Tropical gothic

Let me get to the point: If there is one film you should see in the theaters this year then let it be none other than Richard Somes’ Yanggaw. Amids all the hoopla of the just concluded Cinemalaya Film Festival and brouhaha that’s now surrounding the local screenings of Brillante Mendoza’s Kinatay, it’s perhaps the theatrical release of this film that is most deserving of attention of a movie-loving local audience. If anything, Yanggaw is the kind of film you wish everyone was making: “indie” and mainstream — yeah, it’s that good.

The characters and setting are familiar enough to anyone who’s ever watched local TV or movies. Junior Villacin (Ronnie Lazaro), his wife Inday (Techie Agbayani) and the rest of their family live within a rural community in an unspecified barangay (to which our only clue to its whereabouts is that dialect is Ilonggo). A former town official (but now in retirement after losing his reelection) Junior fills his days by either sulking, playing with his grandson or playing volleyball with neighbors and friends, including police chief Dolpo (Joel Torre). It is an idyllic life but far from an idealized one. (In-between amusements, there is always the threat of violence here. Scenes of pastoral beauty in the afternoon are followed by the ruthless onslaught of night, wherein the frivolity of the former is undercut by the cruelties hidden by the latter.) It’s with the sudden return of daughter Amor (Aleera Montalla) afflicted with some unidentified illness that the story plunges into darker, more macabre territory.

Ostensibly a horror film, Yanggaw uses the aswang myth, not to add to the already portentous lore surrounding it but to understand it. Filmmaker Somes and his co-scriptwriter Dwight Gaston does this by situating the story in a fully-realized, familiar world, that is both familiar and alien to the average viewer. Again, the setting of a rural home is recognizable enough to Filipino audiences, being used in movies as far back as in the heyday of LVN and Sampaguita to Carlitos Siguion-Reyna’s Ligaya (Ang Itawag Mo Sa Akin) as it is in the current network “teleseryes.” But in this film, it is so vividly described by Somes’ camera that its authenticity is immediate. (Unlike other productions, it’s obvious that the filmmakers were not tourists in these parts.) Because of that, the whole premise is completely believable. (Much more than let’s say the recent Villa Estrella, which is as convincing as Todd Browning’s Transylvania or Ed Wood’s Planet 9.)

Of course, this is in no small way helped by the performances of all its actors, including veterans Joel Torre, Tetchie Agbayani (who, to my eyes, appears here at her most beautiful ever on film) and, most of all, Lazaro. With this role, he does the remarkable achievement of making a contradiction work. The character of Junior is bitter but somewhat content, violent but retiring, hateful but tender. But Lazaro is so undeniable a presence, his intense eyes and sweaty body heavy with the stench of conflict but burdened with his convictions, that its verisimilitude is absolute. (In my opinion, the only comparable performance would be Vic Silayan’s in Kisapamata although Junior is less malignant but just as morally complex.)

But apart from this, Yanggaw is pure story: simply told but entertaining the way cinema should be. It’s the kind of stuff that’s also best experienced in a cinema in that in not only involves its audience in its telling but its got thrills that can just be enjoyed for the spectacle of it. For those who wish to probe deeper, the film is rich enough for repeated viewings. (I’ve seen it about five times.) Perhaps this is because rather than presenting us with archetypes — heroes, villains, anti-heroes and such — it gives us a frighteningly real portrait of a small town wherein the moral compass of the characters are not so resolutely gray as they are just a tad lighter (or darker) than their environment at any given time.

“It’s a film about family values,” says director Somes in interviews. It’s a telling remark, grotesque though in its implications. With Yanggaw, he might’ve just given us the best, most apt portrait of a Filipino family in recent cinema. Now that’s scary.

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Catch Yanggaw at the IndieSine of the Robinson’s Galleria until Aug. 4. Tune in to www.rockedradio.com