by the broken

Personally, I am not into watching old Filipino movies as they come out for me as exaggerated and degrading to women. However, it is interesting to see a Filipino film with a plot that doesn’t revolve on the story about a poor but good in fighting man and his damsel in distress.

Although guilty of conforming to stereotypes, I appreciate how the movie Mano Po was made to give light to the experiences of the Filipino-Chinese community in the country. Interestingly, I found out after I watched the movie that it was made into a series which had eight installations in total after the success of the first one which garnered twelve awards in total during the 2002 Metro Manila Film Festival including the Best Picture Award.

Although in all honesty, I found the film very flat with respect to the script and the plot it follows as it was very much predictable for me. Also, the cinematography is grainy and the transitions aren’t very smooth. With that said, it is to be taken into consideration that Filipino films even up to now, still is lacking in terms of cinematography and clarity of the shots when compared to other countries.

It may be because I am not familiar with the album “The Wall” or even Pink Floyd to say the least but the movie Pink Floyd The Wall didn’t really resonate with me.

With all the symbolism and the ideas that the movie is trying to say, I found myself rather confused as to what the meaning behind the entire movie really was. In my opinion, what the movie lacked was a clear connection between each of the flashbacks, the scenes, visual effects and cartoons that was played the in most of the ending.

Although this was the case, there are still some ideas that drove me to think and question myself as well. An example of this and probably the most impactful scene for me in the entire movie was how education was portrayed as something evil. All my life, people have told me that in order to form ideas of my own, I needed to educate myself and the way to do that was to enter school. In the movie ironically, the school and the authorities in it controls the children and the way they think that in turn negates the purpose of going to one in the first place.

If the movie was intended to make the audience question certain ideas and beliefs in a society, then it succeeded for me in that part. In the animated scenes, I found myself very confused and feeling something that I can’t explain even up to this day but maybe it was made for that exact reason – to make you feel lost.

Respeto is one of those daring yet unapologetic films in such a way that it pioneered on bringing the Duterte administration’s war on drugs on the big screen.

The film, especially with the direction they were going and the actor they casted, could’ve had so much more potential than what it turned out. However, with that being said, Respeto is still something worth watching.

What I loved most about the film is the way they drew connection between the nationalistic “Makata” and the rather unorthodox, rude, and mainly for entertainment purposes “Fliptop”. For those like me who watched and is familiar with the Fliptop scene, it is clear how the two are far from each other with all the cursing and cheap slurs that became a staple for Fliptop rappers. Seeing as they casted Abra for the lead role who happens to be one of the most popular among the Fliptop rappers, I just wish they would’ve taken advantage of this and gave Makata-Fliptop crossover more exposure.

On the technical side, given that Respeto is an independent film, the cinematography, audio, and even just the quality of the shots are quite good.

Although Slumdog Millionaire is known to be a prime example of what the film industry call poverty porn, the discrimination towards poor uneducated people is still very much evident in the film.

With the amazing visuals and cinematography down to the exquisitely executed transitions and shots, the film with its modern day implications is still a very relevant and satisfying watch.

In the film, one can easily spot the discrimination people have towards the impoverished. The protagonist, Jamal Malik, being an uneducated poor person is being doubted and accused of cheating as he breezes through the questions in the famous Indian version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”. Also, the way he was treated while being interrogated by the police shows how people with authority belittles poor people by flaunting superiority and mistreating them just because they can.

Even romanticized, the film still have in my opinion a good message and it is that the struggles of impoverished people and their story of how they overcome them will someday give flight to their success.

In the Philippine film industry particularly in the mainstream, homosexual people are mainly portrayed as people who are always the loudest and the happiest and who seems to have no problem whatsoever in their lives. Even when portrayed otherwise, I personally think that their overall struggles are oversimplified.

In the documentary Paper Dolls by Tomer Heymann , homosexual people for me are sensitized in such way that it portrays or brings to light not only their struggles about being accepted by the heterogeneous people dominated society (as what seems to always be their problem in the PH mainstream movies), but also their struggles in their work life, love life and family life that all people no matter what gender relate to.

It wasn’t long before the documentary had me rooting for the success of each of the paper dolls. The documentary was made in such a way that although admittedly some of the clips feel staged, gives off such raw feelings and vibes that will make you feel like part of their struggles as well as victories too.

