Thursday, December 29, 2016
KABISERA Review
By: JONATHAN
CATUNAO
Realistic family
bonding scenes, great performances and successful build-up of suspense resulted
to an emotional discourse on extra-judicial killings. Excessive melodrama pushes
it to the edges of soap opera; but from the get-go the horrors of summary
executions have been pierced into the heart of its audience. And the sense of
desperation remain embedded long after the last swollen-eyed moviegoer has left
the cinema house.
Rating: 4 / 5
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
A REVIEW: KABISERA
By VIC SEVILLA
While it is true
that Nora Aunor has mastered the art of suffering in films, her latest outing
as Mercy de Dios in “Kabisera” adds a new dimension to her trademark evocation
of misery. In a film about a widow’s fight to find justice for her slain
husband and son, Aunor’s Mercy is not a hapless victim. Here, she fights back,
not in blind anger, but in a way that’s righteous, persistent and quiet.
She abides by the
law in seeking justice for her loved ones even if it’s law enforcers that
brought about the tragedy in her family. She diligently follows the directions
of grandstanding public officials to the letter in the hopes of somehow finding
new leads into her husband’s death.
What makes the
dramatic scenes in “Kabisera” effective is the director’s restrained manner in
showing anger and grief. There are really no big scenes here – no sermon at the
mount, no splashing of boiling water on the tormentor’s face, no lengthy
dialogues that end in face slapping. Here, Aunor kept her emotions in check to
portray grief.
Personally, her
most outstanding moment in the film include the court scene where she narrates
her husband’s gruesome murder and her telephone conversation with her fugitive
son. Quietly, Aunor simply lets her emotions flow without turning the scene
into a big and lavish display of emotional fireworks.
Equally touching
was the scene where Mercy offers a bag of “puto” (rice cakes) to her attorney
(Victor Neri) and to the head of the Human Rights Commission (played
brilliantly by Ces Quesada). In this simple scene, Aunor shows her mastery of
underacting. Her face shows the desperation of someone who seeks justice, but
her actions show calmness. Here, Mercy shows how to plead with dignity and
honor.
The effect is
astounding – watching her in those scenes is like watching the news where
victims narrate their tragedy: without fanfare, without drama but just telling
their tales of horror and grief in a way that’s true and raw. Aunor’s scenes
are painful to watch only because her portrayal of loss is simple and too real.
Apparently, Aunor’s experiences in indie filmmaking has honed her into a finer
artist – one who does not rely on big scenes and staged circumstances to create
electricity.
What makes
“Kabisera” timely and significant is that it never points an accusing finger at
any entity. Unlike many of the politicians who love to grandstand and proclaim
themselves as heroes and champions of human rights, “Kabisera” is quiet in its
portrayal of loss, grief, and the arduous road to attain justice.
Source:
https://web.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154374742953802&set=a.10150408905233802.367000.717513801&type=3&theater
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
KABISERA
Director:
Arturo San Agustin
and Real Florido
Cast:
Nora Aunor, Ricky
Davao, JC de Vera, Jason Abalos, Victor Neri, Perla Bautista, Ces Quesada, RJ
Agustin, Ronwaldo Martin, and Kiko Matos
Production Company:
Silver Story
Entertainment and Fire Starters Manila Production Co.
Taking issue with human rights violations
doesn’t only serve the film as fine advocacy for its relevant and timely choice
of theme, but also subtly reveals various other concerns imbedded in the thread
of conflicts.
A sure, steady directorial hand, conscientious
script and effective cinematography are matched by the lead actors’ faultless
performances.
This taut and tragic drama will disturb
viewers with its stark chronology of what confronts us daily in an often
oppressive urban milieu, with the final imagery delivering a subtle footnote to
our awareness of the proper place of vaunted justice in our society."
-- Jocelyn Dimaculangan
Source:
http://www.pep.ph/guide/mmff/25075/mmff-2016-predicted-to-be-renaissance-in-philippine-cinema#rseAJCefpvrP0mZB.99
http://www.pep.ph/guide/mmff/25075/mmff-2016-predicted-to-be-renaissance-in-philippine-cinema?ref=home_feed_1
Friday, November 4, 2016
Digitally Restored TATLONG TAONG WALANG DIYOS
The digitally
restored and remastered TATLONG TAONG WALANG DIYOS will premiere at Cinema One
Originals this November 15 at Trinoma!
