noelbotevera

I recently helped organize (with the indispensable support of Philip Cheah) a small retrospective on the works of Filipino filmmaker Mario O'Hara for this year's Singapore International Film Festival, and it was while watching 'Insiang' (1976, directed by Lino Brocka, written by O'Hara) that I came to a realization: 'Insiang' was the epitome of Philippine social-realism. After this film--and perhaps a handful of others, mostly by Brocka--Filipino filmmakers had little more of substance to add to the genre. What was needed was a new direction.

I believe Mario O'Hara's "Demons' (Pangarap ng Puso, 2000) points out one such direction. The film is about a pair of young lovers, Nena (Matet de Leon, adopted daughter of Filipino film star Nora Aunor) and Jose (Alex Alano), doing their best to live and love in an increasingly hostile world. Nena (a lovely child grown into lovely young woman, giving a surprisingly lovely performance) is from a rich family in the Negros provinces that owns a series of fishponds; Jose is from one of many poor families commissioned to clean and operate those fishponds. The film traces their relationship as it develops through the years, from childhood into adulthood, from prosperity into deep recession, from a time of peace into a time of violent political turmoil.

Nena and Jose's reactions to that turmoil is complex--steeped all their lives in Negros mythology, they gradually equate present-day rebels and corrupt army officers with the demons and monsters of their youth. They reply in a number of ways, each according to his or her nature: through political protest, civil activism, armed rebellion, even the composition and recitation of some (very beautiful) Filipino poetry.

It's a bizarre mixture of grim reality and highflown lyricism, of terrorist violence and supernatural horror--the fiction of Gabrial Garcia Marquez, set in the Philippines and adapted for the big screen. Some of it doesn't work--O'Hara does his best with a helicopter scene that has no helicopter in it, and a sequence that takes place in Manila feels totally unnecessary...but considering the resources and budget available (P3 million, or roughly $65,000.00, where an ordinary Filipino film is made for P15 million), I'd say O'Hara did a remarkable job.

The ending--doing my best not to give it away outright--is to say the least interesting, even if not everyone I've talked to really likes it. Just as interesting are the reasons why they didn't like it--one thought it should have ended with a shot of Nena's mother dancing (life goes on, uncaringly); another thought it was an excessively violent condemnation of the Philippine military; yet another found it horrifying, grotesque beyond belief ('which is exactly why I liked it,' I told him…whereupon he moved away from me as if I had grown fangs). Whatever their reasons, I suspect the film affected them deeply, if not always pleasantly.

Even Regal Studios probably didn't know what to make of the picture--they were responsible for changing the original title "Whispers of the Demon' to the present "Hope of the Heart,' possibly in an attempt to play up the romantic angle (the original has been restored for international release). The gambit failed; the film closed on its opening day, was (despite its small budget) a financial failure, and was totally ignored by critics and local film award-giving bodies.

And yet…I believe in the film. It's actually three films in one--an ingenious exercise in supernatural horror with almost no budget; a scathing condemnation of war and of the military's rapacious mindset; and a celebration of the beauty and lyricism of Filipino poetry. If, as one viewer said, the film tries to do too much, I much prefer this courageous excess to something too timid and fainthearted to risk anything at all. 'Demons' looks like no other film--Filipino or otherwise--I've seen in recent years; in terms of originality, of deeply felt emotions, of sheer imagination, I believe it's the best, most exciting Filipino film ever made in recent years.

"Exorcist 2" in my opine may not have the cheapo shock thrills of the first "Exorcist" or the unintentionally funny awkwardness of Blatty's "Exorcist 3" (officially the real sequel), but it does have Burton spouting all that heavy theology, which on one side is irredeemable camp, on the other has Burton's beautiful growl and Boorman framing and lighting him in such a way he looks a hell of a lot holier (and more devastated) than Jim Cavaziel in Gibson's monumentally unimaginative "Passion." Then there's the film-making. Which is gorgeous. Which (some of it, anyway) is inspired by the flying sequences in Murnau's underrated "Faust," only in gloriously amber color, as if Boorman smeared honey on his lenses.

