SALIDA A BINISAYA FILM JOURNAL
ISSUE NO. 1
Q&A: BAGANE FIOLA, AIESS ALONSO, SOUTHERNLADS PRODUCTIONS REVIEWS: ‘ISKALAWAGS’ by ANTONIO GALAY-DAVID, ‘DOMINGO DOMINGO’ by MIKE GOMEZ ARTICLES: ‘Of CINEMALAYA...’ by MARIYA LIM, ‘ON BINISAYA HISTORY’ by GRACE LOPEZ, DETAILS ON this year’s FEATURE FILMS, binisaya & ASIAN SHORTS, etc.
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SALIDA is an independent film journal dedicated to giving you the lowdown on the annual Binisaya Film Festival. It is published under BOMBA! PRESS. All rights reserved. For submissions and queries, contact us via email: salida@bombapress.com
FOREWORD Of all the five years that Binisaya has stood its ground to showcase the finest in independent regional cinema, there hasn’t been a single one that wasn’t a struggle. At a glance, it’s a surprise how it has survived all this time. For us though, getting a closer look at the entire preparation process this year drew a whole new perspective on the idea, and the moment we saw all the friends and supporters offering a hand to keep the festival alive despite the odds makes it no surprise at all that it has now lasted half a decade since the first gathering in 2009. There’s no real explanation to its appeal really. It could be the way it embodies a generation of filmmakers who believe in the DIY ethos. Or maybe the way its history of volunteerism inspires more to volunteer. One thing for sure, Binisaya is alive today by a collective effort - not just by one or two organizations, but dare we say an entire generation. This year, Bomba Press is glad to be partnering with Keith Deligero to put up what is turning out to be the most diverse installment yet with ample representation from film, music, and the arts. We hope this zine ends up a fitting part of our legacy to the annals of Binisaya. In here, you will find conversations with the people behind the films and segments featured in this year’s festival. You will also come across letters and art from people who, in each their own way, embody the same philosophy behind the Binisaya film festival. And somewhere within these pages, we hope you will find that piece of yourself that wants to go out and watch an independent film, hear an independent band, read an independent journal, and support independent art.
Dexter Sy
Bomba Press, Chairman Cover Art (above) done by Workers & Artisans. FB: facebook.com/pages/Workers-Artisans
FEATURE FILMS
ISKALAWAGS by Keith Deligero (Cebu) One day, in the small peaceful town of Barrio Malinawon, seven young punks, who call themselves the Iskalawags because of their shared love for Filipino action movies (particularly those starred by their idol Jeric Raval), decide to set out on a mini quest to find the tree that according to Palot—the gang’s de facto leader—bears the lone papaya fruit as large as the belly of Intoy’s father.
SONATA MARIA Ug Ang Babayeng Halas Ang Tunga Sa Lawas by Bagane Fiola (Davao) A story of a young poet lost between imagination and the fastpaced corporate world.
Lukas Niño by John Torres (Manila) Lukas Nino (Lukas the strange) is a story of an awkward teenager coming to grips with his own initiation into manhood just when there is a movie shoot in their neighborhood. The story opens several nights before, when Lukas is told that he has a tikbalang (half-horse, half man) for a father. His father, Mang Basilio disappears in their life the next day. Lukas wonders whether he is a boy or a tikbalang. There is a film shoot in the village. Everyone participates. Soon, they believe the story of the film. That there is a mystical river that lets them forget one memory that they choose. Lukas’ father resurfaces, and he is invited to play a role. At this time, very private footage of a woman emerges from the river. The film is told by Lukas’ friend, Lorena, who is fascinated by this strange boy who thinks he is a tikbalang.
Catch John Torres’ Master Class (talk/discussion) on September 20 / 10 am at USC-CAFA Theater. This is open to everyone and admission is free.
binisaya shorts
Dico Hilason by Astro James Lugo (Cebu)
Baybayong Birhen by Amaya Han (Cebu)
An over-confident guy from the province comes to Cebu and thinks he can handle the city-ness of Cebu City.
The SPIRIT OF THE SEA takes a rest in human form and relaxes in a special SHORE. GIRL and BOY discover the shore and they fall in love.
Abakada ni Nanay by Joni Sarina Mejico (Cebu)
Retaso by Ernest DiĂąo (Cebu)
A 78 year old lady enrolls herself in school to learn how to read and write.
A compilation of unrelated spare shots and b-rolls edited together to tell a story. The Right Thing by Bradley Tenchavez (Cebu) The story of Paul Abad Jr., at a time in his where he’s at the crossing in his life between discontent leading to complains on his situation and society and general, and appreciation on simple things that makes life good.
Set in his graveyard shift travels to work routine, his opinion on things take a lighter perspective when he stumbles upon a struggling flower vendor. Will he continue to go about on his present way of thinking and ignore the struggles? Or will he choose to do the right thing.
I Am Patience by Razcel Jan Salvarita (Dumaguete City)
Aninaw by Trenary Guerrero (Cebu)
A soulful encounter between a small creature, a snail named Patience, and a man with a strange device.
A man, who lost his purpose, struggles to find his way back in a form of music that can be his only chance to redeem himself from his past.
Diskonek by Samantha Solidum (Butuan City)
Josephine by Akie Yano (Cebu/QC/Japan)
Trina’s idea of happiness has been defined by what’s on the interface of her smartphone, but she finds out the hard way that there’s actually life beyond it.
