STAR CINEMA’S PERIOD HORROR STRUGGLES

Derek Ramsey is not a good actor. But he managed to be present in Star Cinema’s three latest movies that marked departures from its tiresome formulas: the first was One More Chance (2008) which showed the production giant’s care for feminist politics since Sana Maulit Muli (not to mention a more realistic approach in handling modern relationships); then there was the Temptation Island-wannabe No Other Woman (2011), a film that introduced adulterous sexual themes to their mainstream but new lows for anything in Philippine cinema; and lastly, this year’s much talked-about horror Corazon: Ang Unang Aswang (2012). Like One More Chance, Corazon’s fullpotential gets tangled up in the Star Cinema-ness of the production. But it is a departure nonetheless.

The plot was rather simple: Corazon (Erich Gonzales, in a convincingly campy performance), a barrio lass married to Daniel (Ramsey), lives in a post-war hacienda plagued by the Japanese soldiers, then a greedy landlord (Mark Gil) and finally a monstrously anguished female (guess who?). The root of the last one is Corazon’s own failure of delivering a son for Daniel. She becomes crazy and starts eating the children of their hacienda only to be chased away by the townsfolk. All is well.

Aesthetically, the film is a triumph in milieu. The setting perfectly captured my lola’s stories about the rurals fresh from the Japanese Occupation. But what I noticed prominently in the film is the clash between the styles of director Richard Somes (an indie favorite who made Yanggaw, also a horror film set in the province) and his Star Cinema collaborators that affected the rest of the film. For the example, Somes did surreal fast editing in scenes like Corazon’s demise. But it just looked awkward in the middle of teleserye-style technicals. This conflict affected the narrative too. Star Cinema’s love ideals always seem to interrupt the horror film’s plot. I thought it was abundant with romance cliches that it lacked subtlety as a horror film. Somes’ direction seemed upstaged by the dominant Star Cinema style. You can imagine the producers nagging at the director’s ear during both principal photography and post-production.

I guess Star Cinema was very hungry for a different kind of horror that they just squeezed the ideas of Richard Somes to help them conceive a turning point for the studio. Like last year’s Segunda Mano, the film proves (and even spells out before the credits) that a monster is not born but created. The “halimaw” image is all in the mind and Corazon, the “aswang” shows that the transformation of the woman to flesh-eating lunatic is due to her own anguish. This “anguish” is the result of many troublesome factors - perhaps it’s the villagers’ condemnation of her as a pre-slut, her inability to produce a child for Daniel (especially after performing tiring rituals), the atrocities experienced by the town during the war, or all of the above. But probably and most powerful of it all, it’s a woman’s revenge. Filipinos are well-aware of women’s condition during the war. They were raped, horribly tortured and their children were violently bayoneted in front of them. Her use of the boar as a costume for her nightly attacks calls to mind the historical significance of the animal during this period (Guerilla’s used the boar’s head to scare the Japanese away, while women use the boar’s blood to blot it on their underwear, thus avoiding rape).

One silenced subplot of the film is the growing antagonism of the landlord to the workers. Rarely would you find such class struggle in a Star Cinema film. But then, this struggle was put to bed when Corazon attacked. Their switch of antagonist is notable, too - if you can’t blame the greedy capitalist, why not target the crazy woman? Once again, Star Cinema’s feminist views seemed to be in question.

The final scenes seemed very symbolic enough: Daniel, after killing the landlord who burned his house and tried to kill his wife, gets back on the capitalist and gets chased away by his minions; Corazon, on the other hand, was chased by the male villagers because of her monstrosity. This symbolic couple (perhaps the proletarian and the anguished female?) left this plagued village to reach a destination all for themselves, and nobody ever heard from them ever again.

The horror genre is notable for its direct reflection of the turbulence of the period it depicts. Corazon: Ang Unang Aswang, for its departure from bourgeois culture and focus on post-war Philippines, is a rare horror film that at least tries to prove that in the local movie industry. Nice try, Star Cinema. - Gio Potes, May 2012

THE RING AND POLTERGEIST: HORROR CINEMA’S DAMNATION OF MEDIA

What could be more horrifying than the realization that technology and media is taking over your life?

Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist is about a family living in a haunted house. The heat actually starts when the youngest member of the family Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) gets abducted by these ghosts. How? Through the television of course! On the other hand, Gore Verbinski’s remake of the Japanese hit Ringu, The Ring, takes on a more surreal tone. Naomi Watts plays the role of a reporter whose niece (Amber Tamblyn) and her friends die of unknown causes, and rumors say they passed away because of a video tape. Her investigation leads to deeper trenches when she learns the source of this cursed tape.

On the surface, these films are classic examples of mainstream cinema’s success at horror. They’re remembered especially because of the iconic scenes they bear: Poltergeist’s child abduction and The Ring’s scene of a creepy little girl named Samara coming out of the television to kill the ones she curse. But a deeper understanding would show these films’ take on modernization and critique of television and media. It’s so much scarier to have this deeper understanding since the most influential medium (the television according to Time Magazine) is actually succeeding in sending its messages across to its audiences, even those messages that are hideous and inhuman. Like Carol Anne, their target is the youngest members of society because they know they would be naive enough to eat up their shit. And we, the passive boob tube audiences let ourselves be Carol Anne - abducted by these monsters that we become monsters ourselves… living and breathing under the influence of what is dictated, or what is popular even if it violates our own cultures. Everyday, we indulge ourselves into it and everyday, the horror is very present. Until when would we let these influence us? Would it reach the point where we die because of their own influences, because their very own Samara?

- Gio Potes, October 2011

Women and Gays in a Zombie-infested Paradise.

What I love about Zombadings 1: Patayin sa Shokot si Remington is, of course, how it views Philippine homosexuality. But even though it's much more sugar-coated than, say, Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros or Ang Lihim ni Antonio and its political undertones are taken rather silently, it is among those rare movies today that acknowledges feminism as an essential part of LGBT. It's the year's perfect counterattack to the dreadfully anti-feminist barfbag No Other Woman (which curiously became the second top-grossing film in the country last year).

I smiled throughout this movie for its escapist nature. Set in a fictional Lucban, it is an unconventional fairy tale. The police officers make up of mostly trustworthy women. The gays are still the community fairies who design these ladies into Cinderellas. And the straight men are prominently lazy gents who populate the household, unless paid. Remington comes from the last group but a childhood curse turns him into a twink. And the resolution was a father-son sacrifice that would make a closet queen smile.






The film is escapist for members of the LGBT. It presents something far from the mainstream where mothers must stay home and the gays hide. But here, it's a happy place for gays and women. It may not draw closer to realism but the intentions of its filmmakers is noteworthy. They made Zombadings an allegorical film, turning the gay revolution into a mob of the undead ready to eat heterosexual flesh. Despite this, it seems only the young Remington and the gaydar-touting Daniel Fernando enjoy gay-bashing. The entire community of the fictional Lucban doesn't even see the gays as a threat. They acknowledge the abilities of the fairies from hair styling to housekeeping. In fact, if the women play the cops, the gays take over their responsibilities at home as housemaids. And then from normal, the gay community is even glorified. When Remington decides that he wants to remain gay, Lauren Young tells him he can't because the gays she know fight everyday for love and acceptance - something she believes he can't do. It might be too substantial but it's enough for a gay rights banter. If you think the film's gayness is fake then maybe that line alone will be the most honest. And I would eternally quote it. Don't leave the film during the credits for an even more elaborate message from Angelina Canapi.

Zombadings presents a fictional world where equality reigns and people are happy. Boy would I stay in such a world. But then again I realized - in time (perhaps not too distant from now) that Lucban will be real. - Gio Potes, May 2012.






Directed by Jade Castro. Written by Jade Castro, Raymond Lee & Michiko Yamamoto. Starring Martin Escudero, Lauren Young, Kerbie Zamora, Janice de Belen, John Regala, Angelina Canapi, Daniel Fernando, Roderick Paulate.


Full credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1810861/fullcredits#writers



Emma Stone: Provocateur, Advocate.

