Tag Archives: Pen Medina

kultura

Layang Bilanggo frees us from the indie!

the discussions and debates on local indie films come from a place of uncertainty and spectatorship: who views these films, and therefore are we making them for those viewers? is the prevalence of sex and poverty and violence in the indie something that’s overly used to feed the first world’s need to validate themselves?  after all to insist on seeing the bowels of third world Philippines and saying bravo bravo! could also mean yehey! they’re still as poor as we’d like to think!

and then there are stories that are about poverty with some violence and some sex, that just get out of the rut that too many indie films are in. Layang Bilanggo directed by Michael Angelo Dagñalan and written by him with Ma-an L. Asuncion, Melchor DF. Escarcha (Kuwentista Productions), is exactly this story, without it being too self-consciously pa-artist or pa-difficult. instead what it is becomes what an indie should be able to do: speak of the times in a way that deems it as important as the past and the future, in situations that might be cliché but which are handled with a new perspective and a different voice.

because on the one hand, it’s clear that we know of the ex-con story, yet we rarely speak of how corruption within the police allows for the probability that the ex-con is freed, kept under the radar, and used as a hitman. because on the one hand, we’ve seen the story of the ex-con father seeking the abandoned child, yet we don’t know of the probability that this child’s life is so affected by the palpable absence that abandonment creates, making a reunion just impossible.

in Layang Bilanggo this basic story has a layer of what is both funny and tragic about age and aging, within the spaces of a provincial home for the aged, where the exchanges between nurses and boarders are always truthfully painful, making fun as they do of the absurd situation(s) that aging creates, that those who think they haven’t aged actually subsist on. it’s difficult now to think of any movie or TV show that has dealt with senior citizenship in the way that Layang Bilanggo successfully did, where the conversations, the moments of distress and anger, the emotional rollercoaster that abandonment and loneliness wreaks, are all so real. if not in our faces, reminding us of our own inabilities and incapabilities, reminding us how much of ourselves is in the ways in which we let our old get old, our senior citizens deal with age by themselves.

having said this, it must be said too: Jaime Fabregas, Pocholo Montes, Pen Medina, outdo themselves in the roles of senior citizenship, where the witty repartee is layered with a whole lot of disgust and distress at the way(s) they’ve aged, and why they’re within the space they’re in, where friendships are tongue in cheek, where the end is dealt with as a matter of fact, and not as something that’s unsaid.

that later on it is the ex-Metrocom officer who helps out the ex-con, that later on, this friendship will be tested in the decision to be captured again, do not run away it is said, becomes one of the more touching moments in the film. soon after, we are faced with an ending we don’t like or want or expect, and yet seems to be the only way a movie like this could end, with redemption only in the way of death, only the way that the person who survives holds a gun to someone’s head, and runs away through the forests that are unfamiliar.

and on concrete lies the man who only wanted to be forgiven, more for the crime that is abandonment versus any other one that the law speaks of. down the street, an old man is reading what’s left of the one who could only be a father until the end. within the gates of the old people’s home, a daughter doesn’t know the truth just yet, and will die a couple of deaths upon finding out who her father is.

and right in front of the movie screen, as the strains from the Johnoy Danao original theme song began, it was difficult to hold back tears. because there is no redemption, there is no happy ending. all that there is, we realize, is a world where abandonment is truth but rarely spoken of, a space where love can only be possible given a blanket of lies, where fathers and daughters are unbound but aren’t free, and the freedom we seek isn’t about walls or limits, but about what we aren’t allowed to become given the past we cannot shake off, given the future that can only be uncertain.

and then we realize that maybe the point isn’t to forget, nor is it to be forgiven. the point is to live now, and know to look peace in the eye, and take it on, even when we have yet to think we deserve it. the universe has its own way of judging us worthy. and letting us free.

***

note number 1: Layang Bilanggo won the Cinema One Originals 2010 best picture and best screenplay, with its director winning best director and lead actor winning best actor. and yes, the redundancy is killing me. Miriam Quiambao deserves some praise for acting that was truthful, she seems to be over her learning curve. Pen Medina as lead actor here isn’t just the best, he outdoes himself too, requiring a whole lot of bad words that only the most admirable would know to be about being overwhelmed.

note number 2: the last day of the the Cinema One Originals 2010 film fest was on a non-working holiday (November 16), and the filled theaters for Third World Happy and Dagim were unexpected for someone like me who’s been watching in half-filled theaters for most of the festival. suffice it to say that i was happy for these indie movies, but sad that i didn’t get to watch both movies.

kultura

redefining the Pinoy action movie: or in love with Ishmael

Now I never like disclaimers before watching a movie, and usually don’t read reviews beforehand either. But boy, was I thankful director Richard Somes introduced his film by saying (among other things) that this was his homage to the Pinoy action film ala FPJ, Ramon Revilla, Dante Varona. Of course it still wasn’t enough to prepare me, at least not for the gore.

