Lessons From the School of Inattention

French Title: Le scaphandre et le papillon

Jean Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), editor of the French Elle magazine, suffered a stroke while driving his son. He wakes up, completely immobile except for his left eye. His condition, aptly called "locked-in syndrome," makes it extremely difficult, if not entirely impossible, for him to communicate to other people. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the novel Jean-Do (Bauby's nickname) authored and released a few days prior to his death, proves otherwise. Jean-Do dictates by blinking his left eye as his assistant (Anne Consigny) patiently connects the dots through the process, involving the complete alphabet organized and spoken in the order of frequency of use, Jean-Do's speech therapist (Marie-Josee Croze) devised.

Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly opens in overt absurdity, with Jean-Do waking up to the flurried questionings of the doctors around him, for which he has legible answers for but is unable to vocalize due to his locked-in condition. Jean-Do's inherent wit and personality is reflected by his internal monologues while his initial confusion and later on, other emotions which cannot be enunciated effectively by his immense wit and vocabulary, are communicated through Janusz Kaminski's cinematography, which exquisitely approximates Jean-Do's limited visual perspective. Amidst the atmosphere of prevailing excitement, the camera swings back and forth the faces of the doctors, though limited in reach and motion causing the frame to be composed of incomplete figures and visages. When he blinks, the camera blinks with him. When he cries, the camera moistens, blurring the frame and turning the figures into indecipherable clouds of emotions repressed and covered by his physical paralysis.

Jean-Do sees his reflection from the metallic walls of his hospital as he is moved from his room to the balcony. His internal monologue provides ample humor to the travail of seeing himself in a sorry state, his face carries a permanent grimace while pasted in a head that is nestled uncomfortably by his static shoulder. Previously, Schnabel visualizes a portion of Jean-Do's memory, where he dashingly blasts through a photoshoot for his fashion magazine, with the studio teeming with half-naked female models and photographers, all of whom worship beauty. Schnabel fathoms the unpredictable and cruel nature of fate, prompting Jean-Do's internal and external torture with memories of the past that painfully connect to his present situation.

Schnabel further enunciates the irony of Jean-Do's fate, diverting the narrative to another of Jean-Do's bittersweet memories, where he shaves his father (Max Von Sydow, in a performance that is quietly spectacular, especially in one scene where he attempts to talk to his son by phone but gets irked by the unavoidable mechanicality of their communication) and they talk about their respective lives and ex-wives. Jean-Do returns to his miserable present, still surrounded by beautiful females and caring companions, yet burdened by his fated incapacity and diminished existence, altogether banished by his astounding feat of completing his novel.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly could have gone the road of typical underdog stories (glamorizing psychological afflictions the way Ron Howard did in the abysmally syrupy A Beautiful Mind (2001)). Instead, Schnabel withdrew from convention, knowing fully well that the a one-sentence synopsis of Jean Dominique Bauby's triumph is enough to inspire and that the tale does not require further amplifications and embellishments to elicit inspiration, and did something remarkable. He crafted a film that is fueled not by the uniqueness of the human story it intends to tell, but by the mostly internal procedures that dominate Jean-Do's struggles, from the gloominess of his stagnant predicament to the life-saving expanses of his vast imagination. Schnabel weaves into Jean-Do's story threads that direct the attention from the inspiring underdog tale to the intricacies of Jean-Do's persistence in maintaining his humanity. Schnabel succeeded not only in telling the story in a manner that is both visually alluring in a way that is technically intriguing but also penetrated the surface melodrama, examining the mechanism that drove Jean-Do from lavish Earth to dismal Hell and finally, into immortality.