A Filipina mail-order bride in Japan longs for the lover and the daughter she left behind in the Philippines. Ika-3 Putahe by Joeromer Bacus (Cagayan De Oro City) Even in his sleep, Emilio is haunted by scenes in which grave things happen to his fiance, Helena. He fights these thoughts by truly loving her and embracing the reality that nothing dictates what is to happen. Helena vanishes one day, and all imaginations Emilio fears most come alive. He looks
for her alongside a long-lost friend, William, and hopes that he doesn’t lose the only thing he has, even himself.
ASIAN shorts (curated by Aiess Alonso)
BANSULI (The Flute) by Min Bahadur Bham (Nepal)
PAHADA by Niranjan Kumar Kujur (India)
After a long long civil war which cost more than 13,000 lives, the Maoist have come into the front - line, to complete in the national election for the Constituent Assembly. Amid the political changes going to take place in the pristine of Himalaya, the life of BIJULI, a 12 years old girl in the remote west of Nepal, is also about to change forever. BANSULLI is a journey of hopes and desires, against the social stigma that still prevails in Nepal.
Munnu is an 8-year-old boy, struggling to memorize the table of thirteen for quite a long time. But his marbles and his toy cart end up charming him more than the need to sit with a book and study. In the tribal heartland of Jharkhand, the government has waged a war against Maoists. The village environment has just begun to alter with the arrival of Paramilitary forces in the area. How does the family cope with such violently changing times? Will Munnu ever become responsible?
BOONRERM by Sorayos Prapapan (Thailand)
SHELTER by Ismail Basbeth (Indonesia)
Boonrerm is a housemaid. Everyday she received weird orders.
Love the one you’re with‌while you can.
PAHADA by Niranjan Kumar Kujur (India) Munnu is an 8-year-old boy, struggling to memorize the table of thirteen for quite a long time. But his marbles and his toy cart end up charming him more than the need to sit with a book and study. In the tribal heartland of Jharkhand, the government has waged a war against Maoists. The village environment has just begun to alter with the arrival of Paramilitary forces in the area. How does the family cope with such violently changing times? Will Munnu ever become responsible? WHERE I GO by Kavich Neang (Cambodia) San Pattica is a mixed Cambodian-Cameroonian adult whose father is a Cameroonian soldier who came to Cambodia in 1992-1993 as United Nation peacekeeper, a period of the first Cambodia election after the Khmer Rouge regime collapsed. His father met a Cambodian wife and later on, his wife had a pregnancy who is Pattica. Since Pattica’s parents left home for many years, Pattica was raised by his grandmother. Challenge and difficulty in his family forced his grandmother to bring Pattica to study and live in an orphanage in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Since then, Pattica visits his grandmother and his sister San Adam Pattina whose father is Ghanaian. Later on, Pattica finds that his mother lived with a Ghanaian guy after his father left the country. Pattica discusses with his sister, Pattina about their consequences as mixed Cambodian-Cameroonian in Cambodia, and then he wants to bring Pattina to live and study with him an orphanage. Since then, Pattica has become more interested in knowing about his own identity since he is a victim of discrimination in his daily life. ABOUT THE CURATOR During BINISAYA 2012, Aiess Alonso won best short film for her “Katapusang Labok” Aiess and her film then went to Cannes Short Film Corner, then to Cinemalaya, and then everywhere… For more information about the directors, please visit: http://festival.binisaya.org/tagged/asianshort2014
GROWING BINISAYA FILM FESTIVAL by Grace Lopez
W
here were you in 2009? Bet you were where you were meant to be. For independent filmmaker Keith Deligero and friends, it was the year Binisaya was conceptualized in a small apartment crowded with filmmakers and former college classmates. In this particular case, Binisaya…THE film festival. That year, Deligero flew back to Cebu from Manila where he was actively working to finish editing his short film Uwan Init Pista sa Langit (2009) with classmate and fellow Cebuano filmmaker Remton Zuasola. Likewise, his friends were also trying to beat the deadline for a film festival in Manila. While polishing his short film, Zuasola was finishing his stop-motion animation, Mga Damgo (2009). Another filmmaker classmate, Idden de los Reyes, was secretly making his short film Yawyaw (2009). Admittedly, in the middle of this panic mode, Deligero kept wondering out loud why they had to submit their films somewhere else just to be seen. For weeks, Deligero badgered his pals about a possible group screening of their films just like what visual artists usually do through group exhibits. Why not? “Nagsige kog yawyaw nga mag-organize lagi ug screening…the first
Binisaya kay dapat unta weeks earlier pa sa October 30…pero tungod ni bagyong Ondoy na-move siya to 30”. So the deed was done on that fateful 30th of October through pure collective effort. Even if Deligero was not able to attend this group screening due to the damage his apartment in Manila has sustained, thanks to typhoon Ondoy, he and Idden delos Reyes collaborated on what would become the iconic WAVES logo of Binisaya. Eventually, Deligero gave up his apartment and his job in Manila to go back to Cebu that year for good. Those films they were working on? It went to several festivals and received its share of accolades. The group screening became a homecoming event for these films. They wanted to regularly continue this group screening but dilemma ensued: the lack of original films to screen. Common sense dictates that they cannot just repeatedly show their own same films. Two years later, Deligero again tried to revive the idea of collective screening but this time as an organized festival inviting other filmmakers in the Visayas region to join. To add inspiration to the event, Deligero invited as guests a few friends from Manila (Keith
