When I think about Christmas, the first memories that surge through me are that of family, simbang gabi, warm bonds, and that of all things good and right in the world —even just for one day. Well Honor Thy Father, which opened Christmas Day as part of the Metro Manila Film Fest 2015, does succeed in making you appreciate all these things…just not necessarily in the way you’d expect. Honor Thy Father is your anti-Christmas movie this season; not in that it hates the holiday, but because it cuts through the warm and good feelings and forces you to confront the darkness underneath the themes of family, relationships, and religion.
Serving as a sort-of spiritual sequel to the stellar 2013 thriller On The Job, Erik Matti returns to similar territory as he directs Honor Thy Father and along with him, OTJ writer Michiko Yamamoto. John Lloyd Cruz plays Edgar, a man pushed to the edge, as he and his wife Kaye (Meryll Soriano) get entangled in a sham investment scheme run by Kaye’s father. As Edgar’s father-in-law goes missing, along with him big big money, things fall apart and the swindled investors violently go after the couple for retribution. Edgar must now do whatever it takes, even if it means confronting his past, in order to defend the one thing that matters most to him — family.
Removed from all the complexities of the lead couple’s situation, Honor Thy Father, at its center, is a very personal tale of desperate times needing desperate measures. It doesn’t dwell on convoluting its plot with twists and other narrative clutter. There are no fast paced action sequences here. Instead it focuses on the drama of man being stripped down to his core, on how crisis removes all societal projections and reveal the primality of who we are. The movie examines this darkness and desperation by contrasting it with the self-righteousness, the moral high ground, we Filipinos are very familiar with — religion.
Honor Thy Father uses religion in two ways: first, as a plot device that highlights the irony of how such violence and cruelty can emanate from something put up to be so pure, moral, and preaching of love and understanding; and second, as a way to drive the point that the base social unit we all cling on to when situations get dire is family — whether by blood or affiliation. As one character gets driven away from hers, another rediscovers his. Honor Thy Father’s use of family and religion is poetic; it’s a Shakespearean tragedy, visceral and with no exaggerations.
Just like the perfect gift this Christmas, Honor Thy Father is marvelous both inside and out. The movie wraps its weighty themes in fantastic acting, technically outstanding cinematography, and direction and scoring both of epic proportions. Without a doubt, John Lloyd Cruz carries the weight of the movie as his character’s fight for survival is, of course, the pillar of the film’s drama. He plays Edgar as a cross between Edward Norton’s Narrator in Fight Club — in the way he brings with him this air of discontent and weariness (especially at the start of the film); and a better-acted version of Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead — in how he is willing to cross moral standards for the sake of his family. Here is John Lloyd at his most savage. He is an animal backed to a corner, clawing his way out. Couple this graying morality with a matching cinematographic palette featuring the misty vistas of Baguio and a resounding soundtrack provided by Armi Millare and Dong Abay, and these all complement to create an enveloping blanket of beauty to the film’s sorrow.
For me, the best way to describe the viewing experience of Honor Thy Father is like when I once stared at a painting of a sad bride. It’s introspective. It first overwhelms you with beauty and the feeling that it is special, larger than what it is, an occasion of grandeur. But peel those layers off and what you’ll find is something sad starring back at you — heavy emotions wrought with despair, an animal desperate and trapped in its four corners. That, in a way, also sort of echoes this movie’s placement this holiday season. It’s a beautiful gift that signifies the rebirth of quality for the MMFF, for that I’m very happy, but at the same time it will leave you haunted, depressed, and contemplative on the nature of man and society.
