Religion, politics, sex, love & Loy arcenas' Niño

MANILA, Philippines - Loy Arcenas is the latest in a long line of Filipino theater directors who have crossed over into film, and his first full length feature “Niño” is in competition in the New Breed category in the 7th Cinemalaya festival that starts on Friday at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) and Greenbelt 3 in Makati.

The New York-based Arcenas has made waves abroad but has regularly come home to direct plays, specifically for Tanghalang Pilipino, among the more notable being “Golden Child” and “Tatlong Mariya,” the latter starring director Mario O’ Hara. He is presently working with scriptwriter Rody Vera on “Requieme,” partly based on a short story by Gina Apostol, “Cunanan’s Wake,” woven around the Fil-Am who murdered Gianni Versace.

Arcenas is 58. “Just shows you that there are always more adventures waiting to happen, more mountains needing to be scaled! I entered as a student in this year’s Cinemalaya looking to practice what I learned in school in another project,” he says.

The Cebu-born director stayed until high school, then UP Diliman for pre-med, then London for theater studies and ended up working in New York.

The movie “Shane” made a strong impression on him.

The original schedule for this interview was rained out by tropical storm “Falcon,” and as both of us rushed to beat our respective deadlines we resorted to the old reliable Internet.

You were the only no-show among the new breed directors during the Cinemalaya launch; was this due to any amount of shyness on your part or some other reason? (A la Terrence Malick of “The Tree of Life,” who as his actor Brad Pitt said, is an artist and thus doesn’t have to be a salesman?)

I had completely forgotten about the press conference and had scheduled a family affair in Cebu at that same time which I couldn’t back out of.

It is true, I am not a salesman. I am a bad salesman. My brother hammers that point time and again! I have always worked on projects which other people have had to sell! I did the work, someone else sold it.

How would you describe the transition from theater to cinema, and what adjustments did you have to make and difficulties you encountered in making Niño? How different is the language of film from that of theater?

I have done production design on a number of commercials and TV projects in the States but never really got into the filming aspect of it because we were always working on the next set needed in those projects. There really was no time for me to sit and watch the process. And the long waits in between takes always bored me.

I loved films and consider myself an avid filmgoer and, having worked for the longest time in the theater, in my mind’s eye, I thought, surely I can figure my way through this film, after all I had finished a short film two years ago, and that was a breeze.

THE DISINTEGRATION OF FAMILY: Arthur Acuña as Mombic and Jhiz Deocareza as Anthony in Loy Arcenas’ “Niño“.

Let us just say, I had to learn film making as we went along. Thank God, I had great teachers teaching me along the way...Lee Meily (the cinematographer) was one such teacher. I was literally learning my way through the entire filming process. It felt like I was always in ground zero when each filming day began. I had to start from scratch every time. In theater, you learned much from previous rehearsal days. No such luck in film making. I felt like I was always flying by the seat of my pants. Everyday was a new adventure. And you got high from the rush you got from these adventures!

Rody (Vera, Niño’s screenwriter) and I wanted to do this intimate film on the disintegration of a modern day Filipino family. Well, that intimate film ended up involving a child star...an animal (the butterfly that wouldn’t fly on cue...it took four hours to get the shot)...six dinner table scenes (turns out table scenes are very difficult sequences to shoot; I didn’t know this until we were in the midst of the shoot)...the very complicated tertulia sequences. And the list goes on. Someone mentioned that Niño contains practically all the most difficult sequences one needs to master in film-making! Well, we didn’t know this when we began to write the story.

The Bonifacio film last year by Mario O’Hara had been occasionally criticized as ’too theatrical’… could you foresee the same remark said of Niño? What is your own take on Mario’s film?

I have not seen Mario’s film so I am not able to comment on it. I don’t think Niño will be labeled as theatrical. Some friends who have seen the rough edits have asked why it wasn’t theatrical.... In my work as a theater director, the storyline always dictates the style of the production. Nino’s storyline doesn’t require the movie to be theatrical, so it isn’t. 

But you could say that the film is theatrical in the very complex characterizations that the actors have brought into their roles. We invited the actors to be part of the movie and the screenplay got developed through a series of workshops and contributions from the actors in the development of their roles. The film is very much about ensemble acting.

The tertulia scene at the end, or at least based on the advance stills, reminds me of the climactic scene at the end of “Portrait of the Artist as Filipino,” in that all the old people and ghosts come out in a kind of reunion. Was this device intentional on your part? 

We did not consciously set out to do an homage to Nick Joaquin’s masterpiece. But it ended up being so because the tertulia sequence is quintessentially Filipino and Joaquin really nailed that on the head...

The young actor with the butterfly that wouldn’t fly on cue (far left). Fides Cuyugan Asensio as Celia and Tony Mabesa as Gaspar.

Chris Martinez, Dennis Marasigan, Soxy Topacio are but three theater directors who have since carved out a niche in film. Do you see yourself achieving something similar in the near or not so distant future?

I laughed when Krisma Fajardo, my line producer, warned me that I would get hooked by the end of the filming process. She was absolutely right. I am now addicted to it!

Of all the plays you’ve directed, which of them do you feel could be most adaptable or translated to film?

I would love to do a film version of Tatlong Mariya, Rody Vera and my collaboration of the Filipino adaptation of Chekov’s “Three Sisters.” As a matter of fact, much of Niño is a reaction to that collaboration. I am very much into character studies these days and Tatlong Mariya is packed with these.

I would love to do a small intimate film to put to use what I’ve learned from the Niño experience...but I have to be very careful with that word intimate...look at how Niño turned out! “no foreigners beyond this point” by Warren Leight (Sideman, Law and Order, In Treatment) which I did for Ma-yi in New York would make a very good film. It is roughly based on Warren’s experiences teaching English in a newly opened China in the early 1980s. That is another one packed with very intricate character studies. I am very drawn to complicated films with deep character studies.

I noticed that I’ve interviewed in previous assignments for different outfits a number of your actors: Art Acuña, Shamaine Centenera, Raquel Villavicencio. If you could speak through any of your actors in Niño, whom would it be? Or would you rather let the visuals do the talking?

The visuals can pretty much do the talking...but these actors are very opinionated. Hey, ask them about the Loy Arcenas experience...ha! ha!

Is Niño by nature a religious film, or one merely of faith amid things that fall apart?

Niño covers religion, politics, sex, love. Betrayal and survival make up the Janus face of this film. But the heart of Niño is the dynamics of family obligations in present day Philippines. What/how/where do you stand when things begin to fall apart. I guess Niño is about faith amidst things that fall apart…