Murder is at the heart of Jonison Fontanos' confounding "Parisukat" (Square). Completing this orthogonal narrative is a graduating nursing student Marcus (Jeff Tatsuro), a slithery potbellied landlord (Jobben Bello), an amorous transvestite (Darwin Taylo) and a callboy (Jeff Canizares) who all figure in an expositional rigodon that's sloppily edited and awkwardly staged! The result is an impalusible string of events that's too hastily engineered to be believable! One positive point here is the engaging musical score (I think it was by a Kevin MacLoud).
Toffee Calma has the pivotal role of the murdered businessman! There are gratuitous snippets here that highlight the raison d'etre of a film like "Parisukat" - While the aforementioned characters were on a drinking spree, houseboy Toto (Alvin Espinosa) is shown fondling himself - laughably with his shorts on! This scene comes out of nowhere since Toto hasn't really contributed to anything that barely moves the story until then. There wasn't even a prelude to anything that's exigent to his masturbatory showcase (like watching porn or peeping through holes, etc.) Why this scene was pertinent to this movie is beyond me, except for the fact that this film falls under the category of a "Pink Film"! The objective here is not to tell something "universal", but something that myopically caters to a limited audience!
Which shall take me to the director's declaration on the film concept. In a write-up I read online, he said he toyed with the idea of "four corners, four sides ... four versions" of the story of his friend’s death, which somehow "inspired" this drivel. Whatever "corners" that were envisioned turned out to be nondescript lines! His story meandered very loosely, prompting the exasperated couple behind us to repeatedly ask, "Ano daw? Bakit ganun?" My sentiments, exactly!
It was a distracting, often confusing tale! That he has succeeded to namedrop the likes of Akira Kurosawa and Alfred Hitchcock in relation to his cinematic vision just flaunted the comparative discrepancy of what "masterful" is and what isn't; What "visionary" is and what's fallacious "ambition" ... or is it "delusion"?
That as homage to films like "Birds", "Rear Window", "Psycho" and even Laurice Guillen's "Salome", he employed judicious use of close-ups to highlight emotion is pure conjecture, for I sensed no authentic emotion in any representative scene. What's real emotion is how I felt knowing once again that my P161 swiveled down the drain!
Independent Cinema should be proud of such masterpiece.
The nursing student Marcus (Jeff Tatsuro) who is never seen studying.
The tranny and the lascivious landlord.
The callboy and the houseboy.
And the rest of the disposable characters!
No comments:
Post a Comment