August 26, 2009 | No comments
A virtuous, vertiginous, brilliant cinema
Brillante Mendoza´s cinema dissolves the barriers between reality and fiction, between the moral and the immoral, between the natural and the artificial.
He is interested in the real time, in the real life, he is inspired by neorealism.
He does not believe, however, in the neutral, documental image: “technological devices lead the scene far too much.”
After all, the viewer is in front of a screen. Brillante intends to reveal his country. By showing it that way, he seems to have the power to contest it.
The Philippines. An immense group of islands, located in Asia, extreme. Its harshness, its people, some truths, the politics.
“I want to stay as close to reality as possible, I want to show my community, who they are, how they live. I live in a matriarchal country where 90% of the population is poor. I want people to enter the cinema and feel my films closely.”
In his films…
the weather is always hot, tropical,
faces are of mestizos: a bit eastern, a bit indigenous, a bit of the Spanish colonization a single language with Latin touches (sapato for shoe!?).
First film in 2005: Masahista – handsome prostitute guys, good masseurs. The story of Iliac (the same Coco Martin who later on will play the cop Kinatay), good guy, divided between religious guilt and the job at the massage house.
The death of the father, homoerotic scenes, polemic. Brillante thought he was shooting the first blockbuster from the Philippines when he realized that not even the actress of the film liked it. Friends thought the film was boring. He could not stop anymore. The film reaches the festivals, success.
In 2006, two films: Kaleldo and Manoro.
In the former, the father is authoritarian, the daughter is lesbian and submissive (the excellent actress Cherry Pie Picache). Nature and the variations of the hot seasons, a sort of veranito?
The self-infliction of the betrayed man. The women that betray, sisters, nature conducting the atmosphere of the life-death cycle.
Then Manoro, the closest to a documentary of his films, finds its own rhythm, slower, observant, nearly anthropological – the descendents of the indigenous Aeta, the girl, the mountainous and volcanic region, the poverty, the search of education. A walk in real time, of the father and his daughter, for the grandfather. Documentary-cinema.
In 2007, John John (Foster Child) – the beautiful adopted child, an emotional process of the super-mother (the same Cherry) who looks after the orphans. The dignity, in poverty, the Manila favela, the 10% of the wealth, the separation pain.
Also in 2007, Tirador. The settings are crowded, phobic, urban. The camera moves back and forth, gets into tiny spaces. The initial sequence is a police raid, corruption.
Tirador are the cheap thieves, life that cheap. The rhythm is vertiginous, crowds, a religious event (people are so close!) – a frenzy of the badly-behaved image, he takes the risk: with a camera in his hands.
Votes for sale, corrupt politicians, women struggling for one of those worth nothing, the drug dealing, the urban favela, Manila.
Already in 2008, Mendoza seems to settle his style. He joins his documentary tone, his metalinguistic editing, to a beautiful story: a decaying theater that shows porno films, the survival of a family.
Serbis or service: quick and easy sex, the honour of the unquestionable mother (Gina Pareño) who lost everything, the daughter (Jacklyn Jose) who tries to keep the house going. All together: the family life and the children moving around improper environment, the banality of pornography, the decay, the city, the downtown unbearable noise.
In 2009, Mendoza makes his eighth film and is acclaimed: at 49 and awarded for best director in the 2009 Cannes. A fresh five-year-long career. The film is Kinatay. Violence, revenge, corruption, men quartering, the dark side of a man. In Mendoza´s own words: “I want the audience to feel the horror inside my character´s mind. I want the audience to follow him closely, to watch and think, and really feel disturbed.”
With his virtuosity, Brillante has tracked a meteoric path: in all his work, he has mastered his creation processes and has honoured local actors, has made the Philippines visible to the west but never has made it banal.
His aesthetics is sometimes raw, sometimes refined by an unquiet image that pulses, that pulls the viewer into the screen, he knows how to be vigorous and original. His greatest award is his independent spirit. (Francesca Azzi)
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