YBCA: NEW FILIPINO CINEMA—BOUNDARY (2011)

A half hour into Benito Bautista's Boundary (2011) [Facebook] and I'm mesmerized by Bautista's orchestrated sense of foreboding, McCoy Tarnate's neon-stained and vehicularly claustrophobic cinematography, and the grating disquietude of Coke Bolipata's anxious violin score. This is Manila neo-noir, darkly beautiful and atmospheric with distrust, uncertainty, desperation and pathos.

As synopsized by Joel Shepard for YBCA's "New Filipino Cinema" series: "Boundary is set in the crowded urban roadways of Manila during Christmas. A nervous taxi driver picks up an easy-going businessman as his last passenger for the night. Their journey together to a far-flung suburb takes a wrong turn in more ways than one, and becomes a wickedly tense portrait of urban anxiety and shifting identities."

Winner of the NETPAC Award at the 2011 Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival as well as a special mention in that festival's South East Asian competition, it's easy to understand how Boundary ended up on Oggs Cruz's Top 15 Feature Length Filipino Films of 2011 at Lessons From the School of Inattention, where he praised a storyline "that unites top-level corruption with bottom-level criminality."

That storyline bears striking similarities to the urban narrative of Amok (2011), undoubtedly because it shares John Bedia's co-authorship. "New Filipino Cinema" provides a fantastic opportunity to experience Bedia's burgeoning screenwriting talent, as both of his film credits to date have been programmed into the series. Whereas Chard Bolisay was referencing Amok when he wrote that the film's denouement was a "gala of predictable outcomes and unpredictable victims", his observation could just as easily apply to Boundary. Bedia likewise seems drawn to the interior world of vehicles, momentarily safe from but ultimately encroached upon by the menace of Manila. He scripts the permeability of this boundary.

How directors Lawrence Fajardo and Benito Bautista have stylized the mise-en-scène of Bedia's confined vehicular sequences in their respective films is an equally fascinating consideration of the auteurial conversion of word to image. Amok's diurnal and sweltering visualization is in sharp contrast to Boundary's lustrous nocturnality, awash with vivid oranges and greens bleeding in from the city's neon lights, as well as the Christmas lights strung up within the cab's interior. Tarnate's containment of so much color and movement within the constraints of the vehicle is downright masterful. I found myself frequently intrigued by his shifting camera placement and wondering how even one more person (i.e., the cameraman) could fit into an already crowded cab?

In the role of the guilt-ridden cab driver, Ronnie Lazaro—who I last saw in Affliction (Yanggaw, 2008), reviewed by both Oggs Cruz and Chard Bolisay—exudes the sweaty desperation of Manila cab drivers sympathetically described by Cruz at Lessons From the School of Inattention. His fare, the ruggedly handsome Raymond Bagatsing, suggests a different temperature of menace. Together, within the confines of the cab and the guarded limits of their conversation, they reflect in microcosm the shady ways of the outer world.

Boundary negotiates its interior and exterior spaces at YBCA's "New Filipino Cinema" on Friday, June 8, 9:00PM, with Bautista in person to Q&A with his audience. I envy this opportunity as Boundary has emerged as one of my favorites from the YBCA series. Ticket info can be found here.

YBCA: NEW FILIPINO CINEMA—AMOK (2011)

I'm reminded of Malaysian filmmaker-turned-publisher Amir Muhammad whenever I hear the word "amok", as he was the one who first informed me of its Malay origins. Wikipedia indicates that "amok" stems "from the Malay word mengamuk, which roughly defined means 'to make a furious and desperate charge.' "

The term has since taken on contemporary and cross-cultural inflections, including "running amok", which refers "to the behavior of someone who, in the grip of strong emotion, obtains a weapon and begins attacking people indiscriminately, often with multiple fatalities. The slang term 'going postal' is similar in scope. Police describe such an event as a 'killing spree'. If the individual is seeking death, an alternate method is often 'suicide by cop'. Amok is often described as a culture-bound (or culture-specific) syndrome, which is a psychological condition whose manifestation is strongly shaped by cultural factors." In some instances, those cultural factors have associations with male honor (amok by women is virtually unknown). ...Running amok would thus be both a way of escaping the world (since perpetrators were normally killed) and re-establishing one's reputation as a man to be feared and respected. Some observers have related this explanation to Islam's ban on suicide, which, it is suggested, drove Malay men to create circumstances in which others would kill them." [Footnotes omitted. Emphasis added.]

