Sunday,10 p.m., 11 December 2011, Cubans begin lining up at the Riviera Theater to attend the first recorded participation by a Filipino film in the Havana International Film Festival. The film they were lining up to watch is an indie flick entitled Lola (abuela in Spanish). Directed by the up-and-coming Filipino auteur Brillante Mendoza, the film comes with good reputation from overseas, having won the Best Film award in the Teheran International Film Festival in 2010.
The crowd was brimming with anticipation. The Havana International Film Festival has not had one Filipino film participate in its decades of existence. The enticement has been set by the teasers carried out by the festival organizers. Of course, the rarest ones usually get a lot of attention. Never before have they seen a pelicula from Filipinas and this one comes with apparently some serious reputation.
The Cuban audience is both fickle and effusive. They are just as prone to enthusiastically rooting for a good film or to deriding a cheap flick they consider inferior. They are a difficult bunch to please. They are so used to seeing quality films and they demand quality over quantity. After all, the most enthusiastic fans use their hard-earned savings just to watch the films during the festival.
This year’s festival has a stable of excellent films from all over the world. As usual, the Brazilians and Venezuelans are putting their best foot forward. Cuban moviegoers loves their cutting-edge, action-packed story-telling, usually based on characters from the favelas or solares (slums) of Caracas and Rio. Among this year’s best bet is the Venezuelan film, La Hora Cero, an action-drama flick which tackles the deteriorating conditions of Venezuela’s health sector of pre-Chavez Caracas woven around the story of gang of killers who occupied a hospital in search for medical care. Recent international film festival circuit mainstays Habanastation and Juan de Los Muertos, directed and produced by local Cuban talents, are also favored because of their witty storytelling and curious choice of themes. With such illustrious competition on hand, the Filipinos in the audience were hoping Mendoza’s film would at least exceed their expectations and make the country proud.
The screening is off to a good start. The musky and ageing cinema is packed and the crowd is brimming with anticipation. Then the screening starts and perceptibly the crowd’s demeanor begin to change almost from the very start. Noticeably, the crowd becomes restless, fidgety. Then murmurs can be heard from sections of the theater, most noticeably from the back. After 15 minutes, a sizeable number of moviegoers start departing. A sense of disappointment can be felt in the air. The movie, it seems, has lost its crowd. By the time the movie finishes, a small percentage of diehard moviegoers including the Filipinos remain in the theater. The movie finishes with tepid applause from the crowd and the moviegoers trickle out downbeat. The Filipinos anonymously exit with the throng, flustered with embarrassment.
What just happened here? A film that supposedly moviegoers in Teheran voted as the best movie in their own film festival was a big flop with Cuban moviegoers. Is there a cultural explanation that could adequately describe what just happened?
I personally think that the sophistication of the Cuban crowd is of a higher level. They have had decades of experience of viewing the best movies in Latin America and Europe at the festival. They demand utmost quality almost by right. It was apparent that tonight they were let down. Arguably, the level of sophistication of Philippine independent film-making is still not on par with that of Latin America or Europe. The decision of the auteur to focus on imagery did not impress the crowd especially with the story-telling being disjointed and lacking of substance. The acting was also noticeably amateurish. The director cannot be faulted for that as he used mostly the services of novice actors (except for Anita Linda and Rustica Carpio) for the movie.
By the way, what exactly was it that the filmmaker was trying to tell the viewers, that Filipino grandmothers will do everything for their grandsons amid all the poverty in the Philippines? I think trying to weave a story out of this premise is certainly a stretch even for a filmmaker who already won in Cannes. And the quality of the script, or the lack of it, is found to be wanting. It was as if the actors were delivering their lines off the cuff.
On a personal note, Philippine directors have to start being more creative. They have so far been limited to graphic portrayal of sex, gang violence and abject poverty to define their movies, copying the script the likes of Lino Brocka popularized 30 years ago. Yes, that’s a groundbreaking moment indeed – 30 years ago. Besides, isn’t there anything positive that can be portrayed about the Philippines anymore? Why all the focus on the dark side? Aren’t we promoting our country when we participate in those international film festivals? What are we in effect trying to tell the world about ourselves when we peddle deprivation, gore and flesh?