We are deep into festival season here in our country. The Cinema One Originals Festival returns with nine new original films in competition, along with a pretty hefty selection of this year’s big international arthouse darlings, some new restored classics, and a few other really intriguing offerings. Over the next few days, we’ll be trying to cover as much of the festival as possible.
This is actually the second time I’ve seen Erik Matti’s Honor Thy Father, which is now slated to open at the Metro Manila Film Festival under the title Conman thanks to one of the entries dropping out. I also spent a good long time on the set of the movie when I wrote about it for Esquire Philippines. And back when the MMFF was selecting movies, I argued (and failed) to argue for its inclusion in the lineup. I mention all this to say that I have probably too much time with this movie at this point. I must admit that there nothing I say can be deemed impartial.
Having said all that, I think the movie is fantastic. John Lloyd Cruz plays a man driven to extremes when it turns out that his family’s finances were tied up in a Ponzi scheme. I’m not going to say much more than that, because a lot of the thrill of this movie comes from how it always a step ahead. It often just skips the standard exposition, just jumping ahead into the action, trusting the audience to follow along. The movie is just terribly rewarding viewing. It’s unafraid to ruffle feathers, both in content and in theme. And so it goes deeper into some tough ideas rarely covered in our mainstream cinema. It certainly isn’t the kind of thing that people have come to expect from an MMFF picture.
I already liked the film when I first saw it, but it turns out that it’s even better on the big screen. The craft is at a level that just cannot be ignored. This is just a great film, and it’s worthy of being given such a big stage. I really hope people see this when it opens at the MMFF. This is actually the film for people who have written off the festival as a whole for showing the same kind of films over and over. This certainly isn’t that. This is a serious, thoroughly accomplished film that deserves your attention.
Carl Joseph Papa’s Manang Biring is one of those little miracles of our cinema. It doesn’t really make sense that a filmmaker would attempt to do a rotoscoped animated film with the time and budget afforded by one of these festivals. And yet here we are. The achievement is astounding all on its own. That the film happens to be really good is nothing short of miraculous. The film tells the story of Biring, an old woman with terminal breast cancer. She receives a letter from her daughter one day in April, saying that she’ll be visiting for Christmas with her son. Biring decides that she wants to live to see her daughter and her grandchild for Christmas. The film mainly follows her attempts to make enough money to pay for her treatments, all for the sake of trying to extend her life for just a few more months.
The animation is a little rough sometimes. There are a few pieces of background art in particular that make some scenes look weirder than it ought to. Given that, this film is still pretty amazing. The animation isn’t just a gimmick, either. The film uses its artful approach to reflect the disposition of its main character, who knows that she’s living on borrowed time. What’s really amazing is the film is really funny. In spite of the heaviness that might be construed from that premise, the film finds the humor in every situation. It’s very Filipino in that way. Not even death can keep us from laughing.
This is a lovely film with a clear personal dimension to it. The circumstances of its production make it an incredible story. But its heart is ultimately what makes it worth seeing.
Joel Ferrer’s Baka Siguro Yata shares a lot with Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up. It is also the story of a schlubby slacker who ends up getting a girl he just met pregnant. The story mainly becomes about this guy having to grow up and be responsible in order to become worthy of the mother of his child. This film also tackles love and sex at different phases of life, following a high school couple as they contemplate doing it for the first time, and a separated married couple rekindling some old flames.
But let’s put those similarities aside for a moment. The film is pretty funny at times, thanks to Ferrer’s comedic sensibilities and his cast’s total commitment to the tone. But the film just isn’t put together well. Some of the directorial decisions are downright baffling. The movie is mainly made up of master shots with no reverse angles, which means the pace of the movie is almost entirely reliant on the pace of the delivery. It also means that the movie just doesn’t look very good. The camera isn’t always capturing the best parts of the scene, with a lot of dialogue coming from off-camera. I think this film, like Ferrer’s previous feature Hello World, shows a lot of potential. A lot of the writing is really clever, and the youthful sensibilities are downright infectious. But a lot more craft needs to go into the film to make it worth seeing.
