Lucas Mercado's Imahinasyon - One Track Mind

Jeram (Luigi Romero) is haunted by a recurring dream about a wandering “diwata” – a fairy named Diana (Thea Alvarez) who’s as enchanting as she is beautiful. Her mirage has so besotted him that he roams around Manila hoping he would find her. He enlists the help of his best buddy Ruval (Oliver Lacson) who keeps reminding him to seek clues as to Diana’s whereabouts, “Maghanap ka ng mga palatandaan sa iyong panaginip para malaman natin ang lugar.” He then gathers his clues: lush vegetation, spring, bridge, and a lookout point where buildings are seen from a distance.

One day, Jeram and Ruval decide to head to the back roads of a town called “Punong Bato” where Jeram’s dreams lead him. He just knew this was where he was supposed to go. Jeram and Ruval brave the desolate nowhere, punctuated by trees and an idyllic falls. They eventually find the bridge and walk further until they had to rest up, sleeping under the sky. Later, they find a shanty where a hospitable couple welcomes them with wide open arms. We’re writers, they reason out to explain their presence. The couple, Ana and Angelo (Thea Alvarez and Derick Gonzaga), offers their humble dwelling. But Jeram couldn’t take his eyes off Ana who’s spitting image of the girl in his dreams. Has he found her?

When Angelo leaves for the farm, Ana seduces Jeram. She tells him that she knew of him (is she a clairvoyant?), but had to marry Angelo after the latter forced himself on her. Jeram tries to convince Ana to runaway with him but she refuses. She couldn’t leave Angelo because they’ve been sanctified by the church and marriage, to her, is sacred. So is a union predicated on sexual assault? How upstanding, right? Jeram is heartbroken, but acquiesces. They leave the woods where, after a nap, Jeram finds himself locked in romantic embrace with – hold your breath – Ruval, his best friend. From his immediate heartbreak, he gets an epiphany that he belongs to Ruval. Ain’t that a blast?

Best friends Ruval (Oliver Lacson) and our protagonist Jeram (Luigi Romero) look for  Diana along Ilog Pasig! 

Director Lucas Mercado (the purveyor of some of indie cinema’s most idiotic movies I generally call “Moron Cinema” simply because these films do not follow the tenets of common sense, don’t subscribe to logic or chronology, and are generally perplexed by their own design) is back!

Mercado, who's allegedly a physician by profession – que horror!, mines his incipient ideas and expounds on them by infusing his fixations with homosexuality and the mindless exposition of nubile male flesh! This one-track mind sets him apart from others because he blindly and randomly dwells on them in wild abandon, peppering his scenes with needless suggestions when they’re not wanted. This is found even in the most mundane scenes.

DIANA MUST BE A GUY?

When Jeram tells his friend Ruval about Diana, the latter asks:”Baka naman lalaki si Diana!” which was answered with, “Kahit na anupaman siya, mamahalin ko siya! Ang pag-ibig walang pinipiling kasarian!” How ennobling, I was going to stand up and shout “encore”. This was a more fitting sentiment that deserved an ovation more than my forays at the Royal Albert Hall in London. While roaming the metropolis, Ruval would occasionally taunt Jeram with: “Hahalikan kita diyan, eh!” Then later: “Kung totohanin ko ba, kakalimutan mo na si Diana?” Didn’t I say one-track mind? J

Mercado once again hires his fly-by-night make-up artists, painting his stars (male stars, mostly) with livid red lipsticks even when they’re supposed to be sleeping in bed. What’s worse, he is fond of extreme close ups that highlight the pasty foundation and thick paints of these koloretes that somehow emasculate his actors in eternal states of bareness. Like his recent “Hiram na Ama”, he has them alternately donning skimpy white briefs or traffic-stopping incandescent red bikinis while frolicking in the batis. 

