Category Archive for: iconography

kultura

kawayan de guia: no compromises

a version of this was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, October 26 2009.

Kawayan de Guia is clear about his art. It’s his way of talking to the world, engaging it in dialogue, transcending its limits. It’s his upbringing, his lifeblood, his provincial context that is Baguio. It’s his grounding in history, his way of telling stories, his political stance.

Speaking this concretely and categorically about his art, Kawayan just might be the more uncompromising of our contemporary young artists. To explain one’s art may after all be seen as violent to one’s works, if not the end to one’s career: isn’t the appeal of art precisely its lack of clear reason?

But Kawayan tells it otherwise. The human condition is central to his work, cutting across the tragic and comic towards the boastful, highlighting the notions of progress and development as falsities, bringing to the fore the need to see a bigger picture. To Kawayan, the structures that abound in our world are but perspectives that need to be broken down into pieces, if only to take discussions to another place, that’s anywhere but here. (more…)

kultura

the young and the giddy

a version of this was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Arts and Books section, October 26 2009.

She was obviously overwhelmed silly by the fact that she was chosen as one of ten most exciting young artists. Which is no surprise really. Dina Gadia is the youngest of the group at 23, and just might have more going for her other than her age: she has a clear sense of what it is that interests her, where her art must lie, and what it is she can do without – or must necessarily rebel against. (more…)

kultura

the artist as activist

a version of this was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer‘s Arts and Books section, October 26 2009.

Kiri Dalena looks at me and acknowledges familiarity – here was no high and mighty, isolated and removed artist. After establishing the lines that bound us, she jokingly whispers a rhetorical question, “I am not young or exciting … why am I here?”

There is nothing here in fact but self-deprecation, and a whole lot of humility. Kiri talks about her art, diverse as it is, as if it is all a matter of life and death. No, not in the romantic sense of dying for an art project, or having a life unworthy of being lived without art. There is no romantic notions of being artist here, no I’m-an-artist-hear-me-roar bravado. Instead, Kiri speaks in a hushed voice that belies a very clear sense of perspective. Maybe even a stark notion of her function as artist. (more…)

kultura

mourning alexis

no, i didn’t know alexis tioseco personally. but i knew OF him. had been introduced to him too often. and fought with him in front of an international audience on SEA cinema.

but this is getting ahead of the story. too many years ago, i met alexis in malaysia at a cinema conference. he was a resource person along withindie filmmakers raya martin and john torres. i was presenting a paper on the iconography and star creation of Judy Ann Santos and her evolution into and creation of Pinay femininity.

even then, it was clear that alexis and my interests lay at two opposite ends of the Pinoy cinema pole.

i knew what he stood for, was familiar with his work, appreciated the time and energy he put into the study of this recent incarnation of the independent film in the country. i was clear about where i stood: the popular as the site of contemporary cultural struggles, and of possible emancipation. these two, of course, don’t need to be at odds with each other. (more…)

kultura

Manila and the ghosts of directors past

The lady at the ticket booth asks me: “Ok lang po bang black and white yung movie?” When I say yes, she promptly informs me that they’ve received many complaints about the independent film Manila’s lack of color. Produced and starred in by commercial actor Piolo Pascual, this should’ve been expected. The world is in color after all. And all the films that Pascual has done so far have showed all his hunky glory in color.

And yet, there is more to grapple with in Manila than just its lack of color. Made up of two films both entitled Manila by today’s more productive independent directors, this movie had a lot going for it. It’s an ambitious project that wanted to retell classic Martial Law movies City After Dark by Ishmael Bernal and Jaguar by Lino Brocka. With Pascual as producer, Raya Martin became director for a shorter retelling of Bernal’s classic, and Adolf Alix for Brocka’s. Both films had Pascual in the lead, with a supporting cast to reckon with.

Old characters, old narrative

Martin’s and Alix’s Manila were to be distinguished not just by the films that influenced their existence, but by light. Martin’s Manila was mostly in daylight, and the bright lights of accidents and hospitals; Alix’s Manila was dark, noisy and dirty, figuratively at the dance clubs and the Remedios Circle and literally on side streets, squatters’ areas and garbage.

And yet, more than how these two films would’ve melded together into one big film on the urban landscape that is contemporary Manila, it is how they existed independently of each other that seems more important. As a whole, Manila says that its characters are based on the creations of the original movies’ writers.  The question then becomes, how do these characters – and their stories – change? (more…)