Jose Javier Reyes' "Dilim" - Short on Fright

Boy Abunda, who’s seemingly cured from his fungal hepatic abscess, was in top form and being himself one Sunday afternoon, i.e. trying to appear like an intellectual. “Why is your movie called ‘Dilim’ ?“, he asked with exhaustive gravity as though the fate of humanity depended on it . Kylie Padilla sat on her chair with stunned silence, as though slapped by bitter realization, or the dearth of one. She searched for answers, mouth half open, from The Buzz’s studio audience. Nothing.

She didn't know what darkness had to do with her character, it was almost comedic. Nada. Elvis left the building. She could've gone profound or lazily called it metaphor, but she instead looked electrocuted. Wasn't she the Padilla intellectual who was raised in Sydney, sang "Lonely Without You" and “Sulat” for her own CD outing, painted, wrote blog articles and dreamt of being an actress? The movie title would be the first clue if I were to embrace the character of Marites Almario. That same moment, I saw an expression that permeated throughout all the scenes in Padilla's movie debut.

HOME ALONE

In Jose Javier Reyes’ “Dilim”, Marites (Kylie Padilla) moves from Cagayan de Oro to Manila to pursue her college education. Two weeks prior to the start of her classes, she finds herself alone at the 3^rd floor of a four-story dormitory. Her landlord Mang Damian (Manny Castaneda) has to attend to a family emergency in Pangasinan, leaving the disconcerted girl by her lonesome. “Bukas may kasama ka na, yung taga Baguio,” Damian reassures Marites.

That night, as she navigates the empty hallways of De la Rosa Dormitory, Marites gets acquainted with her new home’s creaky floors and dark corners, acutely aware of the sound of a girl crying nearby. Soon there after, she finds Mia (Ella Cruz) who’s more than convivial to meet her. “Taga Nueva Ecija ako. Nagre-review para sa Nursing Board exams,” Mia shares. 

In the morning, after attending mass, Marites is spooked by an old lady who tells her that she has a special gift, and that spirits are drawn to her ("natatangi... tulay"). She shares this with new friend Emerson (Rayver Cruz), a cheerful Criminology student whom she met at Aling Payang’s (Ruby Ruiz) eatery. 

But when another student Ellen arrives a day later, Marites realizes that the Mia she earlier met was the same who disappeared 5 years ago, along with her friend Aya (Nathalie Hart). They were never found. Marites transfers to another dorm hoping to get rid of Mia, but the latter still persistently appears in her dreams, asking for help. When Marites gets hold of Mia’s diary, their back stories start to unravel; a story that leads them to the son of an influential personality, Quinito Castaneda (Rafael Rosell) and his friend Danny (Joross Gamboa). But why is Marites seeing puddles on the floor and sandy foot prints? Are these tip-offs from beyond the grave?

Regal Films once again delivers the story of a protagonist with a “third eye”. Remember Carla Abellana in Aloy Adlawan’s (hold your breath!) “Third Eye”, the movie that initially toyed around with Earth-bound ghosts that soon transformed into zombies that eventually became cannibals? (Someone got so excited he got confused delineating the differences among his monsters.) A not-so-original variety resurrects 8 months later in "Dilim" (Darkness). Exciting, right?

Kylie Padilla turns in a one-note performance framed by a single facial expression seen from scene one until the last frame. If she wore a mask, it wouldn't have made any difference (reference: Derek Ramsay in all of his film appearances). Padilla’s joyless demeanor is so dour you’d wonder why anyone would even bother to speak to her. While I was made aware of her back story (father left when she was a child; she’s estranged from her mother; her next of kin is an aunt who works as a nurse in Hong Kong), Padilla effortlessly captures the essence of somnambulism in all its clinical criteria.

When Marites tells the police about a new name that could lead them to solving the crime, the cop tells them, “Pakitaan nyo ako ng pruweba.” Wasn’t that his job? Does this mean that in criminal cases, such as this, common people should gather all the evidence and interrogate witnesses? Present the aforementioned to the police before they make arrests? Huh? Then the same police man contacts Quinito informing him of Marites’ interest on the case. Why did the cop even care for Quinito’s sake? The latter didn’t even seem to know him. There is a fragmented series of ideas here too indicative to be real.

In another scene, Danny tracks down Marites’ whereabouts. He then invites Marites and Emerson to go with him to Sirena Beach Resort in Cavite – the same night they were introduced. What was so urgent five years after a disappearance that the meeting would have to be done on the same evening they first met? And why all the way to Cavite? If you were Marites, would you allow a complete stranger to take you to a distant place – just to discuss something that transpired 5 long years ago? Can’t they discuss this over, hmmm, coffee? I’d say a Starbucks scenario would be convenient for a mysterious disappearance, right? (wink wink) So if a stranger took them to Mars, they wouldn't think twice about it? The sense of urgency is baffling.

