The Festival’s adult movie fare

Joey Romero’s Mamasan is the Manila Film Festival’s adult movie attraction, a dark, daring comedy about the travails of a bordello madam. It is yet another look at the world’s oldest profession, the joys and woes of the person in charge, and her relationships with her ward, clients, and children. Elizabeth Oropesa gets the plum part of Mamasan, all these decades the local term for the casa operator (it is also short for her name Mama Sandra), and the actress is perfect in the title role.

The script by Dennis Evangelista weaves dramatic incidents from his – and the director’s – imagination and common knowledge about high-class hookers, and newspapers clippings, from the discovery of a "chop-chop lady" to the grandstand performance of a man accused of that murder (read: Phillip Medel in the Nida Blanca slaying).

But before this darker development are the lighter side and heavy moments as Mama San wrestles with never-ending demons: bickerings and patutsadahan at the beauty salon – even in the church – ending in violent fistfights and hair-pulling; her frustrations over her faithful but slow-witted driver, Man Friday and lover (Allen Dizon); the problems with her growing-up son and daughter; her increasingly difficult relationships with her girls. Not much with a belle who has a thick provincial accent (lovely Yda Manzano).

But one girl flies the coop and becomes a business competitor (the alluring Jenine Desiderio). Another catches venereal disease (sad-looking Barbara Milano). Still another constantly defies house rules and follows the dictates of her heart (nymphet-like Raven Villanueva) than the biddings of the powerful politician called Cong. Zulueta (Mark Gil) who yearns for articulate bedmates who can talk politics while performing their services. This ever-horny government official can be real nasty when he doesn’t get what he wants, and he’s making threats to Mama San. So what’s a poor mama to do in the face of such troubles and thanklessness?

Mama San is a cinematic roman a clef, maybe the director’s answer to the highly popular blind items in showbiz columns (some of the characters may be composites of real-life persons in society, politics and the flesh trade). This is also social satire, so characters may be a tad too big or too loud (still, the scenes showing the strange relationship between the madam and her subservient lover might have been shortened for greater effect). All in all, shorn of the comic escapades and the inherently sexy and sensational nature of the activities of the madam and her brood, this is human drama that is at times funny and poignant, harsh and sympathetic.