Serbis (Brillante Mendoza)

Familial reality amidst immorality.

Film Review Archive (date seen: December 12, 2010)

I have to say that Brillante Mendoza’s “Serbis” is slightly better than his more renowned (and at the same time, denounced) “Kinatay”. In some ways, “Serbis’” cinematography, acting, and subplots were the collective product of what could be Brillante’s personal vision of Philippine society and familial relations that has been distributed rationally to his other earlier films: “Tirador’s” biting humor, “Kaleldo’s” character interactions and mild sepia cinematography, the escalating darkness that his later film “Kinatay” has embarked on, and even “Masahista’s” literal sexuality.

The ensemble cast was also very impressive in their uncanny degree of suppressing any screen inhibitions, be it about showing their skin, or acting as a credible, functioning family while immersing themselves into the decaying backdrop of a filthy ‘bold’ theater. It was almost unbelievable for the whole cast to pull off such a film without going as far as the extremities Nagisa Oshima has reached and the cost of what cinematic taboo he had broken to show a sociopolitical allegory. Brillante Mendoza has also able to incorporate his usual fascination of religious traditions; imageries that might have been inserted just for the sake of it, or can also be visual antidotes to the sinful displays on his films.

Notable performances were by Gina Pareno as the theater-inhabiting family’s matriarch, and Julio Diaz as the awkwardly unknowing husband of Nayda (played by Jaclyn Jose). It’s just refreshing to see a film that has brought a pitiful place such as a decaying ‘bomba’ moviehouse into cinematic life (a place whose only common attribution is to “Imbestigador”), put it in the center of a neorealist drama, and let its pathetic and dissident inhabitants dwell on the establishment’s sleazy imperfections; an uncanny likeness to their own lives indeed.

FINAL RATING

The Last Picture Show (Peter Bogdanovich)

The melancholy of consolation.

Film Review Archive (date seen: September 14, 2010)

I have once read a list of controversial films on filmsite.org and I remember seeing "The Last Picture Show" on it. Although the film's main theme is mainly about innocence and bleak nostalgia in a barren town, it's very explicit in its portrayal of adolescent sexual exploration. But for me, to deliver a message, I think sometimes, one soul must cross the lines and brave through criticisms, and that's what director Peter Bogdanovich did.

For some reasons, "The Last Picture Show" reminds me of "Magnolia", both set in a melancholic place with its populace trapped than properly dwelling, merely grasping on existence than living. And for further effect of isolation, even us viewers are enclosed in the town, held in an emotional and cultural limbo for 2 hours (with a trip to Mexico reduced only to its aftermath). But in that running time, the town, although how empty and distant it was, had exposed its very heart and soul.

Though the film has a very impressive cast (a factor almost non-existent to teen films today), it's Timothy Bottoms who gave the most heartfelt performance, with his physical exterior seems always ready for mindless fun but deep inside consumed by sadness, desperation, and a clamor for escape.

The title of the film is an urgent allegorical elegy to the end of the adolescent stage, to the very town built and aged by memories, to the people that had the choice to escape but ultimately stayed, and to the old picture house that solely served as its dusty epitaph.

The wind blows, the marquee finally empty, some left without goodbye, but as time passes by, one of them may come back, linger and say, "I remember".

FINAL RATING