Stay tuned for
announcements on how to get a chance to watch the premiere of this 1976
classic.
Source:
Abs - Cbn Film
Restoration
https://web.facebook.com/filmrestorationabscbn/photos/a.500548003422249.1073741830.499822456828137/953074471502931/?type=3&theater
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Review: HINULID
By: Ronz Maceda
“Hinulid” is a
visceral-cerebral-visual trifecta. Framed by ruminations on faith, science,
lore and politics, it bleeds with a rare parental love that is more formidable
than life and death combined.
(The film made me
contemplate, smile, cry…and cry again.)
Kristian Cordero,
only on his second outing as a filmmaker, deftly utilizes the poetic time mode
to breathe pathos and philosophies into his complex, non-linear storytelling: a
eulogy on a mother and child’s unbreakable bond that intersects a
deconstruction of an old Bikol legend as a socio-political commentary. Or vice
versa?
(As part-Bicolano
myself--my late beloved father hailed from Daraga--I encourage Mr. Cordero to
further his cinematic exploration of Bikol myths, local color and latter-day
realities.)
Nora Aunor
exhibits pain-- her rawest and most real to date--that is multiplied three
times or more. And that sturdiest love of all, eloquently communicated by her
facial and body language, is magnified many fold. Hearing the artist speak in
her native Rinconada is akin to hearing her crooning live.
Commendable is
Jess Mendoza for his affecting yet still unaffected performance. Memorable,
too, are the Bicol-based actors: the old priest, the blind caretaker, the two
young Lucases and the school administrator.
Clocking more than
150 minutes, “Hinulid” is rife with phantasmagoria, repetitive and hard to
fathom at some point. Perhaps, it can stand some editing; add some trimming of
the fat in the screenplay, without minimizing its scope and impact. Meanwhile,
the music, special effects and cinematography are done well.
Some may quibble
that “Hinulid” is a film that does not want or know how to end. But they ought
to ask themselves: does a mother’s love and grief for her child, living or
dead, ever end?
(PS. They say that
"Hinulid" is a homecoming project for La Aunor. To our literati and
film-literate Noranian kabsat overseas like Wilfredo, Mykeo and Jojo, this film
is a homecoming for all of you as well.)
QCinema 2016: HINULID
By:
John Tawasil
Present Confusion
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There's a certain
kind of lyricality in the interconnected scenes of Kristian Cordero's Hinulid;
with its non-linear, almost abstract narrative, the work feels more like a poem
than a film. Collectively, its themes limn a cinematic pieta, a mother
searching her memories for the meaning behind her son's seemingly meaningless
death. These memories are interspersed with religious iconography, treatises on
law, justice, and flashbacks. The film ends up loosely constructed as a result.
Nora Aunor's star
shines among her fellow actors, giving us a spectrum of emotions, at times
impenetrable, at times vulnerable. It's always a treat to see her in action,
although without an equally formidable foil her co-actors pale in comparison.
While the film's
poetry holds for most of the running time, the work starts to crumble under its
own weight during the last half hour, as it tries to tackle too many things.
During this period we see several scenes where the film could have ended
perfectly, but didn't. The end result proves exhausting as the film tries to
include as much as it can into an already full package.
Despite that, the
film's poetry cannot be denied, and certain scenes prove mesmerizing. Parts of
Hinulid can be quite challenging, but the rewards may be worth it in the end.
HINULID Review
HINULID Review
By Wilson Manobo
What does
"Hinulid" mean to me? Life is a slow, breezy but sometimes painful journey
(train) that transports us to the different worlds of facts (science) and
imagination (poetry), the deceit and domination of evil (pretentious school
officials, brutal military men, hideous frat men}, and the promise of eternal
life (religion/ theology). Only by having lived a good life exemplified by Sita
and her son will guarantee us the blessed justice we are hoping for ( stars and
fireflies). Real justice can never be experienced here which was denied of Sita
and her son. It is only by having lived a faith-filled life like Sita ( her
memories , good deeds, and tremendous love for her lone son) will make us
resign to the divine will and will lead us to a consoling death ( La Muerte).
