A small oasis for cinemagoers
Once in a blue while the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) goes out of its way to give the average Filipino filmgoer a treat, at the same time help foster a deeper appreciation for the more than hundred year old craft.
In the past couple of weeks screening under the radar in select movie theaters in the varied multiplexes across the metro were the Top 3 films from last year’s Cannes festival, namely “It Was Just an Accident” (Iran), winner of the Palm d’ Or Best Picture, “Sentimental Value” (Norway) that was the Grand Prix or Second Best Picture, and special prize winner “Resurrection” (China, Third Best Picture).
Throw in a fourth, the multigenerational interwoven story of German women in a farmhouse, “Sound of Falling,” and you have a veritable oasis of independent cinema, a welcome break from Hollywood, Netflix and “Batang Quiapo” with their parade of slop and predictability, oops, not necessarily in that order.
And perhaps with ears still ringing about the skyrocketing ticket prices in the last Metro Manila Film Festival, FDCP saw fit to significantly reduce prices to P250 for entry, discounted to P200 for seniors, no need to knock heads whether orchestra, balcony or loge, or the latest virus (pronounced vee-rus) scare.
All that aside, Palm d’ Or winners are no strangers to local movie houses, as they usually get regular run months after the Cannes experience, starting with “Parasite” some years back (since migrated to Netflix), followed by “Anatomy of a Fall” and last year’s heart-tugging softcore “Anora.”
It’s only now that we get to see a clutch of entries, almost in the manner of judges or reviewers of that late lamented evaluation board.
Jafar Panahi’s “It Was Just an Accident” is deep in the running for this year’s Oscars, as top prize winners go, both for Best Foreign Film and Best Picture. The cast is comprised mostly of nonprofessional actors, anchored by a couple of veterans — a style perfected by the independent school more reliant on the organic than method.
A black comedy on political repression, corruption and systemic cancer of an entrenched regime, the film delves into details of a former political prisoner encountering his former jailer/torturer in the free world of an auto repair shop, where they are finally on equal footing and revenge well at hand.
The rollercoaster act of the mechanic (Vahid Mobasseri) gathering his fellow ex-dissidents, including Shiva (Mariam Afshari), Golrokh and Hamid, to decide what to do with abducted state agent (Ebrahim Azizi), short of burying him alive, is the dizzying gist of the film, taking some sly detours to bring jailer’s pregnant wife to hospital, and a desert scene which the hothead among the coterie compares to “Waiting for Godot.”
In short, the moral choices of payback become complicated, and if revenge is a dish best served cold, opting to walk away is the more difficult path of redemption both for the mechanic and peg-legged jailer. Quits is as quits can be, but already the world has changed more than a regime for all its window dressing ever could.
In Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value,” easily the best seller of this batch with multiple screenings specially on weekends, lead Renate Reinsve continues her star turn under the director and could be dark horse in the awards season, not that it matters much. Film opens with her as theater actress Nora going through a bad case of stage fright before a performance, far and away from her film director father (played by Stellan Skarsgard, the neo-Nazi villain in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) who shuns the theater.
It is actually a story of sisters who are coming to terms with their estranged father after the suicide of their mom, and director dad wants to cast Nora in his latest film that would be a comeback after a long hiatus, just like he did with the younger sister (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) in her girlhood. The house too is a central character in a movie not so much about family as it is about healing and forgiveness, and how art itself could offer that window to forgive.
Hollywood’s Elle Fanning also impresses as the American who heroically tries to essay the role of distant daughter when Nora initially turns it down, to no avail, as the script was meant for the real flesh and blood, with minor revisions to lessen the impact of the scars of war.
Finally, Bi Gan’s “Resurrection” is the longest of the lot at almost three hours, the epic sweep a visual treat from the Chinese millennial, and sitting through the dreams of the dying deliriant is far more beneficial than any discussion on the West Philippine Sea.
Shu Qui and Jackson Yee headline a cast that takes us through the varied periods of cinema of the last hundred years, its shifting styles a virtual vertigo that should inspire anyone with even a sliver of appreciation for the silver screen and the dots and colors and shadows that move around it.
From film’s beginnings of the other, to noir, through Buddha nonattachment courtesy of a broken tooth, and a gambling child that is destiny’s holy scam, then to 1999 eve of the millennium and twilight of a vampire, the photography is never short of awesome. Begin the Bi Gan, thank you FDCP, for providing another portal of cinema for a couple of weeks before the Year of the Horse, such films can easily tame the tikbalang, or may themselves be the tikbalang.
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