could afford to personally fund more) like actor Ramon Bautista, noted editor of Son of God and Zombadings Lawrence S. Ang, filmmaker Bagane Fiola, and writer, film, and music reviewer Richard Bolisay to grace BINISAYA Film Festival in 2011. The maiden festival was hosted by Tioseco Bohinc Film Archive and University of San Carlos under the Sinekultura program headed by Misha Anissimov, coordinator of the university’s Cinema program. “When Cebuano filmmakers approached me about this particular festival idea … I immediately jumped at the opportunity to have the university as the first venue for this Binisaya Film Festival. The reason is because it came from the grassroots, it came from the filmmakers themselves. There is nobody holding their hand. That’s a first because for people to actually start taking action, taking the time to actually do the organization, it’s a thankless job. I wanted to do our part to support it.” For BINISAYA Film Festival 2012, the festival received funding from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. It partnered with Bisdak Pride headed by Roxanne Omega-Doron. A competitive section was opened and it marked the festival’s very first Best Short Film winner: Katapusang Labok (Last Strike) by Cebuana filmmaker Aiess Alonso. The film competed in the Short Film Corner, Cannes Film Festival 2013 and to other film festivals abroad. BINISAYA Film Festival 2013 partnered with ACT-UP Cebu spearheaded by filmmaker Chloe Veloso. George Macapagal’s Unod became the
festival’s short film winner. Cebuano filmmaker Christian Linaban’s critically acclaimed feature Aberya closed the festival. A twin idea with the birthing of BINISAYA Film Festival was the experimental plan of creating a feature film for every festival made by seven upcoming filmmakers based in Cebu. The film will be titled after the names of the days of the week. Hence, the film Biyernes Biyernes (2011) debuted and opened the maiden BINISAYA Film Festival followed by Sabado Sabado (2012), and Domingo Domingo (2013). The project not only tapped new filmmakers but also fresher storylines and filmic styles. The films not only reflect the cinematic tastes of the year but it also document the different techniques applied by promising filmmakers, the use of new technology in making films, and the overall progress of the festival. Moreover, the practice of the annual shuffling of organizing partners of the festival further promotes the fresh ideas and encourages bold interpretations of the values promoted by BINISAYA. Collaboration has always been the driving force of the festival. Now under the umbrella of non-profit organization Binisaya Movement, BINISAYA Film Festival 2014 has independent label Bomba Press as it’s organizing partner. The public can look forward to the screening of works by Asian filmmakers this year. As laudable the objective of appreciating our own films is, it is imperative that we can also witness snippets of the lives of our Asian neighbors to gain
more perspective of our being Filipinos, being Cebuanos. “Nituo ko na kaya nato maka come up ug culturally relevant and at the same time personal short films,” said Deligero. Needless to say, Cebuano films are at par with the world’s best. Due to time management and to accommodate the screening of the Asian films, the festival has merged the Panorama and Inter-islands sections to simply call it BINISAYA Shorts 2014. Anyone living in Cebu can submit a film about Cebu (Panorama) while anyone from anywhere, for as long as there is the presence of Bisaya dialect or Bisaya crew member (Inter-island) can submit a film for competition or exhibition. BINISAYA aims to spread the waves of films made by Cebuanos. To create that appreciation, the festival had to overcome the mountains of challenges that characterize every worthy endeavor such as budget, support, learning the ropes of mounting a festival. To create alternative venues, part of the challenge is for BINISAYA to be peripatetic in order to share the experience of films projected on any screen (even the old “telon”) outdoors in as many places in the Philippines, especially the remote areas such as Biliran or Camotes. To connect ourselves as a people, or as Benedict Anderson puts it, as an imagined community. Let us truly see ourselves in our very own films.
This article was originally published on Cebu Daily News (September 9th, 2014). Printed with permission.
OF CINEMALAYA ACCORDING TO THIS CEBUANA by Mariya Lim
“Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” If there’s one “old” movie besides The Sound of Music that we can all agree we’ve seen somewhere during our childhood/teenhood/general young-hood, it’s probably The Wizard of Oz. Between those whose tastes have evolved beyond the mainstream and those that still subsist on cinematic diets exclusively of Hollywood blockbusters, they’ve at least one thing in common: both can sing a few lines of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. The 1939 film offers a wealth of one-liners, but to this writer upon skipping class to attend the last three days of the 10th annual Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival in Manila, Judy Garland couldn’t have said it better. No way could I still have been in Cebu. The feeling of being in a kind of Oz began
almost immediately upon arrival, in the way promotional banners flanked entire sides of streets. The words CINEMALAYA X flashed neon on billboard-sized and beside-billboard television screens. And it made me think God damn is something cultural a big enough deal here. Back home, the lower left page of a daily newspaper and a brief soundbite on FM would already be the sweetest steal. I was Dorothy in a black BINISAYA hoodie as I approached the monolithic mass of concrete that is the Cultural Center of the Philippines. I kept on underestimating Manila traffic the entire three days I was there, naively assuming I would make it to all the 10 o’clock screenings with a commute time allowance of only an hour. The Wicked Witch of the North wanted me to know though: This is the capital, and if it’ll take the most riotous display of fuckthe-police driving to remind you you’re not home anymore, here, have some front-row
