Review:One More Try

Directed by Ruel S. Bayani (Star Cinema)

by Tessa Maria Guazon

One More Try attempts to revive the formula of beleaguered love by imbuing it moral choice. It failed disastrously. Caught in the snarls of an ill-conceived story, it stumbles countless times. In it, drama explores the limits of absurdity and viewing becomes an exercise in dredging the pit of incongruity. This is most apparent in the final conciliatory scene, one suffused with apologies and promises. After an awkward silence, the actors dutifully deliver lines in a final segment that can only be described as an inept afterthought. The droll and futile arguments they spewed at each other throughout their poorly imagined lives hover as ghastly background. The only reason we sit through the end is to pat ourselves on the back for becoming astute seers: knowing exactly how this movie will dissipate. The awards heaped on One More Try evade logic and at best illustrate the failure of ‘entertainment’ as conceived by the Metro Manila Film Festival organizers.

One More Try opens in Baguio and a summer affair. This arduous, youthful attraction between Edward (Dingdong Dantes) and Grace (Angel Locsin) begets a love child who now battles a rare lymphatic cancer. The child fails numerous bone marrow transplants and needs his father. Patch this past onto the life of a young, successful couple yearning for a child yet unable to beget another offspring. Jac / Jacqueline (Angelica Panganiban), the woman in this fairytale marriage is an upwardly mobile advertising executive torn between success and guilt. She is by turns, confusingly sharp and witless in her attempts to please husband Edward. This fairytale marriage is marred by the husband’s past – a child from the brief summer affair who badly needs a bone marrow match. From when they began solving this matching conundrum, the film begins a headlong plunge to ruin. Failing numerous matches, the gynaecologist suggests in-vitro fertilization which again predictably failed. Seemingly pushed against the wall, old lovers were needlessly set for a night together which again fails - the rusty fulcrum of failure the film exploits. Jac, Edward, Grace and her lover Tristan (Zanjoe Marudo) are forced to gamble their hearts, bodies and gut for what they thought was a morally upright choice.

Up until this experiment in conceiving a child, the story maintains precarious lucidity but throw in this wavering mix the odd character of an obstetrician (the screeching Carmina Villaroel) and we begin to sense comic doom. Jac, Angelica Panganiban’s character quips “We will never run out of money but my patience is running thin!” – such astuteness because I felt similar exasperation at this point in the film. From then on, One More Try attempted to regain its footing but to no avail. It seems like the ragged patch of road hastily mapped for the film to tread is but a slippery descent to sure failure. The requisite stream of tears, rage, and furies cannot make up for a slack and slovenly narrative.

Sparks fly between actresses Panganiban and Locsin, but the same cannot be said for the artificial chemistry between them and lead actors Dantes and the regrettably forgettable Zanjoe Marudo. Dantes glares, seduces, romps, but little can be said of his acting. Great wonder over the best performance award for a male actor, for lack of choice I guess. Marudo woos and pouts, cries and frets – the odd character in a poorly designed game. This film’s trudge to ruin is long and drawn out. No acting from its lead actresses can ever redeem it. We waver between incredulity and absurdity as arguments are thrown back and forth, the conversations between the film characters swinging like a badly wound pendulum in offkilter rhythm.

So let’s try this again and spell it out. Why can’t we have a bevy of well directed, well told films when the year closes? Surely, entertainment need not be empty and inane (we endure this kind often enough from the halls of politics all throughout the year). Movies that bank on the surface gloss of fairy tale lives are not far from midday entertainment shows – they suck the heft of life’s hardships, profit from them and deceive in cunning.

However much I turn the scenes from One More Try over in my head – from the early flashback sequence to the run of the mill ending, from that cloying end back to the formulaic beginning (such desperate straining) – there is no meat or backbone to this flagging and absurd story. What it lacks in credibility, it makes up for with the flashy trappings of an expected mainstream box office success – figures and promotions as tiresome and vexing as anything can get.

