I always look forward to the few Filipino films I get to see. Unfortunately, I only get the chance overseas because they don’t get released here. I don’t know why this is so; at the very least, I get a thrill whenever I recognize the words that Tagalog and Malay have in common, such as “anak”, “sayang” and “sakit.” I once had a 2am conversation with a homeless Filipino and during our rambling talk I was intrigued when he said the Tagalog word for butterfly is “paru-paru”, which is of course Malay for lungs. Butterflies look like lungs – or maybe the other way around.
Filipino cinema is the oldest and most prolific in the region. The first factor is due to the Spanish and American colonial legacy, while the second might be thanks to the population’s love of melodrama and spectacle.
The cinematic world first really took notice of what was happening there in the 1970s thanks largely to the late Lino Brocka, who made over 50 films, several of which went to Cannes. He worked in many genres, including horror and pornography, but was especially noted for his politically charged melodramas that were akin to Fassbinder’s. I’ve only seen three of his films but lnsiang in particular impressed greatly. A beautiful young woman comes of age in the slums of Manila under the disapproving gaze of her jealous mother, whose lover also has his lustful sights on lnsiang. The film expertly explores the occasionally perverse manipulations of these people, and rushes headlong to its bloody but inevitable climax. Everyone’s got an agenda, and innocence is impossible in a world ruled by corruption. Brocka’s films were all the more remarkable when you consider they were made during the height of the Marcos dictatorship, which frequently tried to silence him.
An occasional screenwriter and actor for Brocka was Mario O’Hara, who later went on to forge his own career as director. I caught his latest, Demons, last year. It’s a low-budget masterpiece that uses its budgetary limitations to striking and even surreal advantage. (There is, for example, a helicopter scene with no helicopter). It updates the social realism of Brocka into something more in keeping with the age: It’s deconstructed realism, with poems recited to the screen and repeated shots all conspiring to bring you out of the action and to look at the material anew. Set on Negros Island during martial rule, it feels like a twisted take on the already twisted Wuthering Heights.
I saw three Filipino features in Singapore recently. They are among the best things among the 30-odd titles I managed to catch in the film festival. I will start with the longest, and end with the oddest.
Batang West Side by Lav Diaz is, at five hours, the longest Asian film ever made. This scared off many potential punters and the hall was sparsely populated. Someone later said that I deserved the Golden Cushion Award for being able to sit through it. But the duration was justified. This is a murder mystery set in New Jersey, USA. A young man (Yul Servo) is shot and a Filipino inspector (Joel Torre) conducts an investigation, which turns into a wider examination of the community. Through flashbacks, we see the forces that drove the youth to depression and the pernicious drug shabu that is, as a character says, “like cocaine to the rich and crack to the blacks.”
Some of the non-Filipino characters come off a bit wooden, but overall the acting and pacing cannot be faulted. The many daring use of long takes and low-key lighting lend a realistic and entirely compelling look to the film. I especially liked the sub-plot involving the youth’s mother, who lives in a cold mansion with her paralysed white husband and her terrifying gigolo lover. Batang West Side is a richly textured film about displacement, community, and the role of memory. I wasn’t the only one to like it: The jurors voted it Best Asian Feature Film.
Tuhog (Larger Than Life) was written by Armando Lao and directed by Jeffrey Jeturian. This is a satire on the “bomba” (sexploitation) films that have been a staple of Tagalog cinema for decades. Some of the nubile “bomba” sex stars are like candy, obvious even from the names they use: Sarsi Emmanuelle (a woman) and Toffee Calma (a man) can each draw gasps and pull in the crowds – at least, for the films in which they are frequently undressed.
Unique in this region, the Philippines still has a kind of studio system in which fast, cheap, disposable films are made by workers on contract. There were 80 Filipino films released last year and this is considered a decline: at its peak, the number was 150. Many of these films were made under the “pito-pito” system, where a film is shot in one week and edited in another, for a budget of less than US$100,000, giving a whole new meaning to the term “exploitation films.”
Just like in the B-movie system of the 1940s, the “pito-pito” production line comes up with lots of duds but also gives a chance to a few stubbornly creative directors to have a personal say within the limitations of the genre. Jeturian and Lao had both worked in this system, which gives Tuhog its credence and charge.
A producer and director decide to make a film based on a newspaper report of a man convicted of raping his granddaughter. The two men interview the women, who are compelled by financial necessity to sell their story. They are assured that the adaptation will be “artistic, with the sex scenes discreet and in context.” But when the women turn up for the screening, they are dismayed that their story has been turned into a soft-porn travesty called Lust for Flesh. They leave the cinema halfway, feeling violated all over again.
The Tuhog script is sharp and witty, and the performances elicit empathy. Flashback scenes from the women’s lives are contrasted with the soft-porn movie to show up the contrast, and also with the interviews by the filmmakers to show up the betrayal. The main technical flaw is the dubbing quality, which always lends a sense of distance to a film. DV cinema has proven that audiences can be more forgiving of bad pictures than of bad sound. Ironically, the version shown in the Philippines had many of the parodic sex scenes (including a hilariously acrobatic one on a tree) cut. “The censors said they were gratuitous, but that’s the whole point!” Jeturian said. “These are also the same censors who allow all these stupid sex films (that Tuhog was making fun of) to get passed.”
Finally we come to Mike de Leon’s Third World Hero. De Leon made some brilliant films in the 1980s but I did not know he was still active. His latest marks the centenary of Jose Rizal, but … it’s about the IDEA of the Filipino nationalist icon rather than the man himself. Two filmmakers want to make “a Rizal film” and they sift through the historical evidence to see if his life was dramatic enough. They step into the past and interrogate the protagonists. Scenes are created and then refashioned to show up the ambiguity of accepted history. For example, on the question of whether Rizal died a Catholic: His execution is shown once with him holding a crucifix, and once again without it.
I suppose it’s like a post-modernist Citizen Kane – it’s also shot in black and white. There are many provocative moments, including a spoof deodorant ad (“Gets rid of that native odour!”) when the filmmakers discuss Rizal’s penchant for European suits even in the tropical weather. His statue gets smashed, too: “Third World hero, is that what you are? Third-rate hero.” Central to this film is the question of whether Rizal recanted all his ideals just before his death. (There is a signed note, but the signature could have been forged).
On a final note, the cast of Third World Hero includes a Malaysian! Lara Fabregas did a few plays in Kuala Lumpur almost a decade ago (including the original version of Sheena Gurbakhash’s Puppets) but she pops us here as Rizal’s Irish wife (or mistress: this too is ambiguous) Josephine Bracken. I wonder how she ended up in Manila. But I suppose if she wants a movie career, there would be a better bet than here.
NOTE: For reviews on Filipino movies, check out this mailing-list by Manila-based critic Noel Vera, who is witty and larger-than-life himself.
First Published: 30.04.2002 on Kakiseni