Kip Oebanda's Liway - Sugarcoating Horrors (Cinemalaya 2018)

Diverse, engrossing, socially relevant, technically well crafted, less artistic pretension. 

This year’s film harvest from Cinemalaya is surprisingly impressive. I was dreading the festival marathon because last year’s entries were mind-numbingly mediocre. They were hard to watch because 4 of them were so darkly lit people had to squint for clarity. That's just for starters. What’s worse, the festival gave awards to the worst offenders. They were even arrogantly unapologetic about it. Why would they apologize, right? There’s a simple answer. But let me not digress. I'd rather discuss this cinematic gem called "Liway".

At the height of Martial Law in the late 70’s, activists Day (Glaiza de Castro) and Ric (Dominic Roco) were apprehended by the military and imprisoned in Camp Delgado alongside criminals and other rebels. 

Day, whose alter ego was Liway in the underground movement, gave birth to her son Dakip (Kenken Nuyad) who was allowed to stay with his parents. Despite the atrocities that were happening in the camp (inmates disappearing without a trace), Liway vowed to shelter her children from the ugly face of incarceration. Sugarcoating the horrors of Martial Law is never an easy task. But how far will a mother go to protect her family?

“Liway” has a straight forward story telling that makes occasional use of flashbacks. The story is easy to follow.

It uses few narrative embellishments. In fact, it practically did away with overbearing sentimentality (which it deserved). 

While some stories are maneuvered to adapt to the cinematic medium, the excoriating details in the film are however veiled by lighter scenes. Truth can sometimes be tweaked as a just excuse for a historical execration, but this isn't the case here.

Emotions aren’t allowed to linger for too long. The brutality of the Marcos regime has obviously been toned down to impart a livable environment that Liway, in her limited capacity, has created for her children. 

Showing the violence of torture as experienced by the inmates would have made a good contrast to the kind of atmosphere Liway wanted Dakip to experience. One cannot gloss over the brutality that transpired because this was one of the essence of the regime's disdain for freedom, and how it imposed an abusive rule to silence dissenting voices. 

In a truly enlightened society, no single soul should justify violations of human rights. But in an ailing society, revising a murky past is becoming common place, which is an insult to those who suffered and perished during that era. These days, such revisionism is gradually unraveling. This is why movies like "Liway" and "ML" serve their purpose in propagating historical truths. These events happened to real people.

There were few scenes within the narrative that hooked me. In a wistful scene, Liway is shown strumming her guitar and singing Lolita Carbon’s “Pagbabalik”. This sent shivers down my spine. It's clear to me how the evils of a 30-year-old history is gradually gaining ground in contemporary society. I have nothing but pity for this country, and contempt to the people who enable this. What do wise men say about people who don’t learn from history?

 

Based on a true story set during one of the country’s darkest era, the film hits you when you least expect it. I shall refrain from divulging too much detail, but people were crying buckets as the credits rolled. I had to rush to the toilet thereafter to give myself a good cry. Make no mistake, the film is hardly structured in melodrama. There’s not a lot of caterwauling in the movie either, but it had an uncanny approach of breaking your heart. “Liway” was my 9^th film so I didn’t expect too much from it. Guess what? The best surprises are those you don’t anticipate.

Oebanda serves up a polished cinematic ouvre that will define his cinema in the years to come. It helps that the story he tells is close to home. Revealing a personal story is reliving a past. That can't be easy. But by doing so, Oebanda shows skills that will help him evolve into a greater storyteller in the future. 

It wasn't always like this. I remember watching his first commercially released film, “Tumbang Preso”. After posting what I thought about it, I received half a dozen vicious mails from anonymous trolls.  Not Oebanda, I presume. But you see, such is the nature of film appreciation. It’s a subjective experience for each viewer. 

The succeeding years were promising. “Nay” wasn’t particularly fetching. Last year’s “Bar Boys” was among my 10 favorites. Look how far Oebanda has come. I look forward to watching his next projects. In a bumper crop year where most festival entries are watchable, “Liway” is among my top choices.

Kit Oebanda's "Tumbang Preso" - Obstacles in Yarn Spinning

Carlo (Kokoy de Santos) dreams of pursuing college education; to become an architect and move his impoverished family away from provincial squalor. When a teacher offers an opportunity (he'll work and get paid P200 a day and, more importantly, he gets a scholarship), Carlo joins his younger cousin Jea (Teri Malvar) to try their luck in the big city.