*

Image taken from pinoyexchange.com

Aristotle J. Atienza

Nasaan na ang masayang katapusan ng pag-iibigan?  Paano kung tinuturuan tayong tanggapin ang malungkot na pagtatapos dahil “pinag-isipan” naman?  Pagninilayan ng pangunahing bidang babae ang desisyong gagawin sa huli.  At paplanuhin ng mga taga-pelikula ang paghihiwalay na lohikal na hahantungan ng pagmamahalan.  Sa industriya, tinatawag itong twist.  Pero sa A Secret Affair (Nuel Crisostomo Naval, 2012), hindi ito twist kundi gimik.  Nakasusuyang gimik.

Anu’t anuman, nagtatakda ang mga “twist” ng mga pagpapasiya, at ang karaniwang pinipili ay hindi pipiliin kaya may tendensiyang manurpresa.  Simulan natin sa katapusan: hi-hindi si Rafi (Anne Curtis) sa proposal ni Anton (Derek Ramsey).  At bumalik naman tayo sa umpisa: o-oo si Rafi sa proposal ni Anton.  Kung ang surpresa ay nasa ironiya ng pag-ikot pabalik ng pagtatapos sa umpisa, nagkakamali tayo, dahil hindi bilog ang mundo sa pelikula, nakasusulasok na tatsulok itong binuo.   Dahil ano ang nangyari mula pag-oo ni Rafi hanggang pag-hindi kay Anton kundi ang pagpasok ni Sam (Andi Eigenman), ang kaibigan ni Rafi.  Buo na, kung tutuusin, ang trianggulo ng pag-ibig.  Pero wala sa pelikula ang pagsukat sa dalawang lalaki o babae na pareho niyang mahal, o kung hindi kaya ay sa pagitan ng kaibigang babae o ng iniibig na lalaki.  Sa pelikula, si Anton ang titimbangin at matatagpuang nagkulang lalo na sa pagbubunyag ng ugnayang lihim nila ni Sam.

Dahil tatsulok, maliit lamang ang mundo ng mga tauhan.  Hindi lamang tutukoy ang kaliitan sa kintab ng mga lugar ng konsumerismo na pagkakakitaan nila kundi ang inihahaing nakaraan para maunawaan ang pagkilos ng mga indibidwal.  Sa pelikula, magiging testigo ang salon, spa, mall, parking space, coffeeshop, bar, restaurant, facebook, twitter, at cellphone sa sari-saring engkuwentro nina Sam at Rafi.  Ipakikilala tayo sa mga mapagtimping ina at mga pabayang ama na nag-aasam nang sapat nang dahilan ang mga ito upang tanggapin ang lagim ng kumprontasyon ng dalawang babae, habang iniiwan tayong nagtatanong kung bakit hinayaang walang kasaysayan ang feminisadong lalaki na tampulan ng kani-kanilang pagmamahal.  Ito ang nakagagambala sa pelikula, itatago ang lalaki samantalang gagawing ispektakulo ang pagbabatuhan ng masasakit na linya ng matatapang na babae (hindi lang sina Rafi at Sam, kahit maging ang mga nanay na pagtatakhan ang ugat ng hidwaang mayroon sila).  At ito ay dahil sa desisyong ipaglaban ang lalaking minamahal, na ituturing na nilang pagmamay-ari, dahil ninakaw ng ibang babae.

Paano nagtaglay ng ganitong “lakas” ang mga babae sa pelikula?  Gagawing madali ng pelikula ang kasagutan: dahil pinili nilang makipaglaban, na magkaroon ng kontrol sa sitwasyong kinasangkutan ng mapusok na puso.  Na mas lalo pang magiging mapanganib sa away nina Rafi at Sam dahil sa madulas na pagpapangalan sa naging “affair” (hook-up para kay Anton, pag-ibig kay Sam, kabit kay Rafi) na sintomas hindi lamang ng malabnaw na karakterisasyon sa maaksayang pagkukuwento kundi ng nakakasawang kalagayan mismo ng imahe na isinisiwalat ng mga nagsipagganap at ng ispesipikong pamamaraan ng sine na ibang-iba sa telebisyon at hindi mabitawan ng pelikula.  Bumabaw pang lalo ito sa paglalarawan ng nag-iisip at nagsasariling babae para gatungan ang diumano ay kapangyarihan niyang makapamili.

