Adolf Alix Jr.'s Kalayaan - Wildlife, Solitude, Lunacy

Julian Macaraeg (Ananda Everingham) patrols and solitarily habituates a desolate island called Kota in the contested waters of Spratlys. His hut is barely equipped. There’s a television with its DVD player replete with snowy images, its make shift antenna rising like an awkward satellite; a transistor radio blaring the rapidly descending reign of Joseph Estrada. The year is 2001. In this craggy navy detachment post, Julian has acquired a routine. He’s awake all night, pursuing shadows that stir deep into the bakawan (mangroves). But there’s nothing there. He turns to alcohol until he’s drowsy then sleeps into midday. He wakes up to face his hangover; does his morning run. Occasionally, he taunts the migratory birds. Then he fishes for food. After drying his catch under the sun, he then turns to his limited stack of porn videos, pleasuring himself ‘til he’s consumed, then he stretches beside the waves, diligently observing his timid pet turtle until it peeps out of its shell. But something is amiss. Macaraeg refuses to acknowledge the radio communication asking for his RSVP for a get-together set for soldiers manning other similar islands in the territory. After three long months, Julian is finally coming home.

But this desolate atoll rankles with its puzzling urban legend: A soldier, like Macaraeg, once manned the post and found a mermaid who shares the bounty of the island, i.e. its rich oil reserves. They fell in love, but the soldier betrayed the mermaid when he peddled its treasures to the Chinese. As consequence, the mermaid disappeared. One day, the soldier went missing, never to be found again. Victor Pinaglabanan (Rocky Salumbides), Julian’s former colleague, is believed to have suffered the same fate. However, Pinaglabanan’s fate was a tad more horrifying, shaking Julian deep into his psyche. He somehow requires a degree of resolution that's hard to come by. This is what keeps the soldier wandering in the dark of night.

One day, Julian is joined by Lucio (Zanjoe Marudo) and Eric (Luis Alandy), his fellow soldiers assigned to take over the post for five more months. Despite the jubilant company, Julian strictly adheres to his routine, unmindful of the company. “Mula ng nangyari yun kay Pinaglabanan, di na nagsalita yan,” explains Lucio about Julian. While Manila eagerly topples the Estrada administration, Lucio and Eric wake up with a missing Julian. Where is he? Could he be found? 

Director Adolf Alix Jr.'s "Kalayaan" (Wildlife) is a vivid visual dissertation on solitude and a man's descent into lunacy. Like many of Alix's works, he executes his scenes employing real-time film making (more pronounced in the works of Tsai Ming Liang and Nuri Ceylan Belge), thus the audience experiences Julian's overflowing time, displayed in aggregates of seemingly routine activities. When he opens a can of food, when he waits for his pet turtle to move, when he walks into the ocean to fish, we experience an unedited, uncut preoccupation from start to finish. This actually creates an atmosphere that rankles with monotony, and what better way to understand Julian's predicament, right? But unlike the indolent moments in Aloy Adlawan's "Ang Katiwala", we are kept awake and tantalized by the protagonist's seeming vacuous emotionality. If that isn't a hallmark of an engaging performer, I don't know what is. To be sure, a consummate performer doesn't require too much words to sustain attention.

Ananda Everingham is Thailand's biggest male superstar, analogous to our Piolo Pascual, so it's easy to understand his capacity to hook viewers without saying much. Since Everingham plays a Filipino soldier - and he does not speak Tagalog (he is Lao-Australian), his vocal paucity is written into the character which, to my mind, is a major challenge for an actor. After all, emotions are mostly rendered by speech. Everingham has to employ other means to express himself. He comes up with an impression that lingers in our minds long after the credits have rolled. To be fair, Everingham has done his share of art house flicks (Uekrongtham's "Pleasure Factory" and Pen-ek Ratanaruang's "Ploy"), but in "Kalayaan", for more than an hour, he fills the cinematic palette with his lone presence.

The mystical strain in "Kalayaan" channels the temperament and style of Apitchapong Weerasethakul's "Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall His Past Lives", and the haunting images of sand and sea, reminding me of Aureus Solitos' "Busong" (Palawan Fate).

There are some loop holes in the narrative. Julian is heard reporting to his command post: "Dalawang barko ang dumaan. Pagkatapos, nawala na sila, sir!" While bird watching, he shouts, "Takbo!" During a mock beauty pageant between Lucio and Eric, Julian was asked to interrogate the two for the Q&A. He asks: "What is the essence of Spratlys?" Yes, he actually spoke in a few scenes, yet Lucio points to his vocal crutch saying, "Mula nung nangyari yun kay Pinaglabanan, 'di na yan nagsalita." So why did we hear him speak? When something morbid transpires in a camp, isn't it customary to pull out the officers involved for investigation and debriefing? Why was Julian retained to finish his three months? Weren't they concerned he would suffer Victor's fate?

