TRUE LOVE ALWAYS

"It’s nothing more than the equivalent of ingesting large amounts of chocolate…"

"It’s as real as Santa Claus…"

"It doesn’t exist outside the cinema screens…"

The Black Hole has been at it again. For someone who doesn’t believe in love, he sure has a lot to say about it. Come to think of it, I can almost imagine him as a disgruntled cupid, cursing his craft ever since he accidentally shot himself in the foot.

I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut when in contact with the following beasts: politicians jostling for space beside FPJ and their supporters, telemarketers and personifications of collapsed stars. You let them say their piece and just let it pass you by hopefully with only a few of your feathers ruffled. Given however that the above statements do contain a kernel of truth, it’s hard to imagine a world where biggest box office draw would be a diabetic St. Nick feasting on his last Hershey bar.

Love is real. That’s why we go and see the same story told over and over again. And it’s not just about sex no matter what Carrie Bradshaw wants us to think. (The only kind of love on that show is self-love and is really just a waste of bodily fluid; I’m certain women aren’t this shallow.) The Black Hole guffaws.

I know, for a fact that a considerable amount of his pirated DVD collection is made up of romantic comedies. (No wonder he’s so cynical.) I smile and tell him, I can show him films that capture that elusive quality called love.

His rictus becomes frozen.

Scared? I ask him.

No reply.

I wonder where the first blow will land.

My Life As A Dog (Lasse Hallström)

Dogs flying off into space, a terminally ill mother, a town of eccentrics (including barking spouses, an elderly but harmless pervert, a skinny dipper at the height of winter)… These are the elements that strangely make this tale of pubescent loneliness and puppy love work.

Twelve-year-old Ingemar is a bit too much for his ailing mother so is sent to countryside to stay with his uncle. There he encounters many magical moments from watching the workers at the glass factory to spying on the town’s most buxom beauty modeling for the local artist. Of course, things really get interesting when a tomboyish, soccer-playing lass takes an interest in the newcomer.

Hallström is most famous nowadays for Hollywood projects like The Shipping News and The Cider House Rules and notorious for doing all the promotional videos for Swedish group ABBA ("It was like being associated with evil," he says.) Not quite a critical favorite though, My Life as a Dog still pardons him for all his sins, an unpretentious masterpiece whose final shot of a sleeping couple summarizes the beauty of burgeoning romance.

Some Kind Of Wonderful (Howard Deutch)

For those of you who are too young to remember the 1980s and the Betamax revolution, the definitive name to remember would be John Hughes. In 1990s parlance, he ruled. From geek wish fulfillment fantasy Weird Science to the landmark teen-flick of the period Sixteen Candles, his oeuvre encapsulates all the perils of being a teenager in suburban Reagan America (which ultimately found a sympathetic audience in these shores).

Scripted by Hughes, Some Kind of Wonderful is an undervalued classic of teen romance with archetypes carefully observed and vividly drawn. There’s Keith, an aspiring artist, who has the hots for the school’s most popular girl in the school Amanda Jones (yes, taken from the Rolling Stones’ song). Finally getting a date with her after Hardy, her boyfriend, cheats on her, he enlists the help of the school’s outcasts including an art-loving skinhead and his posse. Of course, backing him up is his best friend Watts, a drummer with a liking for The Smiths’ The Queen is Dead who just so happens isn’t quite as boyish as she seems. (In true Hughes fashion, she actually loves him.)

If The Breakfast Club is the Citizen Kane of teen movies, then Some Kind of Wonderful would be its Casablanca (subtly alluded to by the film’s last shot which resembles the closing of the Humphrey Bogart-Ingrid Bergman classic.) This is popcorn love nonetheless — and that shouldn’t be a bad thing. (Just don’t tell Meg Ryan lest she returns to the soiree.)

A Man and A Woman (Claude Lelouch)

Whoever said a character study only involved one person? Two people in love certainly resemble a single individual: it’s a characteristic often found in the greatest romances – what would a Romeo be without a Juliet or a Dali without a Gala? It is then surprising that for the amount of films devoted to the subject of adult love (not Deep Throat, I assure you) there have been few successful attempts at capturing the birth pains of two distinct personalities becoming one.

The two protagonists are a widow and a widower because of tragic circumstances, and have children staying at the same boarding school. She works in films while he’s a racecar driver. A chance meeting and the two share a ride back to the city.

The film unfolds slowly, taking time to shape the histories of the two that builds the momentum for their emergence as a couple. Played by Jean-Louis Trintignant and Anouk Aimée, the would-be lovers only come in affectionate contact very late in the film. Unlike Hollywood, intimacy is not confined to a bed in a rented room.

A Man and A Woman was Lelouch’s sixth full-length feature film and probably his only outstanding work so far. It was made with very little money and in the aftermath of the disaster her previous film had been. (According to him, Aimée – already a big star at that time – was surprised that there were only 10 people on the set.) Yet it’s economy does not manifest in any poverty of vision and verve.

Full of élan, it is a charm of a film that casts a spell as beguiling as the rhythms of a samba heard on a cold day. (No wonder Lelouch purposely shot the film to look as cold as possible, to make the audience want it to get hotter.)

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Tonight, Jon Red unveils his new film Astigmatism starring Robin Padilla and Alessandra de Rossi. Independently produced, it is shot on digital video with Padilla actually acting as cameraman for key scenes. It will be shown in Megamall as part of Pelikula at Lipunan.

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Tonight, on the Gweilos Hour, we will take your calls for love advice as we have assembled a panel of experts at how to suck at love. It’ll be disaster for sure. It’s on 9-10 p.m. on NU 107.5 FM.

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Send comments and reactions to erwin_romulo@hotmail.com.