studies was always a matter of helping them negotiate with their entire social circle of family, classmates, and friends – and often, their decision was always hindered by their hesitation to leave everyone else behind. The usual counter-argument that worked elsewhere, that the person advising them might be wrong, was never sufficient, and sometimes even unacceptable when the advice came from familial authority figures. Yet when news of a serious global pandemic began spreading during the winter break of 2019, I knew that my best hope of survival was by advancing my return trip to Korea. Friends thought I was deliberately endangering myself, since the first area to be hit by the Covid-19 infection outside of China was Daegu, courtesy of a proselytizing superspreader.

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11011I’d been in Korea long enough by then to know that the population’s unusual abiltiy to coalesce during crisis periods was going to be the key to its now-renowned response to the pandemic. The very same quality that I wished I didn’t have to contend with as an educator was what kept me safe through the seemingly interminable period when the virus dominated human affairs everywhere. The pandemic also preempted a painstakingly finalized move to another teaching post in China, near the origin of the breakout, as it turned out. I accepted the inevitable and waited out the last few years until I retired, which happened at the end of February 2024.

11011Aside from the several adjustments in teaching methods plus the arrival of so many foreign students that Koreans numbered less than half of my total students, I also had to contend with the many rituals and voluminous exit reports that were typical of major transitions in East Asian culture. My experience as a migrant worker from the Philippines may not be typical in the sense that I didn’t work in a factory or on a farm, but I still regard teaching as labor-intensive as any of the jobs I used to hold down. Providing classroom instruction requires intensive performances to convey knowledge effectively (in a less-than-familiar language) to a heterogeneous mix of listeners, while the research and publication projects I had to complete outside of teaching required tracking down sources and experts, presenting findings at conferences, and constant drafting and revision.

11011Was Korea worth expending the peak and culmination of an extensive academic career? I cannot provide a definitive answer, but in relative terms: it was a better site than any of the other countries I’d known, sadly including my own. Are there lessons for people who find themselves in a similar migratory situation? My conceit is that my journey has been so idiosyncratic that it probably will be impossible to replicate. But the real motive underlying that assertion is that I had proceeded from too many failed instances of risk-taking, which is why I tend to have definitive words of advice for people that I mentor. I still believe that errors bear useful lessons for intellectuals – more than triumphs would, in fact – but I’d prefer that people be fully aware of the price they’re paying before they fully commit themselves to an unconventional option.

11011The overriding context here is that contemporary life changes faster than any set of lessons can assure for success. What had worked for me (and, more important, what had failed) during the time and place I attempted an analysis of the world and my place in it will not always guarantee success for anyone who repeats anything I attempted then in the here and now. So any lesson I impart will necessarily have to be conceptual at best, and probably overfamiliar to many people: determine the area where you’ll be sure to excel, with alternate routes in case of setbacks, and devote your existence in pursuit of that ideal. The only reward I can promise is that the prospect of permanent rest that you’ll be able to perceive toward the end will not seem so weary.

[Published in Dáyo / 이민자: Stories of Migration, ed. Erlinda Mae T. Young, Seoul: Philippine Embassy in Seoul, Korea, 2024.]

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October 24, 2024

Canon Decampment: Jun Robles Lana

By Joel David

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Die Beautiful

Additional Languages: English, “Swardspeak” [Philippine gay lingo]
Year of Release: 2016
Director: Jun Robles Lana
Screenwriter: Rody Vera
(From a story by Jun Robles Lana, with Fudge Silva as consultant)
Producers: The IdeaFirst Company & Octobertrain Films

Cast: Paolo Ballesteros, Christian Bables, Joel Torre, Gladys Reyes, Adrian Alandy, Albie Casiño, Inah de Belen, IC Mendoza, Cedrick Juan, Lou Veloso, Mimi Juareza, Iza Calzado, Eugene Domingo, Jade Lopez, Kokoy de Santos, Juris Ocampo, Rica Paras, Kyle Gabrielle, Adrianna So, Lui Manansala, Sue Prado, Mel Martinez, Bekimon, Patricia Ismael, Lito “Shalala” Reyes, Karen delos Reyes, Jace Flores, Erlinda Villalobos, Star Orjaliza, Lao Rodriguez, Giovanni Baldisseri, Steeve Fernandez, Khalid Ruiz, Sunshine Teodoro, Joy Desales, Perry Escaño, Ernie Enriquez, Bing Yumang, Laurence Mossman, Kenshee Montefalcon, Christine Joy de Guzman, Jordhen Suan, Faye Alhambra

