Category Archive for: arts and culture

kultura

Love, deceit, man, woman

Juego de Peligro is an adaptation of the 18th century novel Les Liaisons dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, the more famous version of which is the 1988 film Dangerous Liaisons. The original text is transposed to late 19th century Manila and reveals it as a time of decadence, one premised on a class structure bound to conservatism and gender roles, love and desire.

It is a world of appearances, where the elite speak of reputation and expectation even as they put these into question, knowingly and otherwise, behind closed doors. Where it is in the enclosed spaces – the home, the room – that the negotiations between man and woman take place, the outside space is navigated by the indio whose predisposition to curiosity and tsismis is used by the elite as tool for deception.

That this time was imagined to cradle this story of love, desire and deception, with the decadence of beautifully made clothes and properly coiffed hair, and a mass uprising that’s imminent, is this adaptation’s gift. (more…)

kultura

The failure of capture

At the heart of Time Stands Still (written by Donald Margulies) is the crisis of capture, the kind that’s familiar to anyone who engages with more difficult, more violent, more painful current events in order to present these as honestly as possible, without intervening in its story, and in order to do justice to its telling.

Photo-journalist Sarah (Ana Abad Santos) and journalist James (Nonie Buencamino) have gained acclaim and credibility for doing work on conflict-torn territories in the Middle East. Working as individuals together, they find themselves victims of the stories that they follow. James had gone home ahead of Sarah, traumatized by having witnessed a bomb explosion before his eyes. He would soon enough find himself picking Sarah up from a hospital in Germany after she falls victim to a bombing herself. She is in a coma for weeks, and wakes up to a broken leg and scarred face.

The couple comes home to their staid apartment in America, the war they came from now the backdrop of their story, as it is the context of the relationship that is in the throes of individual trauma. It is a relationship that can now be viewed without the urgency of elsewhere. Or so they think.

(more…)

kultura

The end of the (art) affair*

My tendency in the past four years that I’ve been writing about and reviewing local art has been to be kind. I stopped reviewing art I didn’t like unless my editors assigned it to me; I would look at art events and could not but appreciate the effort that organizers put into it, even when it was clear to me that celebrating local art in this way is the height of superficiality.

Artists earn money in these events, after all, and that is reason enough to be less than critical. Or to trail one’s eyes elsewhere or critique, say, the art that’s just waiting to be placed in some hotel (or hotel bathroom!) or that museum that doesn’t allow photos, when it is all we can take home of art (I’m looking at you, Metropolitan and Ayala Museums)! (more…)

kultura

Marian’s freedoms*

If there’s anything that’s true about Marian Rivera, it’s that she doesn’t care what we all think: she presents to us what she is, which is probably the closest to a private self we’ve been treated to within the public space that is local popular TV and movie culture. 

And when I speak of Marian’s private self, I mean the one that we don’t usually see of our celebrities, I mean that which is usually deemed unworthy of being made public. But Marian doesn’t seem to care that she doesn’t sound as classy or doesn’t move with as much finesse as the usual female star. 
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kultura

the last of kolchor for 2014

the days have been long, though filled with too many things happening, and certainly even more happening in the shadows, beyond public scrutiny: this is the Philippines after all.

so first a list, because there is also quite a lot of work to do, but also there is so much to talk about, and i feel like the three people who read this blog (haha!) might be wondering where i am, why so silent. well here i am.  (more…)