Why we can’t all be Citizen Jake

MANILA, Philippines — “Citizen Jake” is the reclusive auteur Mike de Leon’s first film in 18 years, which makes it a landmark in itself and with a reputation that precedes it. The reviews are out and they are mostly favorable, the blurbs in fact one-liners ending with the ubiquitous exclamation point! They are all correct of course, and Citizen Jake is one of those rarities that come right on time or, as they say, seize the day. Never has there been a movie that Filipinos need more, now in the crosshairs of history.

Yet the movie is not only a political coup but also an artistic triumph. It uses a device of meta cinema, where the lead character Jake Herrera (Atom Araullo) talks directly to the audience, the journalist out to expose the inherent corruption in society, at the same time on a collision course with his politician father as well as his congressman kuya. In literature, metafiction was used to perfection by the Latin Americans Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortazar, the story within a story acting like a safety valve to occasionally release the accumulated pressure.

Veteran actor Lou Veloso with journalist Atom Araullo, who acts for the first time in Citizen Jake

As in the case of Jake, whose brooding gait threatens to explode any minute over a beautifully shot Baguio reminiscent of de Leon’s romantic interlude of long ago “Kung Mangarap Ka’t Magising.” The series of unfortunate events keep building up when a campus girl is murdered, and Jake’s story turns into noir, a whodunit that takes him deeper into the circles of hell rooted in the late dictator’s time.

It would be a bit simplistic to say that this film is about slaying the father, but then it is so much more, almost a revision of Greek tragedy. It is a tragedy all right, with hardly a hint of redemption, but our watching it already suggests a possible victory waiting to gather critical mass. The recurring image of the mountainside bust of the dictator, generic in its foreboding, is a reminder that we can never really break free of the past, despite the erosion of memory.

What then are other poor citizens to do, caught between a rock and a hard place, between the dutertards and the yellowtards, between the disillusionment of Edsa and the failed promise of change highlighted by the discredited war on drugs. Surely there must be some form of life beyond cynicism, apart from fake news and churned out press releases.

Araullo with director Mike De Leon.

There’s a line the Jake character says, truth may be stranger than fiction, but that doesn’t make it any less relevant. It is the hunger for truth that can be the only weapon against lawyers, guns and money, sexual predators and “prostituition.” And if the Edsa spirit has long waned, the symbol of resistance remains constant. 

The Lou Veloso character, a grizzled old activist in university, could well capture the sentiments of many Filipinos today: if elections are like a feast of assholes, why should it be surprising that an asshole gets elected to highest office? We are all so stupid. Coming soon: “Buhay Carinderia” starring Cesar Montano and the Tulfo brothers, “Narcolist” (Admiral, patawarin mo ako!), “I will keel you” (If you destroy my country). “The untold story of Tito Escalera and Pepsi Paloma.” Say what? No national ID no entry.

Araullo in a scene with Allan Paule.

Citizen Jake works on many levels. When the reviewers say must see, it is exactly that because oftentimes we find ourselves cringing at having to bear the ugly truth. Wake-up call hits it on the head too, the movie a bop on our collective amnesia and apathy. Even true friendship between social classes is a misadventure, as seen in the sad fate of the tiwala’s son and Jake’s best friend played by Adrian (nee Luis) Alandy, pony boy of Wright Park.

Theater actor Teroy Guzman, who played the corrupt Senator Jacobo Herrera, said the time for fence sitting is over. He said artists must act, because art is the last refuge in a society of dead ends and fast dwindling options.

Max Collins(left) and Cherie Gil (right)deliver some excellent portrayals among the multi-faceted female characters in the film.

Can’t say enough either about the excellent portrayals of the women in this film: Max Collins as Jake’s co-teacher and girlfriend, Anna Luna as the college girl prostituition recruiter, Elora Espano as the collateral victim without a word of spoken dialogue, Cherie Gil as the madame and strongman’s ex, Raquel Villavicencio as the Baguio old-timer who says the city is no longer the same, Dina Bonnevie as the lead’s estranged mother. 

There are welcome touches of humor too, as in the Max Eigenmann character’s constant references to “The Godfather,” a lighthearted take on the deadly gangster mindset of local politics.

Members of the cast join the director at the premiere of Citizen Jake.

Citizen Jake makes us also wonder why de Leon hasn’t been named National Artist after all these years. Surely with “Itim,” “Kisapmata,” “Kung Mangarap Ka’t Magising,” “Batch ‘81,” “Sister Stella L,” “Bayaning 3rd World,” he more than deserves it. What’s taking them so long? Then again if the current administration gives him the accolade, he just might refuse it.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was cinema. Else why would we bother writing a review of a movie better seen on the big screen? Stop reading. Citizen Jake provides a thread out of the labyrinth, away from the minotaur of our own making, and where screwer becomes screwed.