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Krimen: Kayo ang Humatol

English Title: Crime: You Be the Judge
Year of Release: 1974
Director: Jun Raquiza
Screenwriter: Jose F. Sibal from a story by Jun Raquiza
Producer: Ilocandia Productions
Cast: Jun Raquiza, Gina Pareño, Marianne de la Riva, Maribel Aunor, Shongho, Omar Camar, Tony Gosalvez, Edison Lee, Bob Breult, Eddie Villamayor, Susanna Navarro, Leila Hermosa, Nick Romano, Arnold Mendoza

Newly freed after a stint in jail, Angel discovers that his wallet has been lifted by underage pickpockets. He tracks the thieves to their mastermind Toni, a tomboy who dutifully returns what they stole. As Toni and her den of petty criminals begin to get fond of Angel, he hooks up with Myra, an affluent but rebellious daughter whose parents abandoned her to her vices. Myra consorts with a number of shady characters who drag Angel into their conflicts with her and even attack Toni and her wards, leaving Angel with no choice but to exact revenge.

A deceptively light-handed exercise involving the reconfiguration of generic tropes that has unexpectedly worn well through its half-century of being more admired than respected, Krimen: Kayo ang Humatol refutes Bienvenido Lumbera’s claim that a “new” Philippine cinema started only two years later.[1] Even if we discount the self-serving coincidence that the award-giving critics group he founded was launched in 1976, Lino Brocka’s impactful two-in-a-row juggernaut had already made its mark before then, and enjoyed healthy competition from Ishmael Bernal, Celso Ad. Castillo, Elwood Perez, and the unfortunate Jun Raquiza, who died too early and whose well-received debut, Dalawang Mukha ng Tagumpay (Two Faces of Triumph, 1973)—which featured Nora Aunor in a first of a series of reflexive projects—can no longer be found. Raquiza nearly pulls off the director-actor stunt in Krimen, but had a sufficiently healthy appreciation for good performances to allow Gina Pareño to run away with the presentation. Despite her Toni being saddled with the generic containment of being condemned and punished for her several transgressions against her gender and civic tasks, she navigates the potentially awkward transitions with remarkable aplomb and makes her presence in Krimen an indispensable precursor to her masterstroke in Kubrador (The Bet Collector) over three decades later.

Note

[1] Professor Lumbera’s periodization, which has no end date, appears in at least two of his most widely quoted sources: “New Forces in Contemporary Cinema” from Revaluation: Essays on Philippine Literature, Cinema and Popular Culture (Index, 1984); and “Brocka, Bernal and Co.: The Arrival of New Filipino Cinema” from Re-Viewing Filipino Cinema (Anvil Publishing, 2011).

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Pauwi Na

English Translation: On the Way Home
English Title: Pedicab
Year of Release: 2016
Director: Paolo Villaluna
Screenwriters: Paolo Villaluna & Ellen Ramos
Producer: Universal Harvester
Cast: Bembol Roco, Cherry Pie Picache, Meryll Soriano, Jerald Napoles, Jess Mendoza, Chai Fonacier

Forthcoming.

Forthcoming.

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Ang Paglalakbay ng mga Bituin sa Gabing Madilim

English Title: The Journey of Stars into the Dark Night
Year of Release: 2012
Director & screenwriter: Arnel Mardoquio
Producers: Cinema One Originals, Skyweaver Productions, Red Motion Media
Cast: Fe Ginging Hyde, Glorypearl Dy, Irish Karl Monsanto, Roger Gonzales, Perry Dizon, Christine Lim

Forthcoming.

Forthcoming.

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The Boy Foretold by the Stars

Additional Language: English
Year of Release: 2020
Director & Screenwriter: Dolly Dulu
Producers: Clever Minds, The Dolly Collection, & Brainstormers Lab
Cast: Adrian Lindayag, Keann Johnson, Iyah Mina, Rissey Reyes, John Leinard Ramos, Jan Rey Escaño, Victor Robinson III, Jemuel Satumba, Renshi de Guzman, Kalil Almonte, Jethro Tenorio

Dominic, an out gay student in a boys’ high school, asks a fortune-teller, Baby R, about his still-nonexistent love life. Baby R tells him to watch out for three signs in a forthcoming relationship. Dominic then makes the acquaintance of Luke, a basketball player who feels dejected because he just broke up with his girlfriend. He invites Luke to participate in the school retreat and conducts himself properly as a religious counselor. That includes providing Luke with the necessary emotional support that his newfound friend needs.

