Despite President Macapagal-Arroyo’s pledge for a
more moral administration compared to her predecessor
- the not-quite-as-ethically preoccupied former
President Joseph Ejercito Estrada - the production and
interest in sex flicks continued in 2002. Here are some
reasons why.
The government has its own share of problems. It’s
similar to the Marcos regime during the last few years
of its reign. It has little credibility, poor investor confidence
and political and social instability. The two administrations
should not be equated - Macapagal-Arroyo is
not coming to the end of twenty years’ of dictatorial
rule, for starters. But if she were to talk to people from
inside the regime, she would find their feelings of frustration
and bewilderment - that so much has spun so
completely out of control - to be not so very different. If
so, she would also probably discover the uses of a discreetly
loosened film industry.
The Marcos regime eventually found that censoring
movies was more effort than it was worth, not to mention
the bad publicity generated on the international
level. Macapagal-Arroyo has gone through three chairmen
of the Movie and Television Rating and
Classification Board (the MTRCB, or, to put it bluntly, the
censors) in two years. She’s hopefully settling down with
her fourth - and has probably arrived at a similar conclusion.
The Marcos regime believed films useful in a “bread and
circuses” way. Give the public what it wants (sex), and
the public will be too distracted to rebel. So the Eighties
produced some of the finest Filipino erotic films ever:
Init sa Magdamag (Midnight Passion, 1983); Boatman
(1984); Scorpio Nights (1985). When Macapagal-Arroyo
first sat down as president she claimed moral reform to
be a top issue on her agenda, and to show her seriousness,
supported the ban on Jose Javier Reyes’ arty sex
flick, Live Show (2001). Nowadays you hear hardly a
peep from her about moral reform in her administration,
much less in the local film industry.
But it isn’t just the government and the tenor of its
leadership. The depressed economy, the ugly mood of
the public, the sense of helplessness and fear are similar
to what wasn seen in the Eighties. Studios found that
most other genres - action, fantasy, horror, drama - did
generally poor to indifferent box office. Sex was the
most reliable come-on, for the relatively lowest initial
investment. (Newcomers are actually an asset in a
Filipino sex film, fresh flesh being both cheaper and
more attractive).
Hence the recent resurgence of sex in Filipino cinema.
It’s on its umpteenth comeback - conservatism and liberalism
seem to come in waves, according to what’s
politically fashionable at the moment. Right now political
fashion dictates that attention be directed elsewhere, on
more important issues like corruption in government,
the war on terrorism, and the upcoming election. No
news is good news, and the studios react accordingly.
The latest practice is to hire a visual stylist to give the
film an arty sheen. Witness Erik Matti, whose first film
Scorpio Nights 2 (1998) was a huge hit. Matti apprenticed
under Peque Gallaga, director of the original
Scorpio Nights, and exhibits the same virtues and weaknesses
- a flair for glossy imagery coupled with a disdain
for coherent storytelling (although in the original
Scorpio, the story was simple enough, the locale gritty
enough, the sensuality intense enough to transcend this
weakness).
Matti’s latest film Prosti, short for “Prostitute” and
introducing the fresh-faced Aubrey Miles, is all filtered
amber light and insistent violin strings - shades of In
the Mood for Love. It’s about a prostitute falling in love
with her pimp in a “casa” (whorehouse).
Yam Laranas is an interesting case: he worked as cinematographer
for the great independent short filmmaker
Raymond Red and at one point had Matti as a mentor.
His cinematography shows the influence of Red, with its
casual lyricism and bold colors. Unfortunately his movies
(Balahibong Pusa/Pussy Hairs, 2001), Radyo (Radio, 2001) are sloppily told and derivative - Pusa borrows
its climax from Mike de Leon’s masterpiece Kisapmata
(Blink of an Eye, 1981), but without that film’s psychological
believability. His latest picture Hibla (Thread) tells
of a country girl (Rica Peralejo, possibly the first provincial
lass in the Philippines to flaunt slipshod silicon
implants) and a city girl (Maui Taylor as an equally slipshod
teenage seductress) who are separated as children,
and meet again as adults. It proceeds as expected
- incoherently, flaunting its pair of excruciatingly bad
performances - to a sublimely silly climax involving the
two girls’ lovers in a wrestling match, before a nipa hut
that refuses to burn down.
Quark Henares’ Gamitan (“Plaything” being the closest
translation) features equally silly moments - Maui Taylor
(in her debut as sexy ingenue) and her lover chopping
up a dead body, for instance. But Henares has the wit to
acknowledge the silliness, and does not pretend that
what he’s doing is art. He makes clever use of split
screens and bizarre camera angles, plus an eclectic
soundtrack, to add a level of irony to an otherwise ordinary
scenario of a college-girl virgin transformed into
lethal seductress.
Henares is a newcomer, while Matti and Laranas have
only been at it for a few years. Joel Lamangan has been
making films since the Eighties, and his latest, Bahid
(Stain), is not much different from most of his more
commercial ventures. It’s melodrama plus sex plus a
subtext of anger fueled by class-consciousness. Dina
Bonnevie plays a former rape victim who falls in love
with and marries a former general (Eddie Garcia), a
respectable old monster not above torturing the occasional
prisoner and raping his wife’s younger sister
(Assunta de Rossi). Lamangan demonstrates heart and
sensibility - he was a political prisoner under the Marcos
regime and even now is a committed activist. If only he
was a better filmmaker...
