THE CASE FOR BANNING MOVIE AWARDS NIGHTS
While watching the awards night of the Cinemalaya Film Festival, I daydreamed about being a film god. People would rave about my movies. I'd be treated like a rock star. Critics would knock themselves silly -- and each other - debating about "what I really meant" in my latest work. Fans would lick my slippers and actors would slip me keys to their rooms.
The one thing I wouldn't do is to attend awards nights. And, being the film god that I'd be, I'd even propose that The Industry does away with them altogether.
It's not that it's un-cool to give prizes.
[Cinemalaya's winners certainly deserved the recognition. Mansyon, for example, is one of those films that even I, the film genius, would have wished I had come up with. It was a moving commentary about why the rich are not like us (they've mansions, we don't) and about how our aspirations to be one of them could sometimes be so tragi-comic. The plot's quite simple: a husband and wife maid and gardener duo gets hired to live in and look after a palatial house while the masters are away. Wife decides she's going to play master and starts putting on perfume, runs on the treadmill, and sleeps in the master's bed.
At one point, wife, while cleaning the tub looks up a mirror on the ceiling: She's looking down on herself. Several times, she stares at her husband who's out gardening, perched on the second floor of the house: She's looking down on her husband and the only time she makes love to him is when he decides to play master as well. {Yes, Ed Cabagnot, even the poor -- and not just intellectuals who do nothing but watch films for a living -- are capable of staring into space. Not just the Swedish.}
The parting shot, I thought, was double-edged enough to be engaging. Driven out of the house when the real masters unexpectedly arrive -- and find the maid wearing the master's silk nighties, husband and wife stoop down to pick their bags outside the gate. Husband smells wife and finds out that wife sprayed on the master's perfume -- for the last time. Did she decide that one day, she's going to be a master too -- and perhaps hire covetous maids like her when she becomes one of them? Or did she discover how empty the mansion really was, resolves to take on The System, but decides she's going to have some fun along the way?
I found out a cono La Sallista -- who actually owns the mansion in the short -- megged the short. Sometimes, it takes one of them to tell us who we really might be. Time to move over, snobbish ("What is the meaning of life?") filmmakers from UP. Incidentally, a UP alumnus' entry -- which everyone else apparently likes -- was a hodge-podge of virtually all the suffering that could possibly befall women (child abuse! rape! poverty! discrimination! wife battering!) but fails to say anything insightful about suffering except to say that, um, well, that they could be overcome and that there's a happy ending to everything, complete with dancing and singing and colors? One of the funniest moments in the film was when the two lead characters ask each other what their goal in life is: One says, to be a bar girl. The other, in disbelief over her partner's small dream, proudly says that her ambition is to own her own "padyak" -- that make-shift vehicle that people use along the tracks. And yet, the movie ends with both of them, against all odds, attaining their small-time dreams. Do people really live happily ever after along da riles? Ok, maybe the director -- coming from UP -- was just trying to be ironic.
The only feature-length movie I've seen so far was Big Time which is the freshest, funniest Pinoy take on crime since Joseph Estrada decided he could act and Susan Roces decided she could enter politics. The amateur actors were quite a find, outshining even the bankable stars. (Jamie Wilson: what was that all about? After all the years in theater?) The lines were crisp; the editing smooth; the soundtrack superb; and the film was generally very entertaining. Sunshine insists she's seen the plot somewhere on HBO. I'm not saying it's a rip-off, because aren't all movies, when you really dissect the plots, ultimately rip-offs of the same basic plots? Even if it were, even if it really had nothing new to say nor was it a new take on old things -- as, say, Mansyon -- it was decidedly distractingly good fun. Still, there's that sinking feeling that you've seen the movie somewhere -- except that here, the characters speak in Filipino and, at one point, take to humming the one anthem that all true-blue Filipinos of our age know by heart: the Voltes Five theme song.