Only in heaven can we really experience the perfect justice (Three Images of
The Dead Christ) which was denied of us here on earth! How blessed are those
who hunger for justice, for they shall be filled!
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Source:
https://web.facebook.com/NAJustice4NA/photos/a.659872740771583.1073741844.659563464135844/1145346608890858/?type=3&theater
QCINEMA 2016: Review of HINULID: Maternal Musings on Mortality
By:
Fred Hawson
Fred Said: MOVIES
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It did not seem
possible at first, but barely had we reeled from her mystical and metaphorical
film "Tuos," Ms. Nora Aunor is back with a film even MORE mystical
and metaphorical.
Sita Dimaiwat is a
very religious Catholic woman who lived in Naga with her one son named Lukas.
As a young boy, Lukas was very close to their parish priest, memorizing all his
catechism and prayers. As a young man though, he chose to take up Law in Manila
instead, memorizing his jurisprudence textbooks. One day, he joined a political
rally and was killed. Sita went to recover her son's remains and rode a train
to bring him back to their hometown.
Such, simply put,
was the bare bones of the story. However, what we saw on that big screen was a
complex masterpiece of abstract film art draped on this framework. Nothing was
simple about this film, everything seemed on an otherworldly plane, only
occasionally resting on solid ground for us to get our bearings straight. The
whole film felt like a vivid dream floating in the subconscious of a mother
struggling to deal with the death of her only beloved son. The imagery may be
whimsical (like the multitude of fireflies, the falling stars, the solitary
islet), or disturbing (like the rape of banana trunks, the unspooled cassette
tapes, the three dead Christs floating down the river) -- either way they are
open to any form of interpretation by the viewer.
Spoken in Ms.
Aunor's native Bikol language, the whole script by director Kristian Sendon
Cordero was written like poetry, if I were to gauge the words as translated in
the subtitles. It sounded like poetry the way the lines were delivered, very
deliberate and measured. Nothing it seems sounded like regular daily
conversation, even those shared over a meal or a drink -- between mother and
son, between two lovers, between mentor and student. There was never a shallow
line, as everything seemed to have a deeper meaning. It waxed philosophically
about various topics ranging from legends, religion, astronomy, discipline,
mathematics and death.
Ms. Nora Aunor of
course felt so right in her present element -- the independent film milieu --
where she can delve into the grittiest, most esoteric and most ethereal subject
matters unexplored by mainstream cinema. The three actors (portraying Lukas as
a precocious boy, as a curious teenager and as a studious law student) on whom
she shared her maternal wisdom all did well. In particular, Jess Mendoza, who
played Lukas as a young adult, held his own against the Master herself. He was
charming and sincere in his performance, you will certainly feel why his mother
is suffering so much after he left her.
I do not claim to
fully understand everything in this beautifully-shot yet thematically profound
film. It was extraordinary in the enigmatic delivery of its message. The
storytelling style of Cordero was not linear by any means. I sense he may be
going for Terrence Malick's style, ala "The Tree of Life". The film
flashed back and forward and sideways, at times unmindful of conventional
logic, as it melded reality with fantasy, memory and imagination. The final
product was entrancing in its overreaching intentions, although admittedly
there were times when its sheer depth and emotional heft could get too heavy
for the audience to bear. 8/10.
REVIEW: Nora Aunor mesmerizes in philosophical and poetic HINULID
By: Mari-an Santos
Philippine Entertainment
Portal (PEP)
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Source:
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To watch Hinulid
is to enter a mystical otherworld, or so it seems. The film by Bicolano
director Kristian Sendon Cordero is based on the short story “The Night Express
Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore” from “Nagueos” by fellow Bicolano Carlos Ojeda
Aureus. Both of them are Palanca literary awardees as well.
To watch Hinulid
is to experience a visual poem--and experience you do. This writer is a
self-confessed admirer of Nora Aunor’s acting talent. But, and without
diminishing the Superstar’s role, this film is more than a movie that stars
Aunor. It is a work of art in visuals and in screenplay.
