Verdict

The gritty cinematography and location, the formulaic fish-out-of-the-water plot, a deeper characterization, the subtle lighting, the effective arrangement of time sequences in the movie, and the experimental visual effects.  All of these create an indie film fairly palatable for casual movie-goers who look for a film quite different from the usual movies shown in the Metro Manila Film Festival.

However, if looked in a Filipino nationalistic angle, this will touch their very subconscious thoughts since these evoke a lot of emotionality and it invokes the urge to connect Filipinos have.  The symbols of Baybayin tend to symbolize the usually overlooked Asian aspect of the Philippines.

If one is observant enough, then, one can see a lot of puns in a lot of levels.

The weakness of this movie is that though it tries to attract all audiences, it is only understood by those who know the Baybayin and puns behind it.  It also requires extensive knowledge of Tagalog, which is only achieved by High School level.

Another debatable weakness is that if the movie has subtitles added, probably even the foreign person might just view it like our ordinary casual movie-goer since the puns get lost.  In this case, the Italian proverb "Traduttore, traditore" is likely to happen in such a way that the translation will distill the message but take away the pun known by Tagalog speakers.

Therefore, educated Filipinos might be the only ones who will understand the movie thoroughly, though all audiences will feel Filipino with the Baybayin and the native elements blended with subtle Hispanic and obvious US influence.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Foreign Influences and Filipinization

Parallels Filipino Movie Musical Numbers have with Indian Movie Musical Numbers

According to K. Moti Gokulsing, K. Gokulsing and Wimal Dissanayake in their book Indian Popular Cinema: A Narrative of Cultural Change, "Indian filmmakers, while enhancing the elements of fantasy so pervasive in Indian popular films, used song and music as a natural mode of articulation in a given situation in their film.  Indian filmmakers made no attempt to conceal the fact that what was shown on the screen was a creation, an illusion, a fiction.  However, they demonstrated how this creation intersected with people's day to day lives in complex and interesting ways."  These statements hold true to our musical numbers in our movies.

The Indian aesthetic has rasa, which means mood and emotion in this context (originally juice or essence, origin of the Tagalog word lasa).  With the visual effects and the direction of the movie, the movie blended the method acting and the Indian aesthetics.

The Main Character’s perception and Zen view of perfection

In the first part of the movie, DJ was feeling disillusioned when he was painting a group of slum houses under his uncle’s house.  He was wondering why it was far from the Manila he knew.  It took a series of events for him to realize that everything was perfect as they were.  There is a poem in Sanskrit that goes like this:

This is perfect.
This is perfect.
If you take away the perfect from the perfect, only the perfect remains.

This concept is present with the way Katsumoto in The Last Samurai accepted his fate in battle.  In this case, both DJ’s realization scene and Katsumoto’s acceptance of his fate in battle are comparable.

-The Filipino aesthetic of maximalism and horror vacui

As Prof. Felipe M. de Leon Jr. states, the Filipino is a maximalist, coming an expressive exuberance deeply rooted in emotional sensitivity and the strong urge to connect.

However, in my theory, this is proof that India has long influenced the Philippines, along with Indonesia and Malaysia, not only with the vocabulary but also with aesthetics.  The polytheist Indian traders went to temples with a great deal of number of gods in which each god was documented to fill the exterior to let the worshipper know that the god many different people worship is recognized.  What one person would worship might not necessarily be the same as the other person; therefore, the need to advertise that this particular god is worshipped in this temple must be recognized.

This maximalist aspect carried over to their other arts that these traders brought with.

Although our Western cultures of Reference, Spain and the US, recognized minimalism, this style of design does not seem to be popular with our masses.  They feel something is missing, hence, as a Filipino filmmaker Elvert Bañares states; our people have a sense of horror vacui (fear of emptiness).  As a result, these things also carried over into our movies.

Hip-hop, Break-dance and the Philippine adaptation

The moves of the break-dancer in the movie tend to be less in-your-face than that of the Black American moves.  Though both tend to show off and end with fistfights, the plot of the story restricted the gunshots allowed to let the story build up.

