Two standouts in Cinemalaya’s indie festival
By Nestor Torre
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 18:20:00 07/18/2008
Filed Under: Cinema, Entertainment (general)
MANILA, Philippines—Some film buffs have asked us to recommend movies to see in the ongoing Cinemalaya indie festival, and we hasten to respond. As of this writing, we’ve watched only two featured entries, but we’re happy to report that both are eminently viewable.
“Brutus,” by Tara Illenberger, starts off as a seemingly simple and bucolic view of the lives of Mangyans in Mindoro. Little by little, however, it shows how their existence has been made exceedingly complicated by a number of external factors that have intruded into their heretofore paradigmatic world.
Irony
Disease is on the rise, so the head of the story’s focal family dies from malaria. The irony here is that he was a native healer, but his illness was so severe that he lost his fight against it.
To make things worse, greedy lowlanders kicked him out of his ancestral domain—and burned down his hut, to boot. This forces his eldest son to look for work elsewhere.
When communication with him stops, his mother has to ask her young daughter to look for him. With a young friend, she first tries to make some money transporting illegally logged lumber. This effort turns out badly, so the two young searchers have to contend with a number of dangerous situations, some of which involve soldiers and the NPA.
Compromised identity
Thus, their seemingly simple search for the girl’s brother turns out to be an objective correlative for the Mangyans’ search for their compromised identity today. Pollution, denudation of forests, illegal logging, landgrabbing, strife between the military and the NPA—these and other pressures and challenges assault the very core of the Mangyans’ ethical existence.
It’s a marvel, indeed, that the film, whose cast includes Yul Servo and Ronnie Lazaro, still ends on an upbeat note, as the natives’ age-old traditions and values manage to survive. This is illustrated by the fact that the story’s two-young protagonists are still able to remain true to themselves, and even to snatch a bit of happiness and love in the seething crucible that their ancestral land has become.
Also a distinct pleasure to watch is Ellen Ongkeko-Marfil’s “Boses,” which delves into the unusual bond that unexpectedly develops between a morose violinist (Coke Bolipata) and a battered boy.
The boy, Onyok, is brought to a shelter run by the violinist’s sister (Cherry Pie Picache), after his father (Ricky Davao) beat him up and used his back as an ashtray. Completely traumatized, the boy loses his voice, hence the film’s ironic title.
More eloquent
It turns out, however, that the boy eventually finds another, more eloquent voice in the music he creates with the violin, which he learns to play under the master violinist’s tutelage.
The film inspires because it shows that the boy isn’t the only one who benefits from the relationship: The violinist is so heartened by his musical prodigy’s progress and becomes so protective of him that he eventually forgets his own traumatic experience, and learns to live for others.
True, the movie is too “arty” at times, and the death of the violinist’s beloved (Meryll Soriano) is too melodramatically staged—but, “Boses” compensates for these and other low points with its stirring depiction of two losers who end up winning big.
The film is made even more compelling by the stirring performances turned in by the boy who plays Onyok, Davao, Picache—and, most of all, by Bolipata, who moves us not only with his unexpectedly felt and insightful portrayal, but also with his musical performance, which is an overwhelming experience.
A famous musician once told us that Bolipata is one of the world’s finest string artists. Now, we know why: The amazing evidence is there for all to belatedly marvel at in “Boses.”
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