United Red Army (Kôji Wakamatsu, 2007)
Japanese Title: Jitsuroku rengô sekigun: Asama sansô e no michi

Kôji Wakamatsu's United Red Army is a docu-drama (or if you prefer to be academic about it, jitsuroku eiga, the Japanese term for films that mix documentary and fiction elements, prevalent in the seventies, and often about the yakuza and other gangs) about the titular Japanese extremist leftist paramilitary group. In a span of more than three hours, Wakamatsu details several decades of the group's existence. While he breezes through the early history of the group during the first thirty minutes of the film, barraging his viewers with names, faces, and events too plenty and rapidly relayed to realistically remember, there remains a sense of awe as to how dedicatedly all the information has been stringed together and dramatized, all in the rhythm of Jim O'Rourke's catchy music. The prelude sets the stage for what's to happen next, a tensely intimate excursion up the Japanese Alps where the members of the army are mutated by their fundamentalist political beliefs, warped by extreme fanaticism and the lack of human encounter.

Wakamatsu is a former member of the United Red Army (where his links with the terrorist group has prevented him from entering the United States and other territories). His personal dedication to the film is reflected by the mastery and accuracy for which he tells the story. Most intriguing is how he, despite his actual experiences supporting the group and its activities, directs the film with a cool detachedness: unwilling to take any sides, persistent in portraying the events with as much objectivity as possible. The gamble pays off because United Red Army's investment in factual consistency, mixed with Wakamatsu's purposeful emotional ambivalence towards his subject matter and the multitude of characters, creates an atmosphere of alluring unsteadiness, which the film banks on to carry its audience through the three hours.

Atop the mountains, the army, torn apart by political intrigue only to be reformed with a primary objective of strengthening its membership for warfare, holes up in different makeshift bases where the members undergo rigorous training and indoctrination. Prompted probably by their self-imposed alienation from society, among other factors like psychological impulses and human imperfection, the political struggle becomes warped and twisted, with the members being forced into self-assessment, first through demanding physical exertions then through violent punishments, almost often leading to death. Fascism creeps into the group's communist principles, creating an atmosphere of unease and suffocation, which Wakamatsu paints so vividly yet with little or no emotional attachment to his subjects. Wakamatsu objective and journalistic approach relays judgment from filmmaker to the audience, creating a discomforting and challenging burden to the viewers, as humanity is further trivialized to serve the confused, irrational, and often impromptu purposes of their cause.

The film's finale, where a mountain lodge (which in reality is Wakamatsu's own house, which he used and later on demolished for the film) is seized by some desperate members of the group and is later on seized by the police, caps the cinematic madness that Wakamatsu so carefully weaves into an astounding frenzy. The hours of joyless pain and suffering culminate in a subtle revelation of the driving force of both the group's successes and excesses. As the youngest of the group starts exclaiming the most rational piece of dialogue in the film, an awareness arises that a single element brought out this irrationality and their predicament: youth.

Youth, which translates to the adventurism, gullibility, instability, cowardice, open-mindedness and strength they inherently possess, is the prime mover of the group and becomes the rousing centerpiece of Wakamatsu's effort. The film, from being a mere reiteration (although visually and emotionally stirring) of dates, characters, and events, turns into a something else: a compelling and daring commentary of the intrinsic power and the accompanying danger of the youth.

The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela (Olaf de Fleur Johannesson, 2008)

In the latter part of Olaf de Fleur Johannesson's The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela, the titular ladyboy recounts the history of her name. In a distant kingdom, a princess named Raquela was banished by her jealous stepmother and was forced to live humbly as the daughter of poor farmers. Upon the discovery of her royal roots, she starts aspiring to recover the life that was stolen from her and does everything to fulfill her aspirations. Raquela Rios' life, as recreated by Johannesson's deliciously crafted quasi-documentary (or according to the director, visionmentary), seems to be akin to the Anastasia-like fairy tale she lovingly narrates, but in essence, defines the invisible yet unmistakable gap between fantasy and reality.

Raquela dreams of walking the streets of Paris, garbed in fabulous dresses, inviting the attention of everyone who chances upon her. Her life in Cebu City, however, is drastically different. Although she is gifted with a family that accepts her completely, she lives on the edge. Her nights consist of plying the alleys for paid quickies from horny cab drivers and other customers. She delights in her profession, preferring to service her clients unprotected, thinking that each man that fucks her makes her more of a woman. Her mornings and afternoons, if not spent inside an internet cafe chatting with men from around the world or in the airport waiting in vain for the arrival of the foreigners who promised to rescue her from her unexciting life in Cebu, are spent daydreaming with her friends.