Sa pelikula, sinasambit ng mga tauhan na ang pagpili ay nakapagpapalaya (liberating), subalit, bakit hindi kasiyahan ng/sa pag-ibig ang kapasiyahan?  Dahil sa puno’t dulo pa lang, ang mga ugnayang pinagbabaran sa atin ay pinaligiran na ng sira-sirang relasyon at ng kawalan nito, mula sa mga problematikong pamilya hanggang sa kabarkadang walang ginawa kundi abangan ang susunod na kabanata sa buhay ng nag-aaway na kaibigan, na tila wala na ngang pinakamainam na pagpapasiya (o pagpapalaya) kundi ang paghihiwalay, at kung gayon, ang pag-iisa (single).  Parang ipinapakitang opresibo na ang mga relasyon sa simula’t simula pa na bagama’t maaaring pasubalian ay hindi rin naman tinangkang ilagay sa reimahinasyon ng pelikula upang maging tunay na kapaki-pakinabang para sa lahat.  Sa halip, ipinapanukalang babae ang may kasalanan (balikan kung paano ginawang trivial ang kabit, kerida, at mistress) kaya kailangang turuan ng leksiyon, dahil ang lalaki, ano pa nga bang bago, ay lalaki lamang (paano nga raw mag-isip ang lalaki, sang-ayon kay Anton).   Kaya’t magtataka pa ba na sa pagkakataong ibinigay kay Anton upang magpaliwanag ay hindi rin pala siya tunay na pakikinggan (at hindi na pagkakatiwalaan kaya iiwan) ni Rafi, na mangyayari ang kabaligtaran kay Sam nang hindi pinaglaanan ng espasyo ni Rafi para magpaliwanag kahit noong una pa lang ay naghahangad na itong si Sam na maplantsa muna ang lahat ng gusot niya kay Anton at kay Rafi.   Gayundin, hindi na kakatwang nangyari ang desisyong tapusin ni Rafi ang relasyon makaraang makitang magkayakap sa kama ang magulang, buo na kung anuman itong kulang sa kaniya dahil hindi naman talaga si Anton ang hinahanap na kasagutan.  Kailanman ay hindi naging matibay ang relasyon nina Anton at Rafi sa umpisa man hanggang sa katapusan (na inaasahang magpapatatag pa sana nito pero pinabayaan lang at hindi hinayaang paunlarin ng pelikula).   Hindi nga ba’t pagdadahilan ni Rafi kay Anton na masyadong mabilis, nakakagulat, at nakakatakot ang pagpapakasal nilang dalawa.  Kaya’t tulad ng tugon ni Anton kay Sam nang tanungin ng huli kung ano nga ba sila, hook-up lang naman talaga ang nangyari sa magkasintahang Anton at Rafi, at kung may sikreto rito, hindi na ito sina Sam kundi sina Rafi na ito, niromantisa na lamang sa pagpapahaba at pagpapalaki sa mga suliraning isinisisi palagi sa mga nabubunyag na lihim.  At dahil hook up lang naman ito, hindi pa nga ba aasahan itong pagtatapos?  Bakit hindi?  Dahil sa kanilang tatsulok na daigdig, may iba pang babae’t lalaki silang ikokonsumo sa kani-kanilang liberal na buhay,  bata pa sila, may mga hitsura, at maykaya pa.  Sa pantasya ng pelikula, mas nasa kanila, diumano, ang nakapagpapalayang pagpili.

*Ang larawang ginamit ay galing sa interaksyon.com

Review of This Guy’s In Love With U Mare!

by Skilty Labastilla

I won’t beat around the bush, This Guy’s In Love With U Mare! is shrill, unfunny, and disturbing.

Vice Ganda plays Lester, a beauty salon owner who has been in a three-year relationship with Mike (Luis Manzano). When Lester forces Mike to propose marriage to him, Mike breaks up with him because he has converted to a new religion that forbids homosexual relationships. Lester is devastated. When he finds out later that Mike is seeing a girl named Gemma (Toni Gonzaga), Lester vows revenge by pretending to be straight so he can woo Gemma and break off her relationship with Mike, who he hopes will come back to his arms again.