The goal of the festival, I was told, was to showcase what's uniquely "Filipino." I've always been mystified by that concept, "being uniquely Filipino," as though we have something innate that other human species don't. What does that really mean? Is staring into space uniquely "Swedish"? Are there uniquely "Filipino" motives for murder? In what ways is a Filipino drug lord more "Filipino" than an Italian mafia boss other than the obvious? In any case, being Filipino has got to be something more than having a liking for Chocnut.]
But prizes aren't what filmmaking should be about. Every Mowelfund alumnus or Ricky Lee workshopper will profess to their dying day that they don't make movies "to win awards." But somehow, all the glitter of the Cinemalaya awards' night -- the lusty cheers, the standing ovations, the long thank-yous, all the embracing, thank god they haven't taken to wearing long gowns and there were no paparazzis -- makes you feel that indy filmmakers, being human, crave appreciation but, being "artists," want it in the form of golden statuettes. It was hard -- as plans for the next big project crystallized in the filmmakers' mind in the gallery -- not to hear the inaudible wish, "Next year, that'll be me on that stage." It was difficult, reading all the prayers swirling around, not to fear that indy fimmakers, being human, want some form of personal glory, but, being artists, want this glory institutionalized.
When asked what's wrong with Philippine Literature, my favorite lit teacher in college always said that it has become a mutual admiration society where everyone pats each other on the back, helps each other masturbate, and congratulate themselves for being god's gift to Philippine Literature when they come. Oh, and in this self-contained world, they snob each other too on the basis of the number of Palancas on their shelves. For as "a Palanca" can be proof enough of one's being a Writer, a Balanghai - the festival's Palm D'Or -- may also now be bandied around as license for certifying one's Indy Filmmaker credentials. Many lives have been lost chasing personal glory and self-actualization; many industries ruined in the great quest for institutionalized self-affirmation.
It's not that art is it own reward: it can't be unless those Balanghais can be pawned or that the great unsolved problem in the world is that there are not enough golden statuettes to go around. I have my own criteria for judging what's art and what's crap and I'm sure everybody does. (Do we really need Mark Meilly -- yes, he of that overrated Sharon Cuneta starrer was in the jury -- to tell us what's good and not?)
Ultimately, if I have to reduce it, a good film is one that can help us make our dreams Big Time, not disempower us by distracting us; one that can make us resolve, as hopefully the maid in Mansyon did, that we will no longer be servants in other's mansions and we will no longer wear their nighties. A good film is one that will not just make us accept, as the happy couple along da riles do, that life is just the best that we make of it and that we are doomed to just try and be content in the little bubbles that we live in.
In the final analysis, all movies are either "good" (they open our eyes and jolt us into action) or "bad" (they shut our eyes or else turn our lower bodies numb.) Of course, it's not that simple. There are bad good movies: being so didactic, they make us doze off or walk out of the movie theatre kicking and screaming. And there are good bad movies: they're technically well-crafted, organically coherent, and structurally consistent. Also sometimes, you need eye-shutters to stay awake. Also.... I can go on and on. Just don't get me started on "art for art's sake" because whether they like to or not -- whether the filmmakers intended to or not -- films serve a function: They either make us want to put on the master's perfume or throw it away. The point, one of the coolest philosophers in the world said long ago, is not just to interpret the world.
Another short in the festival asks, ten thousand times, "Kaya mo bang pumatay?" (After watching that short, yes but thankfully Sunshine did not introduce me to the film's director.) In a country where a furniture in one mansion is worth more than the lives of people, the more challenging -- and more urgent -- question for filmmakers is, "Kaya mo bang bumuhay? We need more films to keep us alive.
But that's just me. Even, then I'm not proposing we should be handing out awards for Best Film with Most Lives Changed or Best Screenplay for Changing the World. The best ones just do that without waiting for statuettes.
