The Babysitters, the entry from Paolo O'Hara, feels like it would be better suited to television. It never really rises to the level of cinema, the filmmaking consistently employing the aesthetics of the smaller screen. The movie tells the story of married con artists who seven years ago were tasked to look after a kidnapped baby. But they ran away with the kid, refusing to let it be executed by the kidnappers. The story catches up with them in present day, where the couple struggles to reconcile their business with how they want the kid to be raised. Complicating matters is that the kid turns out to be a genius, and he quickly realizes that he can use his intellect to make money.
The plot feels episodic, and would have likely worked better in a medium more suited to that kind of storytelling. As it is, the movie feels like an abridged teleserye, with truncated subplots that would have taken up entire episodes of a show. The movie looks like a TV show as well, with its numerous establishing shots and generally uninteresting visuals. The acting only ever rises to that level as well. There is a sweet story in all of this, but it just feels like The Babysitters is in the wrong medium.
Nash Ang’s Seoul Mates is the story of Alice, a Filipina trans woman who travels to Korea to be with the boyfriend that she’s been supporting, only to find him shacking up with a Korean lady. Distraught, she tries jumping off a bridge. That she where she meets Joon, a gay Korean struggling with his longtime boyfriend’s impending marriage to a woman. The two start dating, with neither revealing their true nature to the other. After accepting that neither has quite moved on from their previous relationships, they hatch a plot to sabotage the current relationships of their loved ones.
Seoul Mates is a disaster, but it’s kind of an interesting one. The film is a riff on Addicted to Love, with main characters that also happen to be duplicitous aside from just vindictive and sociopathic. It’s really tough to figure what the film wants us to feel about these characters, who at one point are craven enough to make a little girl cry to further their scheme. At the end of that sequence, the little girl is revealed to be in on things, which makes the entire scene make even less sense than it did before. As a dark comedy, this concept might have had some juice. But the film takes the form of a lighthearted dramedy, the tone never quite matching up with the awful behavior of the characters. Still, one can’t argue with the commitment the filmmakers clearly put into the picture, even if the final product isn’t very good.
Six shorts make up a mammoth 150 minutes program this year. The program as a whole has a couple of gems in it, but the length does make it tough to watch. It starts with Joel Ruiz’s The End is Bigger than Love, which opens with Joem Bascon trying very hard to pass the time all alone in an abandoned shop somewhere in Ilocos. Then Chanel Latorre turns up as an ex-girlfriend with whom he has unresolved issues. Later it is revealed that this is a post-zombie apocalypse scenario, which the film uses as a narrative catalyst for some really frank discussions about the past. It’s a cool hook, but the short’s sexual politics are iffy at best. After going through all of its narrative twists and turns, all it really seems to do is shrug its shoulders and say, “women, right?”
Elyza Esquivel’s Konsensya tells a pretty interesting story. A police major is pushed out of his position for political reasons. His wife decides to play politics, making nice with a police general’s wife, hoping to get a good word in for her husband. Along the way, she discovers something that tears her between her loyalty to her new friend, and her need to keep the general happy. It’s smart stuff, but the short could probably stand to use twenty minutes. It just meanders on with an abject lack of narrative economy. There are skills here, but everything just takes too long.
Pam Miras’ Porferia stars Meryll Soriano and Ketchup Eusebio as a married couple accused of being communist rebels. The military tortures the two, trying to get information out of them that they sincerely don’t know anything about. Like Tigbao from Qcinema, Porferia is a commissioned advocacy work, and while it well acted and well directed, the narrative really is limited by its advocacy roots.
Petersen Vargas’ Lisyun Qng Geografia tells the story of two teenagers in Pampanga. The two are best friends, and spend all their time with each other. Their closeness, however, results in their classmates making fun of them. It’s a really simple story, but it’s the kind of raw, emotional work that might catch your attention.
Keith Sicat’s Blade of the Maiden is pretty puzzling. An opening crawl informs the audience that the film takes place in a feudal state, where warriors gather to show their fighting prowess to a maiden in order to win her favor. And the winner can choose to take that favor, or to challenge the maiden. And then the film just plays all that out. With no characters and no real narrative, the film basically just feels like a proof-of-concept for a much bigger martial arts picture. But it doesn’t prove much, either, because the fight choreography and the direction don’t really bode well for a larger feature.
The program ends with Kinabukasan, by Adolfo Alix Jr. The short features Nora Aunor dealing with the estranged son of her recently deceased lover, who was a poet. It’s a very small story, but it is pretty well done. It’s a solid little drama that benefits from some strong acting work from one of the greatest actresses in the country.
And that’s it for another year of Cinema One. Of the ten films, my personal favorites are Lorna, Violator, Soap Opera and That Thing Called Tadhana. But here’s what the awards jury found noteworthy:
- Audience Choice: Antoinette Jadaone's That Thing Called Tadhana
- Biogesic ingat na damang dama sineserye short film award: Antoinette Jadaone's Ang Nanay Kong Noisy
- Best Sound: Corinne De San Jose, Violator
- Best Musical Score: Tengal Drilon, Hindi Sila Tatanda
- Best Editing: Lawrence Ang, Violator
- Best Production Design: Hai Balbuena, Esprit de Corps
- Best Cinematography: Aditya Kumar, Bitukang Manok
- Champion bughaw award for full length feature: That Thing Called Tadhana
- Best Supporting Actress: Maria Isabel Lopez, Lorna
- Best Supporting Actor: Andy Bais, Violator
- Best Actress: Angelica Panganiban, That Thing Called Tadhana
- Best Actor: Tie: Sandino Martin, Esprit de Corps; Matt Daclan for Soap Opera
- Best Screenplay: Jay Abello and Dwight Gaston, Red
- Best Director: Kanakan-Balintagos, Esprit de Corps
- Best Picture: Violator
Overall this was a really solid program. It was certainly more interesting than Cinemalaya this year. We’ll just have to see if the bigger grants will start to affect the choices being made in editions yet to come.
The entire run of Cinema One Originals is from November 9 to 18 in four venues: Fairview Terraces, Glorietta, Trinoma, and Greenhills Dolby Atmos theaters. For more information and updates on the Cinema One Originals Festival, visit Cinema One's official Facebook page (www.facebook.com/Cinema1channel).