The thing I love most about this movie is that even when it is very evident that the movie has aged, the beauty of the film, its theme, and just the overall aesthetic of it is still very much capable of capturing the heart of its audience. A timeless movie for an art that is unbound by time – a true celebration of film.

I don’t know why but I’ve always been a sucker for those wholesome movies that revolve around fatherly love but this film took it to the next level. It is one of those films that will leave you smiling for unknown reasons (even when there is literally nothing going on in the scene) and at the same time fighting the urge to shed a tear to every sad scene even when you already know what is coming from the very beginning of the film.

The ending of the movie is still, up to this day, one of the most unforgettably heartwarming eye-bawling scenes I have ever seen in my entire (film) life. It just hits you in all the right placed that you didn’t know you needed to be hit or even existed in the first place.

In hindsight, Y Tu Mama Tambien is a movie about two sexually active teenage boys and a middle aged woman embarking on a journey whilst fulfilling their sexual desires. However, if you look and dig deeper, the film is more than just its highly sexual, fully nude, and raw erotic scenes (although if you came to watch the movie for that, I won’t judge).

If you are someone who enjoys and is keen on finding meaning to even the most random of things in a film then you are sure to enjoy watching this movie as even the smallest and rather unusual things that you will see on screen most probably are hints to what the ending of the movie will be.

Daring and unapologetic, this movie has grown to be one of my all-time favorites.

I don’t know how it happened or when it happened, all I know is that by the end, my heart was captured by these two raunchy almost air-headed boys that honestly in the beginning, I was disgusted by – as a homegrown feminist.

Before I even watched the film, I was told that this movie was an icon for the feminist movement and honestly, right after I watched the movie, I didn’t get why it was.

The film was set in 1920s in the Republic of China where sexual enslavement was still accepted and is prevalent.

For a film said to be an icon for feminism, I expected the characters especially the women to have even a bit or a hint of the with modern day ideas of feminism and equality. What I didn’t expect was for the women to be plotting against each other to gain the favor of one sexually abusive and predatory man.

The protagonist in the story, Songlian, actually disappointed me with how she turned out in the movie. As she was portrayed as an educated woman, i expected her to be the most reasonable of all the mistresses. I didn’t expect her to act in ways that are very much anti-feminist.  

However, as the movie progressed and how it had ended made me realize that it only served as an eye opener for the society as to what the toxic and rather inhumane ways of this practice (sexual enslavement in today’s lens) really looks like with modern beliefs.

If you are one to ignore a movie that requires reading the subtitles then I’m sorry but you are losing out on so much film can offer. One great example is the French movie Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain.

Starting from the film color palette, the transitions, the uniqueness of the storyline and how events are threaded to fit each other like puzzle pieces, down to Amelie’s (the protagonist) habits and way of thinking unlike any other character I’ve encountered, this movie definitely has a special place in my heart.

Honestly, I can recommend this movie to all the film enthusiast I know or even to someone who just happens to have time to kill.

Amelie, has become an icon for me. You will like her for her antics - especially with the way she deals with bullies, but you will fall in love with her for the way she cares for everyone and does her best (albeit sometimes over the top) to make everybody around her happy.

If you are new into film and is interested in learning about how different camera angles and movement affect how a scene is projected, this movie can also be an effective exercise in spotting these elements as they are used in this movie very evidently.

I haven’t watched many Indie films yet to make a comparison and to have a concrete and well backed opinion about Indie films in general but the movie Serbis isn’t something I would recommend if you are into film and movies for the purpose of recreation.

Serbis is an interesting watch as it provides the audience an insight of the pornography industry in the Philippines which is said to have been used by small time theaters to save their business after the Marcos regime.

However, the experience of watching the film wasn’t as pleasing to the senses as I would’ve liked it to be. For example, there were scenes that I thought was shot unnecessarily long that it bored me. Another thing is how the audio quality isn’t the best – there are times where the background noise (the movie was set in a bustling neighborhood) hinders the audience from hearing the conversation from the characters. Although this was the case, I felt that these issues actually added to capturing the rawness and authenticity of the poor stricken streets of the country that is often romanticized by the mainstream media.