The plot, though highly improbable, is not the problem: it’s how simplistically and haphazardly director Wenn Deramas and co-writers treat their characters. You don’t believe for a second that these are flesh-and-blood people: they are puppets manipulated by the scriptwriters’ strings. For instance, it’s never shown why Lester would hastily decide on doing a risky undertaking just for somebody who he barely even knows: it is intimated that throughout their three-year relationship, Mike is pretty much an absentee boyfriend and his only motive for staying in the relationship is because his education was sponsored by Lester. But he does anyway. Why? Well, maybe the sex is good? But we don’t know that for sure because we’re never told. He just has to get Mike back because the script says so.

Mike does not realize (even if it’s obvious) that Gemma’s parents don’t want him to be their daughter’s partner. He endures the humiliation of never being invited to sit down at Gemma’s family dinners. But he stays. Why? Because the script says so.

Gemma is shown to slowly fall in love with Lester because 1) he beat up four people to save her, and 2) he took her to an Aegis/April Boy concert. That’s it. So she kisses him (or so she thinks) on her front porch and conveniently forgets that she has a boyfriend. Even if there’s zero chemistry between them, Gemma has to fall in love with Lester. Why? BECAUSE THE SCRIPT SAYS SO.

But the film’s bigger sins, in my opinion, has little to do with its filmmaking and everything to with its peddling of disturbing messages. I list down three:

1. To be a real man, one has to be physically violent.

To impress Gemma, Lester had to pretend-maul his friends who were masked robbers about to victimize Gemma. They got her bag, but instead of running to save her life, she watched for at least five minutes as Lester pretended to beat the crap out of his friends. When Lester was done, she thanks her knight-in-shining-and-shimmering-armor and brings him to meet the parents, who were equally impressed with his fighting skills, unlike Gemma’s lampa boyfriend.

When Lester and Gemma go to a comedy bar, the gay hosts immediately outed Lester. He took the hosts backstage, told them that he needs to pretend to be straight, so mauled the hosts onstage and everyone in the bar, including Gemma, was happy because he has proved his manhood.

A related incident is when Mike and Lester are in the zoo. Mike, having been fed up with Lester’s entreaties to become his boyfriend again, punches Lester in the gut and locks him inside a tiger’s lair. And the audience is supposed to laugh. Does this finally stop Lester from pursuing Mike? Of course not. It only makes him more determined. If that isn’t a reinforcement of a twisted tolerance for abusive relationships, I don’t know what is.

2. Making fun of people whose looks do not meet society’s standards of beauty is completely OK.

A constant butt of jokes is a character who is dark-skinned, short, snub-nosed, and has a pockmarked face. This is actually the type of humor that is commonly found in our country’s comedy bars, where Vice Ganda began his career. It’s childish and superficial.

3. Gay men will lust after every young man they see. They just can’t help it. It’s in their nature.

When Lester fetches Gemma from home so he can bring her to her office, he suddenly sees a group of young, sweaty men on the street. He ditches his date so he can hang out with the guys (who don’t know him). There are many more scenes just like that: Lester blissing out in a men’s locker room, Lester playing basketball with Gemma’s brother so he can feel him up, etc.

This is not to say that these scenarios don’t happen in the real world. But what’s dangerous is it reinforces the stereotype of gay men as voracious sexual predators.

If blockbuster movies are like windows to a nation’s soul, Filipinos should be scared. If you’re planning to watch this, just give your P180 to a person that needs it. Your soul will be happier.

*

Image from: entervrexworld.wordpress.com

The Young Critics Circle Film Desk sponsors the screening of Haruo, awarded as YCC’s Best Film of 2011. A sensitive melding of film genres and Japanese art forms, Haruo weaves the paths of two cities through the life of a man in hiding. It portrays his search for elusive redemption in a world precipitously made small by a dark past. Haruo traces this man’s precarious life as he navigates the ordeals in the city of his present and that of his not-so-distant past. Director Adolf Alix grafts inner turmoil to geographies of parallel chaos and momentary reprieve in sombre yet delicate feeling, a perceptive portrayal of redemption and remorse.

The screening will be held on September 25, 2012, 6PM at the University of the Philippines Film Institute. A forum with Alix and producer-actor Jackie Woo follows the screening. Tickets are at 100 pesos each and may be bought at the UPFI on the day of the screening itself. Reservations can be made through the event’s Facebook page. 

The Young Critics Circle welcomes two new members to the film desk, Lisa Ito-Tapang and Aristotle Atienza.

