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.

Japan Cuts ’16: Bitter Honey

Akako Akai is nothing like the shape-shifters you will find in most paperback paranormal romances. She is young and saucy and ever so fascinated with seventy-something novelist Ojisama. In their world, she is his creation, but she has a mind of her own. Not surprisingly, they both sprung from the mind and pen of Saisei Muro, another novelist in his seventh decade. Their age difference might look problematic, but the whole human-goldfish thing really makes their relationship complicated in Gakuryû Ishii’s Bitter Honey (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film inNew York.

Apparently, Ojisama has a bed-ridden wife, but he rarely sees her and we never do. Instead, he prefers to ambiguously flirt and play with Akai, a goldfish he bought for three hundred Yen, who can take human form for prolonged periods of time. He is content keeping things slightly naughty but ultimately chaste. However, Akai decides she wants to take matters to the next level when she meets Yuriko, the ghost of Ojisama’s spurned lover. Even though she and Yuriko’s spirit, a classic Japanese specter in the Kwaidan tradition become fast friends, the dead woman’s history stimulates feelings of jealousy. Those feelings increase exponentially when she discovers Ojisama is also seeing a pretty school teacher on the side.

Arguably, Bitter Honey heralds a mini-boomlet of darkly obsessive shape-shiftery romances, together with Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s The Lure and Károly Ujj Mészáros’s Liza, the Foxy Fair. Glad we are to have them all. Ishii is known for wilder fare, but he and screenwriter Takehito Minato adapt Muro’s novel with lyrical sensitivity. There are echoes of the oldster obsessions of Stealing Beauty and Venus, but Ishii takes those themes deeper, while evoking the look and vibe of post-war Japan with fatalistic nostalgia.

On paper, Ojisama probably sounds as creepy as Humbert Humbert, but Ren Osugi keenly humanizes all his insecurities and regrets. Fumi Nikaido performance as Akai is charming and energetic, but also deeply sad in a way that is quite wonderful. Yoko Maki is also literally and figuratively haunting as Yuriko, while Masatoshi Nagase adds an intriguing dash of mystery as Tatsuo, the fish-monger.

Despite its outrageous premise and frequent surreal sequences, Bitter Honey is a thoughtful and mature film. It also looks terrific, thanks in large measure to cinematographer Norimichi Kasamatsu’s rich, crimson color palate and costume designer Kazuhiro Sawataishi’s flowing goldfish-like sashes. Highly recommended for discerning adults, Bitter Honey screens this Friday (7/15) at the Japan Society, as part of Japan Cuts 2016.