While it's a worthy cause to delve into the relevant issue of oil reserves in the territory, Alix mainly espouses on solitude. In fact, this was deftly covered until it introduced the psychological effect of desolation and social detachment. His creepy demeanor becomes valid proof of cerebral perturbation. This is why a conclusion that openly interjects the existence of blow-job performing mermaids becomes a narrative nuisance. So the urban legend wasn't the product of solitude-induced craziness? So the stories about mermaids protecting oil reserves were real? This narrative curlicue actually muddles what could have been a near-perfect parable. All those overly indulgent stretches of sickeningly routine activities suddenly feel like watered down versions of pure unadulterated boredom, throwing away the romanticism it brings.

Alix's "Kalayaan" is another feather in the young director's cap, but this isn't as seamless as "Haruo" and "Isda". Sometimes, one has to learn to control exceeding indulgences to avoid alienating an audience. "Kalayaan" straddles this boundary. I am not surprised why during my whole day movie marathon (watching five films), this had the least number of people watching. While most films on exhibition boasted of full house, "Kalayaan" sadly had lots of empty seats. This isn't right because it has one of the most novel concepts, bold enough to tackle a wearily dull topic. What's more, it is shot in "real-time".

Reasons to watch: A Thai Superstar; Albert Banzon's surreal camera work; a view of the disputed Kalayaan islands; an uncompromising method of film making not seen in mainstream flicks; a cerebral take on solitude and lunacy; a creepy mermaid. On a lesser scale:  Rocky Salumbides gets a provocative "lip service" from a mermaid (looks prosthetic to me); Marudo, Alandy and Everingham display their muscley backside several times. If they're not enough reasons to run to the cinema to catch "Kalayaan", then stay home and watch your DVD's of "Petrang Kabayo" and "Moron 5". I'm sure you deserve  them. :)

What's a Thai superstar doing in a Pinoy Indie?

Redemptive Spring in Alix's "Haruo" - Plus "Ulan" & "I See Everything"

As much as it insinuates “redemption”, spring is as deceptive as the little blooms that festively gather around in the season. Each one would eventually wither away.

A morbid turn of events brings Haruo (Jacky Woo) to the squalor of Manila. A prized asset of the feared Yakuza in Tokyo, Haruo, aka Tadano Hayashi, escapes the criminal syndicate with bountiful cash, a helpless Filipina bar girl (Nina Kodaka) – and tragic consequences. Now solitary, he has uprooted himself to the railside slums of the metropolis, wistfully fending for himself. Still hiding from his past, he rents out a small room, seemingly lost in the clutter of wandering souls desperate for survival. There, he spends his days anonymously roaming the congested streets selling food, and even giving them away for the hungry. But he mostly keeps to himself, even to the inquisitive Edna (Rosanna Roces), an aging bar girl with whom he occasionally shares his bed.

Other characters navigate Haruo’s surroundings: Aling Lydia (Perla Bautista), a cantankerous mute who lives her days rearing her grand children with heavy hands; Popoy (Junjun Quintana), a street hawker who peddles everything from fake Rolex watches and garments to longganisa; and Edna (Roces) who’s constantly anxious that the grown child she’s rearing will eventually leave her for his real mother. Yet Haruo keeps mum of his putrid past, and these desperate faces frame Haruo’s survival like a noose waiting to tighten around his neck.

One day, he meets the mysterious Michelle (Roxanne Barcelo) who, along with her cousin Charlie (Arnold Reyes), is cloaked by an air of paranoia. Are they running away from something? Despite Michelle’s veneer of detachment, Haruo is drawn like moth to a flame. It isn’t long until his harrowing past haunts him back. Will Michelle, like the Japanese spring, bring Haruo’s redemption?

With a bristling narrative and the calculated manipulations of its color palette, smartly doing away with those shaky handhelds, Adolf Alix, Jr.’s “Haruo (Springtime Man)” plays out like a blank canvas that gradually unravels right before your eyes, peeling veneers of its story in delectable stages of unrelenting tale, way until the full story is laid out like a masterpiece. Albert Banzon’s cinematography is a joy to behold, and the conscious selection of color scheme is nothing short of spectacular: while most of the background is muted to almost black and white, objects surrounding – and framing – each scene have been saturated into sumptuous hues. Several scenes jolt out like kinetic objects – as exemplified by a magical scene where a cart drives away from a rail track, the side rails frame the scene in red-orange hues. I was mesmerized!