Upon fulfilling her lifelong dream of winning a televised gay beauty contest, Trisha literally drops dead. Her best friend Barbs strives to fulfill her final wish, which is to be dressed and made up as a famous celebrity for each day of her week-long wake. Each costume change occasions a recollection by the people in her life, of Trisha’s struggle as a destitute transgender woman, banished from home by her homophobic father and abused (though occasionally also loved) by the straight men she falls for—though she nevertheless remains focused on the goal, difficult for someone in her station, of being recognized and celebrated as someone with beauty, wit, and chutzpah.

Most pop-culture experts might wonder about the advisability of presenting a trans person’s narrative as an epic tale, considering its intensely private dimensions and its psychoanalytic conflicts. Like its central character, Die Beautiful might come across as too loud, strong, insistent, confusing even; but like the Entwicklungsroman, or development narrative, that it actually is, it will be capable of fully rewarding those who may have resisted it initially but return to it after a while, preferably with some intervening maturity. Jun Robles Lana’s careful (sometimes overcareful) cultivation of his handling of queer material over a long period of time has resulted, with this film, in the fulfillment of the promise that the always well-patronized outings of our comedy stars, from Dolphy onward, kept pursuing: a life in full, from an always-queer awakening, through adversity in the pursuit of happiness and pleasure, to a too-early though fittingly fabulous ending (though sometimes with ill-advised—because unnatural, unlikely, and moralistic—conversion to the straight option). A structural marvel, the Die Beautiful screenplay enlightens the audience just enough to be able to “get” Trisha’s emotional placement through the various stages in her life, with the prospect of further, often painful but always well-earned insight serving as narrative cliffhanger. Paolo Ballesteros and Christian Bables, the actors who appear in nearly all the major scenes, provide the unexpected bonus of fomenting an interactive chemistry, overflowing with confidence, humor, and humanity, that effortlessly diffuses through the rest of the cast. It may sound ironic, but Trisha’s truly beautiful death betokens a life well-lived in the only way a genuinely heroic citizen could make it.

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October 20, 2024

Canon Decampment: Tata Esteban

By Joel David

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Alapaap

Additional Language: Ilocano
English Title: Clouds
Year of Release: 1984
Director: Tata Esteban
Screenwriter: Rei Nicandro
(From a story by Tata Esteban)
Producers: Aces Films International, Oro Vista Motion Pictures, Rare Breed Ltd.

Cast: William Martinez, Mark Gil, Michael de Mesa, Tanya Gomez, Isadora, Eva Rose Palma, Ed Villapol, Rosemarie Gil, Liza Lorena, Jabbar, Jose Cortez, Benny Resurreccion, Jerry O’Hara, Rez Cortez

After a present-day death certificate is filled out, we inexplicably flash forward to September 28, 1986, when Jake links up with the brothers Dave and Donald, to ask their help in completing a film that he needs to submit as his thesis project in an American university. The two suggest taking a trip to Baguio (bringing their girlfriends along), where they can search for material and possibly even shoot some footage there. After they persuade a reluctant old man to allow them to stay at his guesthouse, increasingly strange events begin to happen. When the brothers show Jake the shot they secretly filmed of him making out with a native lass outdoors, and realize that he had no one with him, they have no choice but to conclude that an otherworldly force is bent on messing up with their lives.