The film is a great something--sometimes I think a monumental sick joke on religion, sometimes I think a fantastic film-making experiment that you shouldn't (for the sake of your sanity) take too seriously. It's Boorman turning the theological bull Blatty (appropriate name, I think) spouted in the original picture into something that resembles science fiction--a scientifically workable theory on the nature of evil, no less.

Just saw again the first four episodes of John Cleese's wonderful, wonderful Fawlty Towers, the dysfunctional hotel run by the inimitable Basil Fawlty (Cleese), and his battle-wagon wife, Sybil (Prunella Scales). Amazing how many belly laughs and guffaws the show can still inspire, and this is probably my third or fourth viewing (still, it's been years).

Even more amazing is the short documentary on the realBasil Fawlty--Donald Sinclair, manager and owner of the Gleneagle, an ex Navy commander who (as Ray Marks, present manager of the Gleneagle puts it) thought running the Gleneagle "would have been a wonderful job, if it wasn't for the guests. The guests spoiled his job."

According to legend, the Monty Python troupe once booked rooms at the Gleneagle, in the seaside town of Torquay; they still remember some of the things Sinclair did to them there. Pythoner Eric Idle carried an alarm clock inside his briefcase at the hotel reception; when Sinclair heard the ticking he said "My God, there's a bomb in there!" and threw it off a cliff. Later, Pythoner Terry Gilliam sat down to a meal and ate American style, cutting up the food first before picking up the pieces with his fork; Sinclair, passing by, picked up Gilliam's knife and snapped "we don't eat like that here!"

Eventually the entire Python troupe moved to another hotel--all except Cleese, who stayed. Apparently, he thought there was an idea for a TV show here somewhere.

It wasn't only the Pythoners that suffered; one guest asked for a drink at the bar, to which Sinclair replied by slamming down the grill and saying "the bar's closed." When his friend invited him to a nearby hotel to drink, Sinclair informed him that if he isn't back by 11 pm, the front door will be locked. He comes back late, and just as Sinclair threatened, the front door was locked. "This is ridiculous," he said, "my wife and daughter are in there," and started banging on the door; a light turned on in a window, and Sinclair popped his head out and said "I told you I'd lock the doors by 11!" The guest replied: "If you don't open the doors I'm going to knock them down!" Three or four minutes later, Sinclair opens the door, lets him in, bangs the door behind him loud enough to, as the guest put it, wake everyone in the hotel, and yells "Don't let that happen again!"

Sinclair was also hard on the hired help. He hated builders, and would yell and curse at them; one Greek waiter was so fed up with Sinclair's treatment of him he jumped into a taxi and demanded to be driven to London. Rosemary Harrison, who once worked for Sinclair, describes how when one waiter, tired of waiting for Sinclair to make the tea, took a teapot meant for another table. Sinclair stopped the serving of breakfast and "went up and down the tables like a policeman, questioning the guests. He came across a set of teapots at a table for two. He realised because of their size they were meant for a table for four, and he asked the guests for a description of the waiter."

Sinclair was apparently so appalling that when his wife had to go out shopping, she would lock him up in their room, and say to the staff "don't let him out, he's only going to upset you." Ian Jones, owner of the nearby Coppice Hotel, said "fugitives from the Gleneagle used to come knocking on our door, pleading accommodations."

He was, as Cleese would put it, "the most wonderfully rude man I have ever met."

Just saw this on TCM and it still has the magic. This is recognizably a Taiji Yabushita film, in that he takes much of his style from classic Disney--fluid (maybe not as fluid as Disney) movement, use of music and imagery, animal sidekicks. It's not as emotionally powerful as his The Orphan Son (his masterpiece, I think), or as all-around well done as Alakazam (his collaboration with Ozamu Tezuka), or as historically important as The White Snake (which influenced Miyazaki) but it has its virtues--the inventive way the hero appears and disappears, the 'transformation battle' that occurs at the climax, the lifelike sword fights of the prince...not Yabushita's best, but still up there, somewhere.