In the Philippines, "amok" likewise means "unreasoning murderous rage by an individual. In 1876, the Spanish governor-general of the Philippines José Malcampo coined the term juramentado for the behavior (from juramentar—'to take an oath'), surviving into modern Filipino languages as huramentado." As if to confirm the above Islamic reference, it's intriguingly suggestive that amok "has historically been linked with the Muslim Moro people of Mindanao, particularly in the island of Jolo." Others, however, draw a distinction between juramentado and "amok" as the difference between "religious preparation and state of mind." [Footnotes omitted.]

Such etymological indulgences are merely to suggest that in his film Amok (2011), Lawrence Fajardo is playing with the word's ongoing connotations, while updating them to modern-day Manila. Without question, the "man with a gun" (as identified in Amok's closing credits) is suffering from social conditions in the Philippines that have left him jobless and unable to provide for his pregnant wife. That he is an ex-cop only adds an ironic twist to the theory of "suicide by cop."

Fajardo uses the urban congestion of the Edsa-Pasay Rotonda, one of the busiest and most rugged intersections in Manila, as both his narrative setting and his framework (or as Dodo Dayao puts it at Piling Piling Pelikua "both milieu and metaphor"). As Joel Shepard describes in his program note: "It is a place of absolute chaos: people, cars, buses, motorcycles, jeepneys and trains all compet[ing] for space as they try to navigate the crumbling, complex geography of the city in the sweltering tropical heat. It is here that the disparate lives of the characters in Amok converge, their fates united by the violence that sweeps through the streets." At Variety, Richard Kuipers claims Edsa-Pasay Rotonda is "instantly fascinating" and "a kind of tentacled creature playing host to shifting masses of humanity."

Fajardo's Amok is a truly urban narrative where the warp and woof of the anthill weave consists of overheated congestion and co-existent anonymity. Fajardo purposefully samples the variety of people that might be found on any given day at the Edsa-Pasay Rotonda to assemble his cast of characters and further suggests that they all negotiate various levels of internalized rage regarding how life has placed them down at heel. Whether it's delinquent kids (almost innocently) rapping about the dangers of push come to shove on Manila's crowded streets, a mother at a food cart who suspects her customers are cheating her, an aging stunt-man who discovers the woman he's been fucking isn't quite the woman he hired, an uncle at odds with his nephew, a brother at odds with his sister, or a homophobic taxi driver who threatens his gay clientele with a metal pipe, disillusionment and discontent crank up the heat on an already sweltering day.

That "the man with the gun" is the one who unhinges and goes on a shooting spree is as random as the justice and/or punishment dispensed by his stray bullets, and blind as the man who crawls to safety during the film's havoc. In this regard, Amok is nothing new by way of narrative; but, remains vigorous in its editorial attention and precision, excelling more as texture than text. Its visual elements emphasize tactility. You can almost feel the sweat trickling down your neck and dampening your armpits. Indeed, Amok won awards for Best Editing and Sound at the 2011 Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival and Variety concedes that "production values and technical work are impressive on a lean budget."

