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A.O. Scott of the NYT writes on a current trend in American movies (Wendy and Lucy, Frozen River, etc) which he calls Neo-Neo-Realism, after the post-war Italian cinema exemplified by the work of Rossellini (Open City), Visconti (La Terra Trema), and De Sica (Bicycle Thief).

Richard Brody reacts in his New Yorker blog, saying A.O. Scott’s essay “rests on questionable premises and reaches dubious conclusions.” He goes on to describe this Neo-Neo-Realism as “granola cinema, abstemious films that are made to look good for you but are no less sweetened than mass-market products, that cut off a wide range of aesthetic possibilities and experiences on ostensible grounds of virtue. It’s not new; it’s self-consciously, fashionably old-fashioned.” I love it when critics disagree.

For a crash course in Italian Neo-Realism, I refer you to Martin Scorsese’s documentary, My Voyage To Italy. Scorsese is a wonderful teacher and his passion for the cinema is infectious.

If I knew A.O. Scott I’d recommend a viewing of Sullivan’s Travels by Preston Sturges, in which Sullivan the successful director of musical comedies decides to make a socially-conscious drama (O Brother Where Art Thou—title coopted decades later by the Coens) about the plight of the workingman. When studio bosses point out that Sullivan knows nothing about the poor, he declares that he will do research by living among them. Trouble follows.

Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake in Sullivan’s Travels

Where are we in this discussion? There’s a strong strain of Italian Neo-Realism in Filipino cinema since the 1970s (and earlier, I suspect, in the films of Silos and Avellana). In the 60s Manila’s movie theatres screened a lot of European movies, so we can argue direct influence. You can trace the DNA of Lino Brocka’s Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko Ng Liwanag back to Visconti (especially Rocco and His Brothers) and De Sica (Shoeshine). Many of today’s Filipino filmmakers openly aspire to Brocka-ness; they are the Neo-Neo-Neo-Realists.

Celso Ad Castillo’s Burlesk Queen was descended from the post-Neo-Realist Fellini. What about Joey Gosiengfiao and Elwood Perez? That’s easy: Douglas Sirk. And Ishmael Bernal? He was practically French, our local New Wave rep. Bernal’s Pito Ang Asawa Ko was inspired by Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black. (Although he also played Pasolini in Anton Juan’s stage production of Death in the Form of a Rose.)

Pets Make Us Human: The story of Max, sent in by Angela.

One afternoon in 2005 I was walking around our neighborhood with no destination in mind when I saw a black and white kitten on the other side of the street. It was staring at me and when our eyes met, it meowed loudly and tried to cross the street. I was going to ignore the kitten when I saw that there was a car approaching, fast. On impulse I hurried to the cat and got hold of it in the nick of time. When I saw that there were no more cars, I put the kitten back down and went on my way. The kitten started meowing and it sounded like crying which tore my heart to bits. After a few seconds, I gave in and took the kitten home.

The kitten turned out to be a he so I named him Max from the indie film Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros. We’ve been pestering each other since.

Max gets a gift from Purina, PAWS, and the Homeless, Not Worthless campaign. Are you the proud human of an adopted stray dog or cat? Send your pet adoption stories and photos to saffron.safin@gmail.com.

I was caffeinating at the mall when a youthful lady with white hair said hello. It was Celeste Legaspi. “I’ve been listening to your versions of American pop songs translated by Tinio!” I babbled. That album came out ages ago, she laughed. “I copied it from my friend’s iTunes library last year,” I said. “Please record again.”

The music industry is so different now, she said. Commercial considerations override all others. “You could record the tracks in your house and upload them on the net,” I went on. Her daughters laughed. “She’s lazy,” they said.

When I was growing up in the 70s, Filipino musicians regularly did Tagalog versions of songs in English. Hajji Alejandro did the Bee Gees’ Charade as Tag-Araw, Tag-Ulan, and in his cover of Barbra Streisand’s The Way We Were, Rico J. Puno suddenly switched to Tagalog and turned the song into something else entirely. They didn’t cover songs the way Pinoy singers do today (note-for-note exact imitations, down to the breathing and the hand movements. Today’s most successful proponents of the full mimicry (‘plakado’) approach: Arnel Pineda/Steve Perry of Journey and Charice Pempengco/Whitney Houston.) The material was borrowed, but they colonized it completely (“Namamasyal pa sa Luneta”).

The finest translations/adaptations of the words to popular songs were by the great Rolando Tinio. He’d already translated Shakespeare into Filipino, so pop music must’ve been a breeze. Take the Burt Bacharach-Hal David songs, One Less Bell to Answer and A House Is Not A Home. Every time I hear them I start giggling. Look at these lyrics:

One less bell to answer
One less egg to fry
One less man to pick up after
I should be happy but all I do is cry
(Note: Were you the lover or the maid?)

A rudimentary literal translation would begin:

Isang timbreng di sasagutin
Isang itlog na di piprituhin…

How about that Philo 11 hommage:

A chair is not a chair
Even when there’s no one sitting there
But a chair is not a house
And a house is not a home

Literally:

Ang salumpuwit ay salumpuwit pa rin
Kahit walang nakaupo roon. . .

Instead of a literal approach that would expose the cornball silliness of the lyrics, Tinio went for the literary.

