The Orientalist Gaze of Western Film Reviews on

Internationally Acclaimed Filipino Indie Films

Kristoffer Aaron G. Tiña

Overview: In this preliminary critique, I attempt to unravel what I postulate here as an Orientalist

gaze of Western film reviews on Filipino indie films. Despite gaining stature in the international

scale, these cinematic opuses, as what I would argue here, are politically situated in the aesthetic

dialectics of production and appreciation that are symptomatic of an imperialist hegemony. This

study opens with a review of alternative cinema’s status in the Philippines. Such backgrounding will

be proceeded by a synthesized discussion on Levi-Strauss’ structuralism and its application on this

paper to reveal a pervasive Orientalist grammar that permeates the film reviews of Westerners on

Filipino indie films. What follows after is a meta-criticism of these film reviews through existing

Orientalist theorizations. Lastly, subaltern-centered recommendations that are anchored on the ideas

of Bhabha and Salazar are offered.

Keywords: Orientalist gaze; Orientalism; Philippine cinema; film reviews; Levi-Strauss; structuralism

Introduction

Terms such as “independent/indie film,” “alternative cinema,” and “other cinema” are politicized.

All of them emphasize a spectrum of ‘liberation’ from the confines of the dominant mode of

commercial film production. They are not financially anchored to the commercial films studios. The

styles are avant-garde, and the themes are typically socio-political.

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The current wave of Filipino indie films is traced by Tolentino (2016) from the social realist

movement of the ‘70s and ‘80s (as a subversion to the Marcos regime) which aspired for a

preservation of a Filipino identity amidst what is akin to Philippine Anglophone stories’ primary

stages as period of apprenticeship and period of imitation, characterized by the domination of

imported films. Flaviano (2017) supports this by noting how the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino

(MPP) has always prioritized “substance” over form in commending films, films reflective of the

society from which they emanate, capable of the “truthful portrayal of the human condition as

perceived by the Filipino, and … [which deal] with the Filipino experience to which the greater

number of moviegoers can relate” (Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino, 1983). Lumbera (1991)

reiterates this, pointing out that the group “has consistently preferred cinema that deals with

Philippine social realities over those which are merely skilfully or artfully made.”

Although Lumbera (2016) acknowledged the colonial roots of film as an artistic medium in the

Philippines, Valerio (2008) posited that Filipino indie films acted as counter-agents to the hegemonic

dominance of Western cinema in a period when Hollywood movies continued to dominate the

Philippine cultural landscape and the output of the Filipino mainstream film industry declined.

Tolentino (2000) maintains that this decline in Filipino film circulation is rooted from the cheap

importation of Hollywood films to the country.

Furthermore, Valerio (ibid) also noted how the Filipino film industry is ideologically victimized by

the Hollywood notion. In its centrality in film production, Hollywood became the frame of

reference among aspiring Filipino filmmakers that it undeniably shaped the commercial and

formulaic nature of mainstream filmmaking. In the abovementioned Marcosian decades, however, a

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number of enlightened independent filmmakers attempted to challenge the lingering effects of

American colonization and commercial filmmaking.

It was by the turn of the 21st century when the dubbed third golden age of Philippine cinema arrived

(Campos, 2016). This period is characterized by a surge in indie films as manifested in the

establishment of numerous alternative film festivals. However, Valerio (ibid) also noted how

independent films cater only among a few upper and middle class audiences. As a result,

independent filmmakers bring their works to international film festivals, mostly in Europe and the

United States. This is exemplified by Aureus Solito’s Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (The

Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros) which received first an international award before being

theatrically shown in Philippines. We shall return in these phenomenon later upon our discussions

on the postcolonial conditioning of the West of the Filipino films.

