Cinemalaya X reviews: Bwaya and Ronda
Francis Xavier Pasion—the name sounds like a Dreyer movie—is a very clever filmmaker, and we wonder if this cleverness might actually impede his development. His third feature, Bwaya, hits all the right notes: it is set in a distant, mysterious place, among marginalized, indigenous people, it touches on contemporary sociopolitical issues, and it is based on actual events. It’s film festival bait, not that there’s anything wrong with that. But for all its craftsmanship, it’s like watching something beautiful under glass…
Ronda follows a policewoman on her nightly patrol among the pimps, whores, thieves and derelicts of Manila. In case the title is not graphic enough, it opens with a patrol car driving slowly through the city streets. Except that we don’t see the city streets, we see the hood of the patrol car coming at us. After several minutes of this, we started to wish that it was a biopic of 70s star Carmen Ronda; then maybe we’d have more to look at…
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