Three young film school graduates — director Rainier (Kean Cipriano), his producer Bingbong (JM de Guzman) and production assistant Jocelyn (Cai Cortez) — aspire for film festival glory with their forthcoming independent film project about a poor mother who is desperate to support her seven children in the slums of Manila. At a trendy café and during their commute, the young filmmakers discuss the various possible genre incarnations of their film, the “Oscar-worthy” material in their script, and their choice for leading actress. They visit famous Filipina TV and film star Eugene Domingo (starring as herself), who enthusiastically agrees to the role and offers a few ideas of her own. Towards the end of the day, the three young filmmakers explore a prime location for their upcoming shoot, a real squatters’ town next to a trash dump: a place where their artistic visions culminate in a certain revelation of “beauty” and “truth.”
In his first feature as director, the multi-talented theater veteran and advertising executive Marlon Rivera shows his deft hand in portraying the artistic process of typical, young indie filmmakers via a series of highly visual and imaginative sequences. Genres such as the gritty neo-realist low budget film, the chirpy musical, the ever-popular melodrama and a cinéma-vérité-styled docu-drama are all explored as options for their film. Certain scenes from their script are presented in these different forms to invite the audience to enjoy — and perhaps, arbitrate — their aesthetic value. Versatile leading lady Eugene Domingo shines in this film-within-a-film in her multiple roles and delivers a remarkable performance that helps provide perspective and comic relief for Rivera’s (and the depicted filmmakers’) film.
Even from the very first shots and voiceovers of the film, The Woman in the Septic Tank positions itself to make social commentary on the Filipino film industry, especially the clichéd prevalence of cottage industries making self-indulgent, film festival-circuit films that depict poverty and exploit third-world misery (the “poverty porn” favored by international film festivals). Although Rivera satirizes the “magic formula” that contemporary Filipino indie filmmakers have been known to utilize to seek critical attention and international acclaim, he is generously sympathetic with his characters and gives the film a light-hearted, comedic treatment that has indeed hit all the right spots and helped The Woman in the Septic Tank become one of the most successful independent films in the history of Philippine cinema.
Chanel Kong