‘Bakat’ acceptable; ‘Laman’ disturbing

A good script and "meaty messages" are all it takes to get the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ (CBCP) movie review board to approve of a sex flick.

The movie Bakat was rated yesterday as morally "acceptable" and technically "average" by the Catholic Initiative for Enlightened Movie Appreciation (Cinema).

Bakat stars Diana Zubiri, Ana Capri, Rita Avila, Rodel Velayo and Tommy Abuel.

The film’s suggestive title raised the movie review body’s hackles. "The film is probably filled with nudity again! We thought (Bakat) would be like other films with salacious titles and have a senseless story," Cinema said in a statement.

Contrary to their expectations, Bakat, with its screenplay written by multi-awarded playwright and novelist Lualhati Bautista and directed by Francis Posadas, gave Cinema something worth watching, sexual content notwithstanding.

Another sex film, Laman, was not as fortunate as Bakat. Cinema rated Laman as morally "disturbing" and technically "average."

Starring Albert Martinez, Lolita de Leon, Elizabeth Oropesa and Yul Servo and directed by Maryo J. de los Reyes, Laman was X-rated by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) twice, delaying the public showing of the film.

Bakat explores several deep topics: The long-term effect of a father’s sadistic love for his children, children’s greed for their parents’ wealth, caring for an insane person and the public’s view of insane or mentally deficient persons in a society filled with hate and pain.

While the film does contain nudity and sex scenes between couples not married to each other, Cinema said this sexual content was eclipsed by the strength of the social messages Bakat seeks to convey.

"If the movie will be watched thoroughly by parents and their children," Cinema said, "there are several questions that they can tackle deeply."

Cinema also praised the film’s music, cinematography, editing and setting, as well as the film’s "wholeness."

While the film is "meaty" in terms of social messages and the acting of its entire cast, from lead and supporting actors down to extras, was praised, Cinema also cautioned that the messages in the movie can only be understood properly by mature viewers.

Cinema said the filmmakers tried to save Laman by sanitizing it and replacing offending portions of the movie with reshot scenes.

After viewing Laman, Cinema said the movie seemed to have been put together haphazardly, with several editing snags, words and sounds out of place, scratch marks and jarring music.

Cinema criticized the film’s cinematography as inconsistent, with artistically shot erotic scenes and other scenes that seemed to have been shot "with the camera strapped to a jackhammer."

Cinema said, "Laman should be seen not only as a movie, but also as a symptom of an ailing movie industry."

Laman, like run-of-the-mill "R" rated movies, is about people’s craving for worldly things as portrayed in the lives of the film’s two sex-starved wives whose husbands leave them sexually unfulfilled.

"Naturally, the movie will reek (of) sex," Cinema said, adding that "with a sex-starved gay character thrown in, expect the language to be vulgar and the values aired from an aberrant point of view."

In judging the worth of Laman Cinema "not only counts the minutes devoted to bed scenes, not only looks out for breast and pubic hair exposure... Cinema measures the worth of the movie both as entertainment and as an instrument (for) enlightening moviegoers."