BICOLANO PRIDE.
That it is completely immersed and steeped in the Bicolano sphere is not only
obvious in the language--using Bicol Rinconada, but also in its steadfast Roman
Catholic religiosity. To say that the story is about Sita (Aunor), an OFW and
single mother who comes home to Bicol to find her son Lukas (Jess Mendoza) and
lay his ashes to rest, is to chip only at one layer of the narrative.
It must be said
that the film employs non-linear storytelling. It goes inside the mind of Sita
as she sits in a train from Metro Manila to Bicol, the night express, to access
her memories and thoughts. Cordero himself has pointed out that one of the
themes is the more enduring power of memory over justice, in this case, the
musings of Sita skip from one point in Lukas‘ life to another--mimicking how
people remember.
STEEPED IN
FOLKLORE. The film starts out with a folk tale, a local one, of the Tandayag,
which is a primordial and celestial element that is given the characteristics
of a mother, who has a child.
On earth, there
are the “Tolong Hinulid”, three statues of the dead Christ who, according to
ancient belief, were discovered floating in a river in Bicol, and have been
charged under the care of the people there.
“La Muerte” is a
folk figure almost synonymous to death. But unlike the more popular
personification of “Kamatayan”, she is not sinister.
The film tackles
the day to day, side by side existence of religious fervor with folk
beliefs--yet not subjugating one with the other. The blind village shaman and
seer is as much a respected and revered figure as the learned parish priest.
MULTIPLE LAYERS,
THEMES. As it is set in 1999, it tackles the impending doom and dread over the
coming new millennium. Yet, the film is not constrained by timeframe, as it
also tackles stories and histories that happened before Sita’s life.
It lays logical
thinking and the law alongside folk religiosity and faith.
It also touches on
lofty convictions that drive militant groups and excuses of brotherhood that
fuel violence in fraternities.
The film even
delves into issues of religious orders among each other.
It is in its
philosophizing and poetry that the film excels. When it delves into day to day
chatter, it becomes weighed down by the mundane. Then, it becomes a chore to pay
attention. There is a popular quote that says: “Shoot for the moon. Even if you
miss, you'll land among stars.” There is a lofty aspiration here and the film
certainly packs in many themes and meanings. But the film’s strengths lie in
the visuals and in the wordless acting that is heavy with emotion and meaning.
STRENGTH IN
VISUALS. Even beyond being played out in another language from the mainstream
used in film and popular media, Cordero tells the story in visual clues and
blocks of anecdotes, with the audience depending on Sita’s memories, while also
calling into question what is real and what is imagined.
The visuals are
dramatic, may shots are visual poetry created with Director of Photography
Boyet Abrenica, aside from capturing the natural environment.
This writer found
three among several scenes noteworthy. One is part of the early montage, from
above, the audience looks down to see three floating bodies on the water and a
banca coming in to meet them. Another is the most powerful scene between a man
and three bamboo tree trunks, weighed down by politics and power. Third, is
Nora Aunor’s only scene where she lets out the combination of fear, anger, and
desperation (among others) in a long but silent scream.
The animation in
the film increases its mystical quality. It also binds together the folk
element of the shooting star to the science in astrology.
Cordero’s opus
recalls Spanish surrealist Luis Buuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire and
several works by American David Lynch, as well as Filipino indie film maverick
Kidlat Tahimik’s Turumba. Yet, it inhabits its own space, like a mystical
forest that we stumble upon Bicol or in the memories of those who know it.
Visually
satisfying and sometimes uncomfortable, Hinulid (The Sorrows of Sita) is in the
Circle Competition of QCinema 2016.
Hinulid is one of
the official entries of the 2016 QCinema International Film Festival running
until October 22 in Gateway, Robinsons Galleria, Trinoma, and UP Town Center.
