Our Anti-Metro Manila Film Festival: A love letter to the cinema
Photo from the Portfolio of Hiroshi Sugimoto.
2013 was a great year for Philippine cinema, though you wouldn’t know it from the box-office numbers or the TV coverage. You would know it from the excitement among ardent moviegoers: the people who believe in Filipino Cinema, who kept on watching Filipino films in the truly bleak times when Tagalog movies had become an open insult to their intelligence and a threat to their sanity, who braved the derision of their more practical friends and tried to give rational answers to the question, “Why do you even bother when you know you will be disappointed?”
We mean the people who feel despair and then outrage at how the studios use marketing and media noise to swindle casual viewers into thinking that crap looks good. Paradoxically they continue to pay the price of admission, knowing there is a 98 percent chance they will be screwed by the production companies, but pinning their hopes on that remaining two percent. These are the lovers of the moving image, devotees of the church of the waking dream, the Dreamers. Because if the Cinema can’t bring in the Dreamers, it has no right to exist.
This was the year we took a chance on filmmakers we’d never heard of and found ourselves rewarded, the year we overloaded on movies and stayed up half the night arguing about what we just saw. Even when we didn’t like the movies we couldn’t stop talking about them; we could tell that the filmmakers were dreaming the same dream that has haunted us since we sat in a darkened theatre for the first time. We rearranged our schedules so we could chase the movies, figured out the quickest routes between theatres spread out across the sea of traffic (“How do I get from Mandaluyong to Chinatown and then Cubao in three hours?”) so we could catch everything. It was exhausting, it was aggravating, it was exhilarating. 2013 was a year for Dreamers.
We saw a lot of wonderful Filipino films this year. They should all be showing at the Metro Manila Film Festival. Of course they’re not, and snow will fall on the gates of hell before intellectually demanding, ambitious, risky non-star vehicles that aspire to the level of Art will be admitted there. But climate change is on the rise, and stranger things have happened.
We’re tired of bitching about Tagalog movies. This year, we don’t have to. In this series, we salute the Best Filipino Movies of 2013.
Opening tomorrow at InterAksyon.com. Who knows, maybe we’ll even screen them.
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Post your own tributes to your favorite Filipino movies of the year in Comments.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
December 27th, 2013 at 07:39
On The Job – who would have thought that a Pinoy action movie could surprise with a clean plot, a cast who delivered (I would love to be in between a Gerald and Joel sandwich), great visuals and an awesome soundtrack! This team should make more movies!
December 27th, 2013 at 17:05
Sana Dati
I hate attending wedding CEremonies. Once you’ve attended a few, you’ll wish that the very last one you are going to will be more like Sesame Street’s “One of These Things Is Not Like The Other”.
Videoke machine masquerading as legit sound system, haggard bride and groom kissing each other and the mad dash to the wedding reception – these are the things that I abhor in weddings.
I thought romantic films were meant to be rosy. My heart didn’t beat faster nor root for Andrea (Lovi Poe). Sa inis, gusto ko siyang bigyan ng mag asawang sampal ( a combination of bitch and pimp slap).’Yung sampal na may bigat at drama tulad ng kay Carmen Rosales.
Sana Dati put me in my rightful place – not to meddle and not to judge. Not to overthink and ask for explanations. It is for me to let the story unfold. Hindi ko rin papel na sumigaw ng “Itigil ang kasal.”
Sumabog din ang dibdib ko sa impit at pigil na pagluha ni Lovi. Sana Dati brings more to the table. It brings intelligence and cunningness unknown to Philippine cinema.
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Ang Huling Cha-cha ni Anita
I wish I had friends like Anita, Goying and Carmen. Ang Huling Cha-cha ni Anita proved that child actors need not resort to annoying antics to be noticed.
Unlike the mean girls and mean boys of Philippine Tv, Goying (Solomon de Guzman) and Carmen (Len-Len Frial) are angels. Teri Malvar taking the lead role is movie magic. Tinalo lang naman nya si Ate Guy as best actress. May himala!
These three actors drew such good laughs that echoed in the halls of the UP Film Institute. These are same belly aching laughs I heard in Gateway Cinema two times over.
The film was veiled in childhood nostalgia. I laud the director’s sensitivity and common sense – in the balance she achieved – thus, not ending as a formulaic hardcore film bent on shoving to one’s throat ideals and principles.
Ang ganda ni Angel Aquino (Pilar)…”ang gandah gandah mo Pilar.” At totoo talagang napakaganda ni Angel as Pilar. I was totally drawn to her character. Nakisimpatya din ako sa kanyang impit na mga daing gaya ng kay Lovi Poe sa Sana Dati.
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Sonata
Kailangan gawan ng starring role ang mansyon ng mga Gaston. The mansion itself is a character, with the way the wind effortlessly glides in and out of the structure, the whole house breathes and make sure you don’t fail to notice it.
Parang napaka natural kay Cherrie Gil ang pagiging lasenggang sosyal. Sa kanyang pag ka depress, sa kanyang obsesyon na may makausap sa cellphone, lahat yun – parang walang ka effort effort. Di rin nya kailangan ang contact lenses dahil natural na brown naman ang kanyang mga mata.
I don’t know why the present crop of Filipina actors had to wear irritating contact lenses. Di naman bagay sa skin tone at hair color nila. Buti pa si Nora at Cherrie nakaka acting pa rin gamit ang mga natural na mata.
A mother’s love to her child, loyalty, the joy of music – these are some of the values Sonata graciously savored. And I savored them more and more with child-like delight. I want to be an haciendera in Bacolod. I want to be as musical as the spoken words of Hiligaynon. I want to munch on sugarcane till my gums hurt.
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And I will not stop loving Philippine Cinema. I want to bitch and pimp slap whoever says that box-office numbers and TV coverage are signs of a movie’s quality. Art and morons cannot co-exist.
Sana this coming 2014 magtuloy tuloy ang golden age ng Philippine Cinema.