They instead find themselves working long hours for a sardines canning factory. Once work is done, they, along with other young folks, are kept inside a dark stockroom where they sleep on the floor. What's worse, they are padlocked inside until 5AM when they have to resume work.

They get paid P50 a day (after "placement fee" has been deducted). Conditions in the factory are harsh, what with stern overseer Jose (Ronnie Lazaro) breathing down their necks. They occasionally get reprieve from the owner Miss Liz (Star Orjaliza), a deceptively kind "boss", and her happy-go-lucky nephew Vito (Kean Cipriano).

But Carlo has dreams to realize so he starts planning for an escape. On one such occasion, he falls down a wall and sprains his leg. Unable to work properly, Miss Liz takes him to see a doctor (Jaclyn Jose) who, not long after her examination, realizes the dilemma Carlo is in. The kind doctor hands him a piece of paper with numbers written on it. Carlo then plots another escape, this time for cousin Jea who can call for help. You actually wonder why the good Samaritan in Jaclyn Jose couldn't make the call herself. She wanted to help, didn't she? Isn't it standard procedure that doctors (and caregivers) who suspect abuse on their patients should alert the authorities (Social Welfare, police)? They should do the calling, not the perceived victims - because if they could, they would have done already.

Cocoy De Santos adequately coaxes necessary empathy from his character, making it easy to root for him. He registers well on screen thus this film should rightfully help open doors for the young actor. Teri Malvar, the child who beat Nora Aunor in the Best Actress category of Cinefilipino for her role in "Ang Huling Cha-Cha ni Anita", provided good support, though her character was sorely underwritten. Kean Cipriano, meanwhile, turns in a comfortable performance.

The rest of the cast dove into their characters perfunctorily - Ronnie Lazaro, Jaclyn Jose, Shamaine Centenera-Buencamino, and Star Orjaliza who romps away with the film's most meretricious role. However, the greater injustice was in not giving Dominic Roco enough to "play" with. What a waste. If you edit out his character, he won't be missed.

Kip Oebanda's "Tumbang Preso" ("In the Can") is well intentioned, but it is hobbled by so many shortcomings, both narrative and technical, you eventually end up with a lot less sympathy. Carlo (Kokoy de Santos), our teen protagonist, is an intelligent young man who, just barely two months after he started working for the factory, has forgotten his mother's "face", "how tall she is", "how bad her pedicure was". Two friggin' months in a bright teenager's mind and he's on the verge of expunging all traces of his mother's memory? Maybe he's afflicted with Nora Aunor's "Dementia"? Scary, if you ask me. Give him his share of extreme close ups then. :) If that isn't an illusory bid for sympathy, I don't know what is.

What about Kerbie Zamora's character Don who has been working at the factory for 5 years - he must have forgotten everything, including what he wore when he went to the doctor for circumcision. Tsk tsk tsk! Moreover, what kind of mother would indulge in bad pedicures while his underage son is desperate for tuition? (sniff sniff)

INCISION VS LACERATION

When Carlo was taken out for medical consultation, the physician (Jaclyn Jose) took one look at Carlo's hands. She declared, "Incision... due to sharp objects". Huh? Any physician would know that an "incision" is a cut on the flesh using a blade/knife, usually from a surgical procedure. Butchers, for example, don't make incisions; they cut and slice. Wounds with clean cuts, on the other hand, are called "lacerations". Where did this physician get her education? University of Recto? Anyway, the doctor (Ms. Jose) then takes Carlo to an Xray room. Then she performs the procedure all by herself! I was amazed of course. General Practitioners and clinicians NEVER do X-rays on their own. Heck, even radiologists will not perform the actual procedure themselves. X-ray technicians do! So Jacklyn was essentially the epitome of medical wizardry.

But we're not done with Jacklyn Jose. The first time she saw the child's hands (full of cuts from manually packing sardines in razor-sharp cans), her first impression was classic, "Galis!" (scabies) I almost fell off my chair. So funny.

Some of the lines in the script were flimflammed from random imagination. When Dominic Roco finds Kokoy awake and waiting by the shackled door, he asks him, "Ano bang ginagawa mo dyan at gising ka pa?" Kokoy replies, "Hinahanap ko ang aking mga lata." Roco then shrugs and goes back to sleep, saying "Buti naman." Huh? What's good in finding tin cans? Such writing is feckless and non-contributory to a tighter story. The scenography and the blocking of scenes don't mostly slide as naturally as they should, thus a number of them feel concocted.  

