The first good Filipino film of the year
"Pila Balde"
Noel Vera
Last year there was a small yet significant spurt of worthwhile Filipino films.
The mini-renaissance began in earnest (though many would disagree with me) with
Tikoy Aguiluz's "Tatsulok," during the early part of 1998; it came into full
bloom with the Good Harvest Festival, which featured no less than four
interesting and excitingly new films.
There was Ed Leano's fizzily entertaining (if lightweight) "Sabado Ng Gabi,
Linggo Ng Umaga." There was Jeffrey Jeturian's solidly constructed (if visually
flat) "Sana Pag-Ibig Na," from a script by Armando Lao. There was Lav Diaz's
flawed (but brilliant) "Kriminal ng Baryo Concepcion." Then there was Mario
O'Hara, who did not one but two films--the brilliant, possibly great "Babae sa
Bubungang Lata," and the insanely imaginative, possibly even greater "Sisa."
Then nothing. Not a peep, though there were bigger, more ambitious (and sadly,
less imaginative) productions. Joel Lamangan's "Sidhi" was noteworthy for the
performance of Nora Aunor and for Glydel Mercado's surprisingly excellent
acting; Erik Matti's "Scorpio Nights 2" showed a promising young director
struggling with a hysterically incoherent script. Otherwise, silence: the local
film industry, after displaying so much promise, slumbered for most of the first
half of this year.
"Pila Balde" finally (if belatedly) fulfills that earlier promise. It's
another collaboration between Jeturian and the quietly formidable Armando
Lao--who, judging from his last two scripts and the amazing "Takaw Tukso" way
back in 1986, has to be one of the best (and most underrated) screenwriters
still active in this industry.
The film--a multiple-story, multiple-character portrait of a low-cost housing
development--is a step up from their previous collaboration, "Sana Pag-ibig Na."
That film had an intriguing premise--son meets and befriends father's
mistress--which was developed quietly, with little hysteria or melodrama in the
process. Jeturian did a miraculous job of filming the script on a nonexistent
budget--P2.5 million and ten days' shooting, where an average Filipino film
nowadays costs P12.0 million and takes two weeks to shoot. He handled the cast
very well, especially the women: Angel Aquino as the mistress gave the finest
performance of her career while Nida Blanca as the wife and mother gave the
finest performance for an actress in a leading role last year.
It was a fairly impressive film, except that Jeturian--presumably because of
budget constraints--wasn't able to give the film a real look: it felt like a
very well done TV movie. To Jeturian's credit, "Pila Balde" has a look--the
housing development is a marvel of a location to shoot in, full of tight
alleyways and plywood shanties, a huge maze for any number of rodents to lose
themselves in. The looser, more expansive narrative seems to have loosened and
expanded Jeturian's camera as well--it peeks into corners, sidles along besides
the characters, and peers over their shoulders to overhear what they're saying.
Mind you, Jeturian doesn't send the camera into acrobatics--he'd do Lao's script
a disservice if he did that--it's just that there's care and intelligence in the
film's visuals, if you care to take a closer look.
The cast is bigger, and more impressively handled. Ana Capri and Marcus
Madrigal make a physically handsome lead couple, but there's also a
thoughtfulness and vulnerability to them that you don't see in their
performances in other movies. They work well together, too--when they're in bed
together their chemistry is so natural it doesn't jar you that Madrigal is
actually several years younger than Capri.
It helps that Lao has given them real characters to play, and that they're
acting in a superbly realized context--that of a community of upper-lower to
lower-middle class families, living in close, rubbed-shoulders proximity with
each other. He throws in a few sharp social observations--one middle-class
character notes that the nearby squatters provide a source of cheap and ready
labor--but does so lightly, without unnecessarily heavy pontificating or
preaching.
The ending--a squatter fire--is more spectacle than resolution, but what kind of
resolution can you have that won't seem too neat, or too obviously structured?
The sex scenes tend to stick out, which bothered some people who've seen the
film. They're not bad, as sex scenes go--Jeturian stages them efficiently and
Capri and most of the other woman have bodies worth appreciating. Certainly sex
is the cheapest form of entertainment there is (unless you count the
consequences), and certainly squatters have enough squalor in their lives to
need some kind of outlet for their frustrations. Still, you can't help but
think that the sex in "Pila Balde" is there not because it needs to be there but
because it helps sell the picture. The sex here compares poorly to the sex in
"Takaw Tukso," which was closer and more integral to the theme of the movie, and
which exuded real heat, and not a little perversity.
But if a little gratuitous sex helps sell an Amando Lao-Jeffrey Jeturian film,
then why not? We've succumbed to the high-pressure salesmanship from Hollywood
films often enough that if a little Filipino film nudges at our elbows, do we
have the right to ignore it completely? By all means, go to "Pila Balde" to
catch a glimpse of Capri's breasts; once inside, you might linger a while longer
to appreciate Lao and Jeturian's not inconsiderable skill as storytellers.
"Pila Balde" is a movie of modest virtues and modest pleasures, possessed of
keen intelligence and a recognizable soul; it's superior fare to the brainless,
soulless, standardized crap that passes for a Hollywood movie nowadays.
From Businessworld, June 99
(Comments? Mail me at <
noelv@...>)
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