*Ian Rosales Casocot

	Web www.visayandailystar.com

The saddest occupation may be that of earnest cheerleader for something that is perpetually contented with being habitually bad. I love Filipino films-even outright cheesecake like Joey Gosiengfiao's Temptation Island whose ribald campiness has redeemed it as a contemporary classic, and I do what I can to make converts of diehard disbelievers. In my classes, for example, I try to give students a sampling of films by Lino Brocka, Ishmael Bernal, Chito Roño, Peque Gallaga, Eddie Romero, and Mike de Leon-films most people have not seen out of sheer spite of generalization: that Pinoy cinema is all comedic pandering via the inanities of Vic Sotto or the histronics of Dina Bonnevie, embodying cinematic qualities so low-brow they are beyond redemption. (I take a stand with Joey de Leon, however; he is our country's unheralded equivalent of Buster Keaton. If only he can channel that comic genius to worthier efforts….)

But when you're confronted with another banquet of films that reeks of mediocrity but comes with the banner as being the industry's best for the year, what do you do? If you're like most film critics, you take on a cloak of unbearable silence. Because doing anything else is just plain wasting of ink.

If you are sensitive enough to take note of the critical apathy given the recently-concluded Metro Manila Film Festival, you may have to acknowledge the fact that the festival, once touted as an engine for driving new interest in Filipino films, has found itself in a new plateau of indifference.

This is sad because, in the light of local filmdom's already flagging fortunes being battered to bits by "stronger" international releases, we do need annual exercises such as the MMFF. As a showcase of the Filipino Best, it has had its moments of true glory, premiering for example such worthy efforts as Atsay, Burlesque Queen, Bata Bata Paano Ka Ginawa, Crying Ladies, Rizal, and Panaghoy sa Suba.

And for a while there, given the unusual rush of strong films dominating the competition in the late 1990s and the early 2000s, the audience for local films shepherded by the festival seemed to be growing. This is especially true in the one demographic the industry desperately need to break the curse of decline: the A-B crowd, who has long since lost faith in the local film, but whose cultural and financial clout the industry needs to ensure a future. True, the C-D crowd can, and often does, propel the fortunes of weaker films starring their "idols," but films like these are not ones made for the books. They are often forgotten as soon as the theater marquee displays another title.

Thus, the box office may be up for some of the films in competition this year, but the general reading of the pulse seems to be this: Filipino filmmaking, especially those churned out by the studios, has turned the mediocre route.

You have in the running the following films: Richard Somes, Uro dela Cruz, and Rico Maria Ilarde's Shake, Rattle and Roll 2k5, Erik Matti's Exodus: Tale of the Enchanted Kingdom, Tony Y. Reyes's Enteng Kabisote 2: Okay Ka, Fairy Ko-The Legend Continues, Val Iglesias's Terrorist Hunter, Joel Lamangan's Blue Moon, Mark Reyes and Dominic Zapanta's Mulawin, Joel Lamangan's Ako Legal Wife: Mano Po 4?!, Jose Javier Reyes's Kutob, Gil Portes's Mourning Girls, and Ronnie Rickett's Lagot Ka sa Kuya Ko. One is of the horror/thriller genre, three are works of fantasy, and one is a hybrid of horror-comedy. Two are pure comedies, two are action vehicles, and only one is a full-fledged drama with the ambitions of a time-bending epic. Not one of them will be remembered in the days to come. The verdict for the latest MMFF seems to be this: utterly, unforgivably, forgettable.

There is no sense then in enumerating the faults and odd virtues of all the films in competition-although I must say that Exodus is the rare bird in the lot: it is a gorgeous film, and I commend its ambitions to be truly fantastic, but this may be because it has a visionary like Erik Matti in the helm. Still, like all films in the MMFF, it is saddled with either a simplistic storyline, or a bad narrative arc. Enteng Kabisote 2 I heartily enjoyed because it is unpretentious in its intent to merely continue the phenomenal financial success of its predecessor, and thus offers nothing more than slapstick comedy and slapstick visual effects. Having checked my expectations at the door, I came away not hurting any of my critical faculties, and took the cardboard filmmaking with gleeful indifference.

Which is something I cannot say of the travesty that is Mulawin. You have seen the manic publicity given by its parent company GMA Television, which gave the film a sheen of respectability through its marvelously edited trailers and teasers. Then it came away as the sole film in the festival to sport an "A" from the Film Ratings Board.

You had to enter the theater with full expectations of grandeur. This had to be our country's answer to the Lord of the Rings, only starring a bunch of bird-humans. The TV series it is based on was a pop cultural phenomenon as well, with a huge following of diehard fans. What can go wrong?

Everything.

Because the best thing about Zapanta and Reyes's Mulawin the Movie-GMA Films and Regal Films's paint-by-numbers film adaptation of the fantaserye favorite-may be the fact that after watching the movie, you get a strange craving for chicken. Barbecued.

That said, all you can really do is spend the rest of the movie commenting on the trivialities, because those are the only things that will keep you entertained in this fowlish quagmire.

Trivialities like the obvious rip-offs from Lord of the Rings, and even Kingdom of Heaven-marking a low point in the purported originality of Filipino cinema. Trivialities like the horrid special effects that will elicit more giggles than awe. It is strange enough that the Mulawins and their arch-enemies the Ravenas, for bird-people, do take suspicious care in doing their fighting not in the air, but on the ground. (I can only surmise that may be due to their wings which look strangely detached from their bodies.) The only thing that seems to be flapping about the screen is that caricature of a dragon whose fiery breaths produce explosions in the ground that look more like half-hearted firecrackers left over from last year's New Year celebration.

There are trivialities like how Richard Gutierrez's make-up artist should really be given the Frankenstein's Monster Award for Horrid Foundation. Like how the guy really has no business even mimicking the playing of a flute: his fingers, for Pete's sake, do not match the notes we hear. Then there is Sunshine Dizon as Pirena from Engkantadia... If she really must wear a midriff-baring costume, she should really learn to spell C-R-U-N-C-H-E-S, or even simply, just G-Y-M.

There are more trivialities, like the zombie-ish line-reading that mistakes itself for dialogue (take that, Bianca King!). Like the strangely immobile characterization of Eddie Gutierrez as Dakila, who serves no other purpose except to look tired in captivity. Like the incessant howling of AHHH! and YAAAHHH! that take the place of real acting, but proceed to irritate our eardrums. Like how Angel Locsin as Alwina, fights like a chicken beheaded-a kind of silly chicken dance that involves a lot of tiny tinikling jumps and a semblance of Darna movements. All that the wasted Dennis Trillo does is stalk the rest of the cast and look incredibly sad. And all that Richard Gutierrez as Aguiluz proves is that he has no range as an actor, and belongs sadly to the limited frame of TV's small screen.

To say that Mulawin is a bad movie borders on kindness. It is the very equivalent of cinematic bird flu.

back to top