Di na hahainan
Di na susundan
Tuwing siya’y may kinakailangan
Sinong hindi pa
Pasasalamat na

and

Walang nagpapalit
Sa datihang ayos ng silid
Nguni’t di magpapalit
Ang himbing ng pag-idlip…

The risible has been made poignant, and with Celeste Legaspi’s lovely theatrical delivery (very clear enunciation) it’s positively heart-rending. Remember when singers interpreted songs rather than belting the hell out of them? A lot of what passes for singing these days is actually song abuse.

The masterpiece among the Celeste Legaspi-Rolando Tinio collaborations is their version of Rodgers and Hart’s The Lady Is A Tramp. Their title: Ako’y Bakyang-Bakya. It’s not merely a linguistic translation, but an adaptation from one culture to another. The original lyrics are full of American references; Tinio placed the song firmly in a Philippine context while keeping its wickedly funny spirit.

I’ve wined and dined on mulligan stew and never wished for turkey
As I’ve hitched and hiked and grifted too, from Maine to Albuquerque

becomes

Ang hilig ko’y butong-pakwan, ayoko ng pastillas
Nagdi-jeep ako miski saan, hanggang sa Dasmarinas.

From his new poetry collection The Evolution of a Sigh (Hanging Loose Press, 2008): R. Zamora Linmark’s replay of Douglas Sirk’s masterpiece in lurid technicolor.

Watching a Sirk melodrama is like eating a whole box of liqueur-centered chocolate: you feel happy and slightly woozy. Naturally the damaged characters are so much more fascinating than the “normal” ones. The scene in which Dorothy Malone wildly dances the mambo while her outraged father falls to his death has been attempted in many Filipino movies.

Photo: Marylee, honey, he’s so not into you.

After Douglas Sirk’s Written On The Wind
by R. Zamora Linmark

What past isn’t dark? Whose secrets don’t bruise?
Let’s start with the son: a profligate playboy, the booze-
soaked President of the Society for the Prevention
of Boredom, so filthy rich he dusts mornings with
a yellow sports car, uses a bourbon glass for an ashtray,
flies thousands of miles without looking at the sky
for a steak sandwich, and snatches from his down-
by-the-river best friend the soul-searching career-
comes-first-before-the-altar girl. He seduces her
with a hot pink hallway, a lavender suite, red-carpeted
walk-in closet, but finally wins her over with the midnight
blue of Miami. They marry. All is fine until the annual
visit to the doctor (or did it start much before that,
when the wind swept dead leaves into the mansion?)
Regardless, his year-old sobriety ends and childhood
nightmares of whiskey bottles and molestation flashbacks
return. He wakes up, sweating, too terrified to curse
his dreams. This morning, he cries like a baby
to his wife, keeps asking how can he ever give her
a child when he’s sleeping with a silver gun
under his dead? A bedroom door slams. It’s his sister,
the gas station attendant still ripe on her tongue.
She, too, has her drama and mottos—”I’m allergic
to politeness” and “I’m just plain filthy period!”
to nurture; her hobbies—back-alley lusts and wallowing
in elbow-length gloves and strapless gowns. With
the fireplace she lights a cigarette, stands before
the portrait of unrequited love, hesitates, puts on
a mambo record, then disappears beneath a see-through
sunset-orange chiffon gown. But the past, no matter
how rich and powerful, is as useless as their old man,
the oil tycoon who cannot buy out his children’s miseries
now his own magnificent clichéd death, tumbling
down a winding staircase while his son grieves
for a lost child and his dancing daughter blasts the trumpet
solo so loud destiny cannot stop it, except perhaps
those almost-lost afternoons by the river when mulberry
juice passed for kisses, swimming was in the raw,
and tree trunks were skinned perfectly into hearts.

Today’s winner in our Pets Make Us Human contest: Poknat, care of his human, Ronald.

I used to live with my family in one of the cottages in Mt. Makiling that is owned and maintained by the government agency I worked for. I was assigned there for seven years and that’s where we found our dog Poknat.

We fed the dogs and sheltered them until the rains stopped. When the dog-owner came back he was not particularly eager to get the dogs back, so we keep feeding and sheltering them. When the puppies were ready to be weaned from their mother, the dog-owner got the old dog back but left the two puppies with us. That’s when my family decided to adopt one of the puppies as a pet (the other was adopted by one of the staff). We named her Poknat because the poor puppy had many hairless scars all over the body caused by lice infestation. We nourished her to health and since then she has been a loyal friend to me and my family. When we left the mountain we brought her with us and she is now my constant companion in my exercise walks around the village. She stands guard when no one is in the house and she’s a great playmate to my kids. The hairless scars are long gone, but we kept the name anyway, since it reminds us of her unusual origin.

Keep sending your pet adoption stories and pictures to saffron.safin@gmail.com. If your story is posted, your pet will receive a gift from Purina, PAWS, and the Homeless, Not Worthless campaign. We give priority to humans and pets who have been together for at least six months.

The message of Taken is: If you don’t do exactly as your dad tells you, bad things will happen.

Liam Neeson uses his particular skills set to rescue his daughter from (kidnappers), in the process killing half of Paris—mostly Albanians, Middle Eastern types, and innocent civilians. Even if we might’ve ignored the fact that Liam plays an American with an Irish accent, we don’t think the Albanian villains would admit him into their lair when he pretends to be a French bureaucrat. Who speaks only English. While the Albanian gangsters reply in English.

Port de Cliché in Emotional Weather Report, today in the Star.

P.S. It’s a stupid movie but we are fans of Liam Neeson and are shocked at his terrible loss. Natasha Richardson, stage and film star, is dead at 45.