‘HINULID’: THE SORROWS OF SITA and THE POLITICS OF MYTHS AND MEMORIES
By:
Tito Genova Valiente
REELING
Business
Mirror
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Source:
http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/hinulid-the-sorrows-of-sita-and-the-politics-of-myths-and-memories/
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AN old song is
recited, and it pleads with all the torment of love: “Sa aldaw, sa banggi, di
ka malingwan pa [At day, at night, you will not be forgotten].” It is the voice
of Nora Aunor, the timbre recognizable all over this nation. The voice continues: “Mga inagrangay idulot
mo sa Diyos [All your torment you offer to God].” It is a love song that fuses
religion and sensuality, coming from a region where faith flows in the narrow
strait of the mythical and the real.
They come in
threes. The Three Dead Christ, real in the town of Gainza, is shown being
worshipped by devotees. Three corpses float, disturbing in the velvet garb of
the Christ. Three woman are raped and three men—triplets—are tortured. Men and
woman violated are transformed into banana stalks, a belief that is common
among Bikolanos and their tales of enchantment. Against the verdant field is
seen the statue of Death, a skeleton dressed in red velvet, an icon in the land
of icons. The woman who pulls Death is also the woman who appears and reappears
with the icon of Death and, in unexpected places, is seen before an old sewing
machine finishing something that can never be finished. Death is there but
separate, the healer explains. A song of lament is sung by a male choir, the
phrasing unique because the singers are from Buhi, the Bikol language which is
marked separate from the other Bikol languages. The non-Bikolano need not know
this but for the Bikolano audience, a crisis has been averted in the film: the
actors have been allowed to use their own “first” Bikol language. Nora herself
uses her Rinconada language from Iriga. Raffi Banzuela, who plays the priest,
speaks his own Camalig-Albay Bikol. (The mother tongue expert should watch this
film.) Against all this, a train seemingly with a life of its own navigates the
marshland and meadows of the land called Kabikolan, on a trip with no beginning
and with no end. Like memory. Like the endless violence that wracks this land.
Images and images, with tension created between some of them, with meanings
apparent in many of them, abound in this film called Hinulid. The title, which
literally means “laid to rest”, refers first to the three images of the Dead
Christ, unique and aberrant. But the title could also mean the grief that comes
with Death.
Nothing is laid to
rest, however, in Hinulid. By the fact that the people have made three statues
resurrects the Tres Persona Solo Dios (Three Persons in OneGod), a system of
belief prevalent in mountain cults. Nothing, indeed, is finished and resolved
in Hinulid. It’s on this that the poetry of the film soars and takes us on a
journey that works of great art are able to do. Instead of being diminished by the absence of
resolution, the film, in fact, produces a discourse that is politically
realistic out of scenes and events that are magical, mythical and full of
marvel.
But if we notice
and are touched by the poesy in the film, it is because there are prosaic
moments. These are the realistic moments when we see Sita talking with the
school authorities and the character of Lucas is evaluated. If not for the
consistency in the presentation, where Sita is almost an audience, not engaging
the other characters, the scenes would have weakened the film. As it is, some
of the scenes that are devoid of the poetry appear to stop the mind travel. The
audience, thus, waits for the train, and when it does pass—because it never
arrives—we are enthralled by the seemingly boundless procession of personages
and personifications.
Those who compose
the local cast don’t disappoint. One can’t imagine it is their first time to
appear before a camera for a film, and without the benefit of a workshop.
The Night Express
Does Not Stop Here Anymore is the title of the fiction written by Carlos Ojeda
Aureus, which, according to Kristian Sendon Cordero, the director, inspired the
film.
The train is the
magical motif that rumbles across the screen, connecting sorrow with rage, loss
and recovery, justice and disorder. As this train moves, a story is told about
a mother who comes home to bring her son to rest in peace. But this is merely
no coming home, and this is merely not a train. It is the land where mountains
come alive and where distant islands are monsters that fell as stars from the
sky. The train knows it and Sita, the keeper of the urn of memory and justice,
is also the keeper of the tale.
Predictable as it
may seem, the coming of the train at every turn of the film, something inside
that train is not within our control. The film offers us the interior of the
train, the inner workings of remembrance. For inside the train is Sita and her
son Lucas, appearing bodily beside her at different junctures of youth—at 9
years of age, at 15, at 25. Each appearance brings us the life of Sita with the
son. Terrific and terrifying is the image of Sita carrying the urn with the
ashes of Lucas, while Lucas sits there beside his mother. The proximity of life to death, or the lack of difference
between Life and Death, is the message of the film.