Kasalukuyang nagtuturo si Aristotle J. Atienza sa Kagawaran ng Filipino ng Pamantasang Ateneo de Manila.  Kapwa niya nakamit ang BA at MA sa programang Araling Pilipino sa Unibersidad ng Pilipinas sa Diliman.  Kasama si Rolando B. Tolentino, pinamatnugutan nila ang Ang Dagling Tagalog, 1903-1936 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2007).

Lisa Ito is currently a lecturer in art history at the Department of Theory of the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts (UP CFA).  Her writings on the visual arts have appeared in Pananaw, Forum on Contemporary Art and Society, Asian Art News and Ctrl+P Journal of Contemporary Art. She co-authored Without Walls: A Tour of Philippine Paintings at the Turn of the Millenium (2010).  She holds a degree in Fine Arts from the UP CFA.

Raymond Red’s “Pelikula” (Cinema) and “Ang Magpakailanman” (Eternity) at the 5^th Silent Cinema Festival, screened alongside Diwa de Leon’s live performance 

Tessa Maria Guazon

Screened on the third day of the 6^th International Silent Film Festival in Manila were two of Raymond Red’s films from the eighties. Shot in black and white stock, Pelikula (Cinema) dates back to 1985. Ang Magpakailanman (Eternity) on the other hand shot earlier in 1983 and first conceptualized in 82 was recorded on Super 8 film and digitally remastered to black and white befitting the director’s original intention.[1] In a short talk before the screening, Red spoke of both films as experiments in form, of imagining the filmmaker transported to another time context or how it must have been to make a film within the constraints of a given period.

Through this approach, Red casts time in two ways: time as filmic element, and time as gesture beyond cinematic frame. The latter to me is a reflexive wielding of time, crucial to the works originally devoid of sound. The director pays homage to a tradition of silent cinema and imagines making films in unfamiliar contexts. During the screening Diwa de Leon lent his music to both works, and in turn endowed them buoyancy and tension.

Pelikula is montage of a man’s mundane routines and shots of a home’s stairwell, railings, hallways and rooms. Inserted within this beautiful arabesque of domestic space were scenes of muted lessons on both piano and violin. The setting dates back to the late forties and early fifties if we take architecture, dress and automobile as cues. One presumes the man who alighted from the car and entered the house, a musician. In between his arrival and departure, the camera lingered on the intricate interlace of the balcony railing, the coiling depth of a spiral staircase and the shadowy pale of empty corridors. Images of a teenage boy awkwardly performing toilet routines and a boy of about seven refusing to enter the bathroom were interspersed with fleeting images of Hollywood couples and superheroes. Diwa de Leon’s delicate, precise and agile rhythm succeeded in suspending these images in ether, a patchwork veil inviting a hovering curiosity; the kind we do not exactly wish to satisfy lest we puncture its beguiling mystery.

MNL 143 is as much a love song to the crazy/beautiful metropolis of Manila as it is a love story between two people who do not look like movie stars. In Philippine cinema, the lead characters of a love story have to be portrayed by beautiful actors. That is the reason why Emerson Reyes, MNL 143’s director, came at loggerheads with Cinemalaya’s organizers: they wanted to replace the director’s cast with younger, more physically attractive people. Reyes should be commended for sticking to his vision. It’s about time a Pinoy movie features a love story of two ordinary-looking people. That said, it’s just unfortunate that MNL 143 spends much of its time not on the love story but on sketches of public transport life, sketches that are as light-hearted as they are utterly trite, if not a little juvenile.

Ramil (Allan Paule) is a forty-something mini-van[1]driver who, like Julio Madiaga in Lino Brocka’sMaynila sa Kuko ng Liwanag (1975), has been searching for his beloved, Mila (Joy Viado) in the megacity of Manila. We learn that the two met and fell in love in some provincial town until Ramil decided to work in Saudi Arabia so he could save up enough money for their future together. It is intimated that they lost contact over the years. When his contract ended, he came back to the town still hoping to marry Mila and was told that she went to Manila to strike out on her own, devastated as she was by Ramil’s departure.