If Amok is more concerned with surface detail and editorial tempo than psychological depth, it also knowingly emphasizes apparent incongruencies between laws posted on traffic signs and the lawlessness that contests them. Its final winking joke is that of "the man with a knife" standing anxiously in front of the word "AMOK" scrawled in graffiti on the wall behind him. Is the film saying that he will be the next to go amok? When he moves out of the frame, however, it's revealed that the graffiti is actually stating a tenuous optimism in the face of the city's relentless barrage of violence: "I AM OK." It's about as subtle as the speechmaking at film's end that, according to Kuipers at Variety, lessens the impact of what until then has been "a vivid snapshot of Manila street life", especially by way of "some poorly staged TV news footage in which characters' reactions sound more like press releases about social injustice than the voices of those deeply hurt."

My three Philippine colleagues have also weighed in on Amok. At Lessons From the School of Inattention, Oggs Cruz considers Amok "without a doubt, chaos in astounding consummate order." He writes: "The film is directed with meticulousness and discipline, moving from one character to another with commendable restraint in not telling too much and not showing too much, effectively teasing the audience of the predictable but still surprising havoc that is quietly being orchestrated by the elements at play in that time-bomb of a place. Fajardo peppers the film with delectable details, a bit of visual wit here and there, a nuanced shot, and those gems of subtle humor in the dialogue. Louie Quirino's precise cinematography communicates the sweltering heat that seems to demonize humanity in the anarchic setting. The film uses the city's noise as soundtrack, creating an uneasy atmosphere of spontaneity that complements the film's story and theme."

At Piling Piling Pelikula, Dodo Dayao describes Amok as "a well-oiled tumult" and a technical feat "of logistics and guerilla tactics and cutting. It's rigorous, precise." He finesses the obvious comparison to the "multistrand criss-crosser" (Kuipers) associated with Alejandro González Iñárritu, specifically Babel (2006).

At Lilok Pelikula / Sculpting Cinema, Chard Bolisay praises Amok's pulsating direction: "The rhythm builds up and is carried through the climax, not an explosion of some sort, but a gala of predictable outcomes and unpredictable victims." He uses Amok to stage the tension between content and form: "If you ask me what aspect of local independent cinema I dislike, I'd say it's the unabashed preference for content and dismissal of form. A good film strikes a balance between the two, but usually, movies that tackle social issues, no matter how sloppily made they are, are more appreciated than those that boast of technical excellence, as if choosing a pressing subject exempts a work from scrutiny and showing off technique is a display of arrogance. Whereas content is mostly a writer and director's piece of cake, determined prior to execution, form is mathematics: everyone in the production contributes to it, consciously or not, including luck and the lack of it." To prove his point, Chard continues: "Amok succeeds because Lawrence Fajardo, who serves as the film's director, production designer, and editor, has managed to put together a fantastic group of people—from writer John Bedia and cinematographer Louie Quirino to the movie's trailblazing ensemble of actors—whose slight misstep can actually ruin the unmistakable rawness of the film."

Amok will have its U.S. premiere as part of YBCA's "New Filipino Cinema" on Sunday, June 10, 2012 at 7:00PM. Ticket info can be found here.

YBCA: NEW FILIPINO CINEMA—NIÑO (2011)

The 2010 edition of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) introduced me to Filipino cinema. I took a festival studies approach to SFIAAFF's Filipino sidebar (Filipino Cinema and "Imagined Communities") and compiled a critical overview of Lino Brocka's Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (You Have Been Weighed and Found Wanting, 1974) as a sampling of SFIAAFF's mini-retrospective honoring Brocka. Then I solicited and retained the cooperation of the three Philippine film critics championed by Alexis Tioseco in his piece "Wishful Thinking for Philippine Cinema"—Francis "Oggs" Cruz, Eduardo "Dodo" Dayao, and Richard "Chard" Bolisay—all three who consented to interviews. Oggs and Chard further granted permission for me to republish their reviews of Yanggaw (Affliction, 2008). I enjoyed working with and learning from all three of these young gentlemen so much, that I continue to solicit their advice and counsel concerning all films Filipino to this day.