seats to a hit-and-run in broad daylight! It was a place where the munchkins were neither mini nor multihued. Instead they came in the form of ushers and usherettes so pinpoint-perfect at their jobs they could probably go CPR on anyone who hyperventilated from the movies. Flashlights like extensions of their arms, I looked back on my own performance as a volunteer for the smattering of film festivals in Cebu with a kind of impressed embarrassment. When the Cinemalaya hymn (or whatever that thing is called) played and the lights dimmed and the show began, this much I realized, in a progression of no particular order: 1. Hearing the word “putangina” onscreen is somehow really hilarious, regardless of context. I guess the Manila crowd just reacts more. 2. You’d think that affixing a Santo Nino anywhere in a film would be a signifier enough for an audience to identify that it’s Cebuano. It was a little lost on my neighbors though as they couldn’t correlate the Sinulog mascot to our city. 3. The same names make repeat appearances in different sets of credits, which could indicate these people are just so passionate or that even in Manila, it’s still a pocket industry (so what does that make ours?!) 4. Infidelity/Family/LGBT/Anything Gritty/
Stray Comedy = Choose one theme or combine for maximum effect. 5. Going back to the point made in #1, theirs is just an audience that has more energy. And it all boils down to a hunger. Hardly any of baby Cinemalaya equivalents in Cebu come with a fee for the public. Over there not only does one pay for every screening, the shows actually get sold out. Whereas I’m used to events with a viewership as uniform as a field of poppies, everyday at the Emerald City came attendees as diverse as the usual suspects—students, vague art types, the filmmakers themselves—plus the odd senior citizen or two, a family even and middle-aged couples on date night. In the end of Wizard of Oz, the titular wizard turns out to be a fraud. By the time I realize this though, I’ve sunken far too deep into this article with the Oz analogy that I can’t undo the tornado, so to speak. Thus I try to justify the loophole—at which point of my lost major film festival virginity did the disillusionment set in? I didn’t get to stick around for the Awards Night anymore, because I had to return to a reality of three absences in school. Maybe if I had stayed I would have found the Wizard? Either way, the yellow brick home was paved with many an insight. Admit it, we’re
a regionalistic bunch. We still secretly harbor ill-will that we’re not the capital. We like to mock the Northern pronunciation of the words ankle and tricycle, PO machines as my friends and I tease. We espouse the glories of our city where beautiful beaches are a road trip away, while still being metropolitan enough after two new branches of J. Co Donuts (because that is the ultimate barometer with which one can determine a metropolis from the rest). It isn’t that I’m selling out to the imperialistic overlords after one weekend. Manila can keep their legendary-but-actually-very-real traffic for themselves—which we just might be catching up to anyway, what with all these roadside developments and repairs on the actual roads themselves. As for anyone who denies the quality of our local talent , they should be sent a flock of evil flying monkeys at their doorstep. However, what good is all that if there’s hardly a reception? They say you can’t call it art unless you share it. That’s why the best Cebuano talents transplant themselves in a place far from their roots; if the disparity is as audible as a few scattered claps versus rounds upon rounds of applause, even a Scarecrow without a brain
cell in his straw head can tell who’s having it infinitely better, arts-wise. True, the three or so upcoming film fests in the city will probably not be rivaling Cinemalaya in terms of attendance just yet. But whoever said it can’t get better? Like tin men who want hearts and lions in search of their courage, it’s free to dream. And we have to take it upon ourselves to create that reality, instead of just waiting for Glinda the Good Witch to hand us another cinematic Golden Age, all the while complaining until it comes. I felt a pebble inside my one of my ruby red slippers on my final day. I knew what it meant: I had to do as Dorothy did and tap both heels together until I’m back in Cebu. Except not really, I was wearing boots. And while I looked out at all the big buildings and all the burgeoning big-city energy there was to envy, this much still remains and stays the same: There’s no place like home. In the spirit of giving you a free taste test of what you’ve missed in CINEMALAYA X, here have some one-liner “reviews” on me:
SUNDALONG KANIN directed by Janice O’Hara & Denise O’Hara Lost Boys served up Oro-Plata-Mata style.
loss, bliss or strife—and that for the little eternity we have alive we get snippets of each before our own own impermanence takes over? Do I just sound pretentious?
RONDA directed by Nick Olanka Ai-Ai ain’t your Tanging Ina this time. Not even with Carlo Aquino around.
1ST KO SI 3RD directed by Real Florido A comedy, thank God!
KASAL directed by Joselito Altarejos Token festival gay film. MARIQUINA directed by Milo Sogueco Even the most perfect nuclear family could melt down—at one misstep, it will wear and maybe even tear like an overused pair of shoes. BWAYA directed by Francis Xavier Pasion Mythic and meta and mesmerizing, even with Angeli Bayani accented Bisaya. DAGITAB directed by Giancarlo Abra-
han V
Are all the best years behind us? Or isn’t it that nothing is permanent—not of love,
#Y directed by Gino M. Santos Poor Little Rich Boy #ConyoProblems CHILDREN’S SHOW directed by Roderick Cabrido The seedy underbelly of kid wrestlers with a quasi-Maalaala Mo Kaya treatment. A THIEF, A KID AND A KILLER directed by Nathan Adolfson Quentin Tarantino-esque, but cornier. SHORTS A & B I loved them more than the features, possibly because they didn’t last long enough for me to nitpick.