Maybe I should stop day-dreaming and nitpicking and actually start making a film. I might even win a Balanghai. If I do, I'd refuse to attend the awards night, be conspicously absent, and have my note read out, saying, "Thanks, but I don't make movies to win awards." - The Reluctant Blagger#
The one thing I wouldn't do is to attend awards nights. And, being the film god that I'd be, I'd even propose that The Industry does away with them altogether.
It's not that it's un-cool to give prizes.
[Cinemalaya's winners certainly deserved the recognition. Mansyon, for example, is one of those films that even I, the film genius, would have wished I had come up with. It was a moving commentary about why the rich are not like us (they've mansions, we don't) and about how our aspirations to be one of them could sometimes be so tragi-comic. The plot's quite simple: a husband and wife maid and gardener duo gets hired to live in and look after a palatial house while the masters are away. Wife decides she's going to play master and starts putting on perfume, runs on the treadmill, and sleeps in the master's bed.
At one point, wife, while cleaning the tub looks up a mirror on the ceiling: She's looking down on herself. Several times, she stares at her husband who's out gardening, perched on the second floor of the house: She's looking down on her husband and the only time she makes love to him is when he decides to play master as well. {Yes, Ed Cabagnot, even the poor -- and not just intellectuals who do nothing but watch films for a living -- are capable of staring into space. Not just the Swedish.}
The parting shot, I thought, was double-edged enough to be engaging. Driven out of the house when the real masters unexpectedly arrive -- and find the maid wearing the master's silk nighties, husband and wife stoop down to pick their bags outside the gate. Husband smells wife and finds out that wife sprayed on the master's perfume -- for the last time. Did she decide that one day, she's going to be a master too -- and perhaps hire covetous maids like her when she becomes one of them? Or did she discover how empty the mansion really was, resolves to take on The System, but decides she's going to have some fun along the way?
I found out a cono La Sallista -- who actually owns the mansion in the short -- megged the short. Sometimes, it takes one of them to tell us who we really might be. Time to move over, snobbish ("What is the meaning of life?") filmmakers from UP. Incidentally, a UP alumnus' entry -- which everyone else apparently likes -- was a hodge-podge of virtually all the suffering that could possibly befall women (child abuse! rape! poverty! discrimination! wife battering!) but fails to say anything insightful about suffering except to say that, um, well, that they could be overcome and that there's a happy ending to everything, complete with dancing and singing and colors? One of the funniest moments in the film was when the two lead characters ask each other what their goal in life is: One says, to be a bar girl. The other, in disbelief over her partner's small dream, proudly says that her ambition is to own her own "padyak" -- that make-shift vehicle that people use along the tracks. And yet, the movie ends with both of them, against all odds, attaining their small-time dreams. Do people really live happily ever after along da riles? Ok, maybe the director -- coming from UP -- was just trying to be ironic.
The only feature-length movie I've seen so far was Big Time which is the freshest, funniest Pinoy take on crime since Joseph Estrada decided he could act and Susan Roces decided she could enter politics. The amateur actors were quite a find, outshining even the bankable stars. (Jamie Wilson: what was that all about? After all the years in theater?) The lines were crisp; the editing smooth; the soundtrack superb; and the film was generally very entertaining. Sunshine insists she's seen the plot somewhere on HBO. I'm not saying it's a rip-off, because aren't all movies, when you really dissect the plots, ultimately rip-offs of the same basic plots? Even if it were, even if it really had nothing new to say nor was it a new take on old things -- as, say, Mansyon -- it was decidedly distractingly good fun. Still, there's that sinking feeling that you've seen the movie somewhere -- except that here, the characters speak in Filipino and, at one point, take to humming the one anthem that all true-blue Filipinos of our age know by heart: the Voltes Five theme song.
The goal of the festival, I was told, was to showcase what's uniquely "Filipino." I've always been mystified by that concept, "being uniquely Filipino," as though we have something innate that other human species don't. What does that really mean? Is staring into space uniquely "Swedish"? Are there uniquely "Filipino" motives for murder? In what ways is a Filipino drug lord more "Filipino" than an Italian mafia boss other than the obvious? In any case, being Filipino has got to be something more than having a liking for Chocnut.]
