New Filipino Cinema ’17: Hamog (Haze)

Whatever you do, do not stereotype these homeless children, the so-called “batang hamog” or “children of haze,” living by their wits on the streets of Manila. For instance, Rashid cannot say he has no family to live with. He has too much family, thanks to his uber-traditional Muslim father, who keeps marrying “stepmothers” that clearly do not like having him around. Instead, he builds a surrogate support system with three other homeless youths, but an ill-fated robbery will break them apart in Ralston Jover’s Hamog (Haze) (trailer here), which screens during the annual New Filipino Cinema series at the Yerba Buena Arts Center.

Fifteen-year-old Jinky was cast out of her home by a drug-addled, mentally unbalanced mother, finding acceptance in the arms of the inhalant-huffing Tisoy. Eight-year-old Moy is the group’s mascot and the resourceful Rashid is the glue who holds them together. Their plans for this day are not so different from any other, but they pick the wrong cabbie to try to rob. Rashid and Tisoy make off with his cash, but the tightly-wound Danny catches Jinky and poor Moy is fatally struck by a delivery van during their escape.

At this point, the narrative splits in two, as we first watch the loyal Rashid try to raise the necessary funds to give Moy a proper funeral and a permanent resting place rather than the Philippine equivalent of Potter’s field. During his campaign, Rashid makes an unsatisfying homecoming, briefly meeting the new stepmother his father intends to marry during a ceremony he is politely asked not to attend.

Meanwhile, Jinky and Danny must contend with each other. Much to his frustration, the cops want nothing to do with a minor and the children’s services bureaucracy is a Kafkaesque joke. Since Jinky desperately wants to avoid the abusive and unsanitary conditions of the juvenile foster home, Danny brings her home to his tenement apartment to serve as a live-in maid. While this arrangement smacks of forced servitude, Jinky seems to willing accept it, but Danny’s wildly dysfunctional relationship with his girlfriend Paula and their third roommate Bernard is probably not sustainable.

Most of Hamog shares a thematic and aesthetic kinship with Brillante Mendoza’s street-level, issue-oriented films, such as Slingshot, written by Jover. However, it takes a weird third act detour into gritty noir terrain worthy of James Cain or Jim Thompson. Yet, Jover presents it so matter-of-factly, it never jars the viewer.

It also helps that the extraordinary young actress Teri Malvar, the Screen International Rising Star Asia Award winner at last year’s NYAFF, is the one selling it. She manages to be simultaneously heartbreaking and chilling as the abused and abandoned Jinky. As the delinquent and the cabbie, she and OJ Mariano (remarkably, the runner up on a Pop Idol-style competition now branching out into acting) develop a strange and evolving relationship that will keep viewers on their toes.

Throughout it all, Jover makes it clear respectable ethical standards do not apply in this world. It is like watching predators in the wild—only the strong survive. It will leave many viewers deeply unsettled (in fact, that is part of what it is going for), but the power of its performances elevates it well above typical slum denizen melodramas. Recommended for admirers of films by the likes of Mendoza and Midi Z, Hamog (Haze) screens tomorrow (8/20) and next Sunday (8/27), as part of New Filipino Cinema 2017 at the YBCA.

New Filipino Cinema ’17: Lily

This shape-shifting witch has become a popular Cebuano urban legend, but it should not surprise anyone to there is a man to blame for all her horrors. He did her wrong, but she would not be ignored. Her story will be told in a fractured, narrative-scrambling manner in Keith Deligero’s Lily (trailer here), which screens during the annual New Filipino Cinema series at the Yerba Buena Arts Center.

While hunting with a dubious friend, Mario Ungo nearly bagged a mythical sigbin, but one false step nearly did him in instead. Fortunately (or so it seems at the time), the titular Lily finds him. Hiding him in her room in a remote convent, where she seems to be a prospective novice, she nurses him back to health. Given all the time they spend together, it is not so surprising when Lily becomes pregnant with his son. Soon, they become a common law family unit, but Ungo is clearly uncomfortable and restless. Eventually, he leaves to find work in Manila, where he repeats the pattern with Jane, a stripper. Resenting his deceit and abandonment, Lily will come looking for him—and she is far more dangerous than he ever realized.

Or something like that. Deligero puts the film through a stylistic blender of jump cuts, flashbacks and flashforwards, lurid subliminal imagery, and poverty porn. To get an idea of the vibe, imagine if Khavn had remade Cat People as a hardcore music video. It definitely shares a kinship with aesthetically severe, experimental horror films, such as Khavn’s work and Dodo Dayao’s Violator, particularly with respects to the graphic visuals found in the former.

TV idol and rom-com movie star Shaina Magdayao certainly deserves credit for taking a chance on such an out-of-left-field departure. She is undeniably intense as the vengeful supernatural being, but she also connects with her tragic core. Rocky Salumbides is thoroughly despicable as Ungo, but in a believable way that helps the film get to where it needs to go. Natlileigh Sitoy also covers a lot of ground as the sultry but vulnerable Jane. Frankly, it is pretty impressive the cast registers at all, given the film’s jittery style and mondo extreme elements.

The regional mythos that inspired Lily is compelling stuff, but Deligero compulsively takes us out of the film by rubbing our noses in his experimental and bodily excesses. A small circle will be knocked out by his boldness, but for most viewers, less would have been more. Indeed, the sum of its more striking moments is greater than its whole. Recommended for those with adventurous tastes, Lily screens this Sunday (8/20) and Friday, September 1^st, as part of New Filipino Cinema 2017 at the YBCA.