Domingo Domingo: Sundays Are Not Holy by Mike Gomez
F
ilm in the Philippines flows along two distinct currents: the “art film,” shown primarily in film festivals regional/national/global, and the “mainstream film,” screened in movie theaters everywhere. The former of course requires the direct intellectual participation of the audience in parsing the films’ multivalent symbolisms or the freeform storylines or the unrestricted themes, films crafted seemingly without respect for traditional notions of decency or political correctness or simply catharsis—commonly this is where the so-called auteurs stand their ground (also, those who call themselves cinephiles/ cineastes without any hint of irony love to position themselves in this camp, all the while twirling their mustaches and sneering at the unwashed masses). No explanation needed for the latter: these movies are our equivalent to the ordinary Hollywood blockbusters, although the genres are typically limited to only horror and comedy or romance. There is, however, one thread that links (thinly) these two models together. Cynicism—it abounds in both filmmaking categories, albeit manifesting itself in different forms. It’s almost too banal to note how unashamedly manipulative the PR machines for mainstream movies are in hooking their
audiences, how they only have to get at least two popular actors/actresses onscreen together to sell tickets, how they only have to get said actors/actresses to say lines explicitly meant to be quoted on Facebook or Twitter or whatever for the money to start flooding in. I hate to sound like a pretentious dick here, but facts are facts: you can accuse the Oscars of always getting it wrong all you want, but at least they don’t laud movie entries specifically for putting a bunch of asses on movie seats. Commercial Philippine cinema is a perpetual PR-motion machine. The other manifestation of this cynicism is a little trickier, though. Independent filmmaking in the Philippines is supposed to save whatever artistry remained in the cinematic landscape, simply by virtue of being commercial movies’ diametrical opposite. Indeed we’re slowly resuscitating our international reputation (dead since the 80s) through the ascendancy of talented indie filmmakers (Lav Diaz being foremost among them—recent critical comparison to Bergman assuring his status), but this is incidentally also where the problem arises: acclaim in the international art-house circuit has been turning Philippine indie movies into clichés of their own. Hence the glut of films shot in the cinema verité style, films
depicting the (primarily) economic squalor/ hardships of Philippine life. Hence, also, the term “poverty porn.” We’ve gathered a bag of tricks, and we’re simply using it over and over. The foreigners eat up this stuff, so why bother changing it? Don’t fix what isn’t broken, right? Yes, of course, that’s perfectly reasonable stuff, but the point here is that you know something is wrong when you use “artistic integrity” to justify the dearth of originality or ambition, when you brazenly use the tricks of the very thing you profess to go against to make yourself look good. It’s still the same cynical manipulation, but arguably in an even worse way. Exceptions exist, though, as in Marlon Rivera’s delightfully sly and cheeky Ang Babae sa Septic Tank, and there are many others, but I believe that it’s going to be the young, aspiring filmmakers who’ll suffer the inevitable backlash. Already I, a novice reviewer, have seen several student productions bearing the clichés of the worst of Philippine indie film—the pointlessly lackadaisical scenes, the intentionally boring camerawork, the small-minded stories—with the legitimately promising ones few and far between. The very point of going indie is to be free of clichés/sameness, so why? Which is where my mixed feelings about
the Cebuano film Domingo Domingo come in. The movie is actually an omnibus of seven short films, each helmed by a different director, and was a feature to last year’s Binisaya Film Festival. Now, the anthology film almost automatically raises my eyebrows, especially if it’s entered into a film festival. Not only is such a movie harder to produce, logistically and financially, but it is also quite subversive, given the context: normally art films are noted for being guided by the dominating voice of a single director (hence the endurance of the “auteur theory”), so cramming in seven disparate sets of idiosyncrasies into a single 84-minute movie, and then expecting them all to cohere in the end, is bold—admirably bold. How to even judge it? Do we consider the whole thing holistically, or do we simply pick and choose? But, for length considerations, what follow will be broad strokes. Domingo Domingo as a whole is an intriguing/interesting film (if only conceptually), but it is too flawed to be anything truly remarkable, dragged down by parts that do not have any business being there, or by parts that are plainly bad even when taken on their own merits. They stick out like open sores— they suck nearly all your attention. While watching it, I could not help but think that the
strongest director in the bunch maybe should have directed the whole thing, so that the ultimate thematic concerns finally cohere visibly, and that a strong unifying voice guides the film to wherever the director wants to go. Indeed, kind of like Altman’s Short Cuts or PT Anderson’s Magnolia. As it stands, Domingo is too noisy, too scatter-brained, and too confused to be memorable. It doesn’t really know what it wants to be, much less what it wants to say. Really, until the third film, you don’t even get the idea that it’s an anthology film. So, then: it opens inside a darkened car, driving through nighttime Cebu, the scene buoyed by a lilting Cebuano ballad on the radio. The car eventually reaches a secluded hilly spot, and the driver gets out, lifts a man’s body out of the trunk and then sets it against the car. This is a sequence that wouldn’t be out of place in a typical noir film, but what follows immediately upsets expectations—the dissolve after a close-up on the man’s face reveals him sleeping in a church, attending Mass with his family. Thus the thematic agenda is (ostensibly) laid out, thus the events bookending the film are narrated, and thus the first short in the film begins. It is titled “Simba Ko”, directed by Archie Manayon. In terms of narrative, this is one of the two most important shorts in Domingo. In fact, you can just take this and the final short, craft a completely different film—tonally and structurally—and still make sense. This is where we learn of the pivotal event that somehow occupies the filmmakers’ overarching concerns, but it really just seems that they only wanted to include a specific happening to justify their structural choice: in none of the succeeding shorts does this
event even get mentioned, but in Simba Ko, it is staged as something portentous, a really important occurrence, an event around which the fates of the rest of the characters evolve. While I have no problem with leaving things unexplained, what bugs me about this is how matter-of-factly (or maybe casually) Mr. Manayon drops it into the storyline. It’s narrative dressing, made to look more necessary than it really is. Thematically, this subplot kind of makes sense, but the rest of the shorts bog it down and muddle it so totally that by the end, I didn’t care about what the entire film was trying to tell me. Perhaps the problem here is that Simba Ko is too on-the-nose emotionally and too basic fictively. We never get to really care about the characters since the film telegraphs our reactions, and the twist in the end comes off as too predictable to be really shocking. Still, the best thing about this short for me is the sudden tonal shift in the beginning. It shows glimpses of a director who knows what he wants to do and has the confidence to follow through with it—he has the will to go along with his whims, in the service of his overall goal, but for some reason he lets his vision cloud his instincts. For example, in the scene where the protagonist checks into the pension house for a rendezvous with a woman named Olga, he literally narrates the title of the story simply to drive home his director’s point and simply to help get Domingo moving. This obvious artifice could be at home in another film (maybe something more allegorical), but in a film that’s shot in the verité style, where events are first understood as literal, it doesn’t work. It deters from the goal of literalism, detaches the viewer needlessly.
