In our last tribute to Present Confusion’s 15th year, Princess Kinoc writes about John Tawasil’s video essay on Joven Tan’s hidden masterpiece on metacinema.
In John Tawasil’s video essay of Joven Tan’s Echoserang Frog, he removes the elusive filmmaker from the guise of how bad his films are made, and puts him side by side to yet another cinematic great, and also another elusive filmmaker from the other side of the world — Francois Truffaut.
I call this one of my favorite video essays from our resident doc and film critic, because John has exposed himself not only to the works of Tan, but also from a diverse films from European to Asian cinema, which makes it worth the watch of him reviewing a film no matter how awful the film actually was.
Echoserang Frog was a film that not many of us could have sat through, but in this comparison towards Truffaut’s Day for Night, it might be an audacious comparison, but he does make it seem like an interesting watch. The films apparently share Metacinema or a film within a film as the focal point, where Truffaut’s pursuit of fame in La Nuit Américaine is as simple as recognizing one’s diaspora, and Tralala who perhaps is there on behalf of Joven Tan’s, is in pursuit of fame amongst the mess. As a matter of fact, even Oggs Cruz makes an appearance on the video essay and agrees that this film is a hidden gem.
The video essay also reminds us of Tan’s use of the Auteur theory, where the filmmaker is the artist, one who holds ownership of the entire creative work, no matter how bad it may seem to apply to your taste. Films like those from Joven Tan’s body of work are a far-stretch from the usual mainstream work, but it is good to see one from time to time to fully understand that he, perhaps, is an artist after all.
Watch the video essay here:
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