The world is a beerhouse

Film review: Ang Beerhouse

MANILA, Philippines - This is my first encounter with Jon Red as director and Joel Torre and Ronnie Lazaro as producers and they don’t disappoint.

Last Monday’s screening of Ang Beerhouse had cineastes reacting positively and I have every reason to join the highly positive fray, so to speak.

To be sure, this is not the first time a beerhouse figured in Filipino films. I think there is a 1977 Elwood Perez movie called Beerhouse and I suppose it also explored the garishly lighted place called the beerhouse.

But Red’s Beerhouse has many things going for it. In the beginning, viewers are forewarned that the film will not end up as a predictable action, drama, bold or titillation film. But as one is introduced into the varied characters that inhabit the beerhouse through the evolution of the peeping tom named Noynoy (superbly played by Ryan Eigenmann), you realize at once that the film is a different route to filmmaking.

Eigenmann blends into the film without fanfare and his acting is one of those rarities among competent actors who don’t call attention to themselves. The beerhouse was his obsession and so was one of the women in that turf named Jewel (Gwen Garci). He interacts with Harry the pimp played by another natural actor Epi Quizon. The actor playing the pimp has the looks and drive of a desperate flesh-peddler. As his betrayal is unmasked by the top guns of big business, Quizon gives us a character that is at once hateful but incorrigibly humane.

Together, Eigenmann and Quizon ignite “Beerhouse” with their brand of acting that lends more credence to Red’s rare kind of storytelling. Why aren’t these actors seen more on Philippine cinema? The film tells us that there are lesser known first-rate actors who do more justice to filmmaking than those so-called hunks laden with bulges and no acting talent to speak of.

It takes sometime to appreciate what Garci (as Jewel) is up to in the movie. She has the looks, the artless, if, brainless stare of women working in a beerhouse. But as Red’s unique storytelling unfolds, you see the portrait of a woman with a will to live and love and survive in that cage called the beerhouse. Alas, love beckons in that little hell-hole and can it survive in that turf full of men with various shades of lust and ambition? Her role projects her earthly attributes to the fullest and at the same time her acting gives us an insight into her inner self. In the end, Garci emerges a competent actress worthy of the part.

The film by itself is a triumph of ensemble acting and the other actors contributed a lot namely Hector Macaso (as Brad), Kalila Agilos, Che Ramos, Catherine Racsag, Jun Oreta, Herbie Vetus and Raul Morit.

Towards the end, the producers (Torre and Lazaro) lent their mysterious but marked presence that gave the film a touch of their quiet but riveting malevolence.

But perhaps to highlight the helplessness of the characters in the film, film scorer Bong del Rosario used a fitting highlight of Elgar’s pomp and circumstance towards the end of the film. It was a refreshing music to hear after an overdose of beerhouse music.

On the other hand, the film labored too long in the exposition of other issues tackled in the film but as always, a line or two of black humor saved the day.

But on the whole, the film is a refreshing discourse on the world as a beerhouse and true enough, it becomes a glaring microcosm of Philippine society. The characters inhabiting the film have familiar counterparts in the country’s socio-political and economic milieu. It was to Red’s credit that he didn’t preach virtues but instead highlighted what constitutes the non-virtues with humor and his approach was enough to make corruption and exploitation real and dangerous in this country.

As I have said, this is my first Jon Red film and I am glad to discover another unsung first-rate talent of Philippines cinema.

Perhaps Torre and Lazaro wanted us to see the country as it bleeds itself dry in the beerhouse. Red’s film could have been The Waisteland (fittingly after the flood) but in another setting.

Torre said he was prodded to produce because there are many untold stories waiting to be told about our society. Ang Beerhouse was his fitting answer.