Johannesson does not avoid stereotypes. In fact, he exploits these stereotypes to great effect. Much of the film's charm and humor comes from Raquela's innate amiability, a healthy mix of different personality elements, including her forced falsetto (although irritating at first, it certainly grows on you), impressive wit, and unabashed flamboyance. In addition to Raquela, Johannesson adds to the film a roster of characters that seem to sprout out of the cliche bin, including Michael (Stefan Schaefer), the internet pimp who subs as Raquela's imagined "knight in shining armor," giving her the opportunity to fly out of Cebu and fulfill her dreams. It certainly seems that Johannesson is really bent on making a transsexual fairy tale.

As the film progresses and Raquela finally escapes the Philippines and closer to the realization of her dreams, Johannesson's fairy tale takes a drastic turn. Raquela's fairy tale, from the rainbow-colored dreams of her expanded imagination, transforms into something else: drab, mundane, and ordinary. There's a quiet poignancy in the way Raquela revives her fantasy: the way she livens the fish factory in Iceland with her unabridged commentaries with her co-workers, the way she turns second-hand apparel bought in a Reykjavik flea market into fashionable items, the way she attempts to save the final remnants of her Parisian romantic getaway with Michael, who turns out to be an asshole, through the little gestures that are quickly forgotten by Michael's arrogance and egotism. In the end, Raquela returns to the Philippines, undoubtedly better from her experiences overseas, but still a dreamer, still the princess of her fairy tale who dreams of returning to her kingdom.

Raquela's story is a beautiful story, one that attempts to capture the realities of being a transsexual individual in a third world country without succumbing into the usual pitfalls of these kind of story. I am guessing that Johannesson's first world perspective is important here: he acknowledges without pitying (although the initial introduction where the film talks of ladyboys being lured into prostitution feels a bit preachy) and often scoffs at the antiquated concept of the first world being saviors of the third world. Filtering from the film the often requisite element of self-pity of third world cinema (while I hate the label, I have to acknowledge that such cinema exists where poverty and its harsh repercussions are the allure), The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela becomes a refreshing concoction: a film that delights and moves at the same time.

Melancholia (Lav Diaz, 2008)

Lav Diaz's Melancholia is an eight-hour meditation of sorts on the maddening persistence of sadness in this world, can logically be divided into three parts and an epilogue. The first part details the experiences in Sagada of Julian (Perry Dizon), Alberta (Angeli Bayani) and Rina (Malaya Cruz) as they refashion themselves into different drastic identities as part of the radical process that Julian created in order for them to cope with the losses of their loved ones. The second part is set in Manila, with Julian and Alberta living their real lives and addressing the scenarios and situations that accompany their melancholic predicament. The third part is the prologue to Julian, Alberta and Rina's prolonged tale of sadness, where deep within the forests of Mindoro, a band of leftist fighters, which includes Alberta's husband Renato (Roeder Camanag), is struggling with the psychological and spiritual torture of both practical and existential defeat while being hunted down by military operatives.

Melancholia is most probably Diaz's most difficult film for the lone reason that Diaz affords little or no comfort to his viewers. There is very little humor to the film and the story, grounded by philosophies and ideas that might be too personal or hard to grasp, branches into different and sometimes convoluted directions. However, as with most of Diaz's films, the reward of completing one is not in the pleasure of sitting through eight hours of his trademark black and white aesthetics and seemingly endless ramblings and conversations, but in the lingering and often valid points that Diaz would have you digesting and exploring for a far longer period of time.

I. Transformations and Transgressions in Sagada

Mag-Ingat Ka Sa... Kulam (Jun Lana, 2008)
English Translation: Be Careful of... Witchcraft

After surviving a car accident, Mira (Judy Ann Santos) awakens not remembering anything from before her accident. She starts to reconstruct her memories from scratch with the help of her doting husband (Dennis Trillo). As fragments of her pre-accident life start pouring in, she becomes aware of the complexities of her life, including her stagnant relationship with her blind daughter, her decisive love affair with her office-mate (TJ Trinidad), and her incompletely forgotten twin sister Maria (also played by Santos), a witch who she took away to the mental hospital. A ghost resembling her twin sister and remnants of her hidden childhood spent learning the occult start haunting her as she struggles with her memories.

