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85 – 88. Mariquina, Sundalong Kanin, K’na the Dreamweaver and #Y, reviewed during Cinemalaya week.

89. Under the Skin by Jonathan Glazer. Wonderfully weird and unsettling; Scarlett Johansson cements her iconhood as an alien sent to earth to seduce men. Who’s meat now?

90. The Search for Weng-Weng by Andrew Leavold. The best documentary on the Philippine film industry we’ve ever seen, by an Australian video store owner who’s gone on to become the expert on Pinoy pop cinema. This will be reviewed in full.

91. The Normal Heart by Ryan Murphy. Mark Ruffalo is ferocious as an early AIDS activist. When the pandemic was first detected in the early 80s, no one wanted to address it, not even the people at risk, because they thought it would curtail the rights they had fought so hard to obtain. Should be required viewing now that HIV infection is on the rise. Maybe people need to be scared all over again.

92. Veronica Mars by Rob Thomas. Yes, the movie funded via Kickstarter. Closure for the audience left hanging when the TV series was cancelled. A long time ago, we used to be a fan but we haven’t thought of it lately at all. Starring Kristen Bell as Veronica and that guy remembered mostly as Logan, with Krysten Ritter who was Jesse’s girlfriend who OD’d on Breaking Bad. Lots of people with small roles on the TV show went on to big careers—Amanda Seyfried, Chris Pratt, Jessica Chastain among others.

93. The History Boys. We saw this seven, eight years ago at a last full show in Glorietta, and when the lights came on, 60 percent of the audience was made of people from our high school.

94. Coriolanus

95. The Gifted by Chris Martinez. Hilarious! That’s what to do the next time you are welcomed to a Japanese restaurant by waiters shouting Irrashiamase! in your face. Starring Anne Curtis in a fatsuit and Christine Reyes with prosthetics, The Gifted dishes out all the tropes and cliches of romantic movies, only to suddenly turn them on their head. It’s subversive. Yes, why are women made to fight each other when they should be working together? Why are women judged by their looks as if life were a perpetual beauty contest with an oogly board of judges? Anne Curtis is very funny as the overprivileged bitch, and it was a stroke of genius to give Sam Milby Manny Pacquiao’s accent.

96. Le Plaisir by Max Ophuls.

The film is based on three stories by Guy de Maupassant. In the first, an old man tries to recapture his vanished youth by going to a ball in a mask and dancing as if he were 20. In the second, the madam of the town brothel goes to the country to attend her niece’s first communion, taking her employees with her. In the third, a painter’s model shows herself to be a master of manipulation. Gorgeous.

It occurred to us after our sixth viewing of Norte, Hangganan Ng Kasaysayan (for a total of one day and one hour spent watching the movie) that our life had begun to resemble a remake of Annie Hall, in which we were Alvy Singer (Woody Allen).

In Annie Hall, Alvy and Annie meet at the cinema where he plans to see The Sorrow and the Pity for the nth time. The guy behind them in the queue starts holding forth about cinema and literature, and when he brings up Marshall McLuhan, Alvy produces McLuhan himself to correct him.

The Sorrow and The Pity, Marcel Ophuls’s documentary on French collaboration with the Nazis in WWII, has about the same running time as Norte, but even fewer laughs. It leaves you with the impression of having spent several years in Vichy. Norte gives you the impression of having spent several years in Ilocos Norte.

In our real-life remake, we’re waiting to see Norte for the nth time when the guy behind us starts holding forth about cinema and literature, and when he brings up Lav Diaz we produce Lav Diaz himself to say, “You know nothing of my work.”

Then we point out that Lav was named after Lavrentiy Beria, the head of Stalin’s secret police, and we all crack up.

It hasn’t happened yet, but it could.

By the way, Woody Allen’s Love and Death is a spoof of Russian literature. Our involvement in Norte is a direct consequence of our fixation on Russian novels. We heard that our friends were adapting Dostoevsky and we said, “Game!”

Tina saw Norte today and she says there should be another Dostoevsky adaptation centered on the character of Hoda Viduya (Angelina Kanapi), Fabian’s sister: The Idiot. She can be Myshkina.

Seeing a Lav Diaz film on the big screen is a transporting and fairly rare experience. Starting tomorrow, September 10, Filipino moviegoers can experience a Lav Diaz film for themselves as Norte, Hangganan Ng Kasaysayan opens in five Metro Manila theatres.

Norte has gotten rave reviews from critics and film students the world over, but what about the other sectors of the moviegoing public? Last week, Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala hosted a screening of Norte for friends. Here are some of their reactions.

