Tumbok - Exhaustingly Marooned in Cliche

When I was a child, I had a yaya who flourished in her fantastical stories. It was a childhood replete with the most vivid tales of folk lore and superstitions. She loved scaring me until I was blue and shaking under my sheets. But then she would smile and assure me that bad things happen only to bad people. How naïve, right? But it was sweet, and I soon learned to cope. Children are resilient and learn to adjust in time. I still get my goose bumps when watching horror flicks, but I can now sit through a marathon of them wearing a poker face, seemingly without care, but with toes curled down below.

“Tumbok” is one of those superstitions that I’ve come across early on. It’s when a street or two converge, and this focal point becomes the epicenter of bad luck. This is the point of contention in Topel Lee’s “Tumbok”.

Young couple Ronnie (Carlo Aquino) and Grace (Cristine Reyes) inherit a room in a doddering, ramshackle building right where three streets converge. Most of its tenants have all but deserted this tenement, except for the few occupants in the same floor as Grace and Ronnie’s. The transfer has been smooth as the couple is being ushered into their new abode, with great help coming from their landlord Mark (Ryan Eigenmann). But things go bump in the dark, and Grace is plagued by visions and sounds that don’t quite exist on second sight. Gradually, a series of mishap characterize the fate of the building’s inhabitants: an explosion at the students’ room; a constantly bickering couple (Wendy Valdez and DJ Durano). Moreover, there’s a ghostly child named Yumi who vanishes just as quickly.

Furthermore, cataclysms seem to follow the couple. Ronnie develops a non-healing wound where worms crawl out of and Grace starts dreaming of being taken advantaged by Mark. Even job opportunities where Grace has already been accepted disappear (the employing officer dies). Are these things related to their present home? Lumen (LJ Moreno), the couple’s cousin, soon confirms this, albeit fatally so.

CONGESTED THOUGHTS

Early on, the story is congested with recurring scenes set to establish an atmosphere of dread: an off-kilter music that suddenly turns into loud bangs saunters along with visions of ashen faced children – peeping through doors, gazing from the foot of the stair, morbidly dipped under water in a tub, or gliding sideways behind their backs. How much mood do you need when you find this gimmick nauseatingly repeated 5 times in the first 20 minutes of the movie! Does it get scarier the more we repeat it? The element of surprise dissipates as quickly after the 5^th appearance-disappearance and this “contraption” becomes exhausting. You end up getting sensitized - and it isn't even half way through the whole movie.

Unfortunately, there are more derivative scenes you can easily identify from ten dozens of horror flicks: doors suddenly opening (this happens 4x or so); the protagonist waking up from a bothersome dream (this happens 3x); invisible creatures creeping under the bed; crawling hands moving under the blanket then sliding through the hair; ghouls posturing behind Cristine or Carlo like they are about to devour them, but when they look behind, there’s no one there. Yup, all of the above, with nauseating regularity.

Where is the T in T-junction?

At some point in the film, you realize Topel Lee is stuck in a narrative plateau. Yes, the director has an enviable cinematic eye. He creates images that reek with mood and an impending doom, but he has, of late, been victim to the “horror checklist”. He dutifully enumerates them in his cinematic pad, then peppers the whole story with “lots of it”. We are seeing him in an unflattering light. The realization becomes clear: Topel Lee is not a competent story teller. In this movie, he is completely at a loss. Desperately!

I once rationalized this suspicion and pointed the blame to mainstream film making because I have seen his “Dilim” (2005, with Mario Magallona and Rica Peralejo) and the “Ang Manunulat” segment of the omnibus project “ImaheNasyon”. These two films were progressive and entertaining works from Lee. But let’s check out his last 3 movies: the execrable “White House”, the vomit-inducing “Wapakman” (with Manny Pacquiao, and one of the worst films of the decade), and the uneven “Sundo” (with Robin Padilla and Sunshine Dizon). Clickthecity reviews have been kind to Mr. Lee, but after several movies, I just do not understand a statement like “…but he's capable of so much more.” More what? More of “My Kuya’s Wedding?” After making these last three films, Topel Lee has indeed shown what he is capable of doing. And this isn’t much!

