Romance in longhand

(This being a draft of a reactor’s statement at the Cinemalaya Congress panel 6, artistic vision vis-à-vis market demand, originally scheduled 14 July 2010 but reset to 20 July at the CCP Little Theater, due to typhoon Basyang.)

Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, this after-noon we have been called to make comment on the themes just expounded by our panelists… and I wonder whether in fact we would not be better served by watching one of the Cinemalaya entries at another venue, to appreciate first hand the mysteries of film as art.

Of course I have to agree that there is a disconnect between artistic vision and market demands, which Cinemalaya year in and year out continues to belie by breaking the box office now in its sixth year of intelligent, artful, entertaining cinema.

The working title of this is “Romance in Longhand” not because of any “senti” tendencies, erotic or otherwise, but for the simple reason that the home computer has lately been erratic and crashing/hanging, such that we have to go back to basics, back to the barely legible analog.

Lav Diaz is the extreme disconnect between art and commerce, equating length with brilliance, patience with boredom, and in his epics reaped a variety of catcalls ranging from “snoozefest” to “egotistical,” but whatever else you might say these films serve their purpose in resetting the boundaries of film, and in this wise returns film to its roots as a visual art, albeit this supposedly moving picture is barely moving.

How does Lavrente resolve this? By making the hour-long transitional film, Butterflies Have No Memories, where the director learns that short can also be good. But sometimes, it feels like the longest short film ever made.

For his part Chito Rono resolves this, at least partially, through the record-setting musical Emir, an ambitious government-funded project whose reputation preceded it. Comments have ranged from “Everybody has to have a moment” to “’Di ko type,” to which we can hardly react, having seen snatches of it only through trailers, live launchings, and a pirated 13-in-1 DVD copy bought in the underpass of the Boni MRT station, very near the cellphone shops and turo-turos, and in which the images of Frencheska and Sid and Dulce appear as if in a mirage in the Morocco desert, blurred and blurry, if you see her say hello, she might be in Tangiers. (1)

The sight of those hardhats dancing sort of trivializes the overseas Filipino worker experience, or was that a pirated DVD error? Rono though has employed music and song and dance to lift the art of film and with it, help lighten the load of millions of OFWs the world over. This is advocacy filmmaking at the other end of the spectrum.

Swinging back to left, slightly to the right of Lav, Raya Martin astounds and delights with his foreign-flavored, yet classy Filipino films, as Independencia has a look and feel we’ve not quite seen before, well, unless one has soaked up the international festival circuit.

Martin is perhaps guilty of the “pang-festival” tag, but this does not make his films any less relevant, meaningful and Filipino, as relevance, meaning, and being Filipino lean to the absurd. Independencia, the pre-colonial Pinoy as noble savage that would cast fresh light on different tribes, may find a niche in the art houses and university symposiums, where Martin’s films may be shown side by side with, say, Hubert Tibi’s. (2)

You always get the feeling that you have to watch Independencia or Now Showing again. And all along one thought that once is more than enough.

Evidence of indie films appealing to a wider audience are the works of Crisaldo Pablo as gay direk and Jade Castro, the guy who bore much promise with 2007’s Endo.

Pablo’s Bathhouse has all the ennui and pathos/bathos of gay sexual politics, putting accent on the third sex as marginalized sector, even if in death and matters of the heart we are all of us amateurs. (3)

Structurally, the narrative is sound and coherent, and if the seedy side of Manila is any consolation, the camera as asexual eye faithfully captures this.

An officemate once remarked that indie=gay film, and we can hardly blame the homophobe’s misperception: a great many of the LGBTs have found voice in indie cinema, they go hand in glove because both in the margins. The straight may find Pablo’s films educational, but unless one is breaking out of the closet, once is enough.

Castro’s outfit UFO Pictures has signaled the downbeat in that a well-made, intelligent, out-of-the-box film can in fact make modest money here and reap praises abroad. Such rare combination opens doors to new possibilities, vision unflinching and indivisible.

What Pagdadalaga ni Max Oliveros did for coming-of-age and coming-out films, Endo has done for the young adult, post-teen flicks, a breakthrough in more ways than can be imaginable, the soundtrack a collection of original Pinoy music that rocks the casbah.

To sum up, of course indie filmmakers should continue to strive to reach a wider, not necessarily foreign audience, even if subconsciously. And certainly not at the expense of their art.

And how does this particular farfetched romance end? In a not-so-pastoral manner. While it may be impractical for our new breed of filmmakers to return to analog, it might help if they are made aware of the old processes, simply to keep in touch with the craft of the past masters, and not just by blowing up to 35 mm their digital works.

It may sound ironic, but the film industry will survive despite the digital age, as not too long ago a writer, we forget now who — Milan Kundera or Italo Calvino — said the novel would survive despite the Internet and other technological advances.

At the heart of it is craft, sullen and patient, waiting for the market to seek its own level.

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Notes

(1)      A line from a Bob Dylan song, If You See Her, Say Hello, from the album “Blood on the tracks” (CBS 1974).

(2)      Chismis in the indie circuit has it that Martin crosses to the other side of the corridor when he sees Tibi approaching.

(3)      The rock writer Paul Nelson once said this in an article in Rolling Stone magazine, 1970-something.

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In memory of Miguel Fabie, 41, second cameraman and colleague at the Cinema Evaluation Board.