Rakenrol - False Depictions, Tepid World

Odie and Irene (Jason Abalos and Glaiza de Castro respectively) have been friends from school, and though they seem to be poles apart, their love for the local music scene has brought them closer. Now they’re best friends. One day, Irene hears one of Odie’s own compositions. She comes up with the idea of putting up a band. Though initially reluctant, Odie soon finds people to fill up the group: an ex-punk coffeeshop staff Mo (Ketchup Eusebio) and the emotionally labile Junfour (Alwyn Uytingco). Even before I could correctly enumerate the complete names of the original members of the Eraserheads, the group suddenly finds themselves a gig! What’s better, Matet de Leon (yes, one of Nora Aunor’s children) offers to manage them, shows them the ropes, introduces them to the movers and shakers of the scene.

When Jacci Rocha (Diether Ocampo), flamboyantly high profile lead singer of “Baron Munchausen” enters the picture, Irene succumbs to his charms. Hapipaks (the band's name) starts recording songs and making a music video of their first coming-out single. The group is suddenly thrown into a maelstrom that envelopes this vibrant underworld, all the while struggling to deal with their domestic lives: Mo is conflicted living with his eccentric artist friend; Junfour learns that his girlfriend is pregnant; and shy Odie can’t reveal his feelings for Irene. Why is everyone miserable when their dreams are coming true?

Quark Henares revealed in a talk show that “Rakenrol” was a wish fulfillment project. In fact, it’s taken him 5 years to make. He wished to translate a moment in his younger years when he would navigate this subculture of struggling, albeit talented musicians. Alas, where’s the thrill and urgency? Though the first half of the narrative is told in brisk chapters, the latter half soon dwindles into prosaic storytelling. The bristling introduction hopelessly turns into one drab exposition.

For the most part, the story loses steam in translating the vibrancy of that music subculture. As is depicted on screen, this was a world populated by people who look like they haven’t bathed in 5 years, no, make it ten! They were struggling (artistically and otherwise), aberrant, capricious and completely unrelatable. What’s worse, when Hapipaks finally plays their main number, “Oplan Pag Ibig”, it was nothing more than pedestrian. Sure, their audience was jumping up and shouting, but you can’t fake great music! And great it wasn’t!

Now let’s get into the casting. I’ve always found Jason Abalos a sincere actor, except in a cinematic crap called “Handumanan” (one of the worst films in two decades), but does Abalos embody the persona of how we perceive musicians should be? I think it’s clear he doesn’t, which makes this foray a little too disconnected. It’s like doing a biopic on Lea Salonga with, say, Kris Bernal portraying her. Doesn’t work. Abalos is probably too dour to represent a figure head! Maybe Abalos represented the shy and self effacing Henares? Maybe, since Quark is the epitome of a well grounded guy who admits his triumphs as graciously as his failures (In the aforementioned interview, he considers “Keka” as his greatest achievement, while “Super Noypi” as his worst – didn’t I say it here?)

But cinema is a medium that needs emphasis by writing such statements in bigger, bolder strokes. This is exactly the reason why when we want to propagandize personalities, we choose high profile celebrities. This is the same reason why a little known murder victim like Lilian Velez becomes Sharon Cuneta on screen; why Jericho Rosales had to portray the younger Manny Pacquiao in “Pacquiao: The Movie” instead of the likes of Mark Herras or Carlos Agassi. My point is, when you need a poster boy to represent a habitué from that oh-so exciting underworld, you require gravitas; not someone with the verve of a complacently growing pumpkin.

We love Glaiza de Castro’s Emma in Katski Flores’ “Still Lives” and as Isabel in Rommel Sales’ “I-Libings”. She has somehow proven that an inferior Angel Locsin she isn’t, but if she’s indeed the Irene in “Rakenrol” (as her Facebook pronouncements would say, “Ako to!”) then Glaiza doesn’t paint a flattering picture of a rock and roll vixen. The portrait is wanting; the brew is tepid. Listening to her sing her bubblegum song, “Patingin-tingin” (from her 1^st and only CD) was more enjoyable by leaps and bounds than having her rock it out here!

