cinema – Reverse Delay

‘Citizen Jake’ is not a movie

It is not journalism either, but, by bending fiction, it moves towards the same goal: a presentation of the truth.

Citizen Jake is billed as a film about the present political landscape of the Philippines, but there is no news in what it reveals: politicians are corrupt, judges are unjust, dissenters suffer harassment, women struggle with patriarchy, and the poor remain powerless. It does not attempt to make its own politics neutral: the film is blatantly anti-Marcos, and for that reason it is bound to be denounced by citizens of certain convictions. In one scene depicting the everyday corruption of a low-ranking law enforcer, the camera pans to momentarily highlight the Duterte posters displayed outside his house.

There is no news either in this film’s plot of political intrigue, crimes and conspiracies. Jake Herrera (Atom Araullo), a former professional journalist, now teacher and blogger-cum-‘citizen journalist’, is waging a personal war against social evils while struggling with his familial relationships to the very kind of corrupt politician he is crusading against. There is nothing particularly surprising in its story and the verbal and visceral violence that comes with it. When Citizen Jake manages to say something intriguing, something that finally feels fresh, it is when it veers away from the overtly political, as when Jake contemplates his friendship with a household servant.

But while Citizen Jake’s politics is predictable, and most of its insights familiar and conventional, the way it presents them is not. In the opening scene, Jake speaks to the camera, introducing the film as a story enhanced by the techniques of Cinema. Early on, commenting on the setting of Baguio City, there is a history lecture presented through a slide show of old photographs. Throughout the story there are narrative interludes enhanced by intertitles that echo words from the voice-over, stark white on a black background, looking like newspaper headlines, or protest slogans. Supporting characters are often presented in quick cut scenes, portrait-style, with the actors looking straight into the camera—looking straight at you, the audience. Citizen Jake even has a montage of its own behind-the-scenes footage, showing the actors surrounded by cameras, microphones, lighting set-ups and the crew. This film is fictional, but it is often presented as if it were a documentary.

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Bona Fajardo, director of ‘I Found My Heart in Santa Fe’, on what makes cinema and how to take criticism

Bona Fajardo talks about the real reward of filmmaking, and other thoughts on Filipino cinema.

As the media conference for the film I Found My Heart in Santa Fe was wrapping up, we approached the director, Bona Fajardo, only to ask for a quick word. He noticed us and remarked, “O, ‘eto mga bagets,” and motioned us to sit down with him.

It was as if he sensed what we, the bagets, were curious about—his thoughts as on old-timer in the film industry. He’s been active since the 1990s, having served as art director for the landmark films Jose Rizal and Muro Ami, both by the late Marilou Diaz-Abaya. He has since aligned himself with the pioneers of independent, digital filmmaking in the country. At the 2002 Manila Film Festival, he won Best Production Design for Jon Red’s Utang ni Tatang. His own debut feature film, 2005’s Miss Pinoy, was Judy Ann Santos’ first indie. “Lagi kong sinasabi sa mga presscon, ‘Ah, hindi ako mainstream ah’,” he says, and laughs.

Will Devaughn, director Bona Fajardo, and Roxanne Barcelo on the set of ‘I Found My Heart in Santa Fe’.

He witnessed first-hand the transition from celluloid to digital technology, but while it has democratized film production, he laments that no similar revolution has taken place for distribution. “Maraming mga filmmakers na nabigyan ng opportunity, pero ang malungkot doon, hindi naman nasakop ‘yong distribution, ‘yong venue, ‘yong pagpapalabas sa sine.”

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When the movies were still projected from film reels

I’m old enough to recall the time when couriers still zipped between moviehouses, reels of film on their shoulders.

Since 2008’s The Dark Knight, I’ve been anticipating every Christopher Nolan film with the excitement of a teenage girl waiting for the next One Direction album. Such is my confidence in the quality of Nolan’s films that I splurged on an IMAX ticket to see his latest film, Dunkirk, without reading a review or hearing anyone’s recommendation beforehand. (Dunkirk is a film that a teenage girl would have also looked forward to, because it has One Direction’s Harry Styles in its cast.)

I had forgotten how impressive, how immense, these IMAX screens were. I plopped down on my seat and, wild-eyed, gaped at just how immersive the projected image was. The screen was alarming in its vastness, in how it covered so much of my field of vision. Dunkirk began with a scene of soldiers running from gunfire; when the camera started shaking, I worried that my eyeballs also started jerking around so much just to follow the action on-screen. Thankfully, the rest of movie had its shots taken with steady hands. By the end of it, I was satisfied, thinking my cash was well-spent.

Wooden sculptures of a sitting figure (a Cordilleran bulol) and a movie camera, from an exhibit by Kidlat Tahimik. — A depiction of the Cordilleran bulol as a filmmaker: detail from a Kidlat Tahimik exhibit at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, during Cinemalaya 2014. (Photo by the author.)

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Review: ‘Bliss’ (Jerrold Tarog, 2017)

‘Bliss’ cuts deep, but the victim is numb.

Early in Bliss, as an eerie atmosphere encroaches on Jane Ciego’s (Iza Calzado) world, the camera directs its gaze on a few circular objects and establishes a visual motif. A compact smoke detector hangs from a blank ceiling. The froth on a cup of coffee gathers into a disc. A desk model of an atom spins silently in perpetual motion. Bothered by distant noises in the house, the wheelchair-bound Jane roams the empty rooms; a high, circular window emits a strange glow, framing her head like a halo; she is like a saint, venerated, but trapped in limbo.

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‘Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank 2’ (2016): hilarious, perceptive, timely

The sequel is a timely, self-aware parody, justified in its adoption (and adaptation) of the original film’s formula.

The proposition of Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank 2 is simple: to parody mainstream romances, in the same way that the original satirized the indie ‘poverty porn’. (The parody begins in the subtitle, #ForeverIsNotEnough, a tongue-in-cheek take on recent rom-coms’ fondness for hashtags.) The final product utilizes the formula established by the original, but a combination of sharp, self-conscious execution and a perfect setting for the film’s release means that Septic Tank 2, like the first film, has the potential to be effective in a manner that goes beyond the work itself.

Warning: this review shares details of plot and other elements, or ‘spoilers’, both for this film and the original, Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank (2011).

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