Some scenes are way too stagey or awkward, i.e. Kokoy's "dream sequence" - or was it a "flashback", you're never quite sure. And why was there confetti thrown at Kokoy? Were they celebrating the Edsa Revolution? I never had confetti for my scholastic medals in the past. Poor me!

PERPLEXED

At the police station, Kean Cipriano's character rats out on his aunt (Miss Liz, the factory's operator), and does a long-ish monologue. Ronnie Lazaro follows suit. All this time, the lady police officer just looked perplexed, as though a snake bit her at the vulva. Didn't she realize it was her job to ask more questions - or document their confessions? This floundering scene stretched on while the police officers just gazed at Cipriano and Lazaro - in sheer bewilderment. Starstruck probably? No further investigative work needed since the culprits were voluntarily spilling the beans without getting asked. How convenient. The aforementioned scene was essentially an anticlimax after the build-up towards a suspenseful third part.

The movie could have been an effective cautionary tale about ambition and trusting strangers, but it ended up into one predictable yarn spinning. Requisite happy endings tend to teach less, not that I am advocating the nihilistic approach of Gino Santos' "#Y" which was, thematically, one of the most irritating films I've seen this year. But to imply that one can just as easily switch back to a simpler life (the last scene) after a harrowing experience feels like a sham. Artificial.

"Tumbang Preso" is a product of 2013's Manila Film Financing Forum where it won "Best IFC Pitch". Real Florido's "1st Ko si 3rd" was among the 17 finalists. The movie's subject matter brims with contemporary pertinence. After all, a voice that speaks against child labor and human trafficking deserves to be heard and circulated. Unfortunately, a noble cause doesn't a great cinema make. No amount of A-grade labeling, courtesy of those clueless dingbats from the Cinema Evaluation Board (CEB), can sugarcoat the film's middling artistry.

Dante Nico Garcia's Madaling Araw, Mahabang Gabi - Tales of the Drunken Stupor

Local residents and foreign visitors converge in a bar in Palawan’s Cuyo Island on the eve of All Soul’s Day. A band plays its raucous number as music slices through the lull of the night. The place comes alive when the bar owner’s daughter (Angelica Panganiban) arrives clearly inebriated, and offers every one free drinks. But wait, the town is also celebrating the feast of “Pangangaluluwa” (a traditional welcome to All Soul’s Day). The feast would have revelers move from house to house, singing verses that threaten to steal from the living and offer them to the dead (usually livestock like chicken, eggs, and even pigs). The bar owner’s daughter offers P10,000 - and herself for a night of pleasure - to the one who presents the best loot before the night is over. Every soul in the restaurant soon scatters around. This opens a venue to introduce a bevy of characters.

An aging father (Buboy Garovillo) teams up with a skeptical guitarist (Rocco Nacino) to steal and collect coconut crabs. But all the father desires is a guitar lesson – so he could impress his daughter. A French tourist (DJ David Callum) enlists the help of the waiter (Alchris Galura) to find the anonymous girl (Glaiza de Castro) with whom he’s had a one-night stand. A couple of dope heads (Kean Cipriano and Edgar Allan Guzman) bump into a sophisticated cougar (Cherie Gil) who’s rushing for her rendezvous with her lover, her best friend’s husband. An effete, but virginal waiter (Dominic Roco) runs after a group of customers who sneaks away from their bill – with the help of the band’s lead singer (Karel Marquez). A band member (Tutti Karingal) along with an Indian national (Eric Tai) decides to steal a valuable painting in a rural bank, disarming the security guard (Lou Veloso) in the process. Problem is, the painting is nowhere found. A disparaged Cosplayer (Bojong Fernandez) takes the likeness of anime’ personality Krisma to prove his worth to his gang (Regine Angeles, et.al.)

Director Dante Nico Garcia’s “Madaling Araw, Mahabang Gabi” is a cornucopia of situational sketches replete with extraneous narrative elements that are too disparate to piece together. Most of the strains are fashioned like tepid pseudo-comedies without commensurate punch lines. In fact, Garcia peppers his ouvre with loads of characters too eccentric to root for. He weaves them without much empathy. Like "kwentong lasing", these are easily discardable anecdotes with their unretentive preponderance. 