Diether Ocampo must have pleasurably crapped himself portraying the gaudy, resplendent, and downright splashy Jacci Rocha, but his portrayal is too out-there to be truly enjoyable. Parodies only work when there’s ample moderation, and Ocampo’s portrayal just shoots through the roof. There are a few more items on our list why “Rakenrol” is a snooze, but the ones mentioned have been the most blatant.

How do you find a band drummer, for example? Choose the school bully! That way, he can channel his frustrations by way of hitting his drums. Brilliant, right? Sounds like quack therapy to me. I didn't think it's funny so I scoff. Ketchup Eusebio plays Mo as smugly as Jacci Rocha swaggers with confidence. Eusebio should be here to pay homage to a departed online critic for whom this film was dedicated. Unfortunately, Eusebio's winking portrayal doesn't depart from a less regarded Smokey Manaloto! I'd choose the latter for his genuine humor - anytime.

As the film moves to its conclusion, the narrative shimmies into a plateau. Is there really a plausible moral of the story? When its protagonists are as plain, homely and tentative as the ones in this film, I couldn't give a damn! They might as well give me a shot of epinephrine before I flat line out of disinterest.

That the film won an "Audience Choice Award" in Los Angeles is a bit of a mystery to me. Mainly, it goes to show how some film festivals abroad can be so apocryphal. It's as ambiguous as when "Twilight Dancers" is supposedly hailed at the Toronto Filmfest. Ditto the execrable, vomit-inducing "Fidel" at the Berlin Filmfest, and the underdeveloped "Thelma" at the Hawaiian Filmfest. You just have to scratch your nape and believe that a parallel universe exists. Otherwise, such things wouldn't happen.

Quark Henares may have fulfilled his wish list. But this was a personal story that somehow wasn’t worth sharing. Not to a paying crowd, anyway. If this were an invitation to a subcommunity, I’d say, no thanks. It’s too small scale and unexciting. More importantly, the people looked like they smell.

The iconic Ely Buendia cameos: "You have to play, man... for us!" You gotta be kidding me.

Thelma - Getting Robbed Out of a Resolution

The conventions of storytelling is universal regardless of its medium: film, theatre, novel, even radio dramas and children’s fairy tales. Even non-linear works take on a basic framework because how else would one attain catharsis?

In Paul Soriano’s “Thelma”, the narrative follows a straight forward tack in telling the story, supposedly with emphasis on it not being a sentimental tale, i.e. “this isn’t drama,” reads many of its publicity pieces. This is labelled a “sports movie” by its makers - whatever the heck that means. Interesting then, right? Having laid that out, it’s a curiosity that in its effort to avoid being schmaltzy, it also fails to capture a sense of urgency where its “action” scenes were concerned. What’s even more pronounced is how this compulsion to explain their method is expounded under duress. “Thelma”, in its entire narrative flourish, is in fact melodrama! Anything related to sports takes a convenient backseat as the protagonist wallows in her own emotional conflict. This takes us back to the stages of storytelling. This is a didactic discourse on why “Thelma” eventually underwhelms.

Capsule

Tragedy forces Thelma (Maja Salvador) to drop out from high school. Her younger sister Hannah (Eliza Pineda) figured in a vehicular accident that wouldn’t have transpired had Thelma not insisted on taking the treacherous detour on their way home from school. Suddenly, the glimmer of hope that could have eventually given Thelma a way out of stark poverty has dimmed. And she is awash with guilt.

Floring, the mother, weaves blankets and sells them to a local merchant, but times are hard and business is far from brisk. Moreover, Floring’s failing health leaves her exhausted and unproductive. Aldo, the father, farms a little parcel of an otherwise cantankerous Ilocos soil. Floring and Aldo (Tetchie Agbayani and John Arcilla, respectively) look at their daughters' helplessness with resignation.

But Thelma has a gift. She sprints with lightning precision and in the process, floats like the wind. One day, she is summoned back to school. Thelma has been conferred an athletic scholarship that takes her to Manila. This allows her the opportunity to “earn” from her stipend, thus sending the same money to her impoverished family. But city life is a rat race from hell. Though Thelma gradually proves her worth in a succession of marathons, she has to brave some scornful rivals and her constant yearning for home. She also finds romance in a fellow athlete Sammy (Jason Abalos) who himself is desperate for immediate work to tide over the financial requirements of raising his 7 siblings and his parents.