We know where the
journey is going when, at last, the older Lucas now appears beside Sita.
Tender, yet horrifying, is this moment, with Lucas grabbing a kiss from his mom
who does not, of course, feel it. But we feel it, this love that cuts across
space and time.
As the older
Lucas, Jess Mendoza has reached a maturity, the rawness of which was already
greatly visible in his first film, The Natural Phenomenon of Madness. With a
masculine charm not present in our crop of actors, Mendoza rightfully claims
that space with Sita, as played by Aunor. Mendoza is the rightful object of
Sita’s memories, with a face that seems to be of the Past and now glows because
it is part of another world, not distant but not anymore within grasp. Mendoza
has a presence that hovers. We can watch him over and over again because he
makes eternity possible.
Aunor as Sita, as
the one who remembers, makes everything possible. She helps us endure the long
travel in the train, because we believe in her character. Leitmotifs are
literary tricks and they can be tricky but with Aunor as the mind that recurs
and connects the points in the cosmos, the return to the train turns into an
act so magnificently compelling. Each time the train comes in all splendid
angles, we look forward to being there with Aunor as Sita. Each time we are
with her, we see a different face, a different emotion. We see her silent but
with rage somewhere in that frail body. We see her smiling through the tears as
the landscape moves outside the window. We see her in darkness. We see her
standing, as if burdened by all kinds of loneliness. We see her tired, with
memories about to fade. Then we see her again, recoiling, grabbing from the
night the thoughts of her son, and her mother’s love. The night train could go
on because the mind of Aunor, as Sita, makes visible the invisible. Toward the
end, Lucas seen and unseen, felt and unfelt, longingly moves Sita toward him,
telling his mother to rest because the night will be long. The camera crawls toward
Aunor. As her eyes begin to close, sadness and joy and aloneness and anger flit
back and forth, nuances of emotions painted in hues. Then rage and love,
frustration and fulfillment, even sleep and death and all the multitude of
contradictions, begin to be etched in that old face, growing older each second,
aging because the land is ancient as only Aunor—as Sita, as Mother Incarnate,
as Life facing Death—could summon to obey.
It is said that
Aunor mockingly sighed as she watched the rushes and said: “I am old.” She has,
indeed, grown old in this film, a testament to her dedication to the craft. But
more that, she has, in Hinulid, became an even greater actor, if such were
still possible with an actor who has already been hailed as the greatest.
Cordero can heave
a sigh now. He has completed a film that he thought, like the train journey,
could never come to a stop. An awarded poet, Cordero has brought his keen
confidence in what words can do to this film. His use of voiceover has brought
the old device into a different dimension. Jesus Volante is the voice behind
those lines.
But don’t ever
think that Cordero is saying memories could heal. Memory is more powerful than
justice and, in some of the words of the healer, memory also serves a great warning.
The romantic in Cordero, however, remains: in the sublime and highly textured
cinematography, in a grand animation done by animators from Ateneo de Naga,
meteors fall and light up the sky behind the sacred mountain. The train blazes
with the fire of a thousand fireflies and resumes its journey through mythical
time, where mothers can never forget their sons, where villages will not be
ignorant of the politics of violence, where numbers rule our destiny because
sons are murdered and we turn to memory for justice.
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
The Poetics Of Costume, on "Hinulid"
By:
Paolo Sumayao
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There is of course
very little room for a Valeran edifice to be erected right in the middle of
Pasacao's quiet waves, nor the rolling hills of Camarines Sur's middle earth,
but we identify the Pantoned-down story of costumes in this poetic film
starring the Superstar from Iriga(a city known for ostentatious beading on
gowns, but that isn't where our seams are heading). First, coccooned in the
sorrows of a widow's blouse, embroidered to the hilt with detailed lace cut outs
on sleeves as she looks up to Lukas' trifecta of ghosts, we note that this is
the film's key piece: quiet blossoms against a background of sadness. Her dewy
nape, what with the heat of the Pacific sun, informs us that this piece of
clothing was not purchased elsewhere but the segunda mano stores lining the
streets of nineties Naga. We are then taken to canaries and taupes and faded
maizes in outgrown tailoring to remind us of the thinly-veiled intricacies of
provincial life--something that registered on her face everytime a collar tip
falls on the wrong place on her neck, with her hair slightly curling up when
they tough the fabric. And then the high, torrential contrast of chiffon veils
and velvetine religious tailoring on macabre statuettes against a backdrop of
meadows and hills and ricefields would precipitate into post-colonial
discourse, to an indefinite return. "Hinulid" as a film did not in
any way insinuate the musings of a Coleen Atwood nor the accessories of a
Patricia Field, but it sang a song only the old-schooled seamstresses can
sing--that of a sewing machine relentlessly roaring into the night--hauntingly
beautiful, provincially grand.