Ramil spends the next five years working as a public transport driver in the hope that Mila might someday hop on as his passenger. Having finally lost hope of ever finding her, he decides to go back to Saudi Arabia. The film shows what happens on his last day of plying his taxi from Buendia (in Pasay City) to Fairview (in Quezon City), an approximately 25 km-long route that would take about 90 minutes, give or take a few for traffic flow variations. The bulk of passengers, though, hop on and off throughout the course of the ride, much like bus passengers would, and director Reyes handpicks passenger types to people his “road trip” film. There’s the cranky old woman who complains about everything (the traffic, the heat, Ramil’s driving, etc.); two guys who tell each other racist jokes in Tagalog when a Japanese girl rides beside them, only to learn later that she can understand Tagalog; a chef who videotapes a hole on the pants of a sleeping passenger in front of him; two hyperactive students making a film for a class project; three gay men talking about unrequited love; among others.

MNL 143 is Reyes’ first full-length feature. The last film he directed was Walang Katapusang Kwarto, a short film that features a conversation of a young couple post-coitus in a small apartment bedroom. There’s no plot: the appeal has to do with the naturalistic acting of the couple (who is also a couple in real life) and the cute (though sometimes precious) dialogue-driven script. Reyes is a perceptive observer of social mores and of life’s ironies, filling the couple’s conversation with random musings, with such lines as “Why do people go quiet all of a sudden when they enter an elevator?” or “Math needs to grow up and solve its own problems.”

For MNL 143, Reyes attempts to move out of the constricted bedroom space and uses the whole metropolis as backdrop for his love story. In parts of the film, he succeeds in showing the city’s chaos, noise, and heat. There are also beautiful shots of the streets crawling with various modes of transport. Reyes’ romantic Manila is vastly different from Brocka’s predatory Manila. It’s as if Reyes is saying, “Hey, Manila is not just a city of slums and hardship, it’s also a city of middle-class commuters and of hopeless romantics”.

For the most part, though, Reyes could not resist going back to his comfort zone of capturing realistic conversations within a confined space. But his decision to do this by focusing on passenger sketches that have nothing to do with the main storyline (save for some few hints on not giving up on love) instead of further building audience empathy for Ramil, leaves the viewer uninvested in Ramil’s quest. Throughout the film I was waiting to be pulled in but the unimaginative and pointless passenger sketches held me at arm’s length. That is why that extended crying scene of Ramil brought about by a love song playing on the radio does not do anything for the viewer except maybe to appreciate Paule’s acting skills.

The only time the film engaged me was towards the end, (spoiler warning) when Mila shows up, even if there were lapses that don’t make sense (like Ramil all of a sudden not objecting to two passengers riding on the front seat, Ramil not immediately recognizing Mila’s very distinctive voice, and Paule’s acting lacking any hint of excitement once his character realizes that the woman he’s been searching for thirteen years is sitting on the front seat of his cab). Still, one can’t help but feel kilig when two ordinary-looking people get a chance to reignite their love story. It’s a slap to the faces of movie studio executives and festival directors who still cling to the Jurassic idea that only pretty people falling in love are worth watching onscreen.

The film’s saving grace is its music. Since there’s no musical scoring, key moments are punctuated by new songs written expressly for the film by such talented artists as Jensen Gomez, Peryodiko, Fando and Lis, among others. In the end, I’m still happy that this film was made (and on the director’s own terms). Emerson Reyes is young and promising, and I have extreme confidence that he’ll only improve in the future.

[1] Called “FX” in the Philippines, derived from the most common vehicle model used, the Toyota Tamaraw FX.

Thelma (Star Cinema, 2012 release directed by Paul Soriano)

Tessa Maria Guazon

Thelma’s saving grace is the performance of its supporting cast and the panoramic scenes of Ilocos province. Other than these, the film comes off as inordinately polished, robbed of the pathos and struggles required of this genre and is a tame, dull and tedious chronicle of an aspiring athlete’s fight against the odds.

Maja Salvador is Thelma, a farm lass gifted with speed. She initially regards the gift as respite but later realized it could well save her family. A young girl suddenly thrust into adulthood, Thelma struggles with numerous hardships. Salvador’s awkward Iloko tone, her less-than graceful sprinting form, the supposed transformation from wayward adolescent to responsible adult are failures in portrayals of conflict and depth. Crucial to Thelma’s character is the onset of adulthood and how it descended on her by way of guilt and filial responsibility. Salvador missed this subtle leap, overtaken perhaps by the random miles the character had to run to keep track.

