First Encounter
My first every encounter with indie films is Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros which catapulted Nathan Lopez and Aureaus Solito into national popularity. I have heard that Maximo was a good watch and I watched it together with a few of my classmates. I suppose I expected too much from the reviews it was getting from national and international critics alike and expected it to be better than what I was hearing. But I was too immersed with the foreign film culture, which included chick films and no-nonsense productions that I found Maximo too bland and too “yun lang?” for my taste.
I knew it was shot by HD cameras, not the film cameras per se, but the portable ones that can be bought everywhere and anywhere but I was expecting more thrill and more visual effects from it that I found it rather boring. Although the acting skills were commendable—I have never seen such “natural” acting ability, especially Nathan Lopez who was cast in his first film with no proper Johnny M workshop.
The Two Faces Of Cinemalaya 2007
But what brought me to the “kulturang indie” as I termed it, was Cinemalaya 2007. I was sent there for an assignment for an organization, and I found myself wandering along Roxas Boulevard without companion and even without direction to guide me towards CCP. I have no one with me to alternate screenings with so I thought I might just as well stay and complete the screenings for a day since the venue is relatively decent as compared to malls and cinemas. It was, however, in the middle of nowhere, so I had to wait at the lobby for two hours for the second screening to come, eat lunch alone and the same routine until 7 in the evening.
The first screening I attended was Gulong by Sockie Fernandez and it was as heartwarming as I could describe. Maybe because hard reality was too much for me to take, Gulong served as a buffer from all these reality talk. Somehow, it offered hope, instead of the empirical explanations of reality. At the same time, Tribu, Kadin and the other Cinemalaya entries were balanced in such a way that you won’t take reality, especially the Filipino reality as hopeless and as gloomy as the gangsters of Tondo.
There’s Tribu, Tukso and Endo that were real as reality gets but there’s also Pisay, Gulong and Kadin that presents a softer side of reality.
But these films all boil down into one: the Filipino individuality and identity extensively tackled in all phases of the films. Despite the harshness or even the blandness of these films, it cannot be denied that they are value-laden, most of which emphasize Filipino identity.
Why The Indie?
I was raised in lukewarm cultural setting: I had what I could term as colonial, but went to museums and theaters alike. Outwardly, I grew up with a colonial mindset but I was unconsciously educated a Filipino and as I grew up I lamented at the lack of museums and affordable cultural shows that were truly Filipino. I suppose I was looking for what were truly ours, and not just some Filipinized colonial products like Mexican dramas and rehashed H’wood films.
With the advent of technology I found what I considered to be truly ours: the indie films. None had anything colonial to boast, and if these films did, they were done in what had been accepted as ours over the long run.
In addition to this, the films weren’t pretentious and ambitious as most of our films are. “Resiklo”, taken as an example, was ripped off by reviews. I didn’t watch Resiklo but from the poster itself, it was aiming to be a Pinoy-version of “The Transformers”. At this point, I want to emphasize the difference between an indie and a few of our mainstream films. Indie films feature what are inherently Pinoy, while a number of mainstream films try to be Filipinize what is not Pinoy.
Why Not The Indie?For both the politically apathetic and politically sensitive viewers, indie films often contain political issues depicted extensively though subliminally in varying plots. Among the highly political indie films presented in the recent Cinemalaya 2007 was “Pisay” which tackled the parallel situation of the Philippines in Martial Law and Philippine Science High School under possible segregation. These indie films are oftentimes hard-hitting if they wanted to because these films enjoy the perks of less and yet open-minded audience.
In addition to this, indie films always get away with bad editing and bad sounds because it’s indie, which basically becomes a benchmark for aesthetically mediocre yet substantially-made films. In one of the reviews of the pink indie, the writer (Joshua Guzman) criticized the auditory elements of “Ang Lihim ni Antonio” where the natural sounds that were transmitted during the filming became the extraneous elements of the film. Some films defend the poorness the auditory element as “part of nature and natural setting” of the film and they get away with it.
There is no perfect film but there are good ones and even excellently made films, especially in the Filipino setting and indie films can be one of them. - ALEXIS LAURA FELICIANO
Photograph Source/s:
Tukso - http://lilokpelikula.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/tukso-final.jpg
Pisay - http://rebelpixel.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/pisay.jpg
Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros - http://rebelpixel.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/pisay.jpg
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