Direk Joey stops to smell the roses

Director Joey Javier Reyes has this thing for the soul. He thinks about all the hurrying and scurrying he’s doing and reminds himself (thanks to fellow director Manny Castañeda), "What am I doing all this for? So I can get myself a nice coffin? (knock on wood). It’s not surprising therefore, why he got into deep conversation about lost souls with psychic Jaime Lichauco one night while attending a party. Not surprising, too, why direk Joey didn’t just push the thought the topic at the back of his mind.

He even went out of this way to research on it. And come up with Anghel sa Lupa, a touching movie about the enduring power of lost souls.

Maybe it’s also in the genes. The professor-director’s grandmother happens to be an espiritista, and he himself could have developed his third eye hadn’t his mom stopped him in his tracks when she discovered his son was dabbling in tarot cards. So things of the spirit are not alien to him.

Don’t get him wrong, though the guy doesn’t dabble in the occult.

Nor has he ever been known to direct horror films. What Direk Joey dipped his hands into this time, is a movie about love beyond death, about what drives a son’s spirit to live on and stay earthbound because he wants to protect his widowed mother (Dina Bonnevie) and only brother (Alwin Uytingco).

Direk Joey himself acknowledges the power of the dearly departed over him.

"My dad passed away 13 years ago, but he still influences me. I seek his approval whenever I’m on the verge of a big decision," the loving son reveals. Or could it be the loving son in the director trying to find expression?

Whatever it is, he admits unabashedley that he was crying while making the movie. What touched him most was the scene where Cogie Domingo (as Benjo, the loving eldest son who dies and turns into a spirit) was bidding his mom goodbye.

Benjo remained earth-bound because he took it upon himself to protect his mom from her no-good suitor (Ricky Davao).

"No, the movie has no special effects. Neither is it a suspense or scream movie. It’s simply a love story about a family: enlightening, uplifting," says Direk Joey with pride. "That is its selling point."

If moralists crucified the director for Live Show a few years back, they will keep mum over Anghel sa Lupa, a fitting Mother’s Day offering from Regal Films.

Besides, who will quarrel over family as the focal point of one’s life? Not the OFW’s dependents, at the receiving end of remittances that keep the economy afloat in this time of recession.

You feel for Dina Bonnevie as the grieving widow who hugs the framed photo of her dead son. You also feel for Benjo (Cogie Domingo), who hangs around long after he has died to straighten out problems in his fatherless family.

Still, this does not mean Direk Joey has gone tame. Far from it. He’s still the same fiery director whose Live Show led to the resignation of former MTRCB Chair Nicanor Tiongson.

"I want to make something really shocking or touching," he intones, or threatens? So shocking will it be, says the director, that Live Show will pale in comparison.

That film, which the director calls "alternatie viewing," is already in the drawing board. Regal Films’ Mother Lily Monteverde, also the producer of Anghel, has greenlighted the project, naughtily-titled Limang Daliri.

Go ahead, let your imagine run wild. With Aubrey Miles playing the title role of a manicurist, you cannot help it.

"This one," challenges Direk Joey, "will be more shocking than Live Show."

Meanwhile, he continues to "share what I know to future generations" by teaching tomorrow’s filmmakers at the UP College of Mass Communication, a job this eternal professor enjoys to the hilt.

So passionate is he about mentoring Direk Joey is even eyeing a teaching post in Texas five years from now; a plan which – sob and sigh – will surely sadden a lot of industry people.

But before Direk Joey watchers lose hope, here’s good news. He hasn’t packed his bags, yet. At least, not now, when the SARS threat still makes him avoid going to airports, and when he sees his friends in the US losing their jobs.

"The economy has gotten so bad a friend who was a web researcher in the US is back working as hairdresser," Direk Joey reports. As for other countries, "Australia is already overpopulated."

Besides, the loving son cannot even bear the thought of leaving his mom, who stays with him at home, behind.

The lightbulb in his mind is forever switched on, generating ideas about new worlds to conquer, new fields to exploit. He will, for instance, grab the chance to do a TV talk show that will feature "all kinds of people and all types of topics."

He will come up with his second book in a year or two.

And who knows, Direk Joey may come up another script that will either squeeze the tearducts dry, or make his audience double up with laughter the way he’s doing in Whattamen.

"This country is so surreal. Anything can happen here, like when Jumbo the elephant just walked out of his cage and caused a commotion along Timog Avenue," he says.

In fact, he won’t be surprised if he wakes up one day and finds himself staring at a giraffe right in his own backyard.

The jaw-dropping surprises keep on coming, and Direk Joey wants to be there, right smack where the action is.

Whether it’s Buddhism (a passion he literally carries around through a talisman-like ornament he wears around his neck), Net surfing or designing jewelry, trust the eternal child in this director to be there, gasping, sometimes gaping.

"If life does begin at 40, it could only mean one thing: I’m only eight years old!" Direk Joey, 48, laughs.

He describes himself as old enough to have established his foundations, but young enough to commit mistakes and bounce right back.

Life has been good. For someone like Direk Joey who has paid his dues – emotionally and professionally – it could only get better.