He’s saying something, but he’s too bent on the fact that he’s saying something. To borrow from a friend’s opinion of another film—Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives—sometimes it’s important to let the style dictate the type of truth needed to be shown. Refn’s film is divisive because it’s too unabashedly stylized, all of it too visually glorified, the violence depicted as too meaninglessly grand, but the overcooked style helps lead viewers to accept the final few events (where Ryan Gosling quite literally returns to his mother’s womb) as true, metaphorically. It does not make sense, yet because of its sheer absurdity, it’s actually more resonant. So what I’m saying is simply that just because cinema verité is the default setting for Filipino indie filmmakers, it doesn’t mean that such a style necessarily fits every story, every theme, and every premise. And, simpler still, what I’m also saying here is that Simba Ko’s script is atrocious (wonky dialogue further damned by horrible acting, etc). The next two films aren’t any better, either. Mga Hangaway, directed by Steven Atenta, and Agi, directed by Nicolo Manreal, are films that ultimately do not have any business belonging to the whole set. While Hangaway is more streamlined and focused and ties together neatly into Domingo’s overarching theme, Agi simply wrecks whatever momentum the preceding shorts have gathered. Between the two I liked Hangaway better because it’s just actually a long fight scene hung onto a hackneyed story of a fatherand-son’s distance—the extended escrima sequence is delightful. The movements are graceful, the camera knows how long to stay on the action, and the editing shapes the duel into a kinetic dance of death. There are no
shaky-cam tricks to impart a false sense of speed. No wonder the film employed three directors of photography: Samantha Solidum, Jay Hernandez, and Neil Briones. About Agi the less said, the better. It’s a stolid, bland, boring piece of work. What it does instead is show the dangers inherent in wantonly ripping pages out of a documentarian’s playbook: documentaries are what they are usually because their subjects are already interesting, innately worth filming, the director trusts himself and his story so much he lets it speak for itself (nothing is manufactured). But if your subject is just some guy who just goes on a boat trip for an unknown goal, and who happens to get ripped off by a streetwalker and then gets robbed by a pickpocket—conversely, it comes off as awkward, too mannered, too telegraphed. The facts alone in Agi are uninteresting, which is the problem. The languor is unjustified, everything feels purposeless, and it starts with nothing and then ends with nothing. Worse still is that it tries too hard to imply meaning (the pen-exchange scenes), and expects us to go along with it just because of the effort. Don’t even get me started on the sex scene. Thankfully the next film is a vast improvement. What may be the best short in Domingo Domingo is Grace Marie Lopez’s Yolanda Remulta. This is where the omnibus shines for me, as the overriding directorial choice here is utilized to great effect: accompanied by beautiful nighttime cinematography, the story tells the recovery efforts of a poor family up in the hills (of presumably Northern Cebu) after the devastation of Yolanda. The montages of the destruction wrought by the super-typhoon are buoyed by the family’s straight-
forward narration, pitched at an emotional register that’s not too high-strung—it nails the right tone, resignation at the present but tinged with hope for the future. In this film we see that the Filipino’s resilience doesn’t really come from sheer strength, but it springs from his unequivocal faith in the future. Tomorrow is another day, the father concludes, and so it is. The details are also quite affecting. Notice the scene where a small boy tells of how he and his sisters had seen another kid freeze to death in their evacuation center. The director, knowing enough to detach herself from the story, couldn’t help but get riled up by the anecdote, her voice rising and all, but keeps going on anyway: the exchange is real, natural, resonant. Especially when we watch how the boy doesn’t seem to be affected by what he’s saying, how he even tries to keep on smiling, how delighted he looks just because he’s being filmed. It’s not that he doesn’t care about the dead kid, he’s simply too caught up in the moment for anything to register. Filipinos simply can’t resist hamming it up for the camera, no matter the circumstances, and so that is what we see. So now I’m going to skip ahead, just to get something out of the way. A couple or so sentences for Jvi Luib’s Mga Nagdumala: this one is the film that does not belong here. It is inconsistent visually and thematically (at this point I stopped caring about what it all meant anyway) with the other shorts, and it is just plain ugly. Now, the device of a person(s)—mostly a man (or men)—smoking and brooding on the street is one of the clichés of young Philippine indie filmmaking, and it has always been terrible and pretentious. It’s a placeholder for something truly meaningful, and to me it’s always been a signal of a director’s faltering imagination. (Can’t think of anything engaging to bridge one section to the next? Just have some guy sit around and smoke and think about life or art or whatever.) You can pull off something like this in literature, not in something so visually immediate/compelling as film. And even then, why use such a glar-
ing cliché? So when I saw the main character do exactly that, even accompanied by a low and ponderous voice reciting pseudo-intellectual verbiage, I stopped paying attention. Yes, the flash-cuts showing a girl in (I presume) a wedding gown are interesting. But the rest of the short is not. So. Moving on—Domingo ni Dexter, by Aldo Nerbert Banaynal, is propelled by an interesting (if overdone) idea, but then is torpedoed by wonky structuring and execution. It is also the film outside of the bookends that adheres the closest to what is the most likely theme of the whole movie, only that it is a slight riff, telling about what a person might do after waking up after an incredibly realistic dream of death. As expected, he tries to reverse his fate, but my main problem with the short is how structurally imbalanced it is: too much time is spent on the guy doing nothing with his friend, letting things flow too freely that the point almost gets lost. If it had been shorter (for example if the scenes of them eating were cut), Mr. Banaynal could have achieved pretty much the same effect he was going for. Again, it’s pure narrative dressing. And the camerawork is too unfocused to be anything other than a confused attempt at stylization, made all the more glaring because the story itself does not need it. Does it even mean anything, the wobbling camera, or are we expected to think that it means something? I might be accused of critical/intellectual laziness here, but shouldn’t a film stimulate one’s thinking first, before it can be engaged on that level (or on any level, to be frank)? Dexter achieves something beyond its means only during the sudden climactic encounter, if only because of how unprepared we are for it, even though in retrospect the short itself has been steadily shepherding us to that moment all along. It’s an almost masterful storytelling stroke, though the ending doesn’t really capitalize on it—an easy, inoffensive, corporately approved epiphany is what we see.
