For years the Philippine movie industry has been compared
to a comatose patient on the brink of expiring. Movie
production had dwindled from an annual total of 200
movies in the years before 1997, to a measly 60 movies in
2002. Filipino movies had once lorded it over the boxoffice;
in 2002 their total market share amounted to a
sorry 10 percent. Meanwhile, critics bemoaned the decline
of Philippine cinema since its so-called Golden Age in the
Seventies and early Eighties. (Oddly enough, this artistic
flowering took place during the martial law years under
Marcos, when freedom of expression was curtailed.)
Meanwhile, unemployed film actors took refuge in television
soap operas, whose budgets and production values
now rival big-screen productions. Pundits predicted that
the Philippine movie industry would soon become extinct.
In 2003 the industry not only defied expectations of
impending doom; it actually showed signs - slight, but
encouraging - of coming back to life. The patient didn’t
exactly get out of bed and start walking, but she did open
her eyes and react to her surroundings. The vital signs had
stabilized, as it were. It is not likely that the patient will leap
out of bed and recover her pre-1997 vigor anytime soon,
but her chances of survival look almost bright.
1. Ditching Old Formulas
Star Cinema, a division of the Lopez group of companies
which also owns the electric company, a telephone company,
the largest television network, cable and internet companies,
and a shopping mall, was the major movie producer
of 2003. Its 10th anniversary presentation Tanging Ina
(literally “The Only Mother”, a pun on Tagalog swearwords)
emerged as the box office champion of the year,
grossing Php155 million in its four-week theatrical run.
Directed by Wenn Deramas, who was better known for his
TV work, and starring comedienne Ai-Ai de las Alas and an
assortment of the studio’s young contract stars, Tanging
Ina was a spoof of earlier Star Cinema productions. The
filmmakers took the dramatic highlights of recent hit
movies and parodied them in the manner of the American
Airplane and Naked Gun movies. This approach certainly
deviated from the traditional formula of Filipino comedies,
which rely on slapstick and toilet humor, and almost always
end with a madcap chase sequence. Most of all Tanging
Ina was smart and hilarious, which cannot be said of most
Tagalog comedies.
The studio’s next offering was a prestige production:
Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s Noon at Ngayon, the sequel to the
director’s Moral, one of the best Filipino films of the
Eighties. Moral followed four young women, recent graduates
of the University of the Philippines, as they dealt with
such issues as career, family, sex, activist politics, drugs,
and religion.
Noon at Ngayon rejoins the protagonists of Moral twenty
years later, and perhaps it is a comment on our times that
their conflicts and crises are far more pedestrian. The screenplay by Ricky Lee, who wrote Moral, reduces those
vital, passionate young women into harried middle-aged
women spouting New Age platitudes. The audience turned
their attention elsewhere.
Subsequent productions included Pinay Pie (the title
derived from American Pie), a sex-comedy written and
directed by Jose Javier Reyes and starring Ai-Ai de las Alas,
Joyce Jimenez, and Assunta de Rossi. The Fil-American
Jimenez and the Fil-Italian de Rossi were better-known for
their “daring” performances in bold (sex-oriented) movies.
Given the track record of Jose Javier Reyes, the novelty of
seeing the bold stars in a comedy, and the new-found box
office clout of de las Alas, Pinay Pie was expected to be a
blockbuster. Its disappointing performance would indicate
that the audience is no longer bound by habit: the presence
of a popular star does not guarantee their attendance.
There are no more sure things in Philippine cinema.
The star system is on the wane, and performer have to
prove themselves with every project.
Reyes quickly bounced back with the next Star Cinema
release, Kung Ako Na Lang Sana (literally, “If only it were
me”). The movie was expected to be big, as it marked the
first time that superstars Sharon Cuneta and Aga Muhlach
were paired in a romantic comedy. It was a blockbuster
alright, but credit must go to Reyes’ fresh approach to
what should’ve been a tired old story. He junked the sentimental
contrivances of the typical romantic comedy, and
opted for a more natural kind of storytelling. It worked.
