Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (Lino Brocka)

Anguish.

Living in the modern Filipino film culture, one can't easily delve oneself deeper into it without even hearing about the film "Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang" and marvel about how heavily metaphoric the title really is. And then, with an unconscious compulsion, you then become curious. What is the film really all about? I, for one, initially thought that this film, although undoubtedly one of the finer Filipino films, isn't clearly one of the all-time greats. That's me and my unflinching idiocy. I then rewatched it with the aforementioned question rerunning in my mind, and then some. And just like that, I was in utter awe.

"Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang" may widely be considered as Lino Brocka's seminal masterpiece, but somewhere within the corners of my mind where "Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag", "Bona" and this film are on a continual struggle for subjective supremacy, it might just be his best work.

Contrary to Brocka's trademark ambient sounds-enhanced, raw visuals-enforced neorealisitic approach to contemporary Filipino squalor that has been ever prevalent in his later films such as "Insiang", "Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang" boasts of a powerful human drama set within the hypocritical social and religious milieu of a seemingly quiet rural town.

Part coming-of-age film and part cinematic indignation of inhuman judgments, the film succeeded to disturb, touch and shake viewers all at the same time with its potent ability to deliver both an encompassing social commentary and an observant exploration of an adolescent's moral journey from debilitating indifference to something mirroring righteous courage and humanity.

The teenager, named Junior, played by then-rookie actor Christopher De Leon (who won a FAMAS for his performance in the film) who surprisingly handled the role like a seasoned veteran, is caught at an early crossroad; in this existential standstill, he can't seem to find his own path. Should he follow his father's successful yet women's perfume-laden path (a serial womanizer, that is)? Must he pursue a romantic, but ultimately hollow and immature commitment, or does he have the fiber to embrace the lives of two sideshow social outcasts whose deeply felt relationship overpowers their physical and mental shortcomings?

In some ways, just as how Brocka applied it to his later film "Jaguar", "Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang" is a film that deals with crucial choices. Even with the dream-like opening sequence alone which, in a very hallucinatory way, portrayed the emotional nightmare of an abortion, both in its procedure, the aftermath (this powerful scene prophetically answers some of the questions that were raised in the 1985 film "Hinugot sa Langit) and the psychological effect once the choice regarding it was finally made, though in the film's case, a one-sided one at that (Lolita Rodriguez's Kuala seems unwilling).

Today, mentioning the name Lolita Rodriguez is like unveiling a dignified marble statue of a true Filipino cinematic icon, and for that kind of automatic pop culture thinking, suffice it to say that it was duly in part of her legendary performance in this film as the town lunatic, Kuala. It's one of the best performances in all of Filipino cinema, and her detailed conveyance of staggering facial expressions and uncanny gestures brilliantly merged and crisscrossed both the overly animated movements of a dirty mental case and the uncommon emotional depths of a woman who just suffered too much and is begging, by way of her soul creeping silently through her eyes, for all of it to end.

Mario O'Hara's role as Berto the leper is just as tricky to pull off. Listening to some of his lines, the character may easily drift into one-dimensional nobility, but O'Hara kept it all together quite consistently and has able to display the visceral goodness of a man who has nothing left to lose but just enough time to love. Eddie Garcia also shined in his role as Junior's father, Cesar, a role he so conveniently and effortlessly played that the very polygamous core of the said character has since been iterated quite heftily in his action film roles (the 'Manoy' persona).

One of Brocka's real, unequaled strengths is his great execution of endings. The one here in "Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang" is a great example. Playing with the facial expressions of both the extras and the chief actors while still maintaining the emotional strain of the ending's dramatic center, the film, although can easily be branded as a communal tragedy, is still hopeful despite of its wounded premises. And as Junior emerges from Kuala and Berto's hut, carrying a symbolic purity that is a product of two individuals that were subjected to inhumanity, there's a feeling of solitary safety, and at last an emphasis, as Junior looks upon the people's guilty faces, of what was really weighed and found terribly wanting: the town itself.

FINAL RATING

Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese)

The immortal mirror scene.