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
HINULID
Condensed
from:
Festival
Report: QCinema International Film Festival 2016 (Part 2)
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Kristian Cordero’s
Hinulid stars Nora Aunor as a woman bringing the ashes of her recently murdered
son back to a small village in Bicol where truth and myth seem inseparable.
Throughout her long train ride through the darkness, past and present mix
freely, her memories breaking through the shroud of her present reality as she
tries to come to grips with the pain that she’s feeling.
The film
immediately establishes a very poetic tone. The opening scenes introduce motifs
that will run through the entire movie. There’s clearly been a lot of thought
put into all of this, but the end product is kind of a real slog. My good will
for this film ran out about forty-five minutes in. At that point, it felt like
the film was just throwing in one abstraction after the next, putting way too
much stock in the power of its symbols. One can’t fault the film for its
ambition. The scope of what it’s trying to cover is certainly admirable; the
story touching on grand themes that study the intersection between faith and
myth and culture and the ways that all three can be suppressed. But the back
half of this film just becomes exhausting, offering so little to hold on to.
And the thing is, the film is really good in its simplest scenes. The most
affecting scene, for my money, is a very low-key sequence where the main
character is playing a game of shooting stars by herself, her son no longer
there to play with her. That one scene speaks more eloquently about the emotion
of this story than the rest of the film.
"INSTANT NOTES" on Kristian Sendon Cordero's 'HINULID'
By: MARNE KILATES
I JUST CAME from
the Gala Screening of Kristian Sendon Cordero’s “Hinulid.” I must put down a
few notes before I turn in for the night.
There is a
pleasant irony in watching one of the saddest, most elegiac movie I’ve seen in
years, and starring the reigning drama queen of Philippine cinema, Nora Aunor,
and yet nowhere in the almost three-hour "magical drama" does she
shed a tear. It is probably the director’s conceit, or the actor’s challenge to
herself, or both.
Not in any
negative manner, after the movie I felt like I was coming from a wake and I
half-desired to perform the post-wake practice (perhaps superstitious) of
“pagpag.” But perhaps it was a wake. An ambivalent lament for lost values whose
opposites were expressed by people in the “wake” of the main character, Lucas,
and their distorted sense of what’s important in terms of recalling the virtues
of the dead. “He was a lady’s man,” said the militia leader. In an earlier
scene (in the movie’s flash-back, flash-forward narrative), the academic was
enumerating the grieving “favors” from the dead’s alma mater—mass cards,
corporal acts of mercy, requiem masses by the school’s priest-officials, etc.,
like accumulated indulgences. Then there are the frat men.
It was a poet’s
movie, not only with liberal quotations from the director’s favorite poets
(Hopkins and Rilke, and later the director’s own lines), but in the visual
execution and the use of visual symbols to move the narrative, and the
simultaneity of the time element (the past, the present, and the future
crisscrossing all throughout), among others.
The poet-director
is firstly a poet who is comfortable in the visual medium, conversant with
movie techniques and adding some of his own. Thus thoroughly contemporary. And
it will take lots of courage, actually, to somehow impose the imaginative or
imaging “quirks” of the poet on the more than partially commercial nature of
cinema. Fortunately, it won initial funding in a festival (QCinema
International Film Festival), but had to crowd-fund itself later as it may have
underestimated its “realization cost.” As I told the director half-jokingly as
the crowd milled around after the screening, it was a poem more than a movie.
