ang galing...meron pa ding good reviews! Love it! ;D
The true 'tanging ina'PENMAN By Butch Dalisay (The Philippine Star) Updated January 17, 2011 12:00 AM
This comes a few weeks too late to affect anything or maybe even anyone, but there’s something I need to register for the record, simply because it would be the right thing to do, even if I rile up 10 million Filipinos, most of whom won’t read me, anyway.
As has been our annual habit, Beng and I went out to see a couple of movies in the recent Metro Manila Film Festival, and our first choice was Rosario, the period drama that intrigued me because I’m always interested in seeing representations of the past and because it was said to be based on a true story, no less than that of businessman Manny Pangilinan’s grandmother. The second was the festival’s surprise Best Picture winner, Ang Tanging Ina Mo Rin — Last Na ‘To, the latest in a series revolving around the mother-character of comedienne Ai Ai de las Alas.
I came out of both screenings speechless, at an utter loss to explain how and why Tanging Ina could have bested Rosario by any conceivable standard of responsible and credible criticism. I later read that the producers of Rosario diplomatically chose not to complain about the snub and to take it on the chin. Well, I’ll complain — totally unbidden, although I’ll admit to knowing MVP (who’ll be surprised by this ruckus I’m raising) — on their behalf.
Let me get this clear, before someone accuses me of being just another snooty cineaste (which I’m sure I’ll be tarred and feathered as, anyway): I have nothing against popular movies, not even against slapstick comedy and certainly not melodrama, of which I’ve done more than my share as a sometime scriptwriter for the likes of Lino Brocka, Laurice Guillen, Marilou Diaz Abaya, and Gil Portes.
I understand the part about giving the audience what it wants, so the producers can make their money back. Heck, Lino and I did that all the time, with such treacly confections as Tahan Na, Empoy and Kailan Mahuhugasan ang Kasalanan. But we always sought to raise whatever standards we had to work with, believing that even the most hackneyed cinematic conventions could be infused with some freshness. And even so, we never confused box-office success with artistic excellence; while the two could come together on rare occasions, commercial compromise most often remains just that.
But never mind us — let’s dwell on these two movies and their relative merits and demerits. Rosario’s not perfect — the periodizing can sometimes get too satiny-smooth (in the way that the soldiers in our World War II movies always come out wearing new-looking uniforms, which even Bataan failed to crease and scuff), and I have a hard time believing that Filipinos in what they called “peacetime” really said “Nueva York” instead of the easier and jazzier “New York.”
But it has that rarest of Filipino-movie qualities — grand ambition, not just in being a period piece and all the extra expense and fussiness that that entails, but in its depiction of a Filipino woman and mother who was in many ways atypical of her time.
The coquettish Rosario — deftly played by Jennylyn Mercado in a role that seems to have been tailor-made for a face so evocative of the age — meets three men on a tumultuous wave of fortune.Tanging Ina, on the other hand, is the latest rollout of a proven franchise (don’t ever believe that “last na ‘to” bit — I can just see next December’s Ang Tanging Ina Pa Rin, Huling Hirit). Mistakenly diagnosed with what she’s led to believe is a terminal illness, Ai Ai de las Alas as single-mom Ina Montecillo rediscovers (more literally than you think) her family and what keeps families going.
It’s an admirable sentiment, but the basic problem with this comedy was that, for the most part, it wasn’t even funny — I kept groaning at lines and setups that could’ve sparkled, with the right inspiration. (“In fairness,” to use the industry’s favorite expression — understandably because fairness in this business seems to be in short supply — I enjoyed that bit where Ai Ai’s maid kept playing background music to accompany her dramatic arias.) I have no doubt that Ai Ai de las Alas — beneath all that screaming and fainting — is a fine actress just waiting for better material; but she has to step out of the Tanging Ina mode and take more risks, real risks, to realize that potential.
I had high hopes for this year’s MMFF, having read somewhere that the ridiculous criterion of box-office bankability had been removed for the Best Picture, to be replaced by “artistry; creativity; innovativeness; global appeal; technical excellence (70 percent, up from 50 percent); and historical and cultural value (30 percent, up from 25 percent).” By all — not just one or most, but all — of these standards, Rosario should’ve been the runaway winner.
Jennylyn Mercado wasn’t even nominated for the Best Actress award; neither was Albert Martinez as Best Director.
Reportedly, Jennylyn lost the judges’ nod because she couldn’t hold her cigarette right. Excuse me, but — speaking as a reformed chain smoker — is there an approved way of holding a cigarette? Never mind if the jurors found themselves more moved — one has to wonder how — by Ai Ai’s histrionics;
failing to recognize Jennylyn’s performance (one that required a complete transformation of her character from privileged daughter to abandoned wife) is like being punished for jaywalking by a trip to the electric chair.Sure, her character went to America, where she presumably learned to smoke, but the young Rosario was still new at this business of acting all grown-up and smart.
Why fault the actress for that tiny lapse — which I don’t even think it is — when she carried the most difficult scenes requiring the registration of a whole range of emotions within a couple of seconds (remember that scene where the landlord pressures her for sex?) with both power and subtlety? Here was a real mother faced with a real dilemma, which she resolved in favor of saving her family, even if that family was reduced to only her son Hesus — how much more Filipino can you get (and I’m asking that of those who reputedly said that Rosario didn’t project Filipino values well enough)?By giving the sensitively photographed Rosario the technical awards it rightfully deserved, the MMFF jurors just proved that they couldn’t see the forest for the trees — they saw and liked the pretty little details but failed or refused to acknowledge the achievement of the entire project.
And yes, I heard that they “improved” the MMFF judging formula by bringing in new jurors, as it were, off the street. Exactly what that achieves by way of raising critical standards, I don’t know; would you have butchers and bakers on the Nobel Prize committee? If they want to give Most Popular Movie awards, fine. But please let’s not pander to the notion that what’s most popular is best, especially if you’ve trotted out sensible-sounding criteria like “artistry, creativity, and innovativeness” as well as “historical and cultural value.”
Is this being elitist? Of course. Great art is almost inherently elitist, because it takes uncommon risks and defies the norm, even when it expresses something we all feel but don’t have the words or the images for.
This sad experience of having the recycled Tanging Ina sold to us as “Best Picture” over the thematically more daring and technically more accomplished Rosario convinces me that until we learn how to develop, recognize, and respect high standards, we’re not going to make great movies. Those who want to, and who can, won’t — why should they, if this all they get?
The ultimate irony is that these were both “mother” stories, but the mother that truly stood out, the real tanging ina, was Rosario.