The ‘restless soul’ in direk Erik

Like most artists, director Erik Matti is a restless soul whose mind is like a windmill forever whirring with ideas, never still. He watches Hollywood movies and asks himself how he can make the ending different, novel, and therefore, powerful.

Not for him the happy-ever-after ending of those sleek, glossy US-made pictures that give audiences a rose-colored, but tainted view of the world. Erik Matti wants his messages raw, in-your-face, direct, hard-hitting. The way life as we ordinary mortals know it.

Look at Ekis, the Albert Martinez-Sunshine Cruz starrer that tells about the dregs of society in all its hard-edged realism. It calls a spade a spade: showing to all and sundry the dreariness of human existence. No ifs and buts.

"It’s more sincere, more politically-correct," Matti explains.

This formula obviously works. Viva Films is poised to come up with Ekis Dos, again under Matti, but this time with Rica Peralejo and Mark Anthony Fernandez as lead actors.

"This one," Matti describes his newest "baby," is more daring, subject matter-wise. It has more gore, yes. But because I want to make it as real as possible. I don’t want to glorify violence. Nor do I put in the element of sex for the heck of it. I’m not that stupid and irresponsible," he says.

Here is one director who won’t resort to those slow-mo action scenes to cushion the impact of say, a blow on the lead actor‘s face. Matti wants to see it unfold on the big screen, as it is.

After all, he is not making a romantic movie the way he did with his last project, Sa Huling Paghihintay, with Rica Peralejo and Bernard Palanca, Dos Ekis is about making a stupid mistake and ruining your life because of it. What can be more unromantic than that?

"It’s about the consequences of choices, of arriving at the crossroads and choosing your path," says Matti. In this case, the choice, a wrong one, haunts the characters forever. Mark Anthony has a ho-hum job at a hardware store. One night, he passes by a bar and spots a dancer (Rica). His life is never the same since. Suddenly, his life takes on a new meaning. He gets interested in things he didn’t even bother with before. He wants to buy a watch to give to the dancer of his dreams.

That’s when the plot thickens, unveiling a theme of avarice that leads to a slow descent to hell.

How the scenes move on to reach an explosive, gory climax is something only the director of the dark, brooding Skorpio Nights can do.

His latest work, Matti relates, has stark similarities in real life. It reflects some hard choices Matti had to make as a family man and his observation of his late father‘s life.

As a dual salary breadwinner who teaches film thesis at the College of St. Benilde and directs movies and TV shows (Kagat sa Dilim), Matti was torn between the need to survive and the desire to enjoy the fruits of his labor while he still can. "If you don’t work, you won’t eat. But, at the same time, you have to enjoy life while there’s time," he reveals his dilemma.

This quandary bothered him all the more when he saw his dad waste away from cancer in New York. In his heyday, the old man was able to save enough money to enjoy life. But when he got sick, all the elder Matti could do was stay at home with his daughter in New York, watch TV and observe the city lights. It was a painful sight for his director-son.

So it is that Erik Matti does not want to think of what-might-have-beens later in his life. He works like there is no tomorrow, always keeping an image of his dad at the back of his mind.

He studies his craft with the diligence of a scholar. Matti makes it a point to review his films.

That’s when he discovers that there’s always a better way of doing things: a better camera angle, a fresher approach.

"I always second guess myself. It sometimes makes me doubt the things I already know," he admits.

But that’s exactly how he comes up with films that shock and leave a mark on moviegoers’ minds. Matti always asks himself, "How can I make my scene look less ordinary? What camera angle will best express this mood?"

He’s the type of director capable of saying, "To hell with the script! Let’s trust the moment," and move on from there.

Murphy’s Law keeps nagging him with the dictum that if something will go wrong, it will. So why follow a pattern when you can trust your instincts?

Trusting one’s instincts comes with hard work. Matti watches four movies a day when he’s free.

After waking up, he takes lunch (food is another passion) and cues in the video of his first movie for the day. The ritual, interrupted only by meals and the day’s headlines on TV, lasts up to early the next morning.

Why, even Matti‘s time with his eldest child, eight, is an extension of his passion for films. Quality time with her means watching animated films like Cinderella and Mulan together, with Matti turning over technical aspects of each scene in his mind over and over again.

Chances are, Matti‘s youngest child, an eight-month-old baby, will end up watching movies with dear old dad and his elder sister as soon as he gets old enough to do so.

"I am in an exploratory stage," Matti describes his state of mind. "I want to do the movies in my mind.

Good thing his mother studio, Viva Films, is willing to go with Direk Erik as he takes the road less taken to make movies that will always call a spade a spade.