Perhaps there is a
new or emerging tradition in either the national cinema or the Bikol portion of
it—as I’ve seen some samples from Director Alvin Yapan and the previous work
I’ve seen form Cordero, and what Vic Nierva’s (Victor Dennis Tino Nierva) new
short film is promising. Are our newer films becoming more “literary,” or
perhaps is there a new “thinking cinema”? Or is it only the Bikol portion that
might be even straying from current tendencies towards “poverty porn” or the
unremitting urban noire? Or is “regional” cinema less constrained and thus more
free to weave in the already extant “magical realism” that lurks in the
provincial hinterland?
The film’s theme
line is “Memory is stronger than justice.” Because memory is the only human
weapon against unjust death and death by injustice. Perhaps it is the only
human weapon. It may also be said that to remember is human, to be just divine.
Enthusiastic
applause at the end, not at all hesitant or tentative, indicated that even if
there were some hints of a longueur in some segments, these were probably
ignored by the instantaneous tribute. 'Hinulid' (incidentally, the word means
“laid to rest” or “laid on a bed and tucked in,” like an infant fast asleep;
but which also refers to the dead Christ enshrined in one of the barrios near
Naga City) is opulent in substance and form.
It might be
funereal and elegiac, esp. in its use of poetry and the traditional and chanted
'pasyon', but at the same time it probes the sources of our grief and
interrogates the causes of our somnambulant peace. Kristian Sendon Cordero, the
poet I know, continues to show his deft and confident hand in the complex genre
of filmic poetry or poetic cinema he has chosen.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source:
https://web.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10209481002438704&set=a.1071048853193.53651.1135282292&type=3&theater
Initial Thoughts on "HINULID"
By: Christian Dy
Padre de la Rama,
the sagely priest Raffi Banzuela plays in the film, says something about men
being caught between remembering the past and imagining the future. Memory then
is behind us, and imagination, in front of us.
I am tempted to
play around with the idea, and to think that the ideal state of affairs would
be the reverse; that imagination were behind us, and memory were in our future.
Would it not be the most Christ-like of conditions if men were imagined (and
thus anticipated) before being conceived, and then remembered after their time
had come to pass? Perhaps, but this most ideal of conditions is not given to
everyone.
Indeed, there are
even those whose births are accidents of circumstance, and whose lives and
deaths have been long forgotten.
This is worse than
suffering injustice in life. Hinulid, then, delivers excellently when it
asserts the converse: that memory is greater than justice. Indeed mortal
justice could not do final justice to broken bones and wounded flesh and
emptied spirit. The laws of mere men are meaningless in the face of eternity.
Christ asked not to be avenged, but to be remembered, and his Church finds
sustenance in that final instruction. The repentant thief asked for nothing
more than to be remembered when the Lord ascends to paradise. All hope in our
faith, all meaning to our existence, and our only chance at cheating on our
appointment with oblivion is the prospect of being remembered. It subverts all
the pain.
Death is no
incident if it does not offer passage into memory. We owe it to our beloved
dead to remember them.
They say that the
sense of hearing fades away last when one nears death. If anything, this
reveals the intimate relationship between sound and memory. Without devaluing
its visual quality, Hinulid is primarily an aural experience. The film's sounds
evoke, invoke, and provoke.
Finally, I have
debated with myself whether to include a brief note on what I saw to be
artistic influences of the director pervading the film. The literary quality of
the film is palpable; Cordero's opus would make an excellent tribute to Borges.
It is also, certainly, a tip of the hat to Jesuits, under whom the director
studied, and to pedagogy in general. Most pleasingly to this convert of a
writer, Hinulid is highly reverential of the Church, without worshiping it.
This is a breath of fresh air from the stale atmosphere of contemporary
independent cinema, where speaking ill of ancient institutions seems to be the norm
if not the prerequisite.
In summary,
Cordero has extended the boundaries of cinema, without having to say so. In the
Bikolano risorgimento, Cordero is often called the enfant terrible. The
reverence, the humility, the genius in the film make me think that he merits
the additional (if not alternative) title of "enfant adorable."
Hinulid is a Bikolano film first; but it is Bikol with a loving view to the
world.
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