SPOILERS

I do have a few quibbles about the film. When the Yakuza eventually finds Haruo, didn’t he ever consider that if he ignored their request (they want him back), they would harm Michelle? Why didn’t he exert the effort to protect her first before eventually declining their order? You couldn’t be so thoughtless as to allow another love one harmed again, could you? Furthermore, a few scenes that supposedly transpired in Tokyo looked inherently Manila. There’s also a little confusion in the timeline of flashbacks, though, on the most part, they worked.

Jacky Woo turns in an insightful performance rich with pathos and empathy. Roxanne Barcelo plays the damsel in distress with emotive charm and mystery, you do wonder why she isn’t getting the lead roles that she deserves! But this film should remedy such injustice. Rosanna Roces always lends a degree of realism to any film she appears in, thus watching Rosanna “suffer” anew was such joy. In fact, she was one of the reasons why, for a very short while, I became a teleserye junkie when Nora Aunor’s “Sa Ngalan ng Ina” was on TV. Perla Bautista romps off with a dichotomous character, at once sympathetic and loathsome. Nina Kodaka, who has uncanny semblance to the beautiful Barcelo, plays the Filipina bar girl who falls into Yakuza territory. Though she seems a tad tentative with her attack, it wasn’t perturbing. You just know she could fare better.

But the breakout performance comes from a relative unknown – Junjun Quintana who plays Popoy, the haggler who sells everything, even his soul in exchange for money. Quintana enveigles a charismatic presence radiating with charm, a graceful streetwise demeanor and cinematic allure reminiscent of the younger Coco Martin and Sid Lucero.

Alix’s “Haruo (Springtime Man)” is a compelling slowburn; a character study about evoking a degree of atonement that, to some people, never comes. Sometimes, the situations that surround people make for an imponderable road block.

Rosanna Roces


Roxanne Barcelo and Nina Kodaka


Nina Kodaka


Roxanne Barcelo


Junjun Quintana

STUDENT SHORT FILMS

Along with this full length feature, MMFF has decided to include student films from which 10 short films will be screened alongside the 4 "New Wave" (indie) full length features. We saw 2 student shorts: Michael Jainoran’s “I See Everything” (Southville International School) and Nikka Palma and John Wong’s “Ulan” (La Consolacion College and Pixel Art). To be fair, since these are scholastic efforts, I’ve decided to be nice and reserve our acidic tongue so as to inspire these young souls to work on their craft.

Jainoran’s “I See Everything” follows the watchful eye of a geek who perceives herself at the bottom of the “food chain” where it concerns the denizens of her class. These are the campus heartthrob, the sassy girl, the musician, the bully. On cursory glance, they follow the social strata as they’re perceived to be. But on closer look, their stories waver into the unforeseen. And the geek, by her own ministrations, bears the power to rise above the social ladder… with her sentient camcorder. The staging of scenes is a bit rough around the edges. The casting could have been better conceived. But there’s an unmistakable rankle of idea that could have soared had the narrative been fine tuned.

Palma and Wong’s “Ulan” is more technically polished. One night, Nikka leaves younger sister CJ on her own while the former attends to her social commitments. While she was away, CJ entertains herself watching television, playing piano, foraging through the only available food. That same night, the rains pummeled through the roof and Nikka failed to make it back home. In the wee hours of the night, CJ gets a strange call from her Uncle Alex. What’s become of Nikka? Filmed in sumptuous black and white, there is proficient generation of mood that helped create a workable narrative. Employing the narrative detour of Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense” further gives the story fictive heft though it’s weighed down by a lukewarm treatment of its concluding scene. Still, it’s a watchable fodder.

Presa - Grazing the Surface

Sir Roger L’Estrange, an English writer, once wrote, “That which the world miscalls a jail, a private closet is to me. “

CAPSULE

In Adolf Alix’s “Presa”, a group of women endure each other inside a correctional facility, each one carrying a burden in their private closets. There’s the zealous Baby (Jodi Sta. Maria) who’s nimble enough to sell anything inside the penitentiary to support her family outside. Nanay Idad (Perla Bautista) is silently grieving over the death of a woman who denied her romantic advances. Dolly (Tetchie Agbayani) refuses to utter a word, until she accidentally slips in the pool. Carmen (Daria Ramirez) is eagerly waiting for her impending release with her husband. Sylvia (Liza Lorena), the cellblock’s tough talking, abusive inmate makes slaves out of Nita (Angeli Bayani) and Rose (Ina Feleo) who diligently follow her around like paid servants. But it’s really Cion (Anita Linda) whose story gets the most screen time. Otherwise known as the Famas Award-winning veteran Esmeralda Cortez, 85 year old Cion got snagged during a buy-bust operation. She is enthusiastically waiting for a presidential pardon that his lawyer has been cooking up for the last year or so. Moreover, she’s antsy, if excited, at the prospect of shooting a film with popular actress Lian (Alessandra De Rossi), a move that might spell her rightful comeback to the Silver Screen. Meanwhile, Ampi (Rosanna Roces), Cion’s loyal fan and a former police woman, religiously attends to Cion’s needs.