Anyone who can explain why 1984 was the most artistically productive year in Philippine film history might also have to account for why the critics of that time took it for granted. The yearend Metro Manila Film Festival, as an example, was so spoiled for great choices, dominated primarily by the films scripted by Ricky Lee for the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines, that it could afford to toss a few token awards to an exceptionally creative debut film and forget about it for good. Directed by the fairly obscure actor Steve Paolo (who was also producer and production designer) using his actual name, Alapaap took the ECP’s name literally, ensured audience patronage by banking on sex scenes and the upper-body female nudity then-exempted by censorship for depictions of indigenous practice, and scored largely on the basis of its skillful appropriation of giallo-horror principles. Its spectacle of unsurprisingly above-average performances aided significantly in overriding a few instances of anachronisms and illogical developments—with also a then-unremarked exceptional casting of the Eigenmann brothers (Michael de Mesa and Mark Gil) as well as topflight delivery by Tanya Gomez. As in countless other Philippine horror samples, the City of Pines embodies the collision between modernity and ancestral culture, but in harsher terms than usual. The ending is meant to provide some respite from the conflict, but the film is clever enough to take as much as it gives.

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Gayuma: Sana’y Mahalin Mo Rin Ako

Alternate Title: Gayuma
English Translation: Charm: I Hope You Love Me Too
Year of Release: 1995
Director: Tata Esteban
Screenwriter: Rei Nicandro
Producer: Falcon Films

Cast: Amanda Page, Julio Diaz, Maritoni Fernandez, Jay Manalo, Danny Ramos, Shirley Palma, Marissa Delgado, Lucita Soriano, Shola Luna, Connie Chua, Dennis Adobas, Archi Adamos, Boy Alano, Tata Esteban, Turko Cervantes, Gino Ilustre, Angel Baldomar, Allan Quimbo, Julian Alvaro, Bigtime Castillo, Bay Cristobal, Boy Davao, Ray Davao, Gel Dungca, Ihma Esturco, Al Eugenio, Bong Ferrer, Gil Gaganti, Saldy Golo, Berting Lago, Mariz Mauricio, Sonny Navarro, Tony Navarro, Nilo Odiaman, Doming Olivar, Tess Orias, Rudy Pontigon, Daisy Reyes, Cloyd Robinson, Dagul Salazar, Noel Sandoval, Edgar Santiago, Ina Suarez, Francisco Uno, Junior Uno

Lynn Blaclwell, a half-American Pinay in Subic, longs to meet with the father who abandoned her. She professes affection for her boyfriend Dondon but leaves for Manila to meet an American pen pal who promised to take her with him to the US, but the guy leaves because of some rowdy men. When Lynn arrives, they spike her drink and kidnap her to rape and then abandon her. Meanwhile the slum-dwelling Lydia, who lives with the good-for-nothing gambler Rubing, finds frustration after the herbalists she consults are unable to cure her infertility. She encounters the dazed and confused Lynn on a jeepney ride and takes her home to care for her. Just as King, the neighborhood toughie, has taken an interest in Lydia, Rubing finds Lynn attractive enough to use her wish to migrate to the US to hoodwink her.

Two reflexive turns mark Gayuma and remind us of Tata Esteban’s intensive film immersion, apparent since his first film, Alapaap (Clouds, 1984). One is at the beginning, when the scriptwriter directly addresses the camera to explain that despite the forthcoming presentation’s sensational content, it’s actually based on true stories. The second arrives when we think that the misfortune that’s about to befall Lynn, the naïve provincial, might be carried out by King, the same slum bully professing an interest in his neighbor Lydia; as it turns out, King’s an extra who plays hostage in a movie scene where he’s dismissed after his service is no longer needed, and Lydia eventually handles him in more or less the same way. Christian morality still overpowers Gayuma’s narrative framework, but then one doesn’t have to be reduced to the Manichaean treatment that typifies such an approach: the parable of Dives and Lazarus, for example, allows for multiple, even contradictory, readings, and we find in the two primary characters not just a gender reversal but also a constant uncertainty about who between them suffers in nobility and who gets punished for her privilege. Undeniably, as befits a feminist narrative, a transference from the more familially oriented Lydia to the perplexed and traumatized Lynn takes place, but then how did Lydia manage to handle her abusive and deceitful husband? This is where Gayuma plugs in with an entire generational pop-culture trend: all the best straight-male directors, from working in genres that probably wore them out from decades of insistent masculinism, turned pro-women and queer-friendly during this period. Lydia’s BFF was her unapologetically out trans neighbor, who teaches her to be more critical of the bull dispensed by both her hubby and the herbalists who claim to have the means of jump-starting her motherhood aspiration, with her “adoption” of Lynn compounding her husband’s betrayal. Esteban’s fascination with the tricks his characters play on one another and, consequently, on the audience, arguably peaks with Gayuma—helped in no small measure by its cinematographic properties. Sergio Lobo had been disparaged for neglecting his duties with Ishmael Bernal’s major multicharacter entries, but returns with a vengeance in Gayuma and sets down evidence of a prowess that could never be equalled by anyone, except perhaps by the late Conrado Baltazar. Overdue for rediscovery and deserving of accolades that went to far less deserving entries during its time.