Is there really an immense talent behind someone who shamelessly imitates Yam Laranas’ “ghosts in the tenement” tales? Are people really so forgetful of Laranas “Sigaw” (with Iza Calzado) and its American incarnation “The Echo” (Jesse Bradford and Iza Calzado)? Some of the characters in "Sigaw" included an abusive cop and his battered wife. Lee updates this in "Tumbok" with an abusive security guard and his wife (Durano and Valdez), which is a demotion since, heck, it’s just DJ Durano playing the part, and we don’t want to upstage Carlo Aquino who is the police department’s official photographer, do we? These “trapped characters” keep re-experiencing these events in vicious cycle. Wasn’t that the delectable conceit in Yam Laranas’ movie’s epilogue?

Even the details are indolent. When Ronnie bangs at the door of the rambunctious students to ask them to pipe down, they just ignore him. So he pulls his police badge out from somewhere under his shorts! When he visits a hospital to see his wife, he once again flashes his badge when all he needs to do is ask for the room number since he is the patient’s husband after all. His badge is glued somewhere in the recesses of his ass, and he's just too happy to flash them when he can.

Once again, we turn “medical”. In one scene, Aling Elsie (Malou de Guzman) points out, “Buntis ka? Ang lakas ng pintig ng leeg mo eh.” Distended neck veins are a sign of pregnancy? You better rush that girl to the hospital because such distention is synonymous with right-sided heart failure more than pregnancy. I have never heard of such hogwash! When Ronnie unfolds the bandage from his arm wound, he finds it throbbing and growing, with worms crawling out of a hole, yet we don’t exactly see him rushing to the doctor. He treats it like it's a pimple waiting to be squashed. Cash strapped maybe? “Naubos ang savings ko sa libing ni Lumen,” he reasons later.

Cristine Reyes is an engrossing presence, making this cycle of clichés a wee bit tolerable, and Carlo Aquino makes the most of his low-ranked police officer with an adumbral past. Unfortunately, pairing Reyes and Aquino together was like lighting a torch filled with water, instead of petrol. There isn’t any spark to speak of. Ara Mina and Jao Mapa’s cameos (a side story that supposedly explains Ronnie’s past) feel incongruent to the idea of "tumbok". After all, how can Ronnie forget everything about his origin? A coping mechanism to forget? Was he an amnesiac in the vein of Toni Gonzaga (“My Amnesia Girl”)? Ryan Eigenmann renders the flick some gravitas, but his incubus (a demon who descends upon people to have sexual intercourse with them in their sleep) feels too manipulated a character to be believed, a plot device that doesn't quite hold water. Are we still talking about “tumbok” (“poison arrow” in feng shui) here or is this a separate entity? The devil's child, perhaps? These fusion of ideas clutter around in confusion. But, hey, at least we have a lot of atmospheric shots, di ba?

Finally, just to lay out the concept of “tumbok” on the discussion table, check out our diagram of “tumbok” above (courtesy of www.cavitehomes.com) and compare this with the “other” entity called “Curved Knife” road. Then compare this with the building used in the movie (see the photo above). It hardly describes a “T-junction” to me, does it? Maybe they should have re-titled this one with something more appropriate. Like “Hilo”?

Bonamine, anyone?

Cristine Reyes - engrossing presence

Cristine Reyes

Cristine Reyes

Ryan Eigenmann - enough gravitas

LJ Moreno as Lumen discovers that Ronnie and Grace live right in the heart of superstition.

Senior Year - When Too Much Stories Spoil The Narrative Broth

Jerrold Tarog's "Senior Year" follows the last 4 months in the lives of the graduating class of St. Frederick's Academy, a well-heeled Catholic high school in Alabang with a hundred stories to tell.