A beacon of hope and grace amid calamitous devastation, The Boy Foretold by the Stars arrived at the end of the year when the Covid-19 global pandemic succeeded in stalling development projects and personal pursuits alike, and forced film audiences to watch all kinds of material on their mobile devices. One of the unexpected novelties was the proliferation of so-called Boys Love series, originating in Japan and arriving in Pinas via Thai versions uploaded to streaming websites including YouTube. Originally a subversive innovation in manga culture, BL addressed itself to women consumers who would have otherwise been alienated by the overtly normalized (and occasionally violent) sexism in Japanese comics. TBFBTS (an abbreviation sanctioned by the film’s gender-fluid director-writer[1]) recuperates the butch-femme and woman-positive terms of Japanese yaoi, providing its own resistance to the queer-cinema standardized exclusion of femininity via mutually conventional masculinities (as exemplified in works like Ang Lee’s 2005 film Brokeback Mountain). In fact, as pointed out by BL scholar Jerrick Josue David, TBFBTS hews closer to the romantic-comedy genre. Dolly Dulu also provides certain further departures, one in which their narrative’s religious-retreat setting is reconfigured as nurturing rather than oppressive, and in which their characters’ final kiss is not really their first one. The cast members also display a facility for switching between English and Filipino that harks back to the glory days of the Second Golden Age, affirming that the film, with all its intimate awareness and seemingly casual handling of craft, is essentially an autobiographical recollection of intently observed and intensely cherished private-school experience. It may be an unrealistically rose-colored way of moving on from the trauma of Covid-19, but since the world that TBFBTS represents is rooted in a past, then all that we may need to do, as the film proposes, is look back at the best that we all once used to be. For their part, Dulu announced that their film will be extended in the format that gave rise to it: a BL series, not exactly foretold by the stars, but still a way of living through their unusual, insistent, and newly resistive vision of a better future.

Note

[1] Dolly Dulu’s pronoun preference is for the singular they.

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Jino to Mari

English Title: Gino and Marie
Alternate Title: Death by Gokkun
Year of Release: 2019
Director: Joselito Altarejos
Screenwriters: John Paul Bedia & Joselito Altarejos
From a story by Brillante Mendoza
Producers: Solar Entertainment, Center Stage Productions, Beyond the Box
Cast: Oliver Aquino, Angela Cortez, Ruby Ruiz, Sherry Lara, Perry Escaño, Mitsuaki Morishita, Aubrhie Carpio, Sophie Warne, Maureen Mauricio, Emmanuel de la Cruz

Unknown to each other, Gino and Marie perform casual sex work in order to support their respective families—i.e., Gino’s younger sister and Marie’s daughter respectively. Both are instructed by Eric to board a bus for an out-of-town resort, where a film crew is ready to record their sex-work performance, this time (and for the first and last time) as a couple.

Jino to Mari is best viewed minus spoilers, but the sensational material makes that a nearly impossible condition. Joselito Altarejos, however, has been the country’s most prominent mainstream queer pioneer, his leftist orientation evolving alongside his critiques of genders and sexualities. Jino to Mari finds his fervency at the fullest passionate level, questions of sociohistorical nuances be damned. We find working-class characters who enable the two frankly attractive innocents, but the narrative refuses to condemn folks who merely recognize and appreciate when others of their kind are able to fulfill what potential they’ve been gifted with. This sets us up for an encounter that’s best left for audiences to discover, as Gino and Marie do as well. The terrible paradox at this juncture is that one may regret the turnout of events, having sympathized with the couple up to this point; but in addition, one could also be grateful for having seen, from the safe distance that film art provides, the monstrous reach of global privilege.

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Meet Me in St. Gallen

Year of Release: 2018
Director & Screenwriter: Irene Villamor
Producers: Spring Films & Viva Films
Cast: Bela Padilla, Carlo Aquino, Angelica Panganiban, Nonie Buencamino, Lilet Esteban, Kat Galang, Sean Padlan, Happy Laderas, Joel Vitor, Joseph Manuel Hernandez, Wenah Nagales, Eljhay Gonzales, Nino Aquino, Welwel Silvestre, Arvin Trinidad

Forthcoming.

Forthcoming.