The actors are mostly limited by the director’s paltry skill to actually stage - or film - a scene. The blockings are all awkward. Their abecedarian facility are on full highlight, I shall forever take pity on these gentleman for having been exploited for the hormonal avocation of the director (who I believe is also the founding head of a cringe-worthy male beauty pageant). In fact, you feel like you’re watching science fiction instead of a dramatic yarn. This is mostly because the story is wanting of narrative fluidity or reason. When Jeram leaves Ana, he was dejected. After all, Ana was literally the "girl of his dreams" - and refused to run away with him. Hours later, he is seen canoodling with his best friend’s bratwurst. Jeram and Ruval were, after all, kindred spirit and soul mates. Diana turned into a guy? How quaint! Kaya pala fairy si Diana – she who so loved to play with magic wands! LOL

EXTREME HILARITY

There are moments of extreme, albeit inadvertent hilarity. Whenever Jeram would tell Ruval about Diana and his dreams, the latter would send him back to sleep: "Matulog ka ulit! Maghanap ka ng palatandaan tapos sabihin mo sa akin!" Where on earth do you find hard clues from dreams except in Lucas Mercado's alternate world. In another scene, Jeram is seen sleeping with his reading glasses on. When he wakes up, he stretches his arms and removes them. When exactly does one put on a reading glass, when he's asleep? Ohgawd!

This time around, Mercado makes use of a skilled "nature" cinematographer, peppering his scenography with nature scenes, you inadvertently ask, does nature figure in Mercado’s story? A protracted “rape” scene between Ana and Angelo was mostly superimposed with the flow of the waterfall, and you’re left wondering why. I feel like I need to organize a film making workshop for Lucas Mercado, Cris Pablo, Paul Singh Cudail, G.A. Villafuerte, Darry dela Cruz and their cohorts just to help and teach these lost souls the basics of storytelling! After all, they’re honorable emeritus members of an enviable club called “How Not To Tell A Story”.

Thea Alvarez

 Is there enough genitalia “hanging” around this work? Not a lot, really. Luigi Romero, who’s more comfortable here than in “Hiram na Ama” and “Trabajador (Men@Work)”, displays a couple of shower scenes (come on, what’s a Pink Film without one, right?) while Oliver Lacson displays his shortcomings in another: the phone has to ring while he’s taking the shower. This is imperative! Otherwise, when he’s all clothed, the phone wouldn’t ring, debah? When it hangs, it rings!

SPOILERS!

Whatever happened to Ana and Angelo? You gotta sit back and hold your horses! Ana and Angelo were actually ghosts. (They were victims of a massacre! Imagine that!) But as a ghost, Angelo couldn’t father a child (a similar dilemma in “Hiram na Ama”) thus Ana had to appear in Jeram’s dream to lure the hapless young man into their spider’s web. Very E.B. White indeed. Why do ghosts need a child I wonder? I love babies, but a baby ghost? I have never heard of something this absurd. Nor have I heard of ghosts getting impregnated by a living soul. Surely, this spectacular tale goes straight to the books for its imagination!

No wonder they called this “Imahinasyon”. Lucas Mercado couldn’t resist his ferocious mental fabrication. He deserves a cage!

Thea Alvarez and Derick Gonzaga

Oliver Lacson and Luigi Romero in traffic-stopping briefs.

Oliver Lacson and Derick Gonzaga: Notice the heavy blush on and red lipstick.

Lacson, Alvarez, Romero and Gonzaga: Imagination or the lack of it.

Lucas Mercado's Hiram na Ama - Lipsticks, White Briefs and Natural Insemination

Baguio City - Ross and Peachy (Brando Madrigal and Angel del Rio respectively) are a young couple who learn a day before their wedding that Ross has azoospermia, a medical condition where a male doesn’t have a measurable level of sperm in his semen. This is associated with sterility – the inability to bear children through natural means. Distraught, the couple turns to a physician (Dr. Lito de la Merced) who advises on artificial insemination; an anonymous sperm donor is required for the procedure.

One day, Ross meets Rico and Bimbo (Ian Mencias and Luigi Romero), two chirpy, but cash-strapped college freshmen. Not an hour later, the three guys become fast friends. Ross unravels his dilemma and, in the process, recruits two willing sperm donors. He hands them a thousand bucks each (a donor will supposedly fetch P20,000 for his “uncomplicated and professional” services) – without even getting their full name, mind you – then he runs back home to inform his wife.