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October 13, 2024

Canon Decampment: Jon Red

By Joel David

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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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September 30, 2024

Canon Decampment: Bobby A. Suarez

By Joel David

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They Call Her … Cleopatra Wong

Alternate Titles: Cleopatra Wong; Female Big Boss
Language: English
Year of Release: 1978
Director: Bobby A. Suarez [as George Richardson]
Screenwriter: Romeo N. Galang
(From a story by Bobby A. Suarez)
Producer: BAS Film Productions

Cast: Marrie Lee, George Estregan, Dante Varona, Johnny Wilson, Kerry Chandler, Franco Guerrero, Alex Pecate, Philip Gamboa, Danny Rojo, Bobby Greenwood, Jesse Lee, Joaquin Fajardo, Victor Romero, Joe Cunanan, Steve Havarro, Avel Morado, Romy Misa, Bernie Bernardo, Joe Canlas, Tony Castro, Mark Sherak, Clem Persons, Paul Mejares, Robert Mendez, Buddy Philipps, Don Gordon Bell, Robert Mallet, Skip Kriegel, Mike Youngblood, Bill James, John Stewart, Thunderboys Stuntmen, PIS Stuntmen

Instructed by Manila Interpol, Cleo hies off to Singapore to investigate the proliferation of fake currencies across the major ASEAN countries; she passes herself off as a counterfeiter so she could be picked up by a middleman. After subduing him and his goons, she’s then assigned to Hong Kong, to track the arrival of fake money in jars of strawberry jam. This leads her and her Interpol detectives to a convent in Baguio, where they attempt to uncover the mystery of why a religious order would engage in a global criminal operation.

Long appreciated more outside than within his home country, Bobby A. Suarez turned out to be just the right candidate to export for overseas film production. An ardent B-movie aficionado, familiar with the latest contrivances that popular entertainment had on offer, he lucked out with an assignment that enabled him, though on an apparently tight budget, to shoot in three countries with a large cast. The resulting poverty-row epic featured some of the wildest flights of imagination ever witnessed in a Filipino-directed action film, complemented by the wit and charm of Singaporean actress Marrie Lee, who was sharp enough to know that the entire enterprise shouldn’t be taken too seriously, but provides just the right amount of nimble-footed intensity to be able to foreground the work’s campy elements. Subsequent Suarez projects affirmed his belief in the transnational crime-control function of Interpol, but Cleopatra Wong marks the point right before his professional competence and influential outreach overpowered the several mésalliances that managed to proliferate in the present narrative.

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Red Roses for a Call Girl

Alternate Titles: The True Confession of Diana; Rose Tattoo
Language: English
Year of Release: 1988
Director & Screenwriter: Bobby A. Suarez
Producer: BAS Film Productions

Cast: Maria Isabel Lopez, Robert Marius, Werner Pochat, Julia Kent, Manfred Seipold, Amanda Amores, Pia Moran, Arnold Mendoza, Vangie Labalan

In Germany, a streetwalker named Marian gets abducted because she hasn’t been able to repay the money she owes her pimp, Ringo. The same woman, who now calls herself Barbara, reappears at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and makes the acquaintance of Klaus Timberg, who arrives because his profligate son, Peter, is given over to drag racing and nightlife. Klaus secretly hires a local sex worker, Diana, to induce his son to fall in love. As it turns out, Diana’s procurer is Ringo, who relocated to evade criminal prosecution in Germany. When Barbara, via Klaus, learns about this, she attempts to seek vengeance; Klaus’s predicament gets even more complicated when Peter discovers that Diana is really a sex professional.