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On Vodka, Beers, and Regrets

Year of Release: 2020
Director & Screenwriter: Irene Villamor
Producer: Viva Films
Cast: Bela Padilla, JC Santos, Matteo Guidicelli, Rio Locsin, Kean Cipriano, Jasmine Hollingworth, Danita Paner, Kathleen Paton, Phoebe Villamor, Lucho Beech, Jiad Arroyo, Bridge Martin, Brian Sombero, Timothy Abbott, Jeffrey Castro, Carrie Lopez, Clay Mercado, Ronald Regala, Candy Arcangel, Carmela Faye Viray, Edwin Serrano, Meryl Margaux Bunyi, Rod Marmol

Forthcoming.

Forthcoming.

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Tu Pug Imatuy

English Translation: The Right to Kill
Language: Manobo
Additional Languages: Cebuano, Filipino
Year of Release: 2017
Director: Arnel Barbarona
Screenwriter: Arnel Mardoquio
Producers: Red Motion Media, Kilab Multimedia, Yellow Kite Productions, Skyweaver Productions, Sine Mindanaw
Cast: Malona Sulatan, Jongmonzon, Luis Georlin Banaag III, Jamee Rivera, Jillian Khayle Barbarona, Henyo Ehem, Mentroso Malibato, Nona Ruth Sarmiento, Bhong del Rosario, Roweno Caballes, Charisse Lisondra, Louie Logronio, Barry Ohaylan, Buggy Ampalayo, Bong Artil

After Obunay and Dawin’s son Awit dies, Dawin leaves with his children to ask for mungbeans from their village datu. On their way back, Dawin is accosted by a group of soldiers, who also bring Obunay when she meets up with her family. The couple are tortured and humiliated, and forced to walk roped and naked through the forest. Lt. Olivar befriends them, dresses and feeds them, and promises to free them once they point out the hideout of Communist rebels. Dawin brings them to a solitary schoolhouse, where the soldiers hold the teacher, mothers, and their children prisoner. The cost of the struggle between the two contending forces, represented by the Manobo couple and the soldiers, will exact a toll that can only lead to losses all around.

The simple, almost fabular narrative of Tu Pug Imatuy may resonate as one of the many instances of abject cruelty visited on Filipino lumad or the ethnic non-Muslim populace of Mindanao. When events take an even more horrifically inhumane turn and the Manobo abductees (including the women and children peacefully attending to their education) have no other choice except survive by their wits and intimate knowledge of the local terrain, it may help to keep in mind the opening disclaimer, as well as documentary evidence during the end credits, that these events actually occurred. The movie makes no pretense about taking the side of the people caught in the crossfire between rebels and government soldiers, and acknowledges via a modicum of visual clues that, whereas the Communist fighters uphold the lumad’s right to uphold their ancestral territory, the government shamelessly enforces the interests of foreign mining companies, bent on extracting valuable minerals at the cost of displacing first peoples. The struggle is extremely dangerous for only one side, as it had always been through the years of colonizations, wars, and dictatorships, with the potential of genocidal extermination always present. Hence a film that provides a measure of hope in people’s determination and ingenuity may be a desperate gesture at denying historical reality; or it may be, as Tu Pug Imatuy suggests, a long-overdue call to arms, a challenge to a neglectful nation to recognize the most Filipino among us. The movie’s expert attention to pace, performance, costume, cast, and language ensure that it is a message we can no longer afford to overlook.

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Respeto

English Translation: Respect
Additional Language: Cebuano
Year of Release: 2017
Director: Treb Monteras II
Screenwriters: Njel de Mesa, Treb Monteras II
Producers: Dogzilla, Arkeofilms, Cinemalaya, CMB Film Services, This Side Up
Cast: Abra, Dido de la Paz, Loonie, Kate Alejandrino, Chai Fonacier, Ybes Bagadiong, Brian Arda, Thea Yrastorza, Nor Domingo, Vim Nadera, OG Birador, Negatibo

Inspired by the success of his idol, Breezy G, Hendrix plans to join FlipTop Battle League, a rap competition that has also become a YouTube sensation. His unruly behavior during a street showdown gets him and his homies, Payaso and Betchai, into trouble with another rap gang. While running away from the gang they encounter Doc, an elderly bookstore owner who’s fond of an older form of improvisational poetry, the balagtasan. Facing his own problems with his son Fuentes, a corrupt policeman, Doc tries to mentor Hendrix to enable him to surmount the world of drugs, crime, and moral decadence that poverty had plunged him into.

