The 8th Cinemanila, according to Onegin

Easily the most impressive among the shorts in the 8th Cinemanila International Film Festival held for two weeks in November is The Ballad of Mimiong’s Minion, whose director Jobin Ballesteros won the Ishmael Bernal young filmmaker’s award.

The ballad evokes memories of the past on the strings of a blind guitar player’s instrument, a kind of doppelganger of a folk musician down on his luck.

The folk singer is played by Mario Magalona, who also starred in Dilim and Mudracks. He fits the role perfectly. Ballad is the longest of the short films and also the best.

The film critic Gene Onegin, writing for a new weekly magazine, is also astonished by Janus Victoria’s Hopia Express. Onegin describes it as "an unusual love story set in Binondo and Ortigas, a possible soundtrack being ‘Two Different Worlds.’"

Love goes unrequited for the GI (genuine Intsik), and the film’s elusiveness dissembles the winding streets of Ongpin.

Of the full-length features, the nine-hour epic by Lav Diaz, Heremias is a standout.

Hours of barely moving camera lying in ambush by the side of the road, witnessing the caravan of vendors from Pangasinan with their loyal beasts of burden.

Onegin observes: "Lav may be a frustrated NPA guerrilla. Hours of waiting behind blades of grass for the possible ambush."

But it has its rewards, especially to the patient viewer who has had one too many gins and saw fit to give chapter titles to each passing hour.

The first hour could be "On the Road." The second, "Solo,"as Heremias opts to break away from the group and set out on his own. Third is "The Storm" which is just that, Heremias and beast coping with the elements and taking refuge in an abandoned shelter. Fourth is "Blotter" when Heremias reports to the barangay police how his beast of burden was stolen and his cart razed, the goods all gone, either carted away or reduced to ashes.

Onegin writes: "Near the end we could overhear Heremias shouting the name of Elena, whose relation to him we are not sure of – daughter, lover or muse? – though he sure sounded upset and suffering like a beast of burden himself."

International jury member Paolo Minuto concludes that "Heremias loves Elena," during marathon screenings on the 15th floor of the Manila Hotel a day before Judgment Day.

Our critic Onegin also likes very much the Thai movie Citizen Dog, "whose very MTV-like song still manages to play in our heads like a blind version of Rivermaya."

The movie is about a country bumpkin who tries to make it in the big city, first working in a sardine factory, then as a security guard and finally as a taxi driver, this last job he took so he can drive his lady love around because she breaks out in rashes when she takes public transport.

The digital film has elements of the surreal, such as a ghost on motorcycle, grandma reincarnated as gecko, a talking bear and midget, and the protagonist somehow winding up as the only tailless human in Thailand.

And while it can get too campy for comfort, Onegin thinks the movie’s breathtaking levity more than makes up for it.

Jeff Jeturian’s Kubrador was named Best Picture, and with it the Lino Brocka award for its director. The movie was the shortest in the film fest competition at less than 100 minutes.

It’s been winning awards right and left in the international circuit, from Brussels to Amien to Rome, including the film’s lead star Gina Pareño for best actress. In Cinemanila though, best actress went to Lee Yeong-Ae of the Korean entry Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. Lee looked familiar enough – the lead star of the Korean telenovela Jewel in the Palace.

Some sort of confusion surrounded the best actor award. First it was Alexis Chadov, then it was Fyodor Bondarchuk, both for the Ukrainian war film set in Afghanistan, 9th Company. The final tally had it in favor of good ol’ Aleksei, but he wasn’t necessarily the one with the silver tooth who caught the jury’s attention.

But the message was clear that an actor from the 9th Company should win it, even as Onegin felt a bit weird watching a war movie from the point of view of who usually are the enemy.

Second best picture in the international competition went to Everlasting Regret by Hong Kong director Stanley Kwan. Set against the backdrop of varied historical changes in China, it tells the story of an extraordinarily pretty woman. The film starts comfortably in Shanghai before the cultural revolution, then ambles through the decades with a diffuse look.

Onegin says: "The lead actress could well be a strong third for the acting trophy after Gina and the Jewel. Amazing how she hardly aged after all those years and lovers. The photographer who plays her platonic best friend and ‘discoverer’ may remind the viewer of Chow Yun Fat. A perpetually smoking version of him."

Audience favorite in the Digital Lokal competition was Briccio Santos’ Anino ng Setyembre, a martial law ghost story. Santos’ Ala Verde ala Pobre won third in last year’s Cinemanila.

Santos believes it’s a misconception to say the digital film is inferior to the regular 35 mm. or even 16 mm or Super 8.

For less money and stress, Briccio says, one can make a fairly respectable film and divert from the mainstream with enough daring and gusto. It’s all a matter of taking advantage of the technology.

Also earning plus points was the bleached dried Squatter Punk by Khavn dela Cruz. Khavn the prolific has been known to submit half the story proposals in one Cinemalaya contest and join all categories in the Palanca awards.

Best picture was Manoro by Brillante Mendoza, director of Masahista and Kaleldo which have both wowed critics and audience alike from Pampanga to Pamplona.

Not to forget National Artist Eddie Romero’s first digital work and first film in 14 years, Faces of Love that was premiered during the film fest. Though there may be some technical flaws in Faces, the old man’s wisdom still shines through and after all these years he still has the capacity to surprise us. Romero, who is in his 80s, last made a movie in 1992, Noli Me Tangere.

It was overall a heck of a film fest. Onegin says he could once again hear the late Freddie Salanga shouting to the toreros who have flown the coop in festival director Tikoy Aguiluz’s Boatman, "Mga ingrato!" Or Krip Yuson as breakwater vagabond reading Cavafy’s poem in Bernal’s Manila by Night: "There is no city like this city..." Because there is no film festival like Cinemanila.