There's brainy and hefty Henry (Aaron Balana) who's expected to run away with the Valedictorian plum. He is, in fact, agonizing over his Valedictory Address even before the formal declaration of the honor roll. He harbors special feelings for Sofia, a pretty lass who's more concerned with her social status in school than saving her down-spiraling grades. She eventually turns to the sophisticated Solenn (Nikita Conwi) who moves like a queen and carries herself like the next royalty. Meanwhile, there's young love constantly teetering on the brink of breaking up - Bridget, a campus beauty, and Briggs (Daniel Lumain), the class lothario.

MORE STORIES

There are plenty more side stories that inhabit this cinematic platter, each one as interesting as the next: The female class toughie Bunda who is a constant witness to domestic violence; sports jock Carlo and his minions who terrorize their limp-wristed basketball team mate; the suffering Mitch who craves to join the in-crowd; the teacher who's enduring an abusive relationship; the seemingly harmless anonymous letters sent to Steph by someone who turned out to be a girl. Did you say "enough"?

At some point in the movie, we had to close our eyes to catch our thoughts. It was a demanding exercise following this parade of little stories because just when you're starting to warm up to a character, a new set is introduced. It is difficult to emotionally invest complete empathy when these stories are just superficially grazed through in slap dash fashion. As far as I am concerned, story telling has to have focus. And it's just mentally impossible to aim your attention on 2 dozens of characters laid out in a 2-hour cinematic palette. It's easy to rationalize that this indeed is a story about high school, thus it is peppered with a hundred-and-one characters, but still there has to be ample character definition set on major characters. Having pointed that: "Senior Year" is nevertheless a good movie. It is entertaining, if a bit muddled - and at times confusing.

RJ Ledesma takes on the role of the adult Henry, the class valedictorian. His wistful concerns - while he waits in the car - as his indecision mounts to a fervid dilemma is palpable: would he find the nerve to meet his former classmates at their 10th year anniversary? After all, he didn't become the physician that he was meant to be, but another call center agent. Dimples Romana, as the adult Sofia, provides warmth and a sense of denouement to the iffy tale of Sofia (deftly played by Roxanne de Boda).

Most of the young cast does well: energetic, charming, effusive in expression, but aren't most "kids"? De Boda, Nikita Conwi and Daniel Lumawin register very well, possessing the natural instincts that make actors effective chameleons, they could grace our screens in the coming years and I won't complain.

We have a problem, once again, with Ina Feleo who plays the adult Mitch, and Arnold Reyes as the adult Carlo. They appear at the Homecoming scenes with such smug demeanor, you could swear they devoured something absolutely piquant. Whatever it was, they didn't let us in on that. Kalila Aguilos makes a delectable cameo as the adult Solenn, we almost had to clap for the all-too-similar bearing of the two actresses who both played Solenn.

As to the little stories, isn't it a little too presumptuous to trouble oneself with a Valedictory speech 4 months before graduation? Four months is sometime November, which means there's a lot more exams, quizzes, preliminaries, finals. There's even the tallying of the extra-curricular activities to consider which Henry never seemed to bother with. Most of the time, he stares longingly at Sofia - or worry about his speech. Take my word for it, the speech is the last of your worries when you're running Valedictorian.

We have always admired Jerrold Tarog's story telling acumen. He is such a prolific litterateur that even his peanut gallery pleaser like "Shake, Rattle and Roll's Punerarya" is still a cut above mainstream clutter. Even his music is insightfully appropriate. He is yet to disappoint me as I am such a big fan of his "Confessional" as well as "Mangatyanan". Tarog is a major talent that we shall keep our eyes on in the coming years.

Daniel Lumawin aka Joseph Lumawin: photographs well.

WHERE'S THE MOVIE CROWD?

Now, I shall digress on this issue of patronage of Filipino Films.

Time and again, we have read from online threads and discussion boards the sensible thoughts of seemingly intelligent movie goers who, like myself, continuously complain about mainstream movies churned out by the likes of Star Cinema, Regal Films, Viva Films and GMA Films. But as God is my witness, where are these high and mighty intellectuals? In the first quarter of 2011, very few Tagalog films opened for commercial exhibition, 90% of them vomit-inducing crap! Finally, last week, two good films opened. They weren't Pink Films. Neither were they produced by the aforementioned mainstream film productions. They boasted of a good cast as well, since many people complain about amateur actors. So what is the excuse?

