A screening
Coming from the since-gutted-building that housed pirated DVD and related wares the LRT commuter would walk through Plaza Carriedo, the rotunda with on and off fountain between Ronquillo and Ongpin Streets, fronting Sta Cruz church with the intermittent armless blind man playing on a harmonica or tapping rhythm on a can. The plaza where once there was a shooting going on in the midst of that hubbub of commerce and daily confusion, with all the attendant props that accompany such an exercise patently showbiz — the booms, the spotlights, the cameras on trolleys, assistants holding on to giant reflector boards the better to get proper lighting, the usual gathering throng of kibitzers and the plain curious.
Such a scene could be lifted straight out of Brillante Mendoza’s Tirador (Slingshot), except for the director’s part the camera is mostly handheld, following the main characters through the dizzying labyrinths of Quiapo and its environs, almost like a Nazarene procession. The characters are known fleetingly but they’re no cameos and do not lack a sense of empathy, battling against squalor that seems to be romanticized Third World style.
Dante Mendoza, proud son of Pampanga and adopted of Mandaluyong, is just one of the directors mentioned in Bibsy Carballo’s very readable Filipino Directors Up Close: The Golden Years of Philippine cinema 1950-2010 (Anvil Publishing). Don’t expect any heavy philosophical discourse from this collection of profiles of pertinent as well as impertinent directors through the postwar moviegoers’ waking years. Mendoza of course among the more prominent ones having made waves in Cannes as best director for Kinatay and the year before that, gaining notices in the same prestigious festival with the potboiler Serbis, both films by the way earning the rare tag from a more or less acclaimed critic as “the year’s worst.” Mendoza was said to have been nonplussed by the signal honor, but still felt that maybe he was doing something right.
Of the same generation as Mendoza is Jeffrey Jeturian, whose Kubrador also won raves both here and abroad, with the same handheld style that followed the bet taker Gina Pareño through the maze of a neighborhood of mostly informal settlers, such that at least one viewer exclaimed, “Nahilo ako!” (got dizzy) as if having inhaled something strange and perhaps contraband. Jeturian is not as prolific as Mendoza, not as visually prolix as Lavrente Diaz for that matter, but it’s clear he has something to say and when he teams up with producer Joji Alonso, he can say it stunningly good.
Just Bibsy being Bibsy, for the most part this book is, chockfull of anecdotes and possible apocrypha about the Filipino’s favorite moviemakers, including the obscure and nearly forgotten masters of camp.
But where would this nation be without Lino Brocka and Ishmael Bernal and Mike de Leon, the triad which easily heralded the second wave of brilliance that hit its peak during the martial law years: Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang, Stardoom, Nunal sa Tubig, Manila by Night, Kung Mangarap Ka’t Magising, Kisapmata. The book gives a sneak peek into the reclusive De Leon, and helps explain the double-barreled phenomenon Brocka-Bernal that kept the people sane though reeling because of the dictatorship. God only knows how many film theses have been written studying the parallel concerns of Brocka and Bernal, one gritty neorealist lumpen, the other European and apollonian in approach, angels both that have long since departed.
And Bibsy being Bibsy cannot forget the so-called lesser lights, but still worthy of attention because they had something different to say up on the big screen. Elwood Perez with his cult hit Waikiki rightfully described as arguably the first film to deal with the dysfunctional Filipino family because of the overseas worker phenomenon, well ahead of its time, indeed, sa lupa ng ating mga pangarap (in the land of our dreams).
Joey Gosiengfiao of the even bigger cult following Temptation Island who, lest the cinemagoer forget, was behind the template of the Kambal sa Uma later made into serial and moneymaking heaven, retaining the original rat woman Rio Locsin this time as the mom of the unusual twins. Al Tantay shooting at the evasive field rat with gusto has got to be one of the most weirdly funny scenes in Philippine film history. A large part of the humor has to do with the audience not knowing whom to side with, man or mouse who is actually the reincarnation of poor Rio. Only a Filipino comics author could have thought of such duality.
Or Danny Zialcita, now trying to out-recluse the recluse De Leon, with his May Lamok sa Loob ng Kulambo that has the rare distinction of being a successful Pinoy comedy minus the slapstick, complete with Tommy Abuel, he who had to put out a cigarette butt on his palm before telling Bembol Roco that Hilda Koronel was no more in Maynila sa Kuko ng Liwanag, for a change of pace here is seen being led on a leash by a dominatrix. You can still catch the movie sometimes on PBO cable.
If the industry’s output is alarmingly down in recent years because of the cost and expenses in making movies, there’s the patch of light provided by the cost-effective digital mode of the independent filmmakers. In the age of big studio productions and hype manufactured stars, it’s no small comfort that Bibsy’s book pays tribute to the filmmakers by writing on their best work and showing they are human after all. The director like the writer is like God, and so most human when exposed behind pen and camera. Especially when coming from a gutted building of the past, and onto Plaza Carriedo where a shooting is going on, and the armless blind man nearby can only imagine when all this will be screened in the harmonicas of his mind.