One day, Thelma receives a call from her Auntie Marie (Sue Prado) informing her of her mother’s debilitating illness. She bawls her heart out. The camera pans over and around our sympathetic heroine. Floring takes Marie’s phone and emphatically insists: “Ipagpatuloy mo anak. Huwag kang tumigil tumakbo.”

And like a vehicle suddenly running out of gas, the incessant caterwauling suddenly ceases while the closing frame shows Thelma competing again. Was that it? Yun na yon?

The first thing that strikes you here is its exquisite camera work (Odyssey Flores), utilizing a color palette that’s mostly muted, imparting an almost poetic veneer to every framed composition. The film employs eye-popping vistas (the Bangui Windmills of Ilocos Norte, the stunning plains where Thelma would run, etc.) They employed cranes and even helicopters to capture the sprawling landscape where our protagonist trains and subsists. This was a production that clearly didn’t scrimp.

Maja Salvador fires up a lackluster character that’s mostly unsympathetic. In Maja’s quiet moments (a 10-second scene showing her wistfully gazing at the horizon – the windmills spinning at the foreground), Thelma comes alive and metamorphoses into a compelling character. Salvador is simply a thespic thunder that deserves to be watched. She has always had this silent power to summon sincerity, not to mention a lambent charm that’s hard to resist. Had she been less, I’d have snored heavily while I watched. Tetchie Agbayani blazes the screen in half her screen time, appearing tough and tender; but her succeeding scenes flounder patronizingly. And something has to be said about Eliza Pineda’s Hannah: she was annoying, you wanted to take her out to sea and drop her deep in the ocean to get over her miseries.

Now what went wrong?

Greek philosophers like Aristotle analyzed the Dramatic Structure because of the popularity of storytelling. In fact, the Filipino and Asian perspective on the Dramatic Structure have spawned works characterized by maudlinism; sappy conversations and explosive altercations caught on stage, in the pages of a novel, on celluloid.

This said structure is divided by German playwright Gustav Freytag into 5 parts (acts):

(a) Exposition. This provides the background details and information needed to understand the story; i.e. “problem” is introduced.

(b) Rising Action. This is where basic internal conflict is complicated by the introduction of related secondary conflicts, including various obstacles that frustrate the protagonist's attempt to reach his goal.

(c) Climax or the ”turning point”. This marks a change, for the better or the worse, in the protagonist’s affairs.

(d) Falling Action. This is the moment of reversal after the climax. The conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist unravels, with the protagonist winning or losing against the antagonist.

(e) Denouement, Resolution or Catastrophe. This is where conflicts are resolved, creating normalcy for the characters and a sense of catharsis, or release of tension and anxiety, for the audience (or “reader” if the work is a written piece).

In Paul Soriano’s “Thelma”, the story gradually pieces an exposition (poor family and a child’s athletic talent), then the narrative introduces the basic conflict (younger sister becomes a cripple; older sister feels guilt). Unfortunately, the Climax transpires when the main characters didn’t even see each other. This was one of the dullest climaxes I’ve ever encountered. Thelma gets her shrill dramatic moment while on the phone. After this magnanimous moment, everything goes downhill.

The “Falling Action” falls flat with face first. Denouement is served in the form of a single frozen scene of Thelma running another marathon. They even failed to procure an epilogue that would bring closure to our protagonist’s miseries. “Resolution” should conclude the “Falling Action” by revealing or suggesting the outcome of the conflict. But there’s not even a hint into the future. I personally felt robbed out of a conclusion, and I was distressing over the fact that I had to witness all those droll situations for an obscure dissolution? And as Maroon 5 insists, “There ain’t nobody who could comfort me. Oh yeah!” Yes, they forgot the finishing touch, the “release of tension and anxiety” – not even an “unsatisfactory” comeuppance. And since character development is mostly facile and thin, we leave the theatre feeling nothing. As the film closes its exposition, it conveniently reminds us: “This is based on true stories.” Stories!

If indeed this were reality based, the story teller was too lazy to update us what became of Thelma. Did she find a better life? Was following a dream worth giving up some personal liberties?

We don’t know. They forgot to tell us.