WHERE ARE THE WHINERS?

I watched "Mayohan" (starring Lovi Poe) at the Galleria with my friend Kyle. Aside from us, there were 2 lonely souls watching it with us! Four people came to watch "Mayohan" on a Thursday night! I watched "Senior Year" in Megamall on a Wednesday evening with my mom. Aside from us, there were 4 people watching with us. Six people came to watch "Senior Year" on a Wednesday evening! So I ask again. Where's the darn crowd? Where are these intellectuals who, like me, keep whining about the absence of great Pinoy films? By Friday, the execrable Catherine Hardwicke film, "Red Riding Hood" opened, and both good Pinoy movies were sent to oblivion. So without much fanfare, I say, "Shame on you, Pinoy moviegoers!" You all deserve the cinematic stool that's being fed to you!

Kainis!

Ina Feleo and Arnold Reyes: Embraced by utter smugness!

Dimples Romana is the grown up Sofia.

Ledesma, Romana, Feleo and Reyes, plus Che Ramos who plays the concerned teacher Miss Joan.

"Senior Year", like "Mayohan", had a two-day run at Robinson's Galleria and SM Megamall.

Ian Loreno's "The Leaving" - What Awful Meant in Perfunctory Film Making

I was reeling with antipathy as I left the cinema after watching Ian Loreno's Cinemalaya-entry "The Leaving". There goes my P161 down the gutter! Not only was it rife with an enumerable list of everything you hate from an independent film, it was also careless. And before someone tries to "remind" me again of the "blood, sweat and tears" - as well as the "good intentions" - invested in the making of this abomination, all those gibberish don't mean squat, but the finished product! Truth be told, good intentions don't a good movie make.

The film is subdivided into three "chapters", each one from the point of view of the subset's main character.

"Martin" follows a solitary man (Alwyn Uytingco) who's nursing a broken heart. He's unemployed, unsure whether he'd be content and productive if he joins his folks in the U.S. He lives in a tenement populated by dreadful characters, including a lunatic who recently lost her younger sister from an accident. Though Martin seems to piece the characters together, his side of the narrative is rather dry and uninteresting, as he partakes the role of the lackadaisical observer.

"Lovers" follows an extra-marital affair between married businessman William and travel agent Joan (Arnold Reyes and LJ Moreno, respectively). It soon becomes clear that William's negligent ways eventually lead to Joan's unplanned pregnancy. But on top of her troubles, Joan gets abducted and gang raped the night William stood her up from a date! Joan decides to make a clean break from William, but would he allow her to leave?

"Wife" zeroes in on Grace (LJ Reyes), William's persevering wife. In the course of her sacrifices, Grace rekindles her "friendship" with next-door neighbor Manny who - as it turned out - was her former boyfriend (the one who left a year ago, as narrated by Martin when the movie opened). While Grace begins to unravel William's indiscretions, she gets ghoulish visits from souls that go bump in the night! What's a wife to do.

These disparate characters navigate the bowels of Chinatown, thus we are ushered into a subculture not quite in consonant with what we are used to: Pinoy-looking personalities suddenly lurching into Chinese, spewing alien concepts like "chit gye puah" and "spirit days". It's like "Mano Po" sans the fake eye make-ups. We would have been more tolerant of such inanities if there were more care in the exposition, instead of randomly dropping these concepts like bombs!

Curiously, it's the least developed character that buoys the film into something vaguely navigable, thanks to Uytingco's understated but perceptive performance as Martin who languishes in his own dilemma. LJ Moreno also does well, if a bit too showy as the adulterous Joan. Arnold Reyes, meanwhile, is starting to suffer the Irma Adlawan-syndrome, indulging in livid strokes of characterization that jumps off the screen. He was once a promising indie actor, but these days, he is just too eager to please. And we need to remind him that "less is more". LJ Reyes suffers from irresolute story telling. Was this a dramatic feature? A psychological yarn? A vengeful horror tale this side of Edgar Allan Poe? Baka naman romance? To be honest, it's a bit of everything, making this elementary effort nothing more than a chopsuey of incipient ideas. Its lofty ambition is deemed too unfocused to truly raise any relatable statement.