The first notable element in Red Roses for a Call Girl is how it departs from the usual war-set or futuristic action (and even horror) material that foreign coproductions insisted on when they selected the Philippines as location for their film investment, in the wake of the initial success of the Marcos-era Manila International Film Festival. Opting for a loose reworking of La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils, Bobby A. Suarez instead devised a low-budget drama that nevertheless expands on the original’s themes of exploitation, familial bonds, and cross-cultural romance. The far-from-ideal production values and performances (excepting the native talents, unsurprisingly) accrue their own level of charm, the way that Third World ventures occasionally succeed in doing, in contrast with the Hollywoodish aspirations of the typical local productions of the period.

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August 28, 2024

First Blush

By Joel David

Unang Tikim [First Taste]
Directed by Roman Perez Jr.
Written by Mariane Maddawat

Launched during the start of the current decade, the Vivamax arm of Viva Films swiftly dominated the subscription streaming services of Philippine cinema and never let up since. The answer will be obvious to anyone who checks out Netflix and several other so-called over-the-top (meaning bypassing middle agencies) services: specialized products, less costliness for the consumer, absence of censorship. It also doesn’t take a lot of figuring out to determine what material the service focuses on, which is what the majority of homesick overseas kabayans demand – sex, as much as the average film presentation can contain without devolving into gonzo pornography, softcore style.

11011Philippine-based recognition mechanisms still have to give Vivamax its due,[1] but an American film festival, the FACINE International, already gave its grand prize last year to Lawrence Fajardo’s Erotica Manila: Foursome, a concatenation of TV-style shorts. Its gold winner for short film was a hard-hitting satire titled “How to Make an Effective Campaign Ad,” directed by Roman Perez Jr., who also took charge of the first theatrically released Vivamax project, titled Unang Tikim (literally First Taste, officially translated as First Time).

The first couple, Yuna and Becca. [Unang Tikim, Pelikula Indiopendent & Viva Films; screen cap by author]

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11011So far the film has attained the stature of moderate box-office performer, running into its second week in selected venues – certainly a far more preferable fate than the usual theatrical flop that characterizes even major releases nowadays. More surprising is the type of theme tackled by Unang Tikim: sex, as expected of a Vivamax production, but with the primary relationship transpiring between two women. To be sure, positively depicted lesbian narratives are not new to Philippine cinema, although they occur with far less frequency than gay-male stories. Marilou Diaz-Abaya, the first woman-filmmaker National Artist, arguably started the trend in 1986 with Sensual, also a “bold” (or sex-themed) venture like Unang Tikim.

11011The primary points to make regarding other early attempts at recuperating same-sex love stories between women is that first, they were mostly featured as subplots in straight-centered narratives; and second, they had to contend with the usual homophobic demonization of gay women in local releases. (I can only remember one other premillennial release, Mel Chionglo’s I Want to Live from 1990, as another woman-positive presentation; an earlier “event” movie, Danny L. Zialcita’s T-bird at Ako [Lesbian and Me] from 1982, resorted to visiting violence on its lesbian character, although it nevertheless features a sharply observed turn from another National Artist, Nora Aunor.)

The rival couple, Yuna and Nicco. [Unang Tikim, Pelikula Indiopendent & Viva Films; screen cap by author]

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11011The digitalization of film production during the millennial era brought with it a number of well-realized women’s love stories, most of it from independent producers, with Sigrid Andrea Bernardo’s 2013 Ang Huling Cha-Cha ni Anita (Anita’s Last Cha-Cha) standing out for being a coming-of-age tale, the distaff counterpart of Aureus Solito’s Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros) from 2005. In a remarkable category all its own is Joel Lamangan’s Sabel, a 2004 film based on the seemingly incredible though real life-based odyssey of a woman who started out as an easy-going teenager, entered the nunnery after giving birth, married the prisoner who raped her, then emerged after a long disappearance as a rebel warrior committed to a female spouse. (Sabel and I Want to Live were both scripted by yet another recent National Artist, Ricky Lee.)

