Tukso: A whodunit Rashomon

The truth told in different versions — as popularized by best foreign film winner Rashomon — is still alive and well in Philippine cinema. This device was previously used in Laurice Guillen’s Salome in 1981 and in Chito Roño’s Itanong Mo sa Buwan in 1988. Both films won Best Picture in the Gawad Urian.

In Dennis Marasigan’s Tukso, which is currently showing in Robinsons Galleria’s IndieSine, the story is also told from various perspectives. Winner of Cinemalaya’s Best Screenplay award, the film gives  the viewer the task of finding out who and how a barrio lass named Monica (Diana Malahay) is killed.

Tukso is basically a whodunit Rashomon and we are presented with different suspects:

Suspect No. 1 is Carlo (Sid Lucero), a fresh architecture graduate who is assigned to the province to design and supervise the construction of a local subdivision. He meets Monica and they become intimate in spite of the fact that he is already going steady with his boss’ daughter, Gail (Anna Deroca). Monica and her humble origins could be his stumbling block on his way to becoming one of the country’s top architects and he has good reason to get rid of her.

Suspect No. 2 is Emer (Ping Medina), the handyman childhood friend of Monica. It is obvious that he is in love with her and is jealous of the fact that there is a new man in Monica’s life.

Suspect No. 3 is Fe (Irma Adlawan), a widow who hires Emer to fix her house. She is obviously lusting after him and is jealous that it is Monica he likes.

Suspect No. 4 is David (Ricky Davao), owner of the architectural firm Carlo works for and father of Gail, the girlfriend. Ricky wants to give Gail everything that would make her happy and that includes snagging a man like Carlo. But with Monica in the way, his plans could get waylaid.

Suspect No. 5 is Bal (Soliman Cruz), the father of Monica. Why would he want to kill his own daughter? Apparently, he disapproves of Monica’s relationship with Carlo and may even have incestuous designs on his daughter. Now, this is Rashomon meets Kisap-mata. It’s getting to be very exciting.

Tukso actually allows you to draw up your own list of suspects. No, the characters are not presented in a police line-up. It’s up to you to pinpoint in your head who are the most likely suspects and if your imagination is truly wild, you may even include the hamburger-munching medico legal (Noni Buencamino), who does the autopsy on Monica.

So that you’d be able to study the characters and their individual motives, some scenes are repeated in the movie and shown in different angles. It’s a tedious process both for the film editor and sigh, even the viewer.

But it’s intricate editing work and you just have to appreciate the effort. Tukso also boasts a good photography and other fine technical elements.

To give life to the interesting characters, the movie assembles some of the best cast members whose careers are now flourishing through indie films. Ricky Davao, Soliman Cruz, Sid Lucero, Ping Medina, Sharmaine Centenera (as the investigator) and Bing Pimentel (as Gail’s mother) as usual are more than competent. Even newcomer Diana Malahay is very effective as the innocent-looking, but nasa loob ang kulo barrio maiden. I could only hope she gets a follow-up project soon or she could very be this millennium’s Barbara Benitez.

The best performance in Tukso — not surprisingly — is delivered by Irma Adlawan. Without her verbalizing her feelings, you know she is hankering for love and well, even sex. It’s all in her body movements and facial expressions and you feel something throbbing inside her — such fiery passion waiting to be unleashed.

It’s her and the other cast members’ performances that make Tukso work as a film. Of course, there are also the technical elements (the complicated editing especially), the screenplay and Dennis Marasigan’s inspired direction that helped push this film to merit a B grade from the Cinema Evaluation Board. (It was one vote short to getting an A.)

After 56 years, the Rashomon style still works and weaves magic on film.