Jun Lana's Mag-Ingat Ka Sa... Kulam (Be Careful of... Witchcraft) is proof that the allure of Ringu's Sadako hasn't entirely faded. Lana's film is nothing more than a derivative of a foregone genre, an attempt to squeeze some profit from an overused formula. Above the staple elements of the genre, the film manages to include a plot twist, two of the biggest stars in the country as leads, and ample technical values. These tactics of the film's unscrupulous producers seem to have worked. Mag-Ingat Ka Sa... Kulam is doing good business, notwithstanding stiff competition from imports from Hollywood. It earned an "A" rating from the local film evaluation board, which is equivalent to a 100% rebate from taxes.

Unfortunately, notwithstanding the audience reception and the stamp of approval of the film evaluation board, Lana's horror flick is really not very good. It is a mishmash of elements from different Asian horror film. The plot twist feels like an imperfect modification of Alone (Banjong Pisanthanakun & Parkpoom Wongpoom, 2007). The occult references has already been used in a similar manner in Iain Softley's The Skeleton Key (2005). Some of the scares are repetitions of what has been done countless times before and there's a scene that seems borrowed from the Pang Brothers' The Eye (2002). Whether the similarities are intended or not, the result is unsatisfactory because the execution feels unduly cheap, obviously uninspired, and sometimes, downright idiotic.

I have no idea why it is insisted that the film include computer-generated effects (seriously, is it more expensive to have a real glass break?). Moreover, this insistence on including computer generated effects provide unintended humor (the "evil spirit" coming out of the car airconditioner is reminiscent of a Nickolodeon cartoon fart joke; Santos' make-up as a witch looks like a second-rate Halloween costume). The acting is pretty much flat and uninteresting, even from Santos or Trillo who have done decent work before. Moises Zee's cinematography is too glossy, too calculated to provide the right atmosphere for a horror feature. Von de Guzman, who seems to understand the nuances of horror, creates a musical score that seems to be the only thing correct in the film. Mag-Ingat Ka Sa... Kulam is an abomination. The film is an idiot's guide on how not to make a horror film.

Room 213 (Keith Sicat, 2008)

The story of Keith Sicat's Room 213 is essentially about an architect (Allen Dizon) who in an attempt to infuse a bit of excitement into his marriage, introduces his wife (Gwen Garci), a photographer, to the titular room of the decrepit building he was commissioned to restore. The building has a rich history, related by the architect to his wife. From a South American millionaire's gift to his wife, the building was transformed into a hotel by an enterprising Chinese businessman. The suspect room, a luxurious suite, holds many many mysteries including a suggestion that evil spirits may be lurking within. The wife becomes attached to the room as she starts to flavor her life with sexual exploits with the personalities she meets in the vicinity of the building, including a dogmatic woman (Maricar dela Fuente) who is quick both to the allures of the flesh and the hurdles of Catholic guilt, and an enigmatic male hustler (Tyron Perez) who becomes the wife's source of both marital disdain and temporary respite.

To appreciate Room 213 with its visual stylization and narrative ingenuity, it might be noteworthy to look into Rigodon (2005), Sicat's first feature film which he co-directed with Sari Lluch Dalena. Rigodon loftily tackles the plight of Filipino immigrants in New York. Structured in a way that deviates from traditional storytelling (with visually-stylized sequences littered in between fractured scenes), the film works like a poem about the disjointed Philippine nation, abstract in its individual portions but coherent as a whole.

Sicat attempts to do the same in Room 213, covering a less ambitious theme (that of the intricacies of marriage), but fails to come up with a lucid whole. Told from the point of view of the wife who supposedly guides the disconnected scenes through a narration that sounds like second-rate poetry, the film is confused as to what it thinks it is.