Because if there is one spoiler I will give you before you go and watch Ishmael, it’s that prepare yourself for some blood. Other than that, I think it would do every other Pinoy good to go and watch this movie, if only for two things: one, Ronnie Lazaro, and two, the Pinoy action film redefined.

Granted I would love to see Lazaro doing a movie where he ain’t a bad guy, here at least he was given something else to bite into instead of the standard fare. And so was Pen Medina. And Mark Gil. And as audience, we also had something new to be enthralled by, and yes this is an action flick, and I’m the girl who cannot for the life of her watch a Manny Pacquiao fight with conviction. For Ishmael, what does work though is the fact of it being an indie film, amorphous as the definition for that has become, confused as it currently is. For all intents and purposes the label of “indie” at least to me, allows for expectations to be suspended and surprise to be expected, in the way that new unfamiliar things do.

And here it is this. Lazaro as Ishmael is obviously farthest from being the clean-cut and the always clean action star in Pinoy movies, who will fight the bad guys, throw punches and kicks, without ruining his hair or getting his shirt bloody. Lazaro also doesn’t do death-defying stunts with motorcycles or helicopters, not even with a car. There is too the fact of age, that is, some middle age spread for Lazaro, though still quite the sexy guy walking through the darn town as if he owned it. Let’s not even begin with the tight-fitting shirts and jeans, and those boots.

The music and make-up had a lot to do with how this movie worked. Much of the scenes that established characterizations and were important moments happened to the tune of the music of good ol’ action, the kind that’s old school but so familiar I was bobbing my head to the beat. And goodness, the make-up was fantastic (save for Agnes having some glittery eyeshadow obvious in some of her close-ups), especially for Ishmael’s final wounds.

There were also no fake action sequences, everything was real suntukan, saksakan, mano-mano.

And all of it works. Lazaro as the ex-soldier who’s been toughened up by jail and is pretty much hopeless. Gil the man who the town has seen as saviour, sleazy and scary in equal turns. Medina as the blind man who traversed the line between friendship and religiosity, a history with one man and the truth of survival with another. Ria Garcia as the young girl Agnes who is symbol for ultimate oppression and abuse, the one that needs to be saved (and who I pray will not be enticed by commercial acting jobs because I tell you it will ruin the bright eyed acting she did so well in this movie).

But Ishmael ain’t just about its unconventional actors, it’s also about a lot of the new and modern and the now in the action genre. Yes, even when direk Somes insists that there was nothing here but “may pinatay, may naghiganti, ganon lang yon!”

I say, not at all. In this story of Ishmael, it’s clear that many things in the storytelling come into play, things which the Pinoy action film of old didn’t have. There’s the fact of space being important, the removed island that was setting the reason for such an absurd religious cult to be all-powerful, and the reason for escape to be almost impossible. There’s the truth of tragedy and any community’s contingent need for saviours and heroes, no matter that all they have is the gift of words and speech. There’s the fact of forgiveness and the dire lack of it in any Pinoy space, for those who have paid their dues in jail, but will never be forgiven by society.

Here is where the story of one guy Ishmael is delivered to us in medias res, because much of his life is over and done with, as the line about what’s done being done is repeated. Given his personal history, Ishmael is ready to die and therefore is the perfect character to be given a reason to live. Any other action bida would take heroism by the horns, but Ishmael resists it and in fact refuses it until the end.

Or maybe outdoes it to its surprising end.

Suffice it to say that there is nothing in this movie that is quite expected. Halfway through, I thought the movie was over. Yet when it continued I thought, how great that it did, and without clear redemption or forgiveness or life through to its end, though with a tinge of love and possibility, I thought it was the most beautiful Pinoy action movie I’ve seen in forever. Yes, the blood and gore notwithstanding.

Ishmael is one of seven films competing in the 6th Cinema One Originals Digital Film Festival 2010 at the Cineplex of Shangrila EDSA. The festival runs until the 16th. Tickets are at P150, and for Ishmael it is SO worth it.

Ishmael screening schedule as of November 11, 8AM:
Thursday — Nov 11 — 12 nn
Friday — Nov 12 — 4 pm
Saturday — Nov 13 — 3:30 pm
Monday — Nov 15 — 9 pm
Tuesday — Nov 16 — 8 pm