A gem of a film from Thailand

The Metro Manila Film Festival is now in full swing – with the annual Gabi ng Parangal to be held tonight at the reception hall of the Philippine International Convention Center.

Prior to the Metro Filmfest, however, there was another film event held in the city of Makati that came and went practically unnoticed. This was the third annual Cine Manila International Film Festival that made its rounds in the Ayala Cinemas of Greenbelt and Glorietta.

Among the entries in this film festival, the one I was really trying to catch was Batang Westside by Lav Diaz (Serafin Geronimo: Kriminal ng Bo. Concepcion, Burger Boys and Huband sa Ilalim ng Buwan). But this movie is five hours long! And I figured that by the time this film is over, it should already be Noche Buena.

However, I still tried to catch the second of its two daily screenings over the weekend – prepared for the long night ahead – but would always get stuck in the Makati holiday traffic.

Failing to catch the second (and last screening) last Saturday, I opted to watch the much-talked about Thai movie, Jan Dara, by Nonzee Nimibutr. According to those who saw it ahead of me, this film has sex in every other scene. This is an exaggeration. The sex parts come after every three or four scenes.

But Jan Dara is not all about sex. It actually has a cohesive and legitimate story based on a Thai novel.

The movie begins in the late 1920s when the lead male character named Jan Dana is born. It is just unfortunate that his mother dies giving birth to him and his father blames him for causing her death. (There is a deeper reason than that and this will be revealed toward the end.)

After that, his father brings to their home a succession of wives who all become his aunts. Early on, he finds an ally in one of them who treats him like her own son.

Growing up, he is treated like a servant by his father who despises him up to the very end. But in spite of the physical, verbal and emotional abuses he receives from his father, he still manages to grow up like any regular young man his age. In fact, he isn’t even naïve when it comes to the pleasures of sex and other worldly deeds.

The rest of the film devotes itself to Jan Dara’s life as a married man and master of the house. There is even a brief sequence about the Second World War, but viewers only see this in passing. In the end, Jan Dara looks back at the life he made for himself and he realizes it is no better than the one led by this despicable man he had known to be his father.

The film Jan Dara boasts of great production values. In fact, I can find no fault in its music, sound and cinematography. However, I cannot judge the accuracy and correctness of its production design because I am totally ignorant when it comes to Thai costumes and architecture.

The members of the cast also give above-average performances – particularly the actor who plays Jan Dara at the age of 15. (Now, don’t ask me for their names because I can neither spell nor pronounce them).

Also praiseworthy is the performance of the Daniel Fernando look-alike who portrays Jan Dara as an adult.

The one who gives the least interesting performance in the whole movie is the actor who plays Jan Dara’s father. But then, he cannot be blamed entirely for showing what seems like a limited acting range. After all, he is only made to display three kinds of emotions in this film –angry, angrier and angriest.

The story of Jan Dara actually isn’t the most creative this side of the region. The conflict between Jan Dara and his father, for instance, stems from the fact that they are not really father and son. Jan Dara, turns out, is the product of a gang rape that is committed against his mother – and the man he had known to be his father takes this out on him up to his last breath. Now, the plot isn’t exactly new in Philippine cinema. No, not even in the movies of old.

And then, there’s the subplot of Jan Dara carrying on sexual relations with one of his father’s wives – a story that had been used many times over in local movies. (The one that first comes to mind is Tinik sa Dibdib where Phillip Salvador even impregnates his stepmother, played by Pilar Pilapil.)

The film Jan Dara actually has to resort to sex scenes to make the movie interesting. And though there is no exhibition of genitalia in the film (only breasts and buttocks), the simulated sex acts are all realistically depicted.

Some of the sex scenes, I’m telling you, are graphic enough to give Joyce Jimenez, Rica Peralejo and Assunta de Rossi a collective heart attack. (Now, where was Fr. Robert Reyes and why didn’t he organize a marathon to protest this film?)

Jan Dara – so I was told – was brought by a major American film distributor for a million dollars. I really find this strange because a lot of our local films are better than this one. Jan Dara is one film that would eat dust when placed side by side with our Oro, Plata, Mata for instance.

But how come Thai cinema (which only makes less than a dozen pictures a year) is already making waves abroad and here we are still limping after the advent of Philippine movies more than 75 years ago?

And so tonight, as the leaders of our movie industry gather for the annual awards presentation of the Metro Manila Film Festival, let this be a thought for them to ponder on.