Days of the Turquoise Sky (Woo Ming Jin, 2008)
Malaysian Title: Kurus

Woo Ming Jin's Days of the Turquoise Sky possesses a gorgeous simplicity that is quietly arresting. Woo's film shows a remarkable affinity with Hou Hsiao Hsien's A Summer at Grandpa's (1984), a meditative ode to childhood innocence which details one summer spent by two city-bred siblings in their grandpa's countryside home. Adult concerns are dealt with but mostly with subtle brushstrokes, like in the suggestive discussions about the father's incurable gambling problem in Woo's film or the parental concerns in the backdrop of Hou's film. Attention is given to the concerns of the youth, through their quaint interactions they share with each other, reflecting on their volatility in the midst of slow and steady change.

Days of the Turquois Sky is a collection of familiar facets of growing up, nuanced but never to the point of them calling attention to themselves. Woo keeps the narrative minimalist, skirting away from drama and histrionics and instead, maintaining an observant, if not reminiscent, stance on these commonplace eventualities. The story centers on Ali (Arshad Zamir), who lives with his father (Namron), a public servant left inutile and impoverished by his gambling debts and partially salvaged from being a parental embarrassment by his nextdoor neighbor (Mislina Mustapha). At school, Ali and his best friend Hassan (Ahmad Muzhaffar Mustapha) are constantly bullied by a pair of their classmates, Eli (Muhammad Fadhirul Anuar) and his heavyset pal, Iqa (Nursyafiqa Izzaty). Romance comes into the lives of Ali and Hassan through their new English teacher Miss Carol (Carmen Soo) and a new student Nora (Anis Nadia Jilid), respectively.

A conversation between Eli and Iqa reveals an alluring semblance of purity to the bullies despite their brutish ways. Iqa relates to Eli about her being stung by a bee, which made her thinner. The effect of the bee sting is merely temporary for she reverts back to her heavyset self after a short while. Eli, out of friendship or concern to her bud or some other emotion Woo is clever enough to withhold, scourges the nearby surroundings for bees that could sting Iqa, hoping that his action might make her friend thinner. Woo carefully draws his characters with impassioned whispers instead of loud and clear dictations: coloring Hassan's growing affection for Nora with the joys of young love and the light pains of separation, or the longing Ali has for Miss Carol repressed by the former's own youth and the latter's relationship with her boyfriend, a lowly wage-earner posing as a rich businessman. Ali's repressed estimation for his teacher flees as fits of heightened feelings recur, expressed through the way he religiously reads through the books his teacher assigns, the moments wherein he makes the brash decision to come back for his teacher and offer to bring her home, and finally to reveal the boyfriend's ruse.

These teenagers' conflicts seem insignificant to the rest of us, but it is this shroud of seeming insignificance that makes the film so beautiful in its familiarity. Days of the Turquoise Sky shows adult concerns through the point of view of one in the grips of adulthood. In another beautiful scene, Ali sees his father cleaning the sole of his shoe in the streetside. The father just stepped on cow dung left by the loan sharks who have been looking for him. Ali naively asks his father why they're poor. The father replies wisely, giving an answer that maintains both conviction and honesty. He says that they are poor because they are not greedy like most other people, or probably because of his gambling.

The conversation evinces the mechanics of Woo's lamentation to the passing of fragile youth and his ode to whatever is left of it. Ali expresses indifference to his father's wise answer, and throws a reply that is both comforting to the father and expressive of his innocence. His mind is elsewhere: in school, in the exact spot where Miss Carol waits for her boyfriend, in the fishing pond where he and Hassan test their fishbombs. He finally reminds his father that he no longer has Milo. Woo deviates from adult concerns, and keeps the film in the realm of that unsteady stage of puberty, where the youthful mind and heart are slowly being introduced to the hardships of reality but is allowed to relish in youth's purity. The film laments on how adulthood would eventually mutate our humanity, how it is natural for us to trade our invaluable innocence. At fifteen, we worry about empty cans of Milo and transient crushes. At fifty, we worry about the world.