Like its counterpart in US pop culture, Pinoy rap has barely been able to attain the kind of respectability accorded to “finer” forms like the musical, art songs, and even pop and rock numbers. Even the proposal of a few academic experts to consider it the modern-day equivalent of the early twentieth-century verbal joust, the balagtasan, has met with resistance from more conservative sectors, owing to rap’s use of strong language and violent imagery. In this manner, Respeto goes beyond referring to the striving for self-fulfillment of its lead character, a young man of the slums. The movie weaves into its complex narrative several problematic issues that arise from the populist administration of Rodrigo R. Duterte, from his support for the Heroes’ Cemetery burial of martial-law dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, to the deadly and scientifically contested war on illegal drugs. Yet Respeto formulates its critique without the trollish arguments that typify social-media exchanges. The issues get raised as part of the characters’ struggle with their slum environment and with the administration that seeks to wrest control of it, often at their expense. Authentic personalities in local hiphop culture, including the director himself, ensure that the viewing experience will be highly realistic—even when the movie overturns its realistic premise and introduces poetic and dream imagery. More unexpectedly, Respeto handles the slum situation with as much titular respect as any local movie has ever mustered. In the process, it reveals how people in the midst of poverty and social degradation manage to survive and even embrace their situation: their sense of community and their hope to better their condition provide the means of binding everyone together, as well as the rage with which they meet values that run counter to their cherished ideals.

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Ang Napakaigsing Buhay ng Alipato

English Title: Alipato: The Very Brief Life of an Ember
Year of Release: 2016
Director: Khavn
Screenwriters: Khavn & Achinette Villamor
From a story by Brillante Mendoza
Producers: Kamias Overground & Rapid Eye Movies
Cast: Dido de la Paz, Khavn, Daniel Palisa, Bing Austria, Marti San Juan, Robin Palmes

Forthcoming.

Forthcoming.

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Balangiga: Howling Wilderness

Language: Waray
Additional Languages: Cebuano, English
Year of Release: 2017
Director: Khavn
Screenwriters: Jerry Gracio, Khavn, Achinette Villamor
Producer: Kamias Overground
Cast: Justine Samson, Pio del Rio, Althea Vega, Warren Tuaño, Daniel Palisa, Jun Sabayton, Lourd de Veyra, Roxlee

Kulas and his grandfather flee the US Army’s retaliation for the Filipino revolutionaries’ attack on their camp at Balangiga. They aim to go to Kulas’s parents at Quinapondan, avoiding even worse conflict at Borlongan. Along the way, Kulas takes along a toddler, Bola, the only survivor of a village massacred by the Americans. Kulas takes upon himself the challenge of keeping together Bola (whom he calls his brother), his grandfather, his pet chicken, and his water buffalo Melchora, but the ravages of war insist on drawing his attention to the reality of apocalyptic suffering and death.

Khavn had been known as one of the few Filipino directors better known outside his home country. Because of the receptiveness of foreign film festivals to his output, he managed to become the country’s most prolific auteur, with (as of 2018) over 50 feature films and 100 short films in less than a quarter-century, including the longest-ever Pinoy movie, the 13-hour Simulacrum Tremendum (2016), by his own account a “poetic documentary.” In the past few years, however, his punk aesthetic’s anarchic-yet-romantic anti-authoritarian thrust started exhibiting an accessibility to local mass audiences, duly noted by online commentators. Mondomanila: Kung Paano Ko Inayos ang Buhok Ko Matapos ang Mahaba-Haba Ring Paglalakbay (Mondomanila, or: How I Fixed My Hair after a Rather Long Journey) won major awards as a work-in-progress at the 2010 Cinemanila International Film Festival, just as Balangiga: Howling Wilderness first earned raves as a three-hour festival cut, then swept both the top prizes of the local critics and original academy award-giving bodies as a two-hour intermediate version, before finally being released as a 1.5-hour feature. Also worth watching are Pusong Wazak: Isa Na Namang Kwento ng Pag-ibig sa Pagitan ng Kriminal at Puta (Ruined Heart: Another Lovestory between a Criminal and a Whore) from 2014, and what may be the closest to an anarchist local feature, Ang Napakaigsing Buhay ng Alipato from 2016. Balangiga holds its own place in the Khavn oeuvre by providing a more accessible (though still painful and rage-filled) account of an eight-year-old’s coming-of-age during the historical moment when the US openly showed its genocidal intentions toward a local population bent on resisting its colonial agenda. Ravishing landscapes strewn with human and animal remains, dreams whose surrealist content turns nightmarish, specters of the deceased who insist on mingling with the living: these announce the unexpected emergence of a fully formed and fearless artistic intelligence, ready to take his place in the crowded (though rarely intensely gifted) field of populist filmmaking.

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