Unfortunately, there’s another hitch: Ross realizes that he couldn’t afford the expensive procedure. So he hatches a plan: the whole baby-making scheme turns au naturel! He pays the guys 50% of the agreed rate, then the two guys get it on with the enthusiastic young wife! To render participatory role, Ross even joins the sexual syntagma. “Para naman maramdaman kong meron akong partisipasyon,” he enthuses. Convenient, yes? Will Ross and Peachy succeed with their plan?

Brando Madrigal and Angel del Rio as young couple Ross and Peachy

Like most of his movies, director Lucas Mercado grapples in the dark while he laboriously expounds on his incipient idea. He navigates his narrative with blind skills and tentative exposition. What’s more tragic is how spare he paints his cinematic canvas with vacuous motives and one-dimensional characters as clueless as he is. To accommodate the requirement of the Pink genre, Rico and Bimbo intermittently turn gay whenever they’re in the privacy of their room, which they share! In fact, if you’re that part of the population who considers genital sighting a mark of quality film making, then you’re in for an “excellent movie”. Ian Mencias, now rechristened Jeremy Ian, somehow mimics a slumbering snake, if you won’t blink for 10 seconds! LOL

The actors – heavily made up in every frame - sleepwalk through most of their scenes. When Brando Madrigal implores the heavens for a miracle (he constantly prays at the Grotto), he might as well recite the alphabet; at least we could relate to that than his gibberish! It doesn’t help that sound is mostly drowned out by either noise or unregulated music. Yes, there’s a degree of sacrifice where auditory sensation is concerned too.

Romero as Bimbo and Mencias as Rico

Film editing is none but a brainless calisthenics. Some scenes are recklessly misplaced. Consider this: You see Rico and Bimbo inside their room, half naked on their bed. The next frame cuts to another scene where the guys arrive from class, while they “report” to their landlord (Dr. Wally Perez) who dispenses “maternal” words of wisdom. Cut to: both guys, once again on their separate beds; Bimbo is preoccupied tintinnabulating his “bells”, oblivious to his friend just an arm stretch away! Once Bimbo finishes, Rico follows suit! How swell! No pun intended!

The camera work is horrendous. When Madrigal delivers a line (with Burnham Park’s lake behind him), the camera struggles to linger on his face which remains unfocused throughout his spiel. We instead get to see fragments of people boating behind Madrigal’s mug! Isn’t camera proficiency basic in a visual medium like cinema? Or has professional cinema made mediocrity acceptable? Of course we know the answer. It’s pure rhetoric. We just needed to stress the futility of it all.

Then there’s the thick accent of Ian: “May prublima ka ba?”, “Ayaw ku ng alak, di nakaka sulb ng prublima!”, “Di dapat kilala ang dunur”, “Tutuu, kilangan namin ng pira!” While his character hails from the south, there’s stark carelessness in the execution of scenes, like they were in desperate rush before the world is decimated by an oncoming moon in the vein of Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia”!

Even the doctor (Dr. de la Merced), who’s heavily made up – donning a thick paste of blood red lipstick - is prone to such distracting accent: “sperm washing” becomes “sperm WASSING”! If you thought you misheard it, he shall repeat it again for your peace of mind – “SPERM WASSING”! Oh Jeeves! The insightful doctor was going to perform the procedure (artificial insemination), but when asked how much it would cost the couple, his reply: “Hindi ko alam!” I almost broke my lovely nails as I gripped my arm rest in utter disgust. If you’re not the authority, what were you doing there in the first place?

What’s this movie doing in a commercial cinema anyway? This remains an inscrutable mystery.

Ian Mencias is now Jeremy Ian. The film was in the can as early as 2 years ago.


Luigi Romero

Lucas Mercado's Trabajador (Men @ Work) : Flesh-Peddling Desperation

Guiller and Dexter (Kenjie Salvino and Luigi Romero, respectively) are new graduates subsisting in the squalor of the slums. Ambitious Guiller, a business administration grad, is desperate for a promotion at the company where he works. He craves for the luxury that insouciant Dexter is flaunting. But don’t they earn the same? Turns out Dexter enjoys the patronage of a rich lover Hector (Albert Rosales) who provides him with frills.