Born to a poor, farming family, Thelma’s days are divided between house chores, school, play and petty adventures with her sister Hannah (Eliza Pineda). They barely get by, thriving on farm produce and weaving. Thelma’s refuge is running on paddy fields and paved streets. Her stubborn streak often gets her in trouble. She is not as brilliant in school as her sister but proves indispensable at home. She recognizes her gift but is reluctant to train because she feels discomfort from people watching her run. She plods through her days until an accident forces her to grow up. The sisters take the short route to school requiring them to cross a main highway of speeding vehicles. As was the custom, Thelma takes the lead and sprints over to the other side. On one such day, Thelma sulked and refused to go to school leaving Hannah to cross the road alone. Hit by a car, Hannah ends up with a broken leg. The brilliant child suddenly has to stop schooling and is now confined to a wheelchair. Driven by guilt, Thelma stumbles upon her athletic calling and is thrust into the adult world of responsibilities and filial obligations.

The shift in the story demands that this reckoning (of Thelma’s acceptance of destiny) be conveyed fulsomely across the screen; lest we miss the subtlety of the entire narrative. Alas, such delicacy rests on how skilfully a performer enacts inner turmoil. In Thelma’s case, this is the combined weight of liability and remorse. Such portrayal requires sensitive embodiment so we can yet again feel and be reminded of the torment of choice. This embodiment is vital to the story especially as it chronicles the travails of an athlete whose success lies in disciplining the body and spirit. Thelma in the cusp of adulthood is supposed to live this conflict but it seems Hannah the sister, grows up more eloquently. In scenes where the sisters confront their lives of poverty and seeming hopelessness, Hannah shines with effortless depth while Thelma self-consciously grapples with emotions.

Thelma’s talent turns out to be a legacy from her mother, a track and field champion in her youth. She chose marriage however, and stopped training because of childbirth. Encouraged by her mother, Thelma begins to train and eventually lands a scholarship in Manila. Her training days are not without strife. She sends home her stipend and survives on the little that’s left. Thelma commits to having her sister operated on so she is able to walk. She confronts distractions and challenges. All seemed petty within the overall gravity of the movie’s claim to inspire. The biggest blow is learning her mother suffers from cancer. Torn between training and the yearning to care for her ill mother, Thelma has to make a choice. As expected, she triumphs in the end supported by a family who encourages her to stay in the city and continue her athletic training.

Thelma sags from the burden of its self-conscious depiction of inspiration and hope. It seeks to portray the triumph of will but fails to coherently explore the depth of the human struggle to conquer fear and faltering commitment. The opening and closing sequences are replete with clichés, marking this unneeded reticence. If at all, the film refuses to let go of this tight grip resulting to scenes appearing stilted, lacking flow no matter how beautifully shot. While it aims to be buoyant and light, it is instead captive to gravity. Succumbing to formulaic shots of landscape, it fails to poetically yoke character and place. Thelma likens herself to the windmills of Bangui whose harnessed energy fuels households, but the dialogue barely corresponds to a remarkable image or scene. Halfway through, the viewer makes an easy prediction that Thelma after all succeeds and wins first place in any of the numerous races she competes in.

Thelma fails to depict the full flowering of triumph that films of its kind aspire to. Thelma’s hope is her own, held hostage by the screen. It does not spill over nor kindles a fiery equal in the hearts of viewers.

Skilty Labastilla

MNL 143 is as much a love song to the crazy/beautiful metropolis of Manila as it is a love story between two people who do not look like movie stars. In Philippine cinema, the lead characters of a love story have to be portrayed by beautiful actors. That is the reason why Emerson Reyes, MNL 143’s director, came at loggerheads with Cinemalaya’s organizers: they wanted to replace the director’s cast with younger, more physically attractive people. Reyes should be commended for sticking to his vision. It’s about time a Pinoy movie features a love story of two ordinary-looking people. That said, it’s just unfortunate that MNL 143 spends much of its time not on the love story but on sketches of public transport life, sketches that are as light-hearted as they are utterly trite, if not a little juvenile.

