Sineng Pambansa, Day 3: Sonata by Peque Gallaga and Lore Reyes
We weren’t completely sold on the idea of the Sineng Pambansa All-Master festival. Aren’t there enough film festivals? Why is the Film Development Council producing movies? “Masters”? Really?
We have not yet seen all the entries, but Sineng Pambansa has already justified its existence. It has given us back two directors who have much to teach today’s filmmakers about technique, rigorousness, and the sheer emotional power of the moving image.
With Otso, Elwood Perez, a 40-year veteran of the movies, pulls off the sort of daring experiment that many “edgy” indie filmmakers keep threatening to make but somehow fail to deliver. (Akala ninyo weird kayo? Pwes, nagpapaka-weird lang kayo. Ito ang tunay na weird.)
With Sonata, a film in the grand classic tradition, Peque Gallaga and Lore Reyes remind us that the purpose of art is to encompass the beauty and terror of being alive. As in the great operas, the most exquisite music comes from the most terrible despair.
It is perhaps no accident that both Otso and Sonata are about artists struggling with the panic of creation: the screenwriter on a deadline, the diva who loses her voice. Are they autobiographical movies? Does it matter? We get to sit in the dark and watch the masters at work.
One of the producers of Sonata is Ruby’s Arms. Beauty and misery, Tom Waits territory.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
September 18th, 2013 at 16:45
Sonata lends such an indescribable joy. Why on earth a lot of Filipinos don’t try once in their lives see films made by Filipinos. While I was on my way to watching Otso right after Sonata, some teenaged boys and girls were giggling at the movie titles featured in Sineng Pambansa. A not so, how do you call it, “intelligent” boy said, “I don’t watch Tagalog movies.” Simply put, he don’t watch it because it is in in Tagalog. And yet, they watch moronic English language films and waste a lot of time and money on them. Very much like what you said Jessica, uttering “okay” as a comment to a film is unacceptable. A lot of these ‘guys’ usually comment that the film they saw was “okay”.
I cannot claim that I only watch “critically acclaimed” films”. There were times that I am influenced by critiques by so called “movie reviewers”. My love for Filipino movies makes me watch them.
Now, I usually ignore “catatonic” movie reviewers. Defined by the online Merriam and Websters dictionary it means “purposeless excitement, and inappropriate or bizarre posturing”.
One cannot resist falling in love with the cinematic beauty of Bacolod and the charm of her people. Hiligaynon is music to the ears. Because of that, I made 10 more people experience the beauty of Sonata. Maybe one day, this seed will turn to love of enriching Pinoy movies.