The oversimplified definition of film noirs has long been reduced to stories of extreme cynicism and ambivalence, a test, if you will, in perception of the truth. Naturally, my main attraction with Ato Bautista’s neurotic thriller Gemini roots from the film noirs repetitively played (but with different sets of actors) on the old television set, such a clever adornment that serves portentous to the discordant narrative of the picture. Yet, in the laborious minutes of its hazed, intertwining realities, Bautista’s byproduct is not as brimming as one is made to anticipate with such a intriguing premise and studious build-up.
Gemini traces the troubled mind of Julia, a demented patient interrogated by a suspicious-looking detective (played by Mon Confiado), back to her difficult times with her twin-sister Judith, who, she says, when she partakes to a romantic relationship with a man, goes completely sour. The trouble is both Julia and Judith are conjoined, stuck symbolically by their ribs, that when things start to hit a boiling point, the other pay an extreme cost, or the other thinks so. There is not much certainty with the presentation of the narrative, but that should not imply that there is not much purpose in it. As all truths, the kind that Bautista’s film has is fickle, especially in deconstructing psyches of both Judith and Julia. As twin sisters, Brigitte and Sheena McBride delivers off-putting portrayals, with their skyward glances and eaten dialogues, seldom making the distinction of what makes of Julia and what of Judith. Considering that they are as-yet unprofessional actors, I will settle with the fact that the characters demand way more than what the two actors can possibly offer.
The film on the whole plays better as a mood piece, aided by the thorough work of Richard Somes, a known marvel of detail who has made terrific films such as Yanggaw and provided production-work to films like Pa-Siyam, The Healing and On The Job, among others. The terrific, low-keyed monochrome is the work of Rain Yamson II, and aided by Benjamin Tolentino’s cuts and Denise Santos’s sonic assaults. It makes sense that Bautista will recruit great people for visual and audio, and up to an extent, the technical work of Gemini keeps things interesting, at least on a certain end.
As a looking glass to psychopathy, however, the film flounders, tossing in concepts to which it cannot commit. The lack of exposition is echoed in the stretched, repetitive excuse intoned by Confiado’s character: “nagbago na naman ang katotohanan sa iyo, Julia,” he says (“The truth has changed again for you, Julia.”). All this, I almost forgive, but I dismay insincere horror. That last scene is a final straw, a note-to-self sticky saying that, wait, this is a horror film, so there should be blood!, a supposedly cutesy wink-at-the-end bloodbath that I frown at in contempt.
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GEMINI (R)
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Dir. Ato Bautista / Scr.
Cast. Mon Confiado, Brigitte McBride, Sheena McBride…
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“Kung iisipin mo, wala naman talagang nakakaalam ng totoong pangyayari. Walang sinuman ang makakakuha n’on nang buung-buo.”
~Manuel (Mon Confiado)
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