Indie scene abuzz with excitement

There is much buzz and excitement in indie film circles these days because of the recognition that Filipino actors are receiving. Jericho Rosales won Outstanding Achievement in Acting for Alagwa at the Newport Beach Film Festival; Death March featuring some of our biggest names in showbiz — including Zanjoe Marudo and Sam Milby — is on its way to the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Also Cannes-bound is On the Job starring Piolo Pascual and Gerald Anderson.

Another piece of good news I received recently has to do with Graceland, the suspense-thriller starring “independent” actor Arnold Reyes. Arnold recently returned from the US, where he attended the film’s international commercial screenings. The screenings were held in several states and cities across the US, including California, New York, Texas, Hawaii, Colorado, Virginia, Missouri, Florida, Chicago, Massachusetts and Washington. One of the highlights of the trip, according to  Arnold, was reading the reviews published in such venerable media outlets as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Post’s online editions.

Most of them couldn’t stop raving about Arnold’s performance as Marlon, the driver of a corrupt politician named Chango, played by character actor Menggie Cobarrubias. The movie revolves around a kidnapping gone wrong — Marlon’s own daughter is mistakenly kidnapped instead of Chango’s daughter — and from there the whole story begins to unravel. What most impressed me about the film is how it is able to weave other themes and social issues into the narrative without losing its focus. Not very many filmmakers can pull that off, but Fil-American Ron Morales, who wrote and directed Graceland, did, and did it superbly. 

Gary Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times praised the film for “playing like a well-made Filipino version of Taken,” which starred Liam Neeson as a former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative who sets about tracking down his daughter after she is kidnapped by human traffickers while traveling in France. Both Graceland and Taken deal with practically the same subject. But according to Goldstein, Graceland — which he described as “more realistic” — pushed the envelope further and took more risks with the story. The movie packs these heavy concepts into an hour and 24 minutes of film. “Child prostitution, organ trafficking, infidelity, revenge, and other weighty topics also factor into this gritty, well-shot picture,” he wrote.

In its movie review A Land of Hope and Dreams, Dashed, the New York Times’ Jeannette Catsoulis described Arnold’s portrayal of Marlon as “riveting.” Goldstein said Arnold was “excellent.” Farran Smith-Nehme of the New York Post acknowledged that the actors in the film were “uniformly marvelous,” but singled out Arnold, saying that of all of them, it was he who crystallized what the movie was about. “The actors are uniformly marvelous, Reyes most of all, a beaten-down and heartsick man played with the matter-of-factness that characterizes the entire film.”

In a brief conversation, Arnold recounted how reading all the praise was one of the highlights of his trip and the whole Graceland experience. “Hindi ko inaasahan ‘yon, na mapansin ako ng New York Times, at kung anu-ano pa,” says the actor.

It’s a major step forward not just for himself personally, but for all Filipino actors, especially indie film actors. “Maganda ito para sa aming lahat na Filipino actors na kahit paano, kung napansin nila ako, siguro maiisip nila na magagaling ang mga Pilipino. ‘Yun ang gusto kong mangyari doon, not for me, pero para sa lahat ng actors, lalo na ang mga independent actors na katulad ko, na gusto ko, mapansin nila.”

Arnold hopes that with what Graceland has done for his career, more opportunities will open up, including mainstream work on television and in the movies, which has always been his dream. This, he says, will be a new beginning that will hopefully lead to bigger and better things. “Magandang simula ito para sa aming lahat,” he ends.