Outside Star Cinema, noteworthy productions included Joel
Lamangan’s Huling Birhen sa Lupa (The Last Virgin on
Earth), a drama about divine apparitions, miracles, and
religious hypocrisy in a fishing village. The great Celso Ad
Castillo made a rather lackluster comeback with Sanib
(Possession), a predictable rip-off of The Exorcist.
Independent filmmaker Robert Quebral made his mainstream
feature debut with Sex Drive, a road movie written
by another young director, Quark Henares. It ran out of
gas at the box-office. Henares, 25, also wrote and directed
his best film to date, the quirky serial-killer comedy
Keka. Unfortunately Keka was marketed as a “bold” movie,
and by the time its audience heard what it was really about,
it had disappeared from the theatres. Vhong Navarro, a
comedian and member of a dance group, shot to stardom
in the comedy Mr. Suave, which cashed in on the popularity
of a Tagalog song. Singer Regine Velasquez reasserted
her superstar status with Ang Iibigin Ay Ikaw, another
romantic comedy featuring musical numbers.
Meanwhile, “bold” movies, once the sure bet at the box
office, faltered in 2003. This prompted desperate measures.
One producer offered free massages from the leading
ladies of his sex film in the lobby of the movie theatre.
2. The Metro Manila Film Festival
The Metro Manila Film Festival remains the annual high
point of Philippine cinema. During 25 December to 8
January, only Filipino movies are exhibited in theatres - the
absence of Hollywood and other foreign competition gives
them a better chance of commercial success. If there were
no Metro filmfest, there probably would not be a Filipino
movie industry left, because the movie studios come to life
in June as they prepare their filmfest entries. The official
festival line-up is selected by a committee composed of
Metro Manila mayors and theatre owners.
The Christmas season is traditionally devoted to movies for
the whole family, which accounts for the 2003 selection.
There were three superhero fantasy-action movies, one
horror movie, four family-oriented dramas, and for viewers
who didn’t have to bring the whole family, one urban sexcomedy.
Of the major film studios, Viva had Captain Barbell,
a superhero action movie, and Filipinas, a family drama
directed by Joel Lamangan and featuring an all-star cast. Filipinas is political commentary disguised as melodrama:
the members of the Filipinas clan represent every social
issue that made the headlines over the last twelve months.
Regal Films had Mano Po 2, a sequel (though not related
plot-wise) to its 2002 blockbuster, and the funky superhero
flick Gagamboy, a local version of Spider-Man. Both bigbudget
films were helmed by Erik Matti. Octo Arts’ entry
was Fantastic Man, which had the same cast as its previous
year’s entry, Lastik Man.
After a three-year hiatus, director Jeffrey Jeturian returned
to the big screen with his first comedy, Bridal Shower. The
movie was a hit for Seiko Films, and was particularly strong
with the female A and B demographic. The prolific Jose
Javier Reyes made his first horror flick, Malikmata, about a
psychic who gets involved in a murder investigation. Gil
Portes’ Homecoming told the story of a Filipina maid who
returns from Toronto to an enthusiastic welcome - until she
is found to be infected with SARS. As with Filipinas,
Homecoming attempted to make serious subjects more
commercially attractive by casting popular stars and
employing the conventions of Filipino melodrama.
The big surprise of the filmfest was Crying Ladies, a “dramedy”
by writer-director Mark Meily. Like Mano Po 2, its plot
revolves around the funeral of a wealthy Chinese man. But
all resemblance ends there. The title refers to three women
who have been paid to cry at the wake. Their grief is obviously
- sometimes hilariously - fake, but their personal
woes are real. Sharon Cuneta is cast against type as an exconvict
who is about to lose her son. Hilda Koronel is hysterically
funny as a former starlet who now uses her “talent”
in a theme park horror house, while Angel Aquino
plays a church worker wracked with guilt over an adulterous
affair. Meily, who cut his directing teeth on TV commercials,
displays qualities rarely seen in Pinoy movies. He
employs restraint, brevity, and subtlety. He shuns the tired
old histrionics that are a staple of Filipino dramas, preferring
to tell his story simply and honestly. Crying Ladies was
named Best Picture of the 2003 festival.