Now let me veer into its even more annoying aspect: "subtitles"! I am absolutely for the use of English subtitles in local releases as this will open up the film into a bigger, more universal audience. However, if the subtitles are idiotic, it's counterproductive to display it during its local screening as it will expose the cerebral limitations, albeit mediocrity of its makers.

When you're looking at the screen, you can't quite escape badly subtitled lines, and it's very bothersome to say the least. It wouldn't have been too harrowing if these were mere typographical errors, but as the story progressed, it became apparent that erroneous typographs they weren't! Here are some of the several mind-benders:

"Hindi ka pa rin nagbago." becomes "You haven't change."

"Didn't we already talked about this?" (My dears, the word "did" is always preceded by its verb in the present tense! Wasn't that taught in elementary grammar class?)

"You're leaving me for another man, isn't it?" (You must mean, "aren't you?" For a while there, I thought I was watching an episode of "Bubble Gang".)

"Mga jeep na gago." becomes "Rubbish jeepneys." (Again please?)

"Don't let your eyes off our stuffs." (Stuffs?!)

"Salamat doon." becomes "Thank you about that!" (About what? ;-> )

"Why didn't you left with them?" (It's the "did"-rule once again, honey! Why didn't you leave with them!)

"When get home, food is ready." (Ano daw?!)

"If I should leave to the U.S. ..." (Baka naman "leave for...")

Even the use of Tagalog phrases is sketchy, with an oftly repeated "Pumutok na naman ang tseke!" In my world, "pumuputok" refers to a terrorist activity of sending explosives in mails, not of estafa. Is there really an alternate world in the Philippines that uses "putok" when they refer to bouncing cheques? Or were they using euphemisms for "body odor"? LOL

As the movie draws to a close, it further dispenses with more inspiring subtitling: "You look aweful!" (Didn't you mean "awful?" Or did you want to say "awesome?" Those 2 are quite antonymous, even my grade 2 cousin could tell the difference!)

Was my yaya hired for the subtitling job? I could swear she was gone for a couple of days in the last 5 months or so!

As I just came from a visually superior, but atrocious film - Neal Tan's "Tarima", I was desperate for a cinematic salvation to save the day. I should've looked elsewhere.

Consequently, I find it ironic that "The Leaving" actually won "Best Cinematography" at the 2010 Cinemalaya Award when it was obvious cinematography was not among its strong points. Or were the judges visually challenged? Lighting was bad and paucity of resources to design its set was evident. This was a production running on mere nubile ideas - devoid of technical savvy - and the borderline performances of its protagonists (one of whom actually won Best Supporting Actress). This just underlines the obvious - that winning an award is not exactly a pursuit of excellence in this country. How else would you explain "The Leaving's" 3 awards? Serendipity? LOL

We are also seeing Alwyn Uytingco in a different, albeit more positive light. Now that his "baby fats" have pretty much dissipated, he steps up into the limelight as a charismatic, compelling actor. He is effectively subdued as Martin compared to the cloying emotionality of LJ Reyes. And what's with all those ghosts, which I believe was either a misplaced or misused concept!

That they allow the movie-going public to actually dispense hard earned money to waste on this ghastly drivel is nothing short of a criminal offense. That "The Leaving" is borne out of the director's inspiring Berlinale experience is another testament that participation in "prestigious" film festivals shouldn't be construed as synonymous with film making excellence. After all, didn't Mark Shandii Bacolod's "Fidel" walk the same glittery red carpet as did director Ian Loreno?

Now how about this. Let's all line them up. Off with their heads!

LJ Moreno and Arnold Reyes: Are we in a drama? Horror? Comedy?

Alwyn Uytingco: The only glimmer of hope in a sea of banality!