11011Unang Tikim constitutes a throwback to the earlier sexualized treatments of lesbian film narratives, with one character’s bisexuality providing the crisis in the plot. It also desists from dealing primarily with “developments” in which one or the other character suffers physical homophobic retaliation – possibly a lack when we inspect actual lesbian stories, but strangely affecting in this case because of the respite it provides from the usual judgmental approach. The fact that Perez, in less than a decade of practice, has overseen well over a dozen film projects, alongside Vivamax’s determination to mount a widescreen-worthy attraction, has resulted in a work of ineffable sensuality and beauty.

Held by Nicco, Yuna finds support from Becca. [Unang Tikim, Pelikula Indiopendent & Viva Films; screen cap by author]

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11011What must have added to non-Vivamax viewers’ fascination is the fact that an impressive stable of talents has been residing in the studio – most of them necessarily excluded from mainstream TV-centered programs because of their readiness to bare flesh and engage in activities that may be considered less-than-wholesome, to put it mildly. The film embraces the central female couple’s class difference and even occasional bouts of rage alongside their expressions of passion, but always with a tenderness in its approach to their pain; when such respect for the humanity of Others is extended to the male interloper in their story, that kind of treatment makes total sense in the course of the unfolding of their difficulties.

11011The only complaint one might raise about Unang Tikim is how the measure of its throwback is too far off in the past,[2] so that the complications provided by more recent lesbian film romances seem to be way in advance of the characters’ fates. As if to dig in further, it provides a closure that nearly elevates its realistic material to the realm of the fantastic. But in terms of a narrative tradition that cannot boast of having enough happy endings, what the film purveys deserves to be regarded as an intervention worth maintaining.

Notes

First published August 23, 2024, as “A Lesbian-Positive Film” in The FilAm.

[1] On August 18, 2024, after I had drafted and submitted this review to The FilAm for publication, the Young Critics Circle announced that they were nominating Lawrence Fajardo’s Erotica Manila: Foursome, the same aforementioned FACINE gold prizewinner, for their Film Desk’s annual competition in all their available categories except first film. One of the few instances where I was glad to be proved wrong by my homegrown colleagues.

[2] Upon the filmmaker’s recommendation, I watched a previous film he made, titled Sol Searching (2018), and was appalled at the critical negligence it suffered, despite its clear superiority to nearly all the other titles released during the same period. In a social-network post, I speculated that this may also have been due to the work’s throwback properties, reminiscent of unpolished celluloid material as well as the “developmentalist” media policies of the early martial-law period during the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos Sr.

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August 27, 2024

Canon Decampment: Abbo Q. dela Cruz

By Joel David

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Hubad na Pangarap

English Translation: Naked Ambition
Year of Release: 1987
Director: Abbo Q. dela Cruz
Screenwriter: Armando Lao
Producer: Golden Pearl Production

Cast: Michael de Mesa, Julio Diaz, Anna Marie Gutierrez, Lola, Vangie Labalan, Archi Adamos, Dante Castro, Chris Daluz, Tony Angeles, Tony Martinez, Stella Strada II, Jesse dela Paz, Lina Anota, Dick Morados

Miguel arrives at his rural rest house with several of his swinger friends, including a good-time girl with whom he hooks up. When his volatile girlfriend Cindy arrives, she throws a fit and drives all the visitors away, allowing Miguel to appease her by making out with her. All by themselves, they turn their attention to the place’s caretakers, Nelia and Ador, a poor but attractive couple engaged to each other. Miguel and Ador are childhood chums, but Miguel’s interest in Nelia starts to strain their friendship. Cindy’s exploitative regard toward Ador meanwhile leads to a bloody resolution in which the police are forced to intervene.

