The film was great (read my review), and it was a good thing that it was. Otherwise, my whole experience would have been terrible and I'd have shunned the festival altogether. The official opening of the festival started at 8 pm, when it was supposed to have started at 7 pm (that's a usual thing here, unfortunately). Then several people, including a limelight-hugging attention-desperate government official, made speeches. Said official gave one that lasted for no less than 10 minutes and kept on droning on with the same ideas over and over. When the festival director, Mr. Tikoy Aguiluz, finally proclaimed the official opening of the festival, I heaved a sigh of relief (as did most others there, I believe). I would finally get to see what I had come there to see, 1 1/2 hours after the supposed screening time!
But the organizers had another sneaky, annoying tactic up their sleeve. In the official bulletin, another opening film, the short Infancia en Las Islas de Filipina, Sin Fecha by Raya Martin, was supposed to be shown AFTER Science. Instead, they showed it before. Now, I actually wanted to see this short film, because film afficionados here were all abuzz regarding Martin's earlier silent film (Maicling pelicula nang ysang indio nacional). But for it to be forced upon us after 30 minutes of speeches... I was not in the mood to appreciate the film.
Did I like the Raya Martin short? No. Would I have liked it in any other circumstance? Maybe not. I like silent films a lot, so it's not the common aversion to soundless films that many people have. Period pieces are also a genre that I particularly like. But Infancia was nothing more than a well-meaning (maybe) but ultimately flat, dragging, and even pretentious cacophony of imagery. Granted, some of those images show Martin's much hyped talent and vision, but most others bordered on being gratuitous. The actors in the film range from terrible to amateurish, and that's not a good thing to have in a silent film, where emotions have to make up for the lack of sound. True, many of the silent films released as the silent film era was closing had more restrained performances (unlike those of many Expressionist pictures), but there's a difference between minimalist, restrained acting and simply lifeless acting. Martin's short had the latter.
I have not seen Indio Nacional, so this critique should not be taken as an attack on Martin's person or his craft in general. I would love to see it, if only to know whether Infancia was a misguided follow-up to a masterpiece or simply his second in a series of "artistic" films seeking attention from quality-hungry Filipino film buffs. I would be extremely disappointed if local critics start hailing Infancia as a revolutionary film, or one of stark vision. In these times when foreign film industries are invigorating themselves with fresh ideas truly unique to their respective cultures, we don't need one of these. Filming silent films these days is fine (some themes are even best brought to screen in this style), and of course the setting (Spanish colonial period) is a mine for rich ideas and potentially magnificent films. So abandon the pretentious artsy approach and give us something that we'll remember and cherish, something concrete and whole and powerful.
Am I making too big an issue out of this? Maybe. But I'm not the one who made it the opening film and forced it down our throats. If I had been Martin, I'd have been ashamed of the lengths to which certain people had gone just to have my film seen by the public.
Title: Thoughts on the Cinemanila opening
Rating: 100% based on 99998 ratings. 5 user reviews.
7:47 AM
Rating: 100% based on 99998 ratings. 5 user reviews.
7:47 AM