#serbis

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.

Serving the Chaos

If you’re looking for a movie that exhibits chaos in more than one way, then Serbis is the film that you’re looking for.

Serbis is an internationally-acclaimed film directed by Brillante Ma. Mendoza focuses on the chaos that reigns not only in the insides of a local theater but also over the characters that live and make a living by screening lewd films/participating in an underground den of male prostitutes.

The lives of these characters are in shambles. We have Nanay Flor (Gina Pareno) who was undergoing a legal battle where their children appeared to side on her adulterous husband. There’s Alan (Coco Martin) who has a dermal infection that obviously needs medical attention and has impregnated his girlfriend. There’s Nayda (Jaclyn Jose) who has crumbles of dark secrets that were left to the audience to decipher. We also have to acknowledge how the theater’s sales were declining, adding more to the

Let us be clear that I did not like the movie, It was nauseating but I acknowledge the brilliance (pun-intended) of Mendoza for successfully portraying chaos not only in narrative but also in the filming itself. We can observe it in the background noises overpowering the dialogues, unstable camera movements that gave me a bit of a headache.

I can compare it to Jackson Pollock’s pieces, interestingly chaotic but whether it was intentional or not, we will never know.

Humans are programmed to fear something that threatens its survival.

Our ancestors feared the might and the darkness that comes with it. The storm and the unforgiving winds that it brings. The sea and the unmerciful waves that drowns everything in its path. We feared what we cannot control and chaos means just that - the confused unorganized state of primordial matter before the creation of distinct form.

Is this where the idea that chaos and destruction go hand in hand?

The laws governing Physics states that all the natural processes occur in such a way that the entropy of the universe increases.

So, what does it mean for to live in a world that is in constant chaos?

According to Colin Meloy, “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

When man started to ride the waves, it gave us the power to conquer. When man started venturing the night, it stripped us our fear of the dark, and when man started dancing in the storm, it gave us the courage to face far greater things.

Fearing chaos imprisons us with the idea of control that it limits our potential to be something greater than ourselves.

To be afraid of chaos is to be afraid of change, of learning, and of venturing.

To not be afraid is to master the chaos in you and turn it into something beautiful.

(image source)

Life is a never ending world of chaos. Its drudgeries and burdens will break you. It’s just a matter of choice between standing up and remaining down for when chaos burns like wildfires around us, we have no other choice but to fall in love with its warmth for chaos is only understood when it is loved by the wild and not the weak.

Serbis and how Philippine law and culture betray the family

“Why are you fighting? You’re siblings!”

Where would you expect to hear a question like this? Perhaps from an exasperated mother just trying her best? From a concerned uncle at a partially forced family gathering?

In the Philippines, you hear this question in court from judges and lawyers trying to justify a crime against family by searching for imaginary moral ties in blood relations. In the Philippines, crimes committed by siblings against each other are scoffed at and treated as little more than a kindergarten squabble, no matter the crime. Did your sibling smash your car on purpose? Steal money from the family corporation? Forge your father’s will? Doesn’t matter, in the Philippines not even the highest court officials can fathom the reality of a family feud. You’re gonna have to search real hard for a lawyer who takes your case seriously, and if you’re a parent wronged by your child, you can forget about justice altogether. For some reason, people here believe that being related by blood immediately necessitates some kind of undying love. News flash: it doesn’t.

Language: Filipino

Synopsis: The life of a family whose business is a bomba-film cinema which also doubles as their home.

Thoughts: 

This is an independent film set in a busy city. The camera is shaky, and the dialogues are not audible. You will have a difficult time hearing what the characters are saying. Most of the time while watching, I was just speculating what they were saying based on their actions on screen.

There are a lot of dirt in this movie, and it’s not just figuratively. The bathrooms/comfort rooms are flooded with dirty water and garbage. There’s a skin disease being treated badly. There are vandalisms in the whole place. Some guy puts his (fresh) urine in an empty bottle of coke. People are having sex inside the cinema.

Somehow, it might give some symbolism (if it was really meant to be that way). The opening scene was a teenage girl naked saying “I love you” in front of the mirror. That might mean that this film will show you the naked truth about such kind of cinema. The “I love you” was being said seductively, and it was not for herself; it was practice for what will come in the following scenes of the movie.

The women in the film put on lipstick before they go out and face the world. An example was the Inang going through a legal separation, and before she went to court, she put on lipstick. I believe this has something to do with women empowering themselves, and showing their best face/feature.

The ending scene was Coco Martin’s character leaving the cinema. There are two men talking, and a fire starts in the middle of the screen, eventually engulfing the film. Outside the cinema was still a busy and chaotic world. Inside the cinema was chaos within the family and their personal and family issues. I believe this just shows that wherever they go, there’s still chaos.

So, what is “serbis”? It’s the word “service” in a Filipino accent. But what service are they actually talking about here? For sure, it was not the films the cinema was showing. My big guess is that the service was sexual since many gays go there not to watch the films, but to offer their services.

Emotion: disgusted

This is how I would describe Brillante Mendoza’s Serbis due to the film’s depiction of the lives of a struggling Filipino family and because literally, the film is riddled with so much sexual scenes set in a run-down cinema.  

To be honest, I had a hard time following the story since most of the time, I can’t hear what the characters were saying because the ambient sounds were too loud. For me, it felt like the film focused too much on making the audience feel disoriented and bothered that at the end of the day, all you remember about the film are the loud ambient noise, sex scenes, and dizzying camerawork; you simply no longer care about what the film was trying to say.