Pun on the word Pintakasi

In one of the lines of DJ, he stated “Sa pagpipinta kasi, nabuo ang mga pangarap” (Because to painting, dreams were fulfilled).  If we rearrange the statement “Sa pagpipintakasi, nabuo ang mga pangarap,” the translation will be different.

“Pintakasi,” Marcos clarifies, “is a play on words.  It can refer to cockfights, but it can also be about painting.”  The word can also mean clientele, intercessor, or frequenter.

With that, “Because of intercession, our dreams were fulfilled” is a possible translation.

The Baybayin Character Ka

This one was prevalent in the visual effects and prominent with the way DJ incorporates the character for his teaching and his break-dance moves.

However, there was one thing that I recognized.  With the way DJ spray-paints the Ilocano/Tagalog character for ka with a dot on top was formed, it also formed a free, running person.  It also has a kudlit (a dot) on top, which will sound like ke/ki.  Without it, the sound value would be ka.

How are the foreign influences Filipinized?

Many of us have a tendency to view Spain as a colonizer who imposed a lot of influences towards us, but a Spaniard who settled down in the Philippines named José Ma. Rodriguez claimed that we Filipinized Christianity.  Indeed.  The way Lola Angel and all the other people in the neighborhood display their pictures of Jesus has a parallel with the way Mexicans display images of Jesus and Mary.  According to Nick Joaquin, Spanish Priests had to blend both indigenous elements of their old religion to their religion to spread their faith.

Also, the way we adopted the bold, confrontational, high-energy attitude present in many Black Americans with their hip-hop subculture was stylized in the movie, we have made it mellower than the more brash moves present in the original culture.

Many of the Indian influences written here have been thoroughly Filipinized that they seem native and very much ours, after many centuries of these staying with us.

The next part shows the verdict of the critic.

Summary of the Plot

A young adult, who has a passion for painting, comes to an island made from garbage. From the province, he uses the island and its people as his canvas, and fights to protect the island from the internal and external forces that threaten to destroy it.

Cinematography

The cinematography tends to be gritty and yellowish, which is suitable for that place.  For some reason, the yellowish effect also gives an effect reminiscent of the artist’s sketchbook, most especially when combined with 2D animated scenes with a sketchy consistency.

Location

The location is pretty common and formulaic in which it is set on an island slum area in Manila (implied to be Tondo).

Characters

The story has a usual formula of a love triangle with Tikboy, a guy (who acts as the island’s mayor or gang leader) who stayed there since birth, DJ, a fish out of the water and Josie, a beautiful tuyo (dried fish) vendor.

Where the characterization gets a little more 3-dimensional and more intriguing is the way Lola Angel was portrayed.  She seems kindly, but in the middle of the plot, she seems to be a quite suspicious character, complicit with what the mayor does.  It’s either she’s trying to protect the mayor or she wants money.

Another way that the characterization goes deeper is the way some characters are allegorical to our national heroes.  To cite one example, Apol, who lost his feet and lower legs due to a car accident, was allegorical to Apolinario Mabini, a hero who suffered from polio.

Lighting

The lighting tends to be fairly subtle, if not plain.  The film was meant to be gritty, not glamorous and glitzy.  This is reminiscent of Insiang, a movie by Lino Brocka.

Editing

The editing was generally non-linear, employing flashbacks into Tikboy’s experience with the police.

Experimental Visual Effects

The visual effects used were like none that I saw in most Hollywood movies.  There were elements of foreshadowing in this scene in which a cockfight is highlighted with visual effects, implying that it is a preview of a bigger fight.

The musical number has noticeably Indian influences in which the mood was enhanced by the visual effects.  Whenever DJ sees Josie, petals keep coming and then plants grow, and then bloom.  The mood of love was present without coming off as less cheesy.  Without those, the scene can come off as formulaic as another generic movie.

The next part is suited for creatives and cultural analysts.  If you want to see the verdict, go to Part 3.

Happy Holidays from Raffy Cases

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