Then they got to the end

Ishmael Bernal made his directorial debut with Pagdating Sa Dulo, a scathing critique of the Philippine movie industry. This is probably not the safest way for an ambitious young director to launch his career, but we’re talking about Bernal. You make Pagdating Sa Dulo at the end, when you are disillusioned and broken, not at the beginning when you are brimming with vim and hope. To no one’s surprise it was a flop. Movies about movies never make money in the Philippines, an insider once told me; self-criticism is not the industry’s strong suit.

The plot is hackneyed and hoary, probably dating back to when humans realized that they like to watch other humans. A nightclub stripper (the divine Rita Gomez — there was a dame) gets cast as a movie extra and ends up the star, which does not please her lover, a married taxi driver (the über-hunk Vic Vargas who was the definition of masculinity when we were kids; you poor kids with your wimpy boy toys). You thinkyou know how this story will end, but like I said, it’s Bernal.

In 8 1/2, Fellini cast Mastroianni as his avatar, a director plagued with writer’s block; in Pagdating Bernal’s avatar is Eddie Garcia (who is admirably low-key and non-hammy) as a director with artistic ambitions. Everything about the movie industry ticks him off, from the practice of calling directors “Direk” (“Sinabi ko nang huwag mo ‘kong tatawaging Direk, kumukulo ang dugo ko”) to those tired old formulas, sex and violence. Yes, they were already tired in the early 1970s; what is both funny and sad about Bernal’s first outing is that not one blasted thing has changed. Except for this glaring contrast: the taxi dancer and the taxi driver (who also ends up in the movies) are models of decorum and taste compared to today’s showbiz personalities. Ascynical as it is, Pagdating Sa Dulo portrays a far more innocent time than the present.

Garcia’s director, who speaks English and whose wife is played by Elvira Manahan (a reliable signifier of his social class), takes a teacherly, non-sexual interest in his new actress. He urges her to observe how regular people behave and points out how unnatural actors look onscreen. Movies should portray Truth, Bernal declares in the voice of Eddie Garcia; otherwise, why make movies at all? Yes, this is a young filmmaker’s manifesto in the shape of a commercial flick.

To no one’s surprise the movie is a flop (Just as Pagdating’s dismal box-office showing surprised no one and probably pleased some), but the ex-stripper has no intention of going back to her old life. She quickly reinvents herself as a sex symbol. True, Ms. Gomez is a little mature to be a sex kitten, but who cares when she tosses off her lines with such vitriol? She soon finds that her one experience of working with a professional has left her overqualified for bomba movies. She constantly harangues her new director, a complete film illiterate. If this is a big emotional scene, she points out, why do I have my back to the camera? A good actress can express emotion from the back, he lamely retorts.

Then there are the other denizens of the industry: the stars (Rosemarie Gil and Ronaldo Valdez) who bring their personal lives to the set, disrupting production; the scribes who can make or break a movie with a review (this is the fantasy element); the publicists who also happen to be scribes — hello, conflict of interest — and the producers. There are two kinds of producers, the venomous Addison DeWitt points out in All About Eve — the ones who casually invest theirextra money, and those who risk bankruptcy with every project.

Only the second type is present in Pagdating: the one who constantly reminds the director that the movie business is a business. The producer played by Zeneida Amador might be a version of Lily Monteverde, but I think “Mother” hadn’t even started Regal Films at the time. She asks the director to re-edit his film (his jump cuts sound like something Godardian), he refuses, and when next we see him he’s doing documentaries. I shoot the Truth, he tells the stripper-turned-actress, and she looks at him with bemusement and pity.

The hunky cabbie who got into showbiz for the money has no such conflicts: he’s happy to be a floozy. It’s the actual floozy who can’t deal with the shallowness and stupidity of the business. She starts hitting the bottle hard, and by the premiere of her second movie she’s a wreck. A movie reporter writes an exposé of her sordid history and refuses to retract until the hunky cabbie stands in front of him and asks, “What do you want?” The reporter’s eye flicks towards thecabbie’s crotch and that’s all we need to know. No corny speeches about dignity; these are whores. Nothing has changed, apparently, but in 1970 subtlety existed.

In the final scene a smashed Rita Gomez is half-dragged, half-carried by Vic Vargas into their premiere; outside, the mob shrieks at the movie stars arriving in their shiny cars. Are those screams of admiration or are they baying for blood? The taxi driver and the taxi dancer stagger towards the camera, then freeze frame. Only it’s not a freeze frame: they’ve frozen themselves in mid-movement, like kids doing a statue dance. It’s weird, funny, and strangely perfect — the humans have turned themselves into celluloid.