Foster Child (Brillante Mendoza)

John-John.

By mastering a certain visual style that seems to have little to no regard on proper framing and composition and also distilling his films through perennially impoverished eyes, Brillante Mendoza has navigated through the local and international film scene alike (while nabbing some prestigious awards in the process) as some kind of master of derelict cinema. From the sex and filth of modern Filipino urbanites to the incidental violence that occurs in the far south, he has debunked the so-called mystique of social change by presenting unto us films that deal with seemingly insoluble societal problems. And by depriving his films of any melodramatic garbs (except maybe "Kaleldo"), he gives us new albeit pungent insights into the strains of modern Filipino existence. But here in "Foster Child", penned by regular collaborator Armando Lao, his concern is not much geared towards something broad and socially pervasive as in his later films but specifically on the beauty of 'foster care' and how it functions as a seemingly odd vocation.

     

Its story, quite simple enough, is about a mother of two named Thelma (the underrated Cherry Pie Picache in a most emotionally involving performance) and her government-sanctioned job as a foster parent. Taking care of a supposed Filipino-American kid named 'John-John', the film explores her everyday life as a surrogate mother to this poor, parentless little sap. Even her close acquaintances, namely a gay man and her very own employer (Eugene Domingo) are, in a way, parents in the most unnatural of circumstances. The first, being a homosexual, takes care of his lover's daughter from a previous marriage, while Thelma's employer, presumably a 24/7 kind of worker, is determined to be the best mother and wife that she can be despite a most passive husband. 

     

Although it's not overtly suggested, "Foster Child", a most emotionally sound film, hints at the fact that the lives of foster parents are, in many ways, enclosed in a painful cycle of loving and letting go. I know it by fact because our family has once taken care of a parentless baby for about 2 months, and the pain of finally giving the baby to its legal adopters is just quite hard to bear. Now, think of repeating this emotional rollercoaster again and again. This, for me, is at the heart of what "Foster Child" is trying to empathize with, and Brillante Mendoza succeeds in immersing us into this bittersweet world with little to no emotional artificialities. Best scene? The part where the camera lingers on a premature baby inside an incubator, and how it slowly tilts up to reveal Thelma's priceless body language and facial expression; she knows that only the likes of her can give meaning to this little boy's life, and as hard as it is to bear, hers is a motherly love that's on retail.         

     

The film, typical of Mendoza, has no concrete script. Instead, the film is comprised of scenes that are merely brought to life by clever improvisations and reactionary acting. Even the plot, as free-flowing as it is, seems to work purely by intuition. The cinematography, as shaky and as non-intrusively observant as it is, just goes to show how Brillante Mendoza has mastered the art of cul-de-sac filmmaking: that is, the style of shakily shooting films through narrow passes, concrete dead ends and shanty-jammed mazes. And by combining it with improvisational acting, "Foster Child" was able to achieve a purer and infinitely more spontaneous form of filmmaking not seen since the heydays of Brocka and Bernal. 

     

"Foster Child", aside from its individual merits as a film, is also a sign of things to come for Brillante the auteur. It's a film that's so painfully unseen by most people that many quickly dismiss Mendoza's body of work, often immediately after seeing his darker films like "Serbis" and "Kinatay" and nothing else, as socially exploitative hogwash. On the contrary, I think Brillante Mendoza may perhaps even be the most emotionally articulate director working today without even trying hard to do so, and it is in his more tender films like "Foster Child" where it truly and glowingly shows.

FINAL RATING

A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)

The couple.

Again, after a long hiatus in film reviewing mainly due to countless school works and some love sickness, yours truly is back with a take on "A Separation" on his sleeves. Bar none, this film is indeed one of the best of the year on different levels. It's not just a film made good because of a couple of excellent performances or a film made exceptional by a good story. "A Separation", an Iranian film that has won a record of three bears in the 61st Berlin International Film Festival, is a socio-religious morality play that combines a compelling narrative with stirring performances. And in this mixture, one can easily see the flawlessness of it all. Its Academy Award is more than deserved. 

     

Directed by Asghar Farhadi, what also makes "A Separation" a notch more special is how it has seemingly made all the complex issues within it flow quite effortlessly. On one side, the film is about the utter devotion to Islamic faith and how doubt can shake things up for the worst. On the other, it's also a penetrating study of class conflict and the fragility of truth. Watching "A Separation", I can't help but be reminded of both "12 Angry Men" and "Rashomon" in terms of how it has also finely explored the subjectivity of truth based on perception and biases and also of a local independent film here in the Philippines entitled "Last Supper No. 3" in terms of the film's realistic portrayal of the legal system. 

     

But then again, "A Separation" has too much going on with it that it can't just be merely branded as a meditation on truth. It is, after all, a film about a couple's (played by Peyman Moadi and Leila Hatami) separation and how this can cause a definite ripple effect to other people, specifically a pregnant helper named Razieh (Sareh Bayat) and her husband (Shahab Hosseini). 