INFLUENCE

This great assemblage of thespians can’t help but cook up a significant amount of excitement among lovers of local cinema. It isn’t everyday these respectable names come together for an omnibus project. This significantly underlines director Adolf Alix’s burgeoning influence in the industry.

TELLING A STORY

Unfortunately, such multifarious casting comes at the cost of telling a legible story. In fact, you end up leaving the theater unsatisfied, albeit with a paltry subject for discussion among your friends. Why was Baby working so hard? Why did Dolly pretend to be a mute? Why didn’t war-freak Idad contest the supremacy of Sylvia where there should be redundancy of characters? The list is long, but they are nothing worth pontificating over because their stories were inadequately fleshed out. If this was a critique on the ability of the actors, I’d say the script writer needed a dash of inspired imagination to actually “internalize” his characters, to give them enough flesh and soul. But when you’re just grazing over the surface, all you get is the superficial matter, instead of the “salt of the earth” so to speak.

TOP-NOTCH PERFORMANCES

The performances are undeniably topnotch with Anita Linda’s Cion taking a big slice of the cake, simply because her story was fuller than the rest. Perla Bautista displays enviable skill in a part that has bypassed her all these years. Jodi Sta. Maria adequately fills out a character that instructs on subtlety and panache on emotive control. Rosanna Roces lights up the screen with understated charm. Roces has never looked this beautiful and svelte in years. In fact, in Alix’s “Karera” shown last December, she was uncomfortably robust. Roces can easily put the current crop of actresses to shame.

MISPLACED ACTRESS

It’s actually the younger part of the ensemble I’m having trouble with: Ina Feleo is a misplaced soul as the vengeful Rose who killed her abusive employer. Though she understates her performance – with palpable unease, it’s the maudlin scenes that show her relative inexperience. While the inmates were enjoying a day at the pool, the camera pans at Feleo as she eats and drinks from their “baon”. For a maid who’s supposedly used to roughing it up, she was dainty. Her fingers graciously opening a bottled water, then carefully scooping a spoonful to eat. Absolutely something that a maid isn’t! Ina Feleo may be schooled in expressing emotions. She gets this in her silent moment where she doesn’t utter a line. You don’t always get two terrific parent actors, do you? Unfortunately, it’s the physical component of acting she’s sorely wanting. As an actor, you have to move the part, transform yourself into the gait of your character. Facial expression doesn’t suffice! After all, you are a maid who killed the employer who didn’t feed you enough. You can’t be persnickety like any fairy tale princess! Her mother, Laurice Guillen, suffered the same fate in the latter’s “Karera”. More acting workshops, perhaps?

AFTERTHOUGHT

It’s such a delight that we witness this gathering of talent on screen, but it could have been a more fulfilling experience for us if there were a single story that actually made us care. But when such snippets of stories feel nothing more like an afterthought, then you are left with something that’s essentially inconsequential. And that is sad!

PUBLIC DECEPTION & HYPOCRISY THE MMDA WAY

Finally, I am disgusted with the organizers of the MMFF Committee – the MMDA – who proudly announced that 5 Independently-produced movies made it to the last Metro Manila Film Festival. As it turned out, these 5 titles weren’t even offered to the public for commercial screening last December! How these films became part of MMFF when they were only seen by the MMFF Screening Committee and their makers is a mystery of gargantuan proportions to me! I would call such move “deceitful” just to impart a veneer of “new birth” and “respectability” to the latest line of MMFF entries. Their spectacular “show” effectively made “jokes” out of the 5 indies (“Presa” included) who probably expected even a single day of commercial exhibition – which ended with “no day”! It was all for show! Shame on you, Atty. Francis Tolentino (MMDA Chair).

QUALITY DECLINE

That Butch Francisco’s taste for cinema is reflected in his championing “Presa” as a Best Picture-caliber work – and Marian Rivera a Best Actress-caliber actress for a stupid role (“Super Inday and the Magic Bibe”) – is a reflection of the slow-but-sure depreciation of the quality of names winning from the next Urian Awards, a body of critics I used to hold in high regard. Now I know better!