Abbo Q. dela Cruz’s debut film, Misteryo sa Tuwa (Joyful Mystery, 1984), was a film maudit that will always be worth at least one viewing, but that will probably be defensible as strictly a late-era Cold War masterpiece—patriarchal, myopic, and desperate. It was so overblown that it came close to shutting down the film production division of the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines, which nevertheless came up with one last debut piece, Pio de Castro III’s Soltero (Bachelor, 1984), a film that replicated its shortcomings, albeit on a decidedly more intimate scale. Dela Cruz had better timing with his sophomore project, written by one of the winners of the next batch’s scriptwriting contest (which were never produced because of the preceding year’s follies). The Misteryo sa Tuwa connection provides the first step in comprehending the offbeat properties of Hubad na Pangarap: its misanthropy is unmistakeable, but this time more carefully skewed against its privileged characters, so that its ineluctable misogyny is favorably contrasted with its masculine characters’ meanness or feeble-mindedness. The libertarian spell occasioned by ECP-screened entries also fostered the busting of the final Catholic taboo against displaying the male form, so Hubad na Pangarap enables a more-than-game Julio Diaz to cocktease not just his onscreen female master but an unsuspecting general audience as well. More productively, the film can be regarded as the middle entry in a trilogy scripted by Armando Lao, bookended by William Pascual’s Takaw Tukso (Constant Craving, 1986) and Chito S. Roño’s Itanong Mo sa Buwan (Moon Child, 1987), depicting increasing narrative complexity where working-class masculinities are confronted with and confounded by the well-laid schemes of the femme fatale.

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August 25, 2024

Canon Decampment: Emmanuel Dela Cruz

By Joel David

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Sarong Banggi

English Title: One Night
Additional Language: Bikol
Year of Release: 2005
Director & Screenwriter: Emmanuel Dela Cruz
Producers: Cinemalaya Foundation, UFO Pictures, Cutting Edge Productions

Cast: Jaclyn Jose, Angelo Ilagan, Greg Rodriguez III, Alchris Galura, Miguel Iñigo Guño, Jam Rodriguez, Miguel V. Fabie III, Tanya Guerrero, Ronald Diama, Ester Reyes, Josephine M. Abelgas, Victor Cusi, Roger Macusi, Cesar P. dela Cruz, Jean dela Cruz, Mica Torre, C.J. dela Cruz, Rose Beltran, Monster Jimenez, Mario Cornejo, Josel Garlitos, Marlon Despues, Jing Villaruel, Ariel Carullo, Lorena Landicho, Lilia Villena

On the eve of his birthday, Nyoy is brought by his friends to the vicinity of Manila’s red-light district. They made an arrangement with Jaclyn so that Nyoy can have his first carnal experience. When they see her from a distance, they’re realize that she’s older than she claims to be so they decide to ignore her and proceed to a bar where they pick up a younger girl to pair with Nyoy. The girl however prefers a more exciting partner, so she allows herself to be picked up by another man in a convenience store. When Nyoy realizes he’s been abandoned by everyone, he returns to the open-air restaurant where Jaclyn sits by herself and invites him to join her.

Essentially a two-hander once Nyoy and (the reflexively named) Jaclyn start their interaction, Sarong Banggi attains a rare look at awkward intimacy that evolves into a harsh, deromanticized glimpse of the inner life of a fallen woman. Key to its achievement is Jaclyn Jose’s ruthless attack, allowing the once-hopeful but now regret-ridden character to take over without any hint of the performer perfecting her craft—which paradoxically makes perfection possible. By underlining some of her lines with contrapuntal behavior, she enables the narrative to reach places without requiring expository explanation. A plot twist that would have defeated lesser artists becomes a marvel of multistratified delivery: does she cry from disappointment, joy, horror, or self-pity? The composure that she forces herself to assume afterward similarly raises questions that she wisely avoids opting to answer. Aware of how exceptional this approach to character is in local cinema, Emmanuel Dela Cruz requires Angelo Ilagan, Jose’s scene partner, to maintain sympathetic naïveté throughout, while packaging the presentation in expressionist flourishes that serve to contrast with the depths of the abyss that Jose fearlessly plunges into.

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