Slingshot (2007) User Reviews (3)

Technical Film

[croxas · 7/10 · 26 July 2009]

This film has all the merits of a pseudo-documentary with reality-show touch. All the main actors played their roles as real to the mundane realization of life in a slum area. The story plot, if there is really one in the classic sense of the word is an exposè of contrasts between different levels of corruption using survival as a backdrop.

I came out watching this film wondering if this kind of reality really exists, at least at the level that is being conveyed. I grew up in an upper middle-class part of Quezon City. The stark contrast of existence of the different societal levels leads me to think this movie only bolsters the ever widening disparity. In one scene were the father died, the son seemed stoic and unperturbed by what just ensued. This untroubled feeling is shared by the rest of the neighbors, and death is detached. Survival has become instinctually animal.

A Good film

[dude-spen · 7/10 · 23 August 2010]

Tirador is a good film in all aspects. The movie depicts the life of petty criminals and common folks in a colony in Manila who has immense faith in the local politicians. We see varied images of the colony from middle aged men, the youth and the teenage whose lives are intertwined with each other. What we see is not the jaded characters with exaggerated plot around them but realistic characters with ordinary problems surrounding them.

The film opens late into the night and a raid is ongoing in search of illegal products in the colony and sometimes we can only see through the light from the flashlight. The director has cleverly used this entire opening sequence to show the various kinds of people in the society and their lives. And what ensues in the film is about these people tackling the tensions and troubles in the colony.

Another thing I have to mention about this movie is the cinematography. Not even in a single shot is steady and that is not a bad thing. It suits the movie in all respective. It is as if we are glancing through the lives of these people in the colony. I think, that is brilliant way of communicating with the viewer. I have seen several movies shot in similar way but it suits this movie the most.

Tirador is an interesting watch.

~ dillitalkies.blogspot.com ~

The Babel effect

[alijuly1st · 6/10 · 23 May 2008]

Brillante Mendoza's Tirador (Slingshot) is an ambitious film about a mosaic of interconnected characters in the slums of Quiapo. It follows much the style of Babel where the characters are interconnected and their story intertwined, but unlike Babel, Tirador doesn't have a unifying device. In Babel, it was the gun, in Tirador, there was none. Shot mostly hand-held, the images were gritty, raw and tense.

The color, mostly muted and sepia-ish, gives another interesting look of the film. It doesn't really have a main protagonist, which made me less attached to the movie. I believe the main character was the town of Quiapo itself, a district of Manila.

As the characters traverses the labyrinthine bowels of the slums, we get a glimpse of the characters' lives as they go on with their life of poverty, violence and misfortune. The holy week setting mirrors Christ's hardship as its citizens face its daily crosses to survive.

I must admit, though I spent most of my childhood years in Quiapo, I didn't get to witness the dark side that this film portrays. These areas were mostly avoided and ignored, if you don't want to get yourself in trouble. Having seen it again, fused with shocking and gratuitous exaggeration of violence and nudity, I can't help but feel sad for the place.

Sure, some would argue its reality, but there is a fine line between being real and graphic. I am all for realism but sometimes, exercising artistic license doesn't translate you'll be vulgar but it is an avenue and opportunity for an able director to use this right and exercise restraint. I believe the filmmaker went for the gratuity for shock effect, thinking (IMO) these will awe audiences abroad (which is its targeted audience making the film inaccessible to the local patrons.)

As it ended, I didn't really feel anything, sure the style, esp. the photography was astounding, and it was able to sustain the tone up to the end, but as it fades out when that guy picks off that wallet from an unsuspecting devotee of a prayer rally, I felt that it just came full circle and didn't give much of a resolution.