The final film of the set, Nota, directed by Chloe Veloso, explains the back-story of Father Al, the priest casually referred to in Simba Ko. Story-wise he is compelling as a character, the skeleton key (as it were) to understanding the ideas behind Domingo Domingo: what could have led him to that night in the pension house, caught literally with his pants down, his name dirtied without him even knowing about it—this is where the lack of explanation helps enrich the narrative, the elaborate flashback does not provide a clean-cut Freudian explanation to his reasons for doing what he ultimately did. A full, pat answer would have cheapened Father Al, and would have neutered the impact of his fate. The misdirection here only supplies the possibility, and it is a realistic and even a genuinely emotional one, as after all, what could anyone have done in his place? His choice was only one out of many, and out of those, probably more than half would have been safe and harmless, so then we are left to ask—why? In this sense, it’s only fitting that Nota be the concluding film in the set. Problem is that the framing and composition during his conversation with the mayor’s daughter is too loaded, leaping beyond mere suggestiveness into just plain dictation. From the way the camera locks on his knobby hands, deliberately avoiding or obscuring his face, the shadowy way he communicates (verbally/physically), and the deep focus shots of him and the icons on his table— straight away we are told that Father Al is hiding something vaguely evil, or at least deviant. We are forced to take sides right off the bat, instead of letting the images and the dialogue carry the narrative, allowing us to pick
the side we want. Again it’s too conscious of the fact that it is saying something, and the message isn’t even provocatively offensive, doesn’t invite introspection, just another socially approved conclusion that stays within the lines of good (read: religious) taste. It casts blame without really asking itself why. In the end it willingly renders itself safe and palatable, when instead it shouldn’t have been. But maybe its awkwardly saccharine tone (in the flashbacks, which is about 80% of the film anyway) is the point: this romance should not happen, especially not in this house of God, we know this, so let’s use the trappings of the typical romantic drama to subvert expectations. Yet the tonal switch shoots the whole thing down. I did like the ending, though. The driver/ concierge in the first short reappears, clutching Father Al’s crucifix, bowing his head as if he were in the confessional. There is no reason for the guy to feel any sort of guilt, to feel anything at all, really, for the doomed priest, but in that moment he becomes our surrogate. It is the most human moment in the short. Not the mushy scenes between the two seminarians, not the gratingly insipid conversation between the young woman and the priest, not his ruminations about the nature of ‘true’ love (which is steeped in so much irony he could have drowned in it)—it is the driver, inessential to the story except as literally being a device to end it, who gains the responsibility of emotion. So now, after all that, I get to thinking: maybe the point of Domingo Domingo is not to defy categorization, but simply to stay snugly in the middle. It’s not too sincere and not too ironic—it simply is confused. The sad thing is that it probably prefers that.