If Marites indeed was a magnet for ghosts, why was she being pursued by Mia alone? Aya didn't even bother talk to her. Selective affinity, perhaps? Maybe the other ghosts smell something rancid in her - or she just wasn't a very personable seance?

When Marites and Emerson finally meet Quinito, gunfight and fisticuffs ensue. Marites and Emerson were dragged to the sea, a scenario that duplicates Mia and Aya’s fate five years ago. Just before drowning them, our restless ghosts suddenly walk up from the bottom of the sea to help Marites and Emerson. Hell hath no fury like a couple of scorned ghosts, debah? Ay, so kaaliw. Mia and Aya, decked with sea weeds hanging down their heads, attack their murderers as our hapless bidas watch in horror. Then the story abruptly ends. Credits roll.

Quinito and Danny frequent the same beach resort where Mia and Aya were murdered. And why not? Quinito seems to own the resort. But what prevented the "ghosts" from attacking Quinito and Danny before? They obviously don’t need Marites to exact revenge, do they? In fact, Marites did not do anything special to coax our restless ghosts to rise from the bottom of the ocean. No magic spells nor special incantations were cast. What was Marites’ raison d’etre for this story then?   

Jose Javier Reyes is no stranger to horror films. He’s done half a dozen of the genre in the past, including “Malikmata”, “Spirit of the Glass”, “Matakot Ka sa Karma” and “Kutob”. Though not particularly innovative as a film maker, Reyes tells engaging stories. I was looking forward to his insight on the genre. After all, this is one film maker who can dish out about film language as eloquently as the scholars and cineastes. 

Moreover, the director is also a self-proclaimed fan of Stephen King (not to mention Edgar Allan Poe) whose short story inspired Peter Askin’s recent film “A Good Marriage” (2014), thus I was hoping for an unsettling time at the movies. In “A Good Marriage”, a contented wife (Joan Allen) wakes up one morning and realizes that her husband (Stephen Lang) of 25 years could be the serial killer who’s been murdering women all over the state. 

“Dilim” isn't just derivative. It is short on “fright” as well. The narrative details don’t mesh like hand in glove. Detail is usually Reyes’ strong suit, but in a genre where he obviously grasps at straws, Reyes gets desultory. He is technically ill at ease weaving his narrative, especially when he starts building up suspense. At the peak of what could have been the climax, he loses steam and fails to find an appropriate narrative denouement. The sudden ending stunned me as much as it did Kylie Padilla when she was asked by Abunda why her film was called “Dilim”. Here is one unfinished story. Budget constraints? Or just plain lazy film making?

In an interview, Reyes discusses his thoughts, “As a filmmaker, your mettle and technical skills using film language are brought (???) to a test when you do horror projects.” Someone just failed his test.

Rayver Cruz and Kylie Padilla

Pretty Kylie

Rayver Cruz

Rafael Rosell

A Mother's Story - Accountable Tragedies

The Filipino migrant worker has embraced the concept of 3D jobs, an American neologism that refers to “Dirty, Dangerous and Demeaning”. These jobs bring higher wages due to a shortage of willing qualified workers. Such employments engage in high risk, low status works. What’s baffling, some of these people aren’t even paid all that well.

Medy Santos (Pokwang) is desperately coming up for air. Her dubiously invalid husband Gerry (Noni Buencamino) refuses to work, and has turned to gambling; even their utility budget gets usurped. When Medy gives birth to her second child, she only had herself to turn to. Moreover, her mother (Daria Ramirez) constantly nags her to find a job abroad. The road to riches is nowhere found on local shores. When an actress offers Medy the chance to work with her for her 10-day U.S. tour, she reluctantly grabs the opportunity and leaves the care of her children to her mother and best friend (Ana Capri).

One serendipitous day, she meets Helen (Beth Tamayo), her erstwhile childhood best friend who has left a daughter in Manila, but has since remarried to an elderly American. She tries convincing Medy to stay and find her fortune there, at the risk of earning an illegal status. The day before her flight back to Manila, Medy gets a distressed call from Gerry. Queenie (Xyriel Manabat), her youngest, was rushed to the hospital and she had to send money – fast! It wasn’t even considered that she was coming home the next day.