But prizes aren't what filmmaking should be about. Every Mowelfund alumnus or Ricky Lee workshopper will profess to their dying day that they don't make movies "to win awards." But somehow, all the glitter of the Cinemalaya awards' night -- the lusty cheers, the standing ovations, the long thank-yous, all the embracing, thank god they haven't taken to wearing long gowns and there were no paparazzis -- makes you feel that indy filmmakers, being human, crave appreciation but, being "artists," want it in the form of golden statuettes. It was hard -- as plans for the next big project crystallized in the filmmakers' mind in the gallery -- not to hear the inaudible wish, "Next year, that'll be me on that stage." It was difficult, reading all the prayers swirling around, not to fear that indy fimmakers, being human, want some form of personal glory, but, being artists, want this glory institutionalized.
When asked what's wrong with Philippine Literature, my favorite lit teacher in college always said that it has become a mutual admiration society where everyone pats each other on the back, helps each other masturbate, and congratulate themselves for being god's gift to Philippine Literature when they come. Oh, and in this self-contained world, they snob each other too on the basis of the number of Palancas on their shelves. For as "a Palanca" can be proof enough of one's being a Writer, a Balanghai - the festival's Palm D'Or -- may also now be bandied around as license for certifying one's Indy Filmmaker credentials. Many lives have been lost chasing personal glory and self-actualization; many industries ruined in the great quest for institutionalized self-affirmation.
It's not that art is it own reward: it can't be unless those Balanghais can be pawned or that the great unsolved problem in the world is that there are not enough golden statuettes to go around. I have my own criteria for judging what's art and what's crap and I'm sure everybody does. (Do we really need Mark Meilly -- yes, he of that overrated Sharon Cuneta starrer was in the jury -- to tell us what's good and not?)
Ultimately, if I have to reduce it, a good film is one that can help us make our dreams Big Time, not disempower us by distracting us; one that can make us resolve, as hopefully the maid in Mansyon did, that we will no longer be servants in other's mansions and we will no longer wear their nighties. A good film is one that will not just make us accept, as the happy couple along da riles do, that life is just the best that we make of it and that we are doomed to just try and be content in the little bubbles that we live in.
In the final analysis, all movies are either "good" (they open our eyes and jolt us into action) or "bad" (they shut our eyes or else turn our lower bodies numb.) Of course, it's not that simple. There are bad good movies: being so didactic, they make us doze off or walk out of the movie theatre kicking and screaming. And there are good bad movies: they're technically well-crafted, organically coherent, and structurally consistent. Also sometimes, you need eye-shutters to stay awake. Also.... I can go on and on. Just don't get me started on "art for art's sake" because whether they like to or not -- whether the filmmakers intended to or not -- films serve a function: They either make us want to put on the master's perfume or throw it away. The point, one of the coolest philosophers in the world said long ago, is not just to interpret the world.
Another short in the festival asks, ten thousand times, "Kaya mo bang pumatay?" (After watching that short, yes but thankfully Sunshine did not introduce me to the film's director.) In a country where a furniture in one mansion is worth more than the lives of people, the more challenging -- and more urgent -- question for filmmakers is, "Kaya mo bang bumuhay? We need more films to keep us alive.
But that's just me. Even, then I'm not proposing we should be handing out awards for Best Film with Most Lives Changed or Best Screenplay for Changing the World. The best ones just do that without waiting for statuettes.
Maybe I should stop day-dreaming and nitpicking and actually start making a film. I might even win a Balanghai. If I do, I'd refuse to attend the awards night, be conspicously absent, and have my note read out, saying, "Thanks, but I don't make movies to win awards." - The Reluctant Blagger#
posted by High Balls at 1:58 AM
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