Change Your Image
josantos-1
Reviews
Gilane (2005)
Great film from one of the best Iranian auteurs
Although not as well-known as her male counterparts--Kiarostami, Majidi, Makhmalbaf--Rakhshan Bani Etemad is not only one of the best filmmakers in Iran, but also one of the bravest. Unlike her largely depoliticized colleagues, Bani Etemad tackles issues that are either taboo (a love affair) or neglected (the mothers of Iran-Iraq War) in Iranian society. Gilaneh, although as engaged politically as anything else, also works as great drama, an emotional depiction of a mother who suffers the greatest punishment after war: taking care of shell-shocked and invalid son. The change that the mother undergoes between the war in '88 and the Iraqi war 15 years later is nothing short of astounding, and many praises to Madjid Bahrami who played Gilaneh. The final image of the mother is quite possibly one of the most emblematic images in cinema today.
Manananggal in Manila (1997)
Identity and truth in a movie about monsters that scare from the waist up
The title definitely scares more than the concept: "Manananggal in Manila," translated roughly as "Monster in Manila" (roughly, that is, because there is no literal translation for a manananggal, a woman-by-day-monster-by-night that splits in half at midnight and flies around eating people's livers while leaving her legs lying around until sunrise when she returns to them), is essentially that, a monster in Manila.
But with a master like O'Hara taking charge of the production, this simple horror story--nothing could be more Filipino than a horror movie--turns into a thesis on identity and the morality of crossing the boundary between reality (us) and fiction (the movie), a transgression that is central to any successful horror or thriller. (look, for example at Psycho, or any other Hitchcock for that matter, which is most successful when it is most threatening.) O'Hara opens the movie with a masquerade, and we realize that the movie deals less with how to deal with a scary monster than with the duality of having a human and monster identities (which, in this case, could be considered a metaphor for class, gender, modernity, etc.). The miscegeny that becomes central to the story becomes more horrific when viewed as a violation of the boundaries that, for the film--and possibly the society that produced it--keep things in order.
O'Hara's wit is most evident in the scenes where the monster chooses to manifest itself. First is a crazy woman who pretends to be the monster donning wings made out of garbage bags. When the "real" monster shows up, lo and behold...she is donning garbage bags for wings. It's a witty way of dealing with budgetary shortage, pointing out the very "fakeness" of the wings instead of making things more realistic (a corrupt way of portraying film violence and a way that is proving to be a resilient trend in today's horror). Despite this, however, O'Hara respects the audience that he knows wants the chills first and foremost. When he comes out with his plastic wings, he doesn't bat an eye or "wink" at the camera. The effect is done in all earnest that, if not for O'Hara's over-the-top Gothic flourishes that have already been evident in an earlier movie, Fatime Buen Story, would have been mistaken for lack of imagination instead of bravery.
This is a very rough film, one that is more painful to watch for those already "schooled" in the Hollywood/East Asian way of making horror (realistic, slick, and professionally-done gore). But for those willing to reject the idea that well-made equals quality and meaningful gore makes you vomit, this could be a nice little side trip.
Rosaura a las 10 (1958)
One of the best movies I have ever seen
Once in a while I see some really good movies...movies that stay in my mind days even weeks after I see them. The last time I was this taken aback by a movie was when I first saw Guru Dutt's Pyaasa. It also helped that I saw it in its original cinemascope in a very large screen in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's Latin American Cinema retrospective.
Done in a Rashomon-like telling and retelling of a story taking different angles from different characters, I think Rosaura a las 10 tops Kurosawa's tale by not only telling the same story multiple times, but having each perspective actually tell a literally different story. In addition, whereas Rashomon became a little redundant to me, Soficci kept the story interesting by keeping the reality of the situation--that what we see is not all what it is--as evident in all the stories, thus destabilizing even the "subjective truth" of each perspective, questioning each view and emphasizing the objectivity of the camera. See for example the maid, who lurks about in all of the stories. No one sees her lurk around, but the camera records it nonetheless.
All of these allow the characters be, showing them as they are and as human as possible. The movie ends the same way as it begins, and the way it does this is nothing short of genius.
As you can tell, I'm still trying to wrap my head around this movie. It's incredibly multi-layered, and the form (especially the night scenes after the painter and Rosaura's wedding) incredibly reflects the themes of the movie. This movie for me ranks very high, certainly alongside the likes of Milestone's All Quiet on the Western Front, Welles' Magnificent Ambersons, Dutt's Pyaasa, Davies' Distant Voices Still Lives, Bernal's Himala, and Anderson's Royal Tenenbaums. It's a pleasure to encounter such a rewarding movie.