Bahid has its politically correct heart in the right place
without being very good melodrama - the performances
are pitched too shrill, the camerawork is both busy and
incoherent, the ending seems cribbed from the short
story The Most Dangerous Game. I can’t help admiring
Lamangan, the same time I can’t bring myself to like his
work. But he does earn my respect.
Maryo J. delos Reyes, another veteran, is no stranger to
the sex flick - he recently did Paraiso ni Efren (Efren’s
Paradise, 1999) and Red Diaries (2001), both of which
featured well-orchestrated sex, but not-as-well-orchestrated
storytelling. His Laman (Flesh) comes as a complete
surprise. It’s a modestly scaled yet persuasive
erotic noir about an innocent “probinsyano” who ends
up in a four-way affair with his wife, his best friend, and
his woman employer.
Delos Reyes plays with film grain and editing for a look
as up-to-date as anything by the “Young Turk” filmmakers,
but with the unique advantage of a story that actually
makes sense (no self contradictory fantasy premises,
no eternally combusting nipa huts). And he is
blessed with an excellent cast - Oropesa and Martinez
are very fine as an amoral and more than a little decadent
older couple; Servo and de Leon stand out for
their fresh, unaffected performances.
It’s a telling sign of the times that films like Hibla,
Gamitan, and Prosti do brisk business, while Laman languished
at the box office. The common explanation is
that the three films featured women Filipino men wanted
to bed - fair-skinned, innocent-looking, large (mostly
artificial) breasts. By contrast, Laman’s Lolita de Leon
had genuinely huge breasts but seemed too lower class,
too brown-skinned, apparently, to spark men’s fantasies.
Blame the casting for being too accurate.
The people who flocked to Scorpio Nights and Boatman
in the Eighties had more on their minds than “mestiza”
flesh; they were looking for an outlet for their nihilism
and despair, and in those two films (consciously, unconsciously)
they found powerful expression. The same
mood may have been prevalent this year, but unfortunately
there wasn’t the same level of talent available to
make the appropriate response.
What else was there in 2002? Precious little in terms of
worthwhile Filipino features. There was Laurice Guillen’s
American Adobo, a fairly diverting, safe-as-houses
entertainment on Filipino Americans. As an exploration
of their psyche and troubled spirit, it doesn’t hold a
candle to Lav Diaz’s 5-hour “epic” (word in quotes
because it’s such an intimate film) Batang West Side
(West Side Avenue, 2001), but it does show Guillen’s
canny commercial instincts to good effect.
But there’s canny commercial instinct and then there’s
inspiration - what I felt Lav Diaz has in spades in Hesus
Rebolusyunaryo (Jesus Revolutionary), released in
February. Set 11 years into the future, it posits a military
junta taking over the Philippines, and the only hope
for the future is (who else?) Hesus - poet, warrior,
philosopher, rocker.
Mowelfund’s Pelikula at Lipunan 2002 festival presented
Aureaus Solito’s beautifully-shot documentary Basal
Banar, about the struggle against land-grabbers on the
island of Palawan, and as a tribute to Filipina comedienne
Nida Blanca, who died recently, a series of her
musical-comedies, including the lovely Waray-Waray
(Visayan Lass, 1954).
Tikoy Aguiluz’s Cinemanila Film Festival 2002 couldn’t
show any current mainstream Filipino features worth
showing, but did feature a panoply of independent
shorts and features, of which Lawrence Cordero’s
shorts Batingaw (Bell) and Lolo’s Child (Grandfather’s
Child), and Minnie Solomon Crouse’s documentary The
Case of Wilki Duran Monte: Toxic Chemical Victim won
prizes. The festival also organized a scriptwriting contest
to which 150 entries were submitted, ranging from
veteran writers, literary heavyweights, to total newcomers.
The top award was given to two promising scripts -
James Ladoray’s Cut, a witty satire on beauty and plastic
surgery, and Mario O’Hara’s Hocloban, a supernatural
epic on the killing of Governor-General Ferdinand
Bustamante.
One of the most exciting events of the year wasn’t a
film but a play - rather, a theatrical adaptation of Lino
Brocka’s 1976 slum classic Insiang. With the help of the
Cultural Center of the Philippine’s Tanghalang Pilipino
(Theater Filipino) Mario O’Hara took his script of
Brocka’s film, fiddled with it, added deconstructionist
magic, changed the setting back to its proper location
(Pasay City, not Tondo) and recast the ending as bleaker,
more uncompromising. In effect, O’Hara took what
many called Brocka’s best work, and reclaimed it as his
own.
2002 ended with a more extravagant than usual Metro
Manila Film Festival (traditionally held in December).
The most noteworthy entry in the festival was probably
Chito Rono’s Dekada ‘70 (Decade ‘70), about a mother
(Vilma Santos) and her family, trying to survive under
the Marcos regime. The film cannot do full justice to
Lualhati Bautista’s classic novel - even with Bautista
herself writing the screenplay - but it does stand on its
own as a vividly well-made portrait of the Martial Law
years, the fear, the sudden arrests, the unexplained
killings.
Noel Vera