Thus, I was especially pleased when Joel Shepard advised of an upcoming program of "New Filipino Cinema" programmed for Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), June 7-10 and June 17, 2012. Featuring 29 films, 24 of them U.S. premieres, "New Filipino Cinema" is the most comprehensive survey of contemporary Filipino cinema presented in the United States. Shepard explains: "New Filipino Cinema is a big fat snapshot of the diverse range of filmmaking going on right now—narrative features, documentaries, and experimental work. The clichéd images of the Philippines that most foreigners are familiar with are of poverty, prostitution, and crime. Those social ills are represented in this series, but they absolutely do not define this complex and extraordinary country. It's important to understand this. I was also careful to represent filmmaking taking place outside of Manila, and to include many women directors."

"New Filipino Cinema" kicks off on Thursday, June 7, 2012 with an opening reception to welcome director Loy Arcenas, who will be attending his opening night film Niño (2011). My Philippine colleagues Oggs Cruz and Dodo Dayao encouraged me to watch Niño when it screened earlier this year at the 2012 Palm Springs International Film Festival, and I found it to be an enjoyable and affecting melodrama about a family as worn about the edges as the delapidated house in which they live out their circumscribed lives. The patriarch has fallen into a coma and his sister Celia, a former opera star, tries to miraculously revive him by dressing her grandson up as Santo Niño de Cebú, the Philippine variant of Santo Niño de Atocha, seen here wandering whimsically far from his holy chair, running throughout the old house, and among the complicated—if not quite modern—lives of its inhabitants. The film's comic flourishes are its highlights.

Shepard deepens the perspective: "The image of the child Christ, the Santo Niño, holds special significance to the Filipino faithful. It is said to cause miracles, the idol a perfect representation of the country's strange conflation of religion and superstition. It is why a young boy has been dressed up as the Santo Niño in this clever dissection of a fading aristocratic family. With the patriarch fallen ill, the debts piling up, the house crumbling, and the family falling apart, all that's left is to pray for a miracle. With studied grace, Niño explores a social class rarely depicted in Filipino films, revealing a deeply human core to aristocracy."

At Lessons From the School of Inattention, Oggs Cruz details that exploration: "There is a reason why people are fascinated with ruins, despite the evident disrepair and decay. Ruins are permanent reminders of a distant glorious past. In Loy Arcenas' Niño, the Lopez-Aranda clan is portrayed with the same fascination, as if the family were ruins on display: the bits of opera that Celia sings to bedridden Gaspar with her aging soprano are the broken columns, the stories told by Gaspar of his blossoming political position are the damaged statues, and the rustic house, its remaining furniture and ornaments and the anecdotes of the loyal household help of the house's former prominence are the collapsed edifices, the wilted gardens, the burnt arcs, all of which are faint indications of the family’s expired extravagance." For a first-time filmmaker, Cruz finds Niño a "feat to behold", and stresses Arcenas' "disciplined craftsmanship."

At Piling Piling Pelikua, Dodo Dayao writes: "Fides Cuyugan-Asensio is indomitable as the lapsed diva and her temperament becomes the film's: skittish, fractious, wistful, elegant, and just the tiniest bit cuckoo."

Blurbs On Contemporary Filipino Films adds: "The effort to create an envelope-pushing film concocted over jaunty pieces of melodrama, gothic humor, opera music and camp with a Hallmark strain that’s too close for comfort, warrants some recognition. But it is through Rody Vera's excellent screenplay that we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel the angst the characters lived through, with their varied forms of displacement and agony rattling in the most smoldering of friction."

At Pelikula Tumblr, Jansen Musico has a brief conversation with Arcenas, wherein he explains: "Rody and I love irony and we much agreed how much irony fills up our daily lives. We wanted to explore this in the film, within the context of a comedy of manners. But Filipino life is a hijinks of comedy and sorrow and so we decided that Niño should be a study of the present Filipino psyche walking the fine line between tragedy and comedy."

Preceding the film, Alleluia Panis of Kularts will perform "Ritwal" with vocalist Kristine Sinajon.