     

Partly seen through the eyes of the pre-adolescent daughter named Termeh (played by Sarina Farhadi), the film is an observation not of a crumbling marriage but of the domino principle that comes with it and how it affects those around them. There were even no questions raised regarding whose side (husband or wife) are you on. Instead, the deeply moral questions are raised not mainly to us but to the daughter herself, which leads to one of the most quietly powerful endings in recent memory. 

     

As the film patiently unfolds, one can easily see how "A Separation" could have also worked quite beautifully on stage. It has the right amount of intensity, complexity and spontaneity; ingredients of an effectively modern theater play. It's also populated with characters that are both realistic and fascinating thanks to the natural performances of the actors involved, which makes me to think that this may also be the most powerfully-acted film of the year. 

     

For me, what makes a film powerful, aside from the weight of the things that it wants to say and how they are said, is not being conscious of its strengths. This is the case for "A Separation". It definitely knows what it wants to say but does not preach it. It has a very beautiful material but does not flaunt it. Its drama is powerful enough to explore far-reaching themes of immense societal relevance but does not impose it. Instead, the film just went its way to use the universal language of marriage, separation and religion within the confines of the equally universal language of cinema and tell what needs to be told. 

     

What resulted is a film of disquieting power and truth that echoes far beyond its country of origin. Although I would occasionally fawn over an incoherent art film or two, I believe that films like "A Separation" are the ones that we really need today. In a contemporary world where failure of communication is a widespread occurrence, the role of cinema has never been more important. "A Separation" has just exercised the core reason of the medium's very existence.

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

Monster (Patty Jenkins)

Charlize Theron in an Oscar-winning performance as serial killer Aileen Wuornos.

What make serial killers seem to be subjects of mystery and perplex are the constant speculations and certain inconsistencies as to how painful and deeply scarred their pasts really were to justify and serve as valid arguments as to why they have done their atrocious deeds. What made Ted Bundy rape and kill? What triggered John Wayne Gacy to don that creepy clown costume, take on that 'Pogo' persona and do the same? This particularly distances Aileen Wuornos (at least on how the film has portrayed her and her motivational catalyst to kill) from such human abominations.

There's never an abnormal impulse within her to murder save for her desperation and for survival. Here's a real-life killer and high-way prostitute whose casualties are not the result of psychological distortions but of a mind rendered numb not mainly by a traumatic past (her being raped by a family friend and countless other instances) but by its concentrated manifestation into the present. At some point, I even see the cinematic Aileen Wuornos as some sort of an unknowing vigilante that only kills those who deserve it and, in the bitter end, if only it's circumstantially necessary.

"Monster", of course not considered as a straight-laced biopic, is part-stigmatic romance and part-road film but overall an engrossing drama of a woman's internal conflict hopelessly and helplessly taken to the extremes. This merge of meager sub-genres is, without a doubt, heightened at every pace by Charlize Theron's legendary performance as Aileen Wuornos, although I really think that it fully transcends the simple concept of the term 'performance'.

There were leading portrayals in many biopics that whatever make-up you put unto the actor's/actress' face, no matter how much characteristic emulations bordering impersonation they may take on, they simply cannot work for the sole reason that you can easily see what's under those biographical skins and how they were more an exercise of a star's outer acting range rather than a deeply felt performance piece.

For Charlize, there's a sense of bitter, almost teary-eyed urgency in her Aileen Wuornos, and an obscure side that she's more than eager to tell. Along with her disturbing but incredibly human portrayal of Aileen Wuornos, it's understandable to put a younger and more naive fictionalized lover on her side in the form of Selby Wall (Christina Ricci in a powerfully understated role) to really add some more weight to Aileen's motivations for money and a clear-cut reason for her to thrive on living. There were these poignantly sad scenes where Aileen Wuornos, determined to lead a normal life and quit a lifetime of hooking, awkwardly set on to apply for jobs she's less than under-qualified to pursue.

From these we see her potential for a legitimate social existence, and also from these, backed by her narration that tells of the flowery words about success that she has heard from a known band's drummer when she was 13 years old, we see and hear her simultaneous concession to the fact that life is not always about chasing dreams and all that 'rich' and 'famous' bullshit but is in fact, quite simply, just bullshit, and 'prostitution' is at its very tip.

A film beautifully photographed by Steven Bernstein and written and directed by Patty Jenkins with sheer but not overly biased empathy, "Monster" destroys the claim that apathy and nihilism are the only thing that runs through someone like Aileen's mind; sometimes, in her case, it's an act to lash out against an unforgiving social state that just sadly and uncontrollably went too far, which leads us to the film's very title, "Monster".

Is it pertaining to Aileen herself, to the outer forces that have abnormally molded her to what she has become, or a combination of both? I very much prefer it to pertain to the Ferris wheel that she has repeatedly mentioned throughout the film. An emotional retreat and a rare innocent slate of her existence. Let's let her have that.

P.S. A perfect companion piece to Kimberly Peirce's equally great "Boys Don't Cry".