En route to the airport, Medy is circumspect – and swiftly detours away. She decides to stay. After all, coming home seems like a dead-end option for dearth. And her children need to feed, go to school, see doctors. With Helen’s help, Medy takes odd jobs helping out at a children’s class. But as days pass, it becomes clear that illegal immigrants enjoy paltry rights, thus couldn’t earn more than they should. Helen offers her a better paying job (try $800) – that of a live-in house keeper in a household of a constantly squabbling lawyer couple. What’s worse, they take her passport and throw her in an otherwise nonhabitable room. She isn’t allowed to leave the premises except the occasional foray outside to put out the garbage.

For the next couple of years, Medy lives her miserable days oppressed and mistreated. Her only link to the world outside is Helen who runs errands for her, sending money to Medy’s family and dropping her Balikbayan boxes. But Medy gradually unearths a ruse: Helen receives a considerable percentage of the money she earns. With hands mashed by manual labor and a crumbling soul, Medy – with the help of her employer’s daughter – finds the courage to escape. Will Medy succeed?

Medy’s story is a cautionary tale of courage and perseverance, and it’s obvious that this will resonate loudly among Filipinos whose fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters work overseas. But this tale of heartbreaking quandary is showing interminable urgency. We’ve lived with this for three decades and we’ve grown accustomed to such humdrum tragedy. The plot gets more tiresome when Medy – after seven years – finds her way home. Suddenly, the mouths she’s been feeding turn against her. She’s suddenly the neglectful mother to her idiotic son King (Rayver Cruz). Her sickly daughter (Manabat) doesn’t know her. Her mother just stares with woeful I-told-you-so’s when she complains of her children’s apparent alienation (“Pitong taon kang nawala.”). Gerry, her husband, wouldn’t even meet her at the airport.

Though there is a degree of diversion in Medy’s story, you couldn’t help shake the excessive complot to weave a story as deplorable, almost disconsolate – nothing short of calamitous – as Medy’s. Many of the characters are caricatures and cardboard depictions – like Medy’s American employers, husband Gerry, Medy’s son King, et.al. – you are somehow taken to the world of Walt Disney where anti-heroes look like villains, growl like devils and move with sinister deportment. Such is the failure of this narrative, where black is black and white is white. Life, if you’ve noticed, has gray hues in between, and blotches of colors and shades. This is why Beth Tamayo’s performance lends a degree of inscrutability for this cinematic vehicle. Tamayo tempers her underwritten part with due restraint; it’s hard to peg her as friend or foe. Like most people, Tamayo shows reflections of humanity – actions guided by motives, yet there’s also the inherent goodness grappling with moral dilemmas (she has gambling problems; her marriage is falling apart; she needs to send money for her daughter back home). Tamayo luminously shines in 2012’s first local release!

Pokwang tries hard as Medy, and it’s easy to empathize with someone who has experienced the hardships of being a migrant worker. She has probably endured more than Medy (didn’t she lose a daughter while working in Japan?) Unfortunately, Pokwang peppers her performance with sprinkles of humor which don’t quite make the grade. (“Aatend ng kombulsyon sa Amerika.”) It was an artistic choice to lighten what’s a decidedly sappy narrative, but such moments feel displaced. The more glaring realization is that we’re watching Pokwang play herself. That isn’t so bad, but not all that good either.

It’s hard not to challenge some illogical choices in director John-D Lazatin's narrative. King, the character played by Rayver Cruz, Medy’s eldest child, is particularly perturbing. If he was indeed intelligent as the story has him, wasn’t it ever an issue that his father was merely posturing as an invalid? Was Gerry sitting in a wheelchair? Yes, he limped, but that never stopped people from finding work. Heck, people with greater physical disabilities – polio victims, amputees – even become lawyers and doctors. Wasn’t it crystal that if there were one negligent parent; it would readily single out the patriarch who refused to seek work? And wasn’t it the grandmother’s métier to educate her grandchildren why their mother chose to stay away? Or was she merely happy to receive her monthly stipend? She was the moving force behind her daughter’s migration. These were obvious lapses in the story. You may drop a tear or two, but at the back of your mind, you knew you’re riding the perfunctory mechanics of melodrama. And it helps that Dodgie Simon penned such a heart breaking melody in Carol Banawa’s “Sakaling Malimutan Ka”.

Life sometimes reeks of tragedy, and we’re accountable for half of it.

Helen and Medy



Employers from hell



Mother and daughter share light moments



Son King blames mother Medy

Bianca Manalo and Connie Reyes Shine in MMK's Endearing "Cross-Stitch

Sometimes the realm of love isn't exclusive between two people, making it a more complicated matter than it's supposed to be. It can entail stretching your affectionate blanket to the people you're both surrounded with - the immediate family!

