The Hunt (Thomas Vinterberg)

A mad gaze.

For the sake of posterity, I will dare state that this is my first Thomas Vinterberg film (it has always been all Lars von Trier for me), and though I'm not yet fully familiar with his style as a whole, I think it's already fair enough to believe that his polished visual approach for this one is already many years removed from his Dogme 95 roots. But what "The Hunt" lacks in showcasing its director's cinematic trademarks it more than makes up in its intense exploration of everything morally gray. There has been this widely held belief that the things children say are almost always true. Although "The Hunt", even in itself, can't dispute this very fact, what it really wants to say is that once a rare white lie comes out of a kid's mouth, that of which involves you as the make-believe perpetrator of an abhorrent deed, prepare for hell.

Set in a sleepy town populated by people who know each other like family, "The Hunt" is as innocuous as any film can be. And to add yet another dose of harmlessness to this calm and collected scenario, it stars Mads Mikkelsen as a kindergarten teacher named Lucas who does nothing all day but play with his diminutive students. Among the kids is a cute girl named Klara (Annika Wedderkopp), daughter of Lucas' best friend Theo (Thomas Bo Larsen), who is as mysterious as she is irresistibly adorable. Lucas often walks her to school, and Theo does not seem to mind. One day, though, after Klara inexplicably kissed Lucas in the lips and was subsequently rejected, she then unexpectedly concocted a story detailing how Lucas has shown her his 'willie' and then proceeded to molest her. Shocked and distressed, the school's principal and also the entire community, without even thinking twice, immediately turned their back on poor Lucas.

Ostracized and alone, Lucas, aside from being socially banished from the town he grew up in, also becomes a victim of mass hysteria that he never could have foreseen. Slowly, even the boys who he often plays with in the playground start to craft their own anecdotes of how they were sexually abused by Lucas, even going as far as vividly describing the minute details of their teacher's rustic household. Like a more infuriating, teeth-gnashing small town version of "Rashomon", "The Hunt" is an even trickier film about subjectivity and perception mainly because the bending of facts comes from innocent children who do not even have any stake on anything. If nothing else, it is a grating essay on how a person's deeply-held beliefs about perception can destroy the life of another. Who said innocence is bliss?

Mads Mikkelsen, who most of us will recognize as Le Chiffre in Daniel Craig's very first Bond outing, is utterly believable as a mild-mannered teacher who, in some ways, is content in living a very simple life. Though one must only look at his face to realize that he's the perfect actor to play any psychotic character (hence why he was cast as Hannibal Lecter in the on-going TV series), Mikkelsen has still made me believe in this film that he can play a wronged everyman in such a way that you will back him fully no matter what he does, ala Dustin Hoffman in "Straw Dogs". And yes, this may be far-fetched, but I believe "The Hunt", as much as it is a quiet drama film, has borrowed elements from the western genre, specifically on how Mikkelsen's nursery teacher role closely mirrors the brash town outsiders guys like Clint Eastwood have played in countless gun-toting films in the past, but without the oozing bravado. And as with all western films, it is but necessary for the 'wronged outsider' to prove that he's worth the ounce of respect that his co-villagers owe him. Lucas may not be a gunslinger (well, his affinity for hunting does not count) in the mythical sense of the word, but he treads such a path towards vindication just the same. 

If the film portrays, in detail, how easy it is be put in utter disgrace based solely on a baseless accusation, it also deeply shows the difficulty of reclaiming respect after losing it overnight. Lucas learned it the hard way, and although it's easy to make amends with people, it is hard to re-tie the knot that was already severed. The film is by no means a thriller, but how it unfolds really does flirt with the conventions of the genre. There's also a certain kind of emotional impact in the film that makes it just as powerful a depiction of incorrect indictment as "Dancer in the Dark", which is coincidentally a film directed by Vinterberg's Dogme 95 co-pioneer, Lars von Trier.

"The Hunt", as with all slow-moving drama films of its kind, requires a considerable amount of patience. But at the same time, the film is also borderline humorous in its intense elicitation of anger that it almost literally asks for us viewers to control our collective fury as we watch Lucas' bleak attempt to prove everyone his innocence unravel in all its futility. As frustratingly polished as "The Hunt" may be for a film directed by a Dogme 95 luminary, its themes are still fairly consistent to the said film movement's loose collective intention to explore isolation and moral ambiguity in claustrophobic social settings. There is pure power hiding beneath the film's seemingly plain nature, and it will suck you in until you can only look at a lie, no matter how harmless and white, whether by a sickly octogenarian or a naïve child, as something that truly destroys.

FINAL RATING

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