FINAL RATING

Hinugot sa Langit (Ishmael Bernal)

I have always been fond of Maricel Soriano’s acting range. Be it her occasional noisy self via her comedy films, usually with Roderick Paulate, William Martinez and Randy Santiago, or her truly intense side conveyed through her penetrating eyes, facial expressions and startling line deliveries. Here in Ishamel Bernal’s “Hinugot sa Langit” (written by Amado Lacuesta), the latter is in full display, and not just for show, but a beautiful character representation of a master’s vision of morality (and an adamant view of religious zealotry and hypocrisy) and how modern living, as what Amy Austria’s character Stella stated, requires it to be compromised.

At first glance, or specifically almost half-way into the film, it seems as if it is just a melodramatic story about a young woman named Carmen (played by Maricel Soriano) whose unexpected pregnancy (and worst of all, with a married man) unwillingly plunges her neck-deep in a narrow well filled with crucial choices, heavy-handed decisions and a brooding sense of social stigma. So the film's initial conflict is this: To abort or not? But then aside from that, the film gradually becomes denser in its thematic content. Tackling such themes as death, poverty and cynicism (the same ones that Ishmael Bernal has finely tackled in his masterpiece “City After Dark”), “Hinugot sa Langit” stopped from being a simple dramatic film and turned into yet another multi-faceted exploration of a Filipino society inflicted with distorted moral values, helpless lower class struggles and meaningless romantic flings.

Ishmael Bernal was able to create a perfectly contrasting balance between Carmen’s subdued yet panicky characterization and her cousin, Stella’s loquacious exterior and cynical pragmatism. Although the Stella character seems to be a bit clichéd in its depiction of a desensitized individual conforming herself with an immoral social stream, Amy Austria portrayed the character with a mark that is her own and, considering the moody atmosphere of the film both in cinematography and motifs, is the energetic center of the film that is also the closest thing “Hinugot sa Langit” can get to a slight comic relief.

And then there’s the legendary Charito Solis’ performance as Carmen’s overly religious landlady Juling (that also puts her in the ‘Alive! Alive!’ social stereotype) that evokes suggestive villainy out of her ‘not practicing what she preaches’ type of character arc. It’s also a pure breath of fresh air from her previous, though equally iconic, roles. From her past film projects prior to “Hinugot sa Langit”, she has played the titular “Ina, Kapatid, Anak” (along with Lolita Rodriguez), the martyr wife in “Kisapmata” and the former prostitute mother in “City After Dark”.

With her playing a role that is not an immediate kin to our main character, it exemplifies freshness in characterization and also puts a mysterious depth in her portrayal of a landlady that, in the first place, should have been very well detached emotionally from Carmen’s very personal life but instead slowly takes form that is akin to a possessive mother.

Aside from the unnecessarily happy ending that is a staple for run-of-the-mill Filipino melodramas, the film is a powerful meditation not just of abortion but the overall existential sprawl of social hardships and endless hypocrisy. But its hypocrisy, as what may be the common conception, doesn’t just root out from the film’s portrayal of religion.

There’s this powerful scene near the end of “Hinugot sa Langit” where Carmen, pounding and beating angrily at Mang David (the late Rey Ventura) after he stabbed Aling Juling, exclaimed “Wala kang karapatang pumatay!”, then cut to Carmen’s half-second facial shift from the one accusing to the one accused.

Through this important sequence, Bernal unearthed the sensitive subject of ‘murder’ both in its bloodily immediate connotation and its clinically-assisted one, brought it in an ambiguous light and never sided with any argumentative absolutes. Instead, the said scene puts a simple question in retrospect and symbolically shoves it in Carmen’s very face: “Look who’s talking?”

FINAL RATING

Boys Don't Cry (Kimberly Peirce)

Chloe Sevigny and Hilary Swank in "Boys Don't Cry".

Film Review Archive (date seen: December 24, 2010)

What mainly affected me about "Boys Don't Cry" is it's great departure from the common stigmatic view of homosexuality in our society and instead focused all its succeeding events through the eyes of Teena Brandon/Brandon Teena, a delinquent who spends some of her days in constant transgressions, and majority of it dating unknowing women with her disguised as the opposite gender. Through this treatment, director Kimberly Peirce captured the essence of her existence more, an individual that may be conscious of her disguises to lure love into her, but unconscious of the buried truths of what and who she really is.

This was flawlessly played by Hilary Swank, whose utter devotion in playing the teen who lives a lie was too consummate that her initial immersion to the role even roots way back to her very audition. The supporting cast was particularly able and strong enough to carry the harrowing feel of the film, surrounding Brandon Teena's persona and her actions as critical pieces to either make or break her.

I completely sympathize with Brandon Teena's tragic fate, but I would not go around the web in complete justification of all of her actions. But even though she's done some things that aren't supposed to be done, she did not deserve any of what she has gone through, let alone the things that were inflicted to her. But that, as they say, is 'that'; our society is always fixated on casting the initial, judgmental stones to flawed individuals vulnerable enough to absorb all the pain.

Do not worry if this review (an essay about the film's themes, more like) offered any spoiling innuendos (at least to those interested in seeing the film), this isn't your ordinary cinematic hodge-podge. It just happens to be a film mirroring the genuine harshness of reality and the implications of people's lesser judgments. One must learn to deal with it, and also with the futility of the 'stone' we unconsciously carry all our lives.

FINAL RATING