“Those who have the fortitude to sit through Norte will be gifted with a master’s uncompromising vision of love versus hate; alienation versus closeness; inaction versus action; cause and effect; crime and retribution; the inherent injustice of the universe; and perhaps, but only perhaps, salvation.” – Roberto Cuenca

“I was literally stunned by Norte. Certain images are still haunting me now. I never imagined I would survive the 4-hour running time, but at the end I did not believe it was over.” – Girlie Rodis

“Norte is an engrossing, challenging and ultimately enriching cinematic experience. An unparalleled study of individual, nation and family in the Philippine context that remained in my consciousness long after leaving the theatre. Norte deserves all the acclaim it has received and the support of audiences in the Philippines and the world over.” – Teddy Manotoc

“Norte drew me into its pace and cadence. The lighting and cinematography were excellent, particularly at night, and the juxtapositions of Laoag settings with those of Manila were good. The themes were many and prescient—the duality of wealth but absent overseas worker parents versus the humble, values-driven closer-knit family, the lack of fair justice, the penitentiary system, the usurious lending structure for those that cannot access other means, the quiet resignation of those with no recourse in life and of course, the beauty of the dignity many have in the middle of much suffering.

“Much of the impact in our viewing probably came from the fact that it all cuts so close to home in the lives we see around us. One cannot watch this movie and be unaffected. It is one thing to view a film with themes that resonate with less than one percent of the population. It is another is to see themes that are played out daily with the vast majority of those around us. That hits you in the gut.” – Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala

“Magnificent. I saw and continue to see so many metaphors of our society at large. I imagine a second watching would reveal even more. My viewing of Filipino films directed by Lino Brocka, Mike de Leon, Ishmael Bernal and Marilou Diaz-Abaya (perhaps the last golden age of our movies in the 80s) still remains my touchstone for Philippine cinema, but Lav Diaz has clearly created an incredible work of art.” – Bobby Macasaet

Norte, Hangganan Ng Kasaysayan stars Sid Lucero, Angeli Bayani, and Archie Alemania. The screenplay is by Rody Vera and Lav Diaz; cinematography by Larry Manda. All screenings with English subtitles.

Screening times: Glorietta 4 – 1pm and 6pm daily. Robinson’s Galleria – 7pm daily. Greenhills Theatre Mall – 2:30pm and 7:30pm daily. Robinson’s Metro East – 7pm daily. Trinoma – 12:10pm and 5pm daily.

Tom Hiddleston stars in Coriolanus

Theatre has a sense of urgency and spontaneity that films have to work hard to match; cinema has the intimacy of the close-up, not to mention that it democratizes the view. Short of having gobs of blood land on your popcorn, we do not know how the film of the National Theatre Live broadcast of the Donmar Warehouse production of Coriolanus could’ve had a more visceral impact.

Interesting that a lesser-known tragedy by Shakespeare should find new and vibrant life in the 21st century. A couple of years ago there was the film adaptation by Ralph Fiennes, set in the Balkans. This production directed by Josie Rourke is in contemporary dress, but set nowhere in particular. We are constantly reminded that it is a play—a bare stage, chairs, lines drawn in paint, and ladders used to great effect. There is even a 15-minute intermission, with a clock counting down the seconds. The lines of the play appear as subtitles, which is much appreciated (“So that’s what that line means.” “So that’s how it’s pronounced…”)

They do not need an elaborate set. They do not need a location. They have a brilliant star and superb players to deliver words written four centuries ago by a man whose identity academics still argue about. (Of course we know very little about William Shakespeare, he was writing all those plays and didn’t have much time for anything else.) Tom Hiddleston may be the boyfriend of the Internet circa 2014, but Shakespeare speaks to all times. You could set his plays in any century, in any country, in any culture, and they will work. When people colonize other planets, they will stage Shakespeare and it will still tell them more about the human condition than any number of textbooks. Costumes and settings change, but not love, hate, greed, envy, ambition. (Maybe we should quit trying to write because Shakespeare’s done pretty much everything.)

Coriolanus is especially relevant in this era of popular revolutions and the ever-present threat of militarism and fascism. Its hero-antihero is Caius Martius (Hiddleston), a great warrior who takes the enemy city Corioles almost single-handedly and returns home to the accolades of the Senate and his bloodthirsty mother Volumnia (Deborah Findlay). Volumnia takes in his wounds with a pleasure that is almost sexual—it is she, not the dutiful Virgilia (Birgitte Sorensen) who seems to be his wife. (Given the influence of Shakespeare on psychoanalysis, Hamlet’s mother etc, we wonder what Shakespeare’s own mummy was like.)

The Senate, composed of aristocrats, gives Caius Martius the honorary nickname Coriolanus after the city he conquered. (In an interview Hiddleston compared this to calling Andy Murray “Wimbledonus”; how could we not be impressed by the tennis analogy?) His mother and his mentor Menenius Agrippa (Mark Gatiss, who also got squeals from Sherlock fans) want him to run for Consul.