With all the young talent emerging from the Hollywood canon, at least one of them is smart. Already a major movie star, Emma Stone broke out in the (thinking) industry with Easy A in 2010. I have no probs with the film. It is intelligent. Almost unbelievable, but intelligent. Showing off brilliant comedic timing and witty lines, the meme-rific film almost swallowed whole its juicy concept: teenage sexuality in a conservative social arena. Emma plays Olive, the modern day Scarlet Letter heroine. But she’s very intelligent to know that her own intellectually-restrictive town needs some provoking, and she didn’t care much until she herself became the cause celebre of hypocrite Jesus freaks. The Olive character stood up against the grating anger of the town towards floozies (a setting very familiar here in the Philippines: just the other month, a group of teenage girls almost didn’t graduate because of this chaste image) and she did it by being more provocative. She cut her clothes shorter and wore the red A on every single blouse and shirt, with false sex rumors she intentionally spills for boys’ image charity. She did come around as, to quote a character in the film, a “super slut”. I guess the provoking part did emerge, but what about its resolution? Her whole gesture only seemed like a tease. The Christian high school finally had an erection, but neither was the metaphorical penis castrated or ejaculated. With all the men complaining why there were no tits on her live blog, it shows that the high school didn’t learn a thing from Olive when they should: hmm there are plenty but let’s start with this “How hard it is to be an outcast” or “The one thing that trumps religion… capitalism.”, also “Whatever happened to chivalry?” or finally “Ew. People suck.” What they only learned is that she did not sleep with all those boys, and how much she’s sorry for it. Then again, for the sake of the film’s optimism, what Olive did for the dorky boys she said she slept with is her willingness to avoid bullying (obvious with the gay friend) and to prove that the world has (in some ways) moved on: the nerds are sexier now! The girls can be free with their sexuality! The internet is magnificent! 

The following year, she starred in the screen adaptation of The Help. When she played Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, Emma Stone went from Lolita Haze to Atticus Finch. Now she’s a Southern 60s writer in a racist community. But like Olive, she’s ready to break norms. Following the dismissal of her maid Constantine (played by Cicely Tyson) and her friend Hilly’s (Bryce Dallas Howard) continuing bitchery towards the colored help, she started to write a book for black maids who serve the white families of Jackson, Mississippi. Skeeter says it would be different because she will write the situation in the perspective of the help. She interviews two maids (played by Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer in career-best performances) which eventually boosted to more than 20 when the racism in the community increases even more. As expected, Jackson read the book (the sequence showing various women reacting to familiar parts of the book is almost like a shot-for-shot remake of the men reacting to Olive’s blog in Easy A) and warmed-up to the help, honoring them with fried chicken. The colored situation has been told before in the screen, but not with this much gloss and entertainment. The Help is a sugar-coated look at the 60s’ racist issues, but I can’t doubt the half-sincere intentions of the filmmakers. Not with beautiful scenes of two abused maids laughing at the idiocy of the whites, a funny scene with toilets and the role of Jessica Chastain as a white-trash blonde who’s socially colorblind.


Emma Stone’s performance in The Help wasn’t as strong as her portrayal of Olive Penderghast, but it may prove that Stone is intent with playing roles that challenge their surroundings. You wouldn’t know if these are just her own Hollywood gimmicks for relevance, swag or legitimacy but I smiled at Olive and Skeeter not because they were ideal princesses. They surprised me with their willingness to escape the norms, exercise democracy, get dirt in their skirts and lose some on their way. The fate of Skeeter was to be a successful writer in New York, save Jackson from the height of racism and lose the man she didn’t even want. Her individualism is admirable. These roles are real, and with what they do, their intelligence lets them win over the oppression and the stupidity of their communities. And as with Emma Stone, while she enjoys more of the Hollywood glamour, I hope she would also learn from these characters and find her way towards the advocacy for a better, democratic society. Perhaps with less gloss? - Gio Potes, April 2012

RIHANNA'S FEMINIST CHALLENGE: The Madgestic RiRi

"I want to be the black Madonna."

