Dogville and other beasts

There are times when you can run into director Tikoy Aguiluz during screenings of the Cinema Evaluation Board, or as the past few Augusts go, up and about supervising the Cinemanila International Film Festival, which recently staged its fifth edition in Greenbelt, Makati.

A number of films had their so-called world premiere, and the list of movies both on exhibition and in competition seemingly came from the four corners of the filmmaking world. From Brazil’s City of God to France’s initially X-rated Swimming Pool, from the omnibus Erotic Tales to movies from the more obscure countries on the map.

Time was when Tikoy, aka as Amable VI, was a struggling young director espousing a guerrilla form of filmmaking; today he may not be as struggling and his portfolio is now definitely heftier, though his underground/alternative mindset is still very much in evidence in his being head honcho of the yearly Cinemanila, the latest run of which was held just a stone’s throw away from the infamous aborted mutiny of last month. Talk about reverse serendipity, but we’re not yet ready for a movie version of Oakwood, the musical.

There was a special screening for CEB members of the Cannes winner Dogville from Denmark, by director Lars Von Trier. The movie, which runs for three hours with a sparse, theater-like minimalist set design and practically nonexistent cinematography, did seem overly long, and the actors though predominantly Western at first made like they were not speaking in the original English one heard over the audio.

It took us a while to recognize the lead female character named Grace as the Australian actress Nicole Kidman, and the actor who played the father of the male protagonist-small town writer was the game show host in Magnolia, another longish film that starred Kidman’s ex, Tom Cruise.

And as the credits rolled after the catharsis of an ending, and with the soundtrack blaring David Bowie’s Young Americans and not Bob Dylan’s If Dogs Run Free, we did recognize a couple of names in the cast – John Hurt, but we just couldn’t place him in what role, and Ben Gazzarra, who we surmise was the blind man full of literary allusions and who loved to fondle Nicole’s thigh as they sat together telling stories at sunset. Oh yes, and James Caan too as the gangster who gives the town of Dogville its final comeuppance on the advice of a terribly wronged Kidman.

One has to hand it to Von Trier, for this very dark, very brooding film that has all the telltale signs of a literary mind, indeed the plot is constructed as if it were a novel, and so perhaps takes as long to expound the chapters, the exposition painstakingly unfolding before the audience who may consider it a kind of heroism to stay awake through the entire movie.

A turning point is the first rape scene of Kidman, which, because of the wall-less set, appears as if the act is being done in public, and further accents the reason the town of Dogville is named so.

Eventually all the men of Dogville get to sleep with Grace save for her boyfriend the writer, whose own philosophic convoluted Hamlet-like dilemma dooms him and the whole town too.

Some film buffs’ beef is that Dogville is too long, and they are probably right. But this is the type that goes over big in places like Cannes and perhaps in other progressive, avant-garde film festivals the world over as well. Which explains why the younger generation of filmmakers like Lav Diaz prefer the drawn-out, dense opuses, those that are sure to tax the viewer’s patience but which in the end promise ample rewards in insight if not plain visual vertigo.

Even if Dogville is shown in a commercial run in Manila, chances are the theaters won’t be even half full, unless the audience were hardcore Kidman fans.

The movie is long as it is good but is not likely stir up a cinematic revolution in the city of man, not unless everyone lived in a celluloid bubble of Cinemanila.

We can also understand in a vague manner why Tikoy appreciates Dogville very much, since the Danish movie with English dialogue and French subtitles has that independent, in-your-face spirit that is not wasted on kindred guerrilla directors. And so we can only sleep at our own risk.

On the other hand, Tikoy himself has come a long way, from Boatman that starred his late friend Freddie Salanga, to Segurista, to his latest that had its world premiere at the Cinemanila, www.xxx.com whose other title is "Webdiva."

And to think that after the first EDSA revolution, Tikoy did a couple of documentaries on Nur Misuari and Father Conrado Balweg, his camera in effect becoming an aperture of peace.

It was also the amiable direk who advised us once never to start a movie with a wake scene because producers are superstitious about this, siguradong hindi kikita sa takilya. Or someone might in fact die on the set, and not exactly because of boredom.