The filmfest grossed a total of Php 315 million, slightly
lower than the previous year’s total. It is interesting to note
that the top three movies all performed at the Php 60 million-
level, which seems to indicate that the audience’s
tastes have expanded.
Captain Barbell was the number one movie, closely followed
by Fantastic and Crying Ladies, whose theatrical run
extended weeks after the filmfest had ended.
3. Adaptation and Survival
There is no state support for cinema, other than the annual
Metro Filmfest, and some rebates for movies rated A or
B by the Film Ratings Board. There is no Philippine film
promotion board. The industry is seriously overtaxed:
roughly 52% of the gross is eaten up by taxes. “The 33%
municipal tax rate is probably the highest in the world, and
the money does not go back into the movie industry”,
notes Carlos Siguion-Reyna, president of the Directors’
Guild of the Philippines.
For a time, “bold” or sex-oriented films, with their low
budgets and guaranteed returns, were the most attractive
propositions for producers. The inevitable outcry from the
Catholic Church and other conservative groups, the threat
of an X-rating from the Movie and Television Review and
Classification Board, and the resulting media brouhaha,
further boosted the bold movies’ chances at the box-office.
Noting the commercial benefits of controversy, the more
established producers took to making sex-oriented films
with respected actors and high production values.
Critically-acclaimed filmmakers found themselves being
denounced as pornographers. The mini-boom generated
by bold flicks actually led to a renewed Philippine presence
in foreign film festivals.
But today, bold films are no longer surefire hits, and there
is even less incentive for new players to go into film production.
Due to the ongoing economic crisis, fewer Filipinos
are going to the movies - a painful blow to an industry that
produces films only for the local market. “In the Eighties
the local market was so self-sufficient that producers made
no move to export Philippine movies”, Siguion-Reyna
explains. “Today they’re slowly recognizing that there is an
international market and we need to get out there”.
“Local producers want quick results”, he adds. “They won’t
even pay to subtitle their movies for the foreign audiences.
For the movie industry to survive, we need new producers.
We need to encourage new players to make movies, and
we should not abandon them to the market”.
But Siguion-Reyna is optimistic about the prospects for
Philippine cinema. He sees 2003 as a turning point for the
Filipino movie industry. “Last year’s Metro filmfest was the
most exciting one I can recall since 1977 (when films by
masters such as Lino Brocka, Eddie Romero and Celso Ad
Castillo were in competition). The selection of movies confounded
traditional critics and offered a plurality of subjects
and styles. The audience’s taste has broadened. The
concept of what a Filipino movie is has become wider.
“The movies that have succeeded recently are project-driven.
Having big stars in the cast is no longer a guarantee of
good box-office; the viewers demand that the other
aspects of the movie be worth their time and money”.
4. Cinema and Politics
In recent years, international media coverage of the
Philippines has dwelled on the number of movie stars running
for public office.
Anyone may run for public office - it is one of the hallmarks
of democracy - and “anyone” certainly includes movie
stars. The problem is that the ridiculous cost of campaigning
for election, combined with the “personalistic” nature
of Philippine politics, gives movie stars a huge advantage
over more qualified candidates. Their lack of political experience,
leadership skills, and education are irrelevant in a
system where popularity is everything. Many of the voters
do not distinguish between a movie star’s onscreen persona
and his off-screen character. Whether this stems from
a failure of education, an escapist fantasy, or the failure of
the thinking class to engage the masses in a political dialogue,
the situation is not likely to change in the near
future. The next President of the Philippines may well be
another actor.
Note: 100 Php = 1.77 US$ at press time.
Jessica Zafra