Meanwhile, graduating schoolmates Steve and Xander (CJ Manalo and Macky Monteclaro, respectively) find it hard to keep up with their scholastic activities. Steve is a sidewalk vendor and needs the dough to take his sick mother to a doctor. But what he earns doesn’t suffice. He turns to Xander whose making hay peddling his flesh to the random libidinous sidewalk strangers who require his services. Swamped with immediate concerns, Steve and Xander are unable to attend some of their classes, to the consternation of their swimming coach Sir Morris (Marky Ilustre) who happens to live in the same area. With graduation just around the corner, Steve and Xander are in dire straits.

When Guiller’s boss suddenly leaves overseas, the position is filled in by his boss’ son, an accommodating guy with whom Guiller gets chummy. “Gagawin ko’ng lahat ng inuutos n’yo, tulungan nyo lang ako ma promote (I’ll do whatever you ask, just help me get a promotion),” Guiller hints. That same night, his new boss invites him out for dinner. As he gains ground to his boss’ graces, he finds himself being willingly canoodled into his superior’s bed. Much later, his boss propositions him with a milk curdling deal. Another guy will join them for a threesome. He accedes not knowing that the third party is his friend Dexter (who himself is in the dark). Would the trio find their concupiscent encounter satisfying? Guess.

Lovers Dexter and Hector (Luigi Romero and Albert Rosales, respectively)

Make no mistake, most of the drudging narrative is fabricated to get these men in various states of undress. In fact, there would be half a dozen familiar scenes where any of the characters would arrive home, get inside their bedroom, undress until they’re in their skimpy white bikini briefs, then they caress their chests as their hands gradually slide down their crotches. Almost each one has this gratifyingly imaginative scene, even their teacher Sir Morris. CJ Manalo, Mercado’s protégé - he was in the director’s “Libido” (2009) and “Darang” (2010) - appears in a few full frontals as he soaps up his teeny weenies while he lathers his thighs on full frame display. Quite a fetching scene actually, as it underscores the sole essence of this flick.

Kenjie Salvino, possessing boy-next-door good looks, takes second lead. He appears more relaxed here than in his cinematic debut, Mercado’s “Bata Pa si Rafael”, and has pretty much discarded the potbelly he sported in Mercado’s “Rigodon”. This is a welcome development. Unfortunately, he isn’t tasked to do much except a couple of things: (a) walk around with long sleeved shirt and a tie, (b) get naked and look orgasmic while he’s being pleasured by his boss. He even voiced his observation: “Kay Hector, sex with love. Ako, pang alis libog lang.” Quite perceptive, if I may say so. The ménage a trios was an exercise in dullness, it would have been more entertaining swatting flies or clipping my toe nails. With stolid and obtuse scenes, where has Mercado’s imagination gone? Seduction is all but lost in sheer nudity. In Mercado’s teetering talent, erotica sits where his actors shed their clothes off. Nothing else. They get naked; that’s erotic. Very bright, right?

Guiller (Kenjie Salvino) and Hector (Albert Rosales) work and play together.

The production value leaves much to be desired. With clearly a non-existent budget, we find the extensive use of canned music. In the opening shot alone, the camera pans a row of shanties in a city slum on mid-day, while a music plays: David Mann and Bob Hilliard’s 1955 classic, “In The Wee Small Hours of the Morning”. I almost fell off my chair. FYI, Mr. Mercado, “wee hours of the morning” is sometime between midnight and sunrise. Not daytime when the sun’s up and blazing away. Mercado utilizes copyright music (try “Everytime You Go Away” while someone scrubs the callous off his feet) as though the music industry is his playshop.

Working students Steve (CJ Manalo) and Xander (Macky Monteclaro) perform in a live show to finance their immediate needs (Steve's sick mother; Xander's family in the province has urgent financial requirement).

The fielding of each scene is hammy and puttering, at best. You wanted first hand knowledge where Mercado (who both directed and wrote the script) exactly learned his film making skill, that way you could warn people off. Even the lines are stripped of sense:

Hector: Alam mo, may mga gabing natatakot ako.

Guiller: Saan, sir, sa dilim? Sa magnanakaw?

Hector: Bored lang ako.

Huh? What the heck was he saying? He’s scared because he’s bored? LOL. Brilliant deductive reasoning when you're just being gibberish. Isn’t “Logic” a part of any college curriculum? Enroll in one, Mr. Mercado, fast!