New Filipino Cinema ’17: Bliss

Reportedly, film production in the Philippines is much more regulated now than during the glory days of Roger Corman’s jungle prison movies. However, Jane Ciego might have her doubts. She was badly injured on the set of her latest picture—a horror movie about a famous actress abused by her caretakers after she is badly injured on the set of her latest movie. You might have a general idea of the meta-ness afoot, but there are still plenty of twisted turns to Jerrold Tarog’s Bliss (trailer here), which screens during the annual New Filipino Cinema series at the Yerba Buena Arts Center.

Ciego has been a star since she was a child, but this film was supposed to be her breakout as a serious actress. Ditto for Abigail, the character she was playing. She has been successful enough to produce her ambitious art house horror film and continue to be a meal ticket for her ineffectual husband Carlo and her greedy stage mother, Jillian. Again, the same is true for her character, except her husband in the film-within-the-film is maybe slightly less contemptible. Regardless, this is hardly the sort of film you would want to “lose” yourself in, if that is indeed what happened to Ciego, or Abigail.

Things get even more sinister when Tarog gives us reason to suspect Ciego’s openly hostile private nurse Lilibeth is actually Rose, who is wanted by the police for sexually molesting young patients. As Ciego and Abigail’s realities conflict and intrude upon each other, Tarog keeps doubling back and folding the narrative over, to spring darkly clever revelations.

Iza Cazaldo has a Kate Beckinsale vibe working that is absolutely perfect for Ciego/Abigail. She establishes a strong persona as Ciego, which makes it so compelling to then watch her tear it apart at the seams. Evidently, there was a lot of buzz about her topless scene in the film, but it is nothing like what her fans probably assumed. Adrienne Vergara is also creepy as heck as Lilibeth/Rose and Shamaine Buencamino is spectacularly bad news as Mama Jillian. However, Audie Gemora often upstages everyone as her wildly flamboyant director, Lexter Palao.

Serving as his own editor, Tarog rather brilliantly cuts together all the reality problematizing and timeframe shifts. Mackie Galvez’s mysteriously murky cinematography further causes us to lose sight of ostensive in-film reality. It all adds up to a head-trip you can never take for granted. Highly recommended for fans of horror movies and Lynchian cinema, Bliss screens this Saturday (8/19) and next Thursday (8/24) as part of New Filipino Cinema 2017 at the YBCA.

New Filipino Cinema ’17: Seklusyon

The training for these post-war Filipino priests is almost like a spiritual Fear Factor. For seven days, they will be sequestered in a remote villa to confront their inner and outer demons. The latter are very real to these novices. As if the sink-or-swim practice were not problematic enough, a young girl considered either a healer or a false prophet has been remanded to the manse for her protection. Unfortunately, nobody can protect the novices from the temptation and torment that follows in Erik Matti’s Seklusyon (trailer here), which screens during the annual New Filipino Cinema series at the Yerba Buena Arts Center.

Miguel is a deacon about to start the seven days of isolated contemplation that will proceed his ordination. He still feels guilty over something from his previous life, but he will not reveal it to his confessor. All four novices harbor secret sins that the evil agency in question will exploit.

Meanwhile, Padre Ricardo has been dispatched to investigate the young Anghela Sta. Ana, whom many revere as a living saint. Her healing powers sure look genuine, but something about her arouses the suspicions of the jaded war veteran. When Sta. Ana’s parents are violently murdered (odd that she couldn’t heal them, right?), the good Father will have to shift his focus to Sister Cecilia, her mysterious protector. In what seems like a spectacularly bad decision, regardless of what you might believe, the Bishop sends Sta. Ana and Sister Cecilia to the seclusion villa for safe keeping.  Needless to say, their presence is quite the distraction.

While it is initially unclear whether Sta. Ana is a savior or demon, the novices are still in for it either way, because this is a horror movie. Even though it is set in the post-war Philippines, Nathaniel Hawthorne could have sniffed out the sulfuric evil one right away. Indeed, this slow-burning tale of guilt and sin shares a distant kinship with his more sinister tales, particularly “Young Goodman Brown,” in which the infernal masquerades as the innocent.

Matti skillfully creates a mood of mounting dread and masterfully sets the ominous mise-en-scene. However, the atmospheric moodiness can be too much of a good thing, enveloping the cast like a fog. Although they are played by some highly recognizable Philippine actors, it is a bit of a challenge to keep all four novices straight. In contrast, Padre Ricardo and Sister Cecilia are highly compelling characters, thanks to their intriguing backstories and the rigorously disciplined performances of Neil Ryan Sese and Phoebe Walker. Likewise, young Rhed Bustamante is pretty incredible as Anghela Sta. Ana, or whoever she might be.

When Seklusyon really gets deep into the brimstone, its unsettling imagery recalls The Omen franchise and Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s Mother Joan of the Angels, which is high praise indeed. It is the sort of film whose ending makes everything that came before seem creepier in retrospect. (For those who see it, this Marist Brother’s insightful analysis will further your appreciation, but it is filled with spoilers.) Ultimately, it is quite refreshing to see a horror film that prioritizes symbolism over special effects. Recommended for fans of religious-themed supernatural horror, Seklusyon screens this Friday (8/18) and Thursday the 31^st, as part of New Filipino Cinema 2017 at the YBCA. Those in San Francisco might consider checking out the sunny but angsty Apocalypse Child this Friday, as well.