It’s Cinemalaya 2020! You’ve heard from us for a long time since the pandemic began. Despite me and the rest of the guys being busy talking about films through the podcast , we miss writing about reviews too!
It is only timely to find one of our favorite film festivals reinvent themselves in this time of Global Pandemic. Cinemalaya launched its digital edition to screen in Vimeo last August 7, under pricing bundles of 150 to 350 pesos (some films can only be viewed by paying it per view). Reimagining the film festival landscape, this move opens more doors (and optimism) to an already burgeoning industry whose triumphs are somewhat trumped by the pandemic.
James Robin Mayo’s Fatigued was one of the first films I saw. Fatigued follows the non-linear approach of filmmaking, more of the same styles of a video game. Elaborately put, it follows a videogame-style that has a backstory to it. The audience (us, we, them, you) is the main character. We are given options but never coming to an end-result that is consciously similar to our thoughts but are rather grim. With stunning visuals and editing that might be too heavy for eyes with photosensitivity, Fatigued manifests from the stresses of daily life. From the employed to the unemployed. Had this been given more air-time perhaps, it could prove more point. But the point here is that we have no choice in anything. God has no power over us, but moreso the social mores we try to abide by.
Excuse Me, Miss Miss Miss had already created its own buzz from last year’s QCinema International Film Festival. As an earlier audience favorite, it would have given its own attention in this festival. There’s just something beat about this film: playing under the same pagod na ako universe as Fatigued and OctoGod (more on this later), Sonny Calvento and Arden Rod Conde, both writers that have already collaborated from last year’s John Denver Trending, know very well how the overworked, marginalized person can effectively be portrayed onscreen. In Excuse Me, Miss Miss Miss, Capitalization is the bigger enemy, and satire is the only language that we can use to speak its truths. Phyllis Grande plays the overworked employee who soon realizes that Miss Vangie’s secret to success is as impossible as getting a pay raise. Played out tune by tune in the span of less than 20 minutes, there are more better actresses to play Grande’s part, but the numbness in her face shows how it really is for all of us to work in this capitalist world.
Ang Gasgas na Plaka ni Lolo Bert by Janine Gacosta and Cheska Marfori stars Dido dela Paz and Soliman Cruz. Eye candy is the word I have in mind when I see films that include vinyl records. But the only miss the film has is the introduction on HIV. Many wouldn’t notice, and yet many would care. Is the inclusion on a controversial disease like HIV even important for attention? Not to diminish the importance of how HIV has affected many, but Ang Gasgas na Plaka ni Lolo Bert is not a film about the importance of HIV. But rather of an old man with the disease and memories of his first love. In the many years of his solace, he has yearned for love through music, and we live along this solitary confinement.
He then meets Soliman Cruz, who helps fix his vinyl and his heart too. Sweet and touching, Ang Gasgas na Plaka ni Lolo Bert isn’t a bad film, it is neutral in taste, thoughtful and simple.
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Pabasa kan Pasyon, Hubert Tibi’s black and white short merges religion and economy set in Bicol. Set during the lenten season, a family riddled with financial woes turns to religion for profit. The mother pushes her son to join the reenactment of the Crucifixion of Christ as Herodes, one of the more villainous characters instead of Jesus himself. This shows that them earning profit from something so sacrilegious can also turn vile, and that people despite knowing how bad he is still prefer to take pictures with him. Like a star that has been badly publicized, but is still adorned by many fans. One of the brothers had lost his job and had asked himself how he could live with the last pay he received, which he then spends on a prostitute.
Wicked and sharp, Pabasa kan Pasyon is the satire one would prefer than people spitting vile remarks against teachers and online classes.
Inspired by a Bontok folklore, TOKWIFI (tok-weee-feee) carefully merges two different worlds: one of Limmayug’s descendency as a Bontok man, free from the woes of civilization; and that of Laura Blancaflor, a 1950s starlet trapped in a television box who falls from the sky as a meteor. The contrasts between the two are mirred in dialogue that catalogs the period of their lives: Limmayug who has never even seen a television set before, let alone a woman from the city, and Laura’s naive but losing star appeal has apprehended her to follow her manager and her directors instructions carefully. The funny thing about this film is that it is not a documentary. For once we see a film about the IPs sans the documentary-style of their lives. Laura Blancaflor’s fear of disappointing her superiors is the product of how colonialism has effectively made its mark in the Philippines since the 1930’s.
One of the momentous scenes of the film is when Laura Blancaflor momentarily steps out of the screen and sees the terraces. Is this a product of Limmayug’s imagination of him seeing a TV star for once? Or is a tokwifi true?
Part 2 will be available on August 18.