My film review/analysis of what may be the best film ever made:

With its main target being to portray the extremely acute post-Vietnam War angst and disillusionment, director Martin Scorsese focused his lenses and vision to a lone cab driver cruising through the filthy streets of New York that almost alludes to a contemporary 'hell', and subtly articulates about the ambiguous nature of insanity. And the result is, well, not just his masterpiece, but one of the finest films American cinema has to offer. It stars Robert De Niro in a heavily complex (and one of the screen's greatest) performance as Travis Bickle, exhibiting both his mastery of subtle acting and his ever-escalating intensity.

But his Travis Bickle is never just a character. He is a representation. A social mirror of how depression and loneliness exist in a subjugated psychological fragment of society where existence is just for the sake of it, and the meaning of the word 'interaction' a fading afterthought. There are those who do not want to meet any new people save for some of his/her few acquaintances. There are those who do not know people much but is striving to meet some. And then there is Travis.

One of the film's timeless aspects is its disturbing, angry, but ultimately sad narration by Bickle himself. Here's a man who transforms his solitude into an anger-laden vigilantism against the so-called 'filth' of the streets. Here's a man who has nothing but his own breathing body and his own deteriorating psychological health. But at least, here is a man who stood up. But to look at Travis Bickle as a flawed hero is far from what "Taxi Driver" is all about. To look at him as a man with a goal and and a concrete initiative is far from the film's nightmarish view of what Travis Bickle is and what he's in for.

If we'll go into a direct assumption that him saving a young prostitute is a heroic deed, then why haven't they just made "Taxi Driver" into a dramatically redemptive little action movie? The answer is this: the whole 'saving the prostitute' mission he had is, like his existence, just for the sake of it. Looking at Travis's motivational pattern, all of his actions root out from him being rejected by the beautiful campaign worker Betsy (played by Cybill Shepherd).

With him having nowhere to go from there, he went on for a plan to assassinate presidential candidate Charles Palantine, not just to horribly capture the imagination of countless people regarding the fact of how terribly 'far-out' a man can be to do such a thing (John Hinckley Jr. and Mark David Chapman already captured ours in real life) and also to take hold of Betsy's attention. This is where ambiguity regarding his actions really starts to go haywire.

Some would say that his plan to kill Palantine is a condemning act to blame the said candidate for not being able to clean up the city's filth. But take note of their scene inside Travis' cab earlier in the film. Their conversation, although a bit distant in nature, is an honest exchange between two men craving for change. See how Travis' eyes went from being patronizingly phony into deeply-set ones as he stated how he wants someone to just flush all the city's scum down the toilet.

In all fairness, Travis do want some change, but relating this sentiment with his act to kill Palantine for not being able to do so (to do something with the city, that is) is foolish. Just like a common psychologically disturbed fellow resulting from extreme social isolation, Travis dreams of 'grandeur'. He wants to be 'that' man that has purposely killed the presidential candidate, and the people will remember him for it. The same applies to his final ditch effort to save the young prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster in a performance that earned her an early Oscar nomination) from his manipulative pimp (played by the great Harvey Keitel).

Because he failed in his previous plan, and also maybe because he has thought that killing a high-profile political figure may put him into the psychotic row of the history pages, Travis decided to enter the territories of folk heroism and masqueraded himself as an obscure social crusader, albeit an extreme one. Take note of the film's tagline: "On every street in every city, there's a nobody who dreams of being a somebody." Travis Bickle may have achieved cult status as an ideal cinematic anti-hero, but I view him more as nothing but a confused and heavily disillusioned fellow who wants to prove something within himself and to everyone, even if it takes a casualty or two to do it. But although I do not see him as a hero, I see him as a truly sympathetic figure, and a truly saddening one at that.

Scorsese (along with Paul Schrader's masterful screenplay), with his ethereal but deeply unsettling depiction of 70's New York City, enhanced by Bernard Hermann's misleadingly seductive yet menacing musical score, symbolically pushes Travis Bickle into a lonesome spotlight in the middle of a show, only to subsequently find out that audiences are filing out of the venue even before he had the chance to step into the stage. "Taxi Driver" is the manifestation of how he may have hypothetically felt at that moment, and the result is a film of unequaled greatness. Please do watch this film, and let the brilliance of what 'true' cinema is all about pervade within your soul.

FINAL RATING