But in order to become Consul, he has to get the vote of the common people. Not only is Coriolanus a terrible elitist, but he is the worst politician imaginable. He cannot hide his contempt of the masses. He cannot lie to save his life. There is something admirable in that kind of brutal honesty. And the common people are fickle, gullible, a herd easily manipulated by the tribunes Sicinia and Brutus. That is why Coriolanus has been viewed as a dangerous play, and sometimes banned as a fascist tract.

There’s the outstanding scene in which Coriolanus stands in the shower, gasping as the water hits his wounds and washes off the blood. (We thought the viewers were going to throw 500-peso bills at the screen.) You are repelled, and you are turned on. Because, admit it, it is very attractive to think of a leader who will destroy your enemies and tell you what to do. When you hand over your rights to such a leader, you buy into the idea of fascism.

TO BE CONTINUED (We have a movie to sell the hell out of. We are happy to talk about Tom Hiddleston all week, but you have to go and see Norte. Deal?)

Meanwhile, something from 2012: Our review of Ralph Fiennes’s film of Coriolanus

Before we review the recording of the live broadcast of the Donmar Warehouse production of Coriolanus, which was screened by the British Council on September 5 and 6 at Greenbelt, let’s get Tom Hiddleston’s pants out of the way.

We know that Tom Hiddleston is probably the most charming person on earth at present. He is so adorable that in the Marvel movies, his Loki lays waste to the capitals of worlds, and we not only forgive him, we make excuses for his behavior (Well, you know, he’s really a frost giant adopted by Odin and he had to grow up in Thor’s very large shadow). In The Deep Blue Sea with Rachel Weisz he is feckless and lovely; in Only Lovers Left Alive with Tilda Swinton, he is depressed and lovely. We did not like his Henry V in The Hollow Crown, but we blamed it on his director’s approach to our favorite jingoist play. He is so articulate it is almost irritating—interviewed by foreign reporters he replies in their language, he is fluent in dead languages, and he will explain the difference between Original Pronunciation and Received Pronunciation. He is unfailingly polite and willing to indulge in silliness. In short he is apparently perfect, which would make us want to punch him in the face if he didn’t carry it with humor and grace.

The pants in Coriolanus

In Coriolanus he plays a character who is proud, martial, too honest for his own good, and a terrible elitist who scorns the masses. He is so hot the audience went into puberty, and that includes the old people. During very intense scenes, you could hear “Awww” and giggles. Every time Coriolanus kissed his wife Virgilia, someone would ask, indignantly, “And the actress still gets paid??” We three affected intellectual superiority, but could not help having this conversation.

– Are those jeans store-bought or custom-tailored?
– You’d have to be tall and lean to pull off high-waisted jeans like that.
– They’re very form-fitting.
– Well, you know. Shakespeare, tights.
– We can see what religion he is.

You cannot say that the director did not know what effect Hiddleston was having on the audience. Later she put him in an oversized t-shirt and there were gasps and coronaries as the viewers realized he wasn’t wearing anything under it. Bravo. We must use everything we can to engage with the audience.

This would just be objectification if Tom Hiddleston weren’t brilliant as Coriolanus. The proper review when our pulse rate returns to normal.

We’re glad Coriolanus is not showing at the same time as Norte or we would sneak out of our movie and cheat on Dostoevsky with Shakespeare.

Screening times: Glorietta 4 – 1pm and 6pm daily. Robinson’s Galleria – 7pm daily. Greenhills Theatre Mall – 2:30pm and 7:30pm daily. Robinson’s Metro East – 7pm daily. Trinoma – 12:10pm and 5pm daily.

True story, stop us if you’ve heard it. Some years ago, at the Udine film festival, we were approached by a couple of Italian moviegoers who said, “Magandang hapon po. Kayo ba ay Pilipino?”

We complimented them on their Tagalog and asked how they had come by it. (Our initial thought was that they had spent time in the Philippines, or been raised by Pinays.)

“Natuto kaming mag-Pilipino para manood ng pelikula ni Lav Diaz.” (We learned Filipino in order to watch the films of Lav Diaz.)

True, you’d probably pick up some Tagalog after watching the 11-hour Ebolusyon ng Pamilyang Pilipino, but these guys had sought out a Filipino language teacher so they could feel closer to the films they cared so deeply about. They had seen all his movies at a retrospective in Slovenia.

One of the ironies of Lav Diaz’s career is that while he makes movies about distinctly Filipino subjects for the Filipino audience, the typical Filipino moviegoer has never seen a Lav Diaz movie. He is embraced by foreign cinephiles, but is largely unknown in his own country.

We hope that the theatrical run of his most accessible film, Norte, Hangganan Ng Kasaysayan, begins to address this irony. Please tell everyone you know. See you at the cinema.