Ramil (Allan Paule) is a forty-something mini-van[1]driver who, like Julio Madiaga in Lino Brocka’sMaynila sa Kuko ng Liwanag (1975), has been searching for his beloved, Mila (Joy Viado) in the megacity of Manila. We learn that the two met and fell in love in some provincial town until Ramil decided to work in Saudi Arabia so he could save up enough money for their future together. It is intimated that they lost contact over the years. When his contract ended, he came back to the town still hoping to marry Mila and was told that she went to Manila to strike out on her own, devastated as she was by Ramil’s departure.

Ramil spends the next five years working as a public transport driver in the hope that Mila might someday hop on as his passenger. Having finally lost hope of ever finding her, he decides to go back to Saudi Arabia. The film shows what happens on his last day of plying his taxi from Buendia (in Pasay City) to Fairview (in Quezon City), an approximately 25 km-long route that would take about 90 minutes, give or take a few for traffic flow variations. The bulk of passengers, though, hop on and off throughout the course of the ride, much like bus passengers would, and director Reyes handpicks passenger types to people his “road trip” film. There’s the cranky old woman who complains about everything (the traffic, the heat, Ramil’s driving, etc.); two guys who tell each other racist jokes in Tagalog when a Japanese girl rides beside them, only to learn later that she can understand Tagalog; a chef who videotapes a hole on the pants of a sleeping passenger in front of him; two hyperactive students making a film for a class project; three gay men talking about unrequited love; among others.

MNL 143 is Reyes’ first full-length feature. The last film he directed was Walang Katapusang Kwarto, a short film that features a conversation of a young couple post-coitus in a small apartment bedroom. There’s no plot: the appeal has to do with the naturalistic acting of the couple (who is also a couple in real life) and the cute (though sometimes precious) dialogue-driven script. Reyes is a perceptive observer of social mores and of life’s ironies, filling the couple’s conversation with random musings, with such lines as “Why do people go quiet all of a sudden when they enter an elevator?” or “Math needs to grow up and solve its own problems.”

For MNL 143, Reyes attempts to move out of the constricted bedroom space and uses the whole metropolis as backdrop for his love story. In parts of the film, he succeeds in showing the city’s chaos, noise, and heat. There are also beautiful shots of the streets crawling with various modes of transport. Reyes’ romantic Manila is vastly different from Brocka’s predatory Manila. It’s as if Reyes is saying, “Hey, Manila is not just a city of slums and hardship, it’s also a city of middle-class commuters and of hopeless romantics”.

For the most part, though, Reyes could not resist going back to his comfort zone of capturing realistic conversations within a confined space. But his decision to do this by focusing on passenger sketches that have nothing to do with the main storyline (save for some few hints on not giving up on love) instead of further building audience empathy for Ramil, leaves the viewer uninvested in Ramil’s quest. Throughout the film I was waiting to be pulled in but the unimaginative and pointless passenger sketches held me at arm’s length. That is why that extended crying scene of Ramil brought about by a love song playing on the radio does not do anything for the viewer except maybe to appreciate Paule’s acting skills.

The only time the film engaged me was towards the end, (spoiler warning) when Mila shows up, even if there were lapses that don’t make sense (like Ramil all of a sudden not objecting to two passengers riding on the front seat, Ramil not immediately recognizing Mila’s very distinctive voice, and Paule’s acting lacking any hint of excitement once his character realizes that the woman he’s been searching for five years is sitting on the front seat of his cab). Still, one can’t help but feel kilig when two ordinary-looking people get a chance to reignite their love story. It’s a slap to the faces of movie studio executives and festival directors who still cling to the Jurassic idea that only pretty people falling in love are worth watching onscreen.

The film’s saving grace is its music. Since there’s no musical scoring, key moments are punctuated by new songs written expressly for the film by such talented artists as Jensen Gomez, Peryodiko, Fando and Lis, among others. In the end, I’m still happy that this film was made (and on the director’s own terms). Emerson Reyes is young and promising, and I have extreme confidence that he’ll only improve in the future.

Map to Claro M. Recto Conference Hall, Bulwagang Rizal (Faculty Center), University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City. Thank you, Manuel Singson, for the map.