ISKALAWAGS: A Review by Antonio Galay-David Filipino culture is characterized by naturalized artifice. This is what is foregrounded in the distinctly Visayan film Iskalawags by Keith Deligero. Based on the short story ‘Ang Kapayas’ by the Cebuano writer Erik Tuban, Iskalawags revolves around the eponymous gang of young men from the Visayas (the film does not specify where beyond ‘Sitio Malinawon,’ but the surroundings indicate the town of San Francisco in the Camotes Islands off the shores of Cebu). The young men, led by the adolescent Palot, are avid fans of Tagalog action films. They go around their rural fishing town re-enacting their favourite action scenes, and re-enactments develop into full blown acts of mischief. One day Palot sees a large papaya on a tree growing on the backyard of his teacher ma’am Lina. He then makes it the gang’s great mission to take the fruit. One of the gang, Intoy, narrates the adventure, along with other misadventures and details such as his own domestic problems and Palot’s coming of age. Much of Filipino culture is imposed, and Iskalawags reveals how the rural Visayan sensibility in particular ends up appropriating the imposed Tagalog culture (whether popular or academic) into everyday life. The result is often strikingly, and humorously, incongruous: the Iskalawags re-enacting an
urban shootout, reciting long lines in Tagalog with difficulty to each other under the coconuts of their balanghoy-strewn beach; Liklik singing April Boy in the middle of the lasang while Bulldog beside him smokes a cigarette rolled with lomboy leaf; Bulldog struggling to recite a talumpati in Tagalog. And the characters – and ultimately the film – could only be aware of this incongruity: at one point, Intoy’s narration describes Buwan ng Wika as ‘when we wear Filipiniana while pulling weeds.’ And we get shots of the group posing in gangster tableau while Bulldog holds a chicken they had just killed with slingshots. When the appropriation is not humorously incongruous, it is demonstrative of cultural powerplay: in cases when power needs to be demonstrated, characters assume the imposed culture. As such, Palot dons a Jeric Raval get-up (Tagalog 90’s action star apparel) in trying to woe Dr. Gao’s daughter Kristine. Ma’am Lina speaks with authority in English over a cowering class, silencing Elyok and Poldo’s Bisaya conversation. The participants of the Buwan ng Wika celebration receive much attention from their school with their eloquence in the imposed Tagalog language while nobody listens to Bulldog as he struggles with his talumpati. With their pubescent machismos, the gang assume the Tagalog action star persona to
feel superior in their bukid. Conversely, all that is base, yet true, is naturally associated with the character’s native culture and consequently their Cebuano language. This is graphically demonstrated by one of Bulldog’s jokes, ‘Mahal kita sa pag-ibig, sa bugas di ko pasalig.’ Save for Jeric Raval’s last lines, no Tagalog line in the film is said in earnest. While ma’am Lina is talking about the female reproductive system in English, Intoy narrates, in Cebuano, the boys’ own, more authentic experience with sex by watching porn. Tellingly the only time ma’am Lina speaks Cebuano is during her sexual encounter. The film thus deals heavily with sex. And central to this treatment is the image of the papaya. Palot spots the ripe papaya, but after he does so he also sees a man come out of ma’am Lina’s house. We thus cannot tell if the papaya the gang is seeking is the actually fruit or, in a metonymical sense, the chance to see ma’am Lina naked (papaya being associated in the film with breasts when Kristine was introduced). The film also uses wordplay to lead to such a reading: at some point the narrator uses the Cebuano idiom ‘kapayason’ (overly sensitive, but literally ‘papaya-like’). And of course sensitivity has
at once apprehensive and sensual implications, both characteristics of hidden urges. In seeking the literal papaya, the Iskalawags, we may over-read, are also seeking the metonymical papaya of the fairly attractive ma’am Lina, and thereby not only a ‘mission accomplished’ for their role-playing, but also a consummation of their growing native urges. This ambiguity is one charm of the film. And in so doing does the film come closest to a coming of age story. The relieving of wanderlust by re-enacting and emulating elements of a foreign and socio-politically superior culture is just one level of pleasurable self actuation. True bliss (dare I use the French word joissance?) can be achieved by going deep into the recesses of one’s unexplored possibilities: Sex in your sitio over childish role-playing. While the film’s evident theme is the familiarization of the foreign, its true subject is how the familiar becomes wondrous. By the time ma’am Lina starts to have sex, the boys forget their role playing of action stars altogether. But that is where the film stops in its coming of age, and where it is most revealing about Filipino-ness. In more politico-economically comfortable cultures, the coming of age would have come as a reconciliation of
the young characters’ two opposing worlds – they would give up the childish role playing and embrace the pleasures of adult life. But reconciliation of personal incongruities is a luxury many Filipinos simply cannot afford, life is just too tough. The film thus ends brutally, not with a Herman Hesse’s Emil Sinclair looking back introspectively, but with an Intoy apologizing to the memory of his friends. The film never determines if the other boys are dead, but Philippine reality can serve to fill in the gaps to paint the grim inevitability: Lina’s husband, a military man and a Tagalog at that, could easily have the resources and connections to evade justice. And temporary insanity in his fit of jealous rage would make a good defence in court. Reality is too harsh for personal introspection for the Filipino. To this extent, Tuban has crafted a very good story, entertaining on the surface, rich in subtext, and explosively ended. But just some notes on the film itself, concerns other than the content. The screenplay does not establish ma’am Lina’s infidelity enough, so the viewer has to return to the early part of the film (after being distracted by the Iskalawags’ amusing exploits) to recall the detail understand. Intoy’s own terrible domestic circumstances, while serving as good impetus for escapism, was not well
played out in the film, a shame considering he narrates the film. More telling of the Iskalawags as escape is needed to establish this. Intoy’s father was even awkwardly inserted in the climactic scene, rather inappropriate for the situation. The music was also not very authentic: local indie rock would be one of the last things one would expect to play on the radios of a rural town, Pinoy reggae and Pusong Bato would be more believable (and additionally the last scene of the band singing adds nothing to the film). Finally, while all the shots contributed to the set building (the opening sequence, the shots of goats, the dogs mating, the beach, and Intoy changing clothes at one point), many shots do not add to the story’s development, and if they are too long (as is the case with Intoy’s changing of clothes) they can bore viewers in this otherwise very entertaining film. Perhaps one good thing though that these useless shots can do is give time for the viewer to ruminate, because with its surface humour Iskalawags has a lot for the Filipino viewer to think about. This is a fun watch, and it is evident that the contemplative would enjoy it more than the casual viewer.
Catch ISKALAWAGS on September 19, 6pm at USC-CAFA Theatre
“A n g a l a mp at d i l i u s a k a s amin n g a m op a d ay a g s a k a l i b ot a n ap a n u s a k a m ar t i ly o n g a m o hu l m a n i i n i .” — B E RTOLT B R E C H T