Mes de Guzman's Diablo - Demons and the Family

Nanay Lusing (Ama Quiambao) lives in the looming presence of what seems like a demon. In a resplendent white house that’s seen better days, she alone maneuvers around familiar but empty hallways, once populated by five sons that have since grown up and moved on. At night, she dines alone, breathless from the occasional shaking of the ground. After bedtime prayers, she settles down her bed with midnight radio blaring loudly – her sole companion in the dead of night. But Nanay Lusing is frozen stiff, sleepless and wide awake from her room's hovering presence. This scenario repeats nightly.

Her sons occasionally visit, but they never stay on. Oscar (Carlo Aquino) heads a horde of religious cult followers, wearing white robes, and dwelling in a cave. He intermittently visits, bearing green mangoes, his mother’s favorite. Fernando (Fredie dela Cruz), a gun-toting military man. Ronaldo (Jose Escobedo) works in a mine. Ruben (Arnold Reyes) farms the rice lands. Ruben hasn’t spoken to his mother in a long time and spitefully avoids her visits. Alberto (Roeder Camanag) is Nanay Lusing’s itinerant, volatile, needy, albeit charming son. He’s perceived to be the favorite, despite his propensity to ask more than he deserves. Alberto lights up Lusing’s room with boundless energy and put-on affection so it’s understandable why she is drawn to him.

One day, he comes home, telling her stories of heart ache; his big city pawnshop has closed shop and he tells her he’s coming home for good. He brings along Angela (Althea Vega) who shall attend to Nanay Lusing’s needs (she recently suffered a fall due to osteoporosis and is thus confined to a wheelchair). Nanay Lusing gets asked by Alberto about their properties, products of a once progressive past. But she smells the ruse. Her sons never gather around like one big family. Not anymore. What Nanay Lusing has (for companions) are a couple of young thieves Matias and Jamaba (John Paul Escobedo and Ronald Caranza) now hired as household help. But Alberto detests their presence. One day, Nanay Lusing is told about Oscar’s sudden demise (he was stabbed by drunken tambays). Would this dreary occasion bring her sons under one roof? Who is the lingering silhouette in her night bed? Will it harm her?

Director Mes de Guzman takes a deliberate pace to tell his story, but he paints his picture with incisive strokes, it's hard to interchange the motives of the characters. This tack allows these people to grow on you which makes empathy easier to attain. Ama Quiambao dominates the screen with her subdued presence. In her clipped words and restrained grace, you find the patience of a mother who knows only too well what her sons are up to - like when Alberto starts discussing about their "nakatiwangwang" parcel of lands, in the guise of familial concern. She never spoke a word, but you notice the gradually pursed lips and the tightening of jaw. She was displeased after all. Director de Guzman's gift rests on his ability to tell his tale leisurely without these strains appearing contrived or forced.

Among Quiambao's co-actors, Roeder Camanag works hard, but doesn't quite measure up to the enticing pull of the veteran actress. Arnold Reyes does better here as Ruben, the son who felt that his mother was playing favorites. Reyes is a competent actor, but he occasionally forgets to temper his emotions. While his technique is always attention-grabbing, it isn't always sincere or appropriate. This is evident in his performance in "Intoy Syokoy sa Calle Marina". Someone please remind him that "less is more" because he already has the faculty to become better. Althea Vega, a habitue of sexy flicks and Pink Films like "Halik sa Tubig" turns in a decent performance. She registers well on screen so I am upbeat that she gets seen in more legitimate independent films.

SPOILERS!

As the film draws to a close, Nanay Lusing is distraught to find her transistor radio conking out. For years, its noisy commentaries about faith, the deception of demons, and its static have accompanied her solitude while she lies awake in the wee hours of the night. She's been sleepless. That night, noise turns soundless. Except for the reverberating sound of the old woman's snore. More importantly, the hovering demon has dissipated. We also realize that Nanay Lusing's "Diablo" finds closure when her family finally gains familial harmony. Isn't that hopeful?

Roeder Camanag as the opportunistic, but charming son Alberto. Arnold Reyes as the spiteful son  Ruben.

Carlo Aquino as the religious cult leader. 

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.

Mahilig - Sex, Drugs and Lousy Cinema

Just when you thought we're safe from the influx of those B-movie girlie erotica that used to thrive in 2nd rate cinemas in the late 80's and 90's, we were surprised to find director Mike Angelo Salvador's (posters use a shorter name: Nico Salvador) "Mahilig" at a major cinema!

The movie is made up of 2 incongruent stories weaved into one. The first is that of Thea Alvarez's ("Libido") character who's the sex nymphet who couldn't shake drugs off her system, thus when her hard working, albeit sex-starved husband (Mon Lacsamana) finds out that old habits indeed die hard, he leaves her. This sends Thea deeper into the quagmire of her addiction. The second narrative strain is that of Carlo Aquino's character; an impressionable high school student who comes from an ordinary, but loving family. His father's a good natured postman (Dante Rivero) while mother (Daria Ramirez) is a typical homemaker. Enter Nico (Onemig Bondoc) who would lure saintly Nico to the realm of vices: from smoking, to alcohol, then drugs. The latter would eventually tie down these 2 disparate stories together.

There really isn't much to critique in Salvador's work as there's not a hint of brilliance on show here. Much of the performance is obsequious to what is required from the character sketches on view. And it is a little bewildering how this film is able to get the services of actors like Carlo Aquino, Dante Rivero and Daria Ramirez. You can probably surmise "desperation" - or a good payday, but then again, it can be how the story was pitched prior to production: "It's a cautionary tale about how drugs can consume a person (Thea Alvarez) and destroy families (Carlo Aquino)." Looks good on paper, doesn't it?

An adequate film making skill is needed for this! But whatever little talent is shown here turns into nothing but vacuous craftsmanship. Even the intentions are suspect at best. In fact, the first scenes involving Thea Alvarez (with her protruding belly, she would take a full-frontal 3 minute shower) would already clue you in! I somehow felt I was in the wrong theater! I pinched myself; maybe I was in some dingy Quiapo cinema watching reruns of films starring Aya Medel, Sabrina M, Vida Verde or Lala Montelibano. Alvarez's confrontation with Mon Lacsamana happens right after they had a sweaty roll in the hay! How convenient, right?

What's almost ridiculous to bear is the resolute cameos of Gen. Rodolfo Caisip and Asec Rommel Garcia (PDEA deputy director and Dangerous Drugs Board honcho, respectively). It's one thing to advocate anti-drug sentiments, but when you're endorsing it within a salacious softcore film, any assumptions of good intent is lost!

Thea Alvarez and Mon Lacsamana

Desperation becomes Carlo Aquino.

Mon Lacsamana disrobes away from his singing group "D Pardz".