Angelica Panganiban, one of the industry's most prolific actresses, makes a grave career misstep, depicting herself like some beerhouse airhead hosting an episode of "Banana Split". The difference being: this one's several times morose and capricious. In fact, whoever fashions this like some high profile comedy deserves to be sent to some dungeon and locked 'til eternity. The unamusing strains remind me of Adolf Alix's "D' Survivors" where hilarity of situation is limited within the cast members. Let's not go far: the director's 2009 flick "Oh! My Girl! (A Laugh Story)" starring Judy Anne Santos and Ogie Alcasid was painfully ludicrous - and one of the decade's worst. Garcia just doesn't have the comedic flair - nor the insightful cinematic acumen that allows his movie goers to sit back and enjoy. He instead peppers his canvas with a dizzying array of  elements believing somehow that "more is better". He is able to gather a great number of stars who fails to parlay an iota of gravitas because... well, each of their narrative milieu is ridiculous.

Cherie Gil, for example, makes her career's most graceless and embarrassing cameo. Her scenes with Edgar Allan Guzman and Kean Cipriano have the augury akin to a pig sty. It was like a chapter straight out of a bad acting workshop exercise with personalities who couldn't generate chemistry nor a sense of authenticity. Likewise, Dominic Roco appears in one of his worst performances. His virginal gay waiter drips with cardboard caricature, and it doesn't help that his narrative strain with Karel Marquez is a cauldron of fallacy. Which waiter tells his customer, "Baka ma reprimand ka ng dad mo?" Huh? And in which universe do you get a line like, "Kaya ka bakla, kasi 'di ka pa nakakatikim ng babae?" You mean gay men should sleep with a woman first to corroborate the obvious? I'd have thought there were easier, albeit less painful ways of knowing for sure. Someone's overthinking the uncomplicated. Why did Karel and Dominic end up shagging each other? There was nothing in the narrative that could readily validate this twist. The list of these head scratchers are a plenty. And I've never seen these actors in their worst. What a waste!

Glaiza de Castro's story with the Frenchman was curiously more complete than the other stories. Yet in its form, we see the most glaring weakness of the writer. He fabricates melodrama crisscrossing serendipitous romance and tragedy. Why was it so hard to find Glaiza? It wasn't like she migrated to Sorbonne or Belize or somewhere exotic for the wandering Frenchman. All he had to do was retrace his itinerary. Go back to Sabang and ask the boatmen about this nameless girl. Surely, the one and only Vietnamese Restaurant in Vietville could have identified and located the girl who lived just a block away. And why nameless? Was it a secret, otherwise national security is put at risk? Search me. Was the Frenchman mute that he couldn't ask her name? More importantly, wasn't that miscarriage scene too unnaturally concocted? I thought I was daydreaming, watching a continuation of Coco Martin and Julia Montes' "Walang Hanggan".

"Madaling Araw, Mahabang Gabi" is as directionless as its busy poster, and as vague and unfocused as it's ambiguous title. For some strange conceit, Garcia won't even name his characters, further alienating his audience. How else does one relate to anonymous characters? Such ploy could have worked if your film making skill was sufficient; not when you're frittering away in your exposition. The writer and director badly needs a moment to contemplate career changes for his own good. Fielding ones' story with high profile names doesn't necessarily make a great movie - and this flick is a testament to that. 

Why are directors of GMA's "Survivor" reality show horrible film makers? Is it in their diet? Are they subconsciously programmed to be borderline directors? Or do the GMA executives have an affinity towards mediocre talent? 

The part where Bojong Fernandez dresses up into his favorite lady anime character was particularly agonizing. His psychobabble about dressing up and homosexual tendencies were mere ramblings of a scatterbrain with nothing worth saying. These diarrheic ideations were so expendable, you could have stricken out his character and lose nothing to move the film. All I could think of was how my cinema entrance could have been spent better as donation to a children's charity. Not like this. I wanted to scoop out the director, tie him upside down on a tree until he comes to his senses. Stay away from a movie camera. Do something more fruitful. Plant a sineguelas maybe. Volunteer to join the missionaries who travel to Djibouti. Anything but making movies. Do not waste the moviegoers' hard earned money. Please!

Inebriated

A religious girl falls under the spell of the wandering Frenchman.

A French traveler is looking for an anonymous girl. How can he not know her  name? She went  with him to visit the Underground River, not to mention their salubrious lay in the hay.

Karel Marquez and Dominic Roco play out their invalid situational discourse. Unfortunately, not a single moment was credible.

Kean flirts with Cherie where the latter is looked down (by Edgar Allan Guzman) like some shriveled prune.

Bojong Fernandez hams it up: "Hindi ako bakla!"

Posing for posterity.

Angelica Panganiban

Cherie Gil's career embarrassment

Glaiza de Castro

Rocco Nacino plays the homophobic guitar player

David Callum

DJ and model David Callum plays a wandering Frenchman

Regine Angeles

Dominic Roco