It's obvious why. Not only does Rihanna have every potential to be as successful as Madonna (commercially, at least), she's taking part in an industry Madonna defined: that of female pop culture. A rainmaking single plus a tour on the run, Rihanna already covered a quarter of her idol's success after the release of her third album "Good Girl Gone Bad". The title of the album is a departure itself from the last two RiRi albums, especially the second one, "A Girl Like Me". It let her shift from image to another and focus more on the celebrity rather than the music - that's exactly how Ms. Ciccone liked it.


Her blond ambition was clear with "Take a Bow". From the criminal-to-good girl of "Unfaithful", she now claims the position of the cheated girlfriend. The quality of the song was mixed as it followed the trend set by Beyonce's "Irreplaceable", itself an empowerment anthem devoted to bash cheating boyfriends. But despite its musical limitations, "Take a Bow" makes up for style. It is heavily Madonna-influenced from the title alone (the song is not a cover), and the promotional video is notable for her shift in fashion sense.


As Douglas Kellner researched, fashion is a capitalist industry aimed at defining classes in terms of dress code. It aimed a separation classes ("rich" from "poor", men from women) that mostly oppressed and limited. It dictated while it provided. And through the years, the fashion industry was challenged by some who chose to wear something else.  Judging from Kellner's research and her Madonna connection, Rihanna takes the gender-bending role reminiscent of Madge's own "I'll Remember". In the video of the song, Madonna wore men's formal clothes and a short black wig. In short, she looked like a typical businessman. Cultural critics found the style of the video as feminist, continuing Madonna's early 90s provocation of sexual stereotypes.


With the "Take a Bow" video, Rihanna donned a pixie cut and a Michael Jackson jacket which made her look entirely different from her previous fashion statements."You're so ugly when you cry" she sings in the second verse, looking down at masculinity while inhibiting a macho female persona evident in the NeYo-esque gestures. It's obvious that once again, Rihanna exhibits empowerment within the video. Like Madonna's early 90s efforts, Rihanna challenged norms of style for women, though it wasn't pretty much of a stretch now as it was then. It's no surprise that this new image became one of her most popular. Around 2008 til 2009, the short black pixie cut became the new fashion phenomenon for teenage to twentysomething girls and gay men alike.


I must say Rihanna chose the right role model to follow. "Take a Bow" may not be as shocking as "Unfaithful", but it made Rihanna a trend-setter, at least within fashion. Based on what she did there, that's not a bad thing for a pseudo-feminist. - Gio Potes, March 2012

THE ROYAL HUNGER

Films in point: The Hunger Games (Ross, 2012), Battle Royale (Fukasaku, 2000)


Regarding all this buzz about a film where kids kill each other off for the viewing pleasure of some capitalists, any of you guys remember such a Japanese film called "Battle Royale"?


I haven't seen these two films but I found the success of "The Hunger Games" as good news. It's quite a surprise teenagers are buying the politically-rich context of "The Hunger Games". It's about classes battling it out, and it's quite feminist as well. Flashback 12 years ago and there's "Battle Royale". The film took everything "Hunger" bears to the extremes even before everything about the latter was outed. It's about a battle of classes in a private high school where the children must kill each other under the order of their teacher and the authoritarian government. If not, the teacher himself will have to kill them. I must say, the violence here is unbearable. You can almost feel every hit and bleeding because it's that graphic of a film. The Japanese, they totally know how to conceive horror!


"Battle Royale" gave a rough, exaggerated view of the new millennium's dangerous fascination. "The Hunger Games" may as well be the mainstreamed "Battle Royale". It's graphic but it is conceived within the microscope of Hollywood meaning it's a softer, toned-down reflection of society. I just hope that this new pop culture phenomenon won't end up as just another money-making franchise, but one that would enlighten the thousands of die-hard fans about the condition of their own environment, of their own media fetishes.


With that, "The Hunger Games" surely is worth a watch.

Donnie Dicko

"To summarise briefly, the function of woman in forming the patriarchal unconscious is two-fold: she first symbolises the castration threat by her real absence of a penis, and second thereby raises her child into the symbolic."

- Laura Mulvery, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975)