In the recent episode of "Maalaala Mo Kaya" titled "Cross-Stitch", Rey and Mildred (Rayver Cruz and beauty queen Bianca Manalo) are a young couple in love. Though their relationship seems to run smoothly, Rey's Tiya Armelita (Connie Reyes) provides a substantial bump in the road. Simply put, the aunt doesn't like Mildred and she has no qualms showing her dislike. To the surly spinster who reared Rey as a child, Mildred is "hindi mabuting babae". As Mildred tries doubly hard to please her, it becomes clear she will never be good enough for the irritable aunt. This eventually leads to Mildred breaking up with Rey. But two years into the future, Rey and Mildred find each other again. Though they still have feelings for each other, Tiya Armelita is still in the picture. In fact, her resolve against Mildred is as resolute as ever! How do they summon a happy ever after? Or won't they?

Though the first half of the story treads into comic grounds (the church scene, the noodle-sucking scene, the perfume-at-the-market scene, the kitchen tutorials), the latter half soon finds the couple directly confronting their dilemma - and failing miserably!

Bianca Manalo portrays Mildred with an easy and graceful countenance, thus her regal bearing adequately subjugating whatever bad mannerisms that newcomers are commonly afflicted. In such instances, such inherently "queenly" poise can render an actress bland or flat (see: Gloria Diaz in "Ang Pinakamagandang Hayop sa Balat ng Lupa"; Charlene Gonzales in "Ikaw Ang Miss Universe ng Buhay Ko", "Dyesebel"). The MMK episode can boast of some powerful moments here: When Tiya Armelita confronts her for letting Rey sleep in her place during a storm (without saying much, she limns emotions of embarrassment and self pity - and without resorting to histrionics); When Rey and Mildred go out for the first time after a 2 year break-up, then Rey takes her palm and writes "I love you" (and we see Bianca in her quiet brilliance as tears just flow).

Of course, Bianca is a novice. This would be her first take on a full-bodied character (she's basically a walk-on character in "Magkaribal") and she does well. The scene where she eventually invites Tiya Carmelita to her wedding seems a bit cruddy, but can you imagine what she would be capable to do on her 5th lead role?

Now, let me move on to the fabulous Connie Reyes. It is really hard to say any more than how brilliant this actress is! After all, isn't she among the first to star in a top rating drama anthology ("Connie Reyes On Camera") on television? Connie Reyes humanized the caricaturish Tiya Carmelita so much so that we sincerely understood her character.

MMK mines stories of ordinary people like they are resplendent treasures. And we do salute Ms. Charo Santos-Concio for celebrating the lives of the Filipinos in beautifully told stories.

Connie Reyes

Post Script:

Congratulations to Miss Venus Raj for placing 5th at the recent Miss Universe Beauty Pageant in Vegas. It was a bit of an embarrassment hearing her with a silly reply that bordered on stupidity, considering she's a Journalism graduate "with honors". I had an inkling she was in trouble when she started with a "You, know, sir" followed by a gay beauty contest boxed reply: "Thank you very much for that question!" I actually thought hers was the easiest among the questions asked that night (regulation of internet use among minors, costume and the freedom of choice, death penalty). In fact, isn't that a tired routine question asked in pageants? Every seasoned pageant veteran must know the answer to that!

Let's hire an interpreter next time. I used to be so resistant with this idea in the past, but hey, reality is, English isn't our native tongue, and when beauty pageants require beauty queens to be able to express themselves, present a scholastic discourse, and expound on a topic, they should be able to do so in their dialect - be it Tagalog or Visayan or Tausug. Hiring an interpreter would also bide them those precious few seconds to fork out and exhume a legible, unflustering reply before opening their mouth!

Donald Trump, according to a tweet by Dyan Castillejo, even said: "She looks like she was born into royalty!" Major royal blunder, that is. And if I do express disappointment over this fiasco, it's not because we disrespect her. But maybe we believed so much of what she was capable of doing. I am sure she felt the same. She wanted that crown more than we do. Isn't that thought comforting?

Overnight, a part of me was grieving for missed opportunities. The Universe crown was practically hers. Even U.S. talk shows said so. Until she opened her mouth! But milk has been spilled, and the fact is, she finished 5th among 83 beautiful, talented girls all over the globe. She clobbered 78 other girls, including Ms. USA! Atta girl! On that perspective, this victory is nothing to scoff at. Not quite what we had in mind, but not a bad deal at all.

Let's all wait for another 11 years for a top 5 finish, ok? Maybe by then we'll have a "major, major" victory.