Questions of addressivity also surfaced in the screening of Filipino indie films abroad. To whom are

these indie films dedicated to? Independent films were subjected to the exoticizing gaze of Western

audiences. The alternative cinema, though typically nationalistic, satisfied Western expectations of

sexual objectification and poverty porn which reinforce the ideological superiority of the West over

the East. In this case, independent films became no different from the mainstream as both are tied

to Western ideologies of film making and criticism. For whom are Filipino indie films actually

produced? In its reverse/reciprocal form which is this paper’s focus, the same Orientalist effect

occurs: the Filipino indie opuses which gaze at Western aesthetics standards are gazed by Western

measures in their film reviews. Whatever the direction of the gaze is, the Filipino indie films are

trapped in an enclosed Orientalist system. Now, for whom are Western reviews of Filipino indie

films actually produced?

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Orientalist Grammar

Before embarking on the structural examination of the Western film reviews of internationally

acclaimed Filipino indie films, it is first necessary to understand the nature of film review.

Numerous writers drew a line between film review and film criticism. Although both deal with the

audience’s consumption of film and are used interchangeably, Conti (n.d.) viewed the former as

preparatory for it indicates whether or not future or potential audiences will like the film, and the

latter as concerned with theory and culture. According to David (2013), a film review is focused on

the pleasure of viewing the film while a film criticism is on addressing contextual issues. Jacobs (n.d.)

characterized a review as shorter and formalistic, the evaluation ranging from the cinematic

techniques and elements of films to narrative forms. On the other hand, film criticism is an

ideological critique that is concerned with crises of representation.

Jacobs (ibid) enumerated different interpretative approaches to film that can be helpful in pinning

down the distinctions between review and criticism. A film review is formalist (examining the film’s

structure and form), narratological (looking at the elements of story and storytelling), and generic

(exploring the film’s exercise/subversion of its genre). A film criticism is contextualist and

symptomatic (addresses implications of film on broader context).

Nonetheless, what unifies the two is what Clayton and Klevan (2011) calls as an act of

discrimination. The task of both a reviewer and a critic is to dichotomize between a ‘good’ and a

‘bad’ film. Kaplan (1997) explained that looking relations [or imperialist gaze] “are determined by

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history, tradition, power hierarchies, politics, economics. . .looking is power.” Looking is therefore

ideological as it implies a relation of a subject and object; it refers to the hegemonic force of the

dominant class who legitimizes the sociocultural and aesthetic ‘standards’ of society. Furthermore,

Flores (2016) emphasized the triadic interplay between ‘who writes,’ ‘for whom,’ and ‘who reads.’

The viewer monitors the ‘success’ of a film. A question emerges: ‘success’ for who?

It is in this politicized problematique that this paper intervenes. What would be postulated here

through the employment of Levi-Strauss’ structuralist approach is a symptomatic reading of an

Orientalist grammar as seen in various film reviews of Westerners on Filipino indie films. Generally

speaking, structuralism is a mode of knowledge of nature and human life that is interested in

relationships rather than individual objects or, alternatively, where objects are defined by the set of

relationships of which they are part and not by the qualities possessed by them taken in isolation (de

Almeida, 2015).

Drawing from an anthropological perspective, Levi-Strauss “sets out to identify the genuinely

constitutive elements of what appears at first sight to be an apparently disparate and shapeless mass

of phenomena” (Hawkes, 2003).

Using Saussure’s notion of langue and parole, Levi-Strauss claims that beneath the vast

heterogeneity of myths, there can be discovered a homogeneous structure. In short, he argues that

individual myths are examples of parole, articulations of an underlying structure or langue. Myths,

Lévi-Strauss argues, work like language: they comprise individual ‘mythemes’, analogous to

individual units of language, ‘morphemes’ and ‘phonemes’. Like morphemes and phonemes,

mythemes only take on meaning when combined in particular patterns. Seen in this way, the

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anthropologists’ task is to discover the underlying ‘grammar’: the rules and regulations that make it

possible for myths to be meaningful.

In this case, I attempted to unravel the mythemes of what I postulate here as an Orientalist

grammar, a writing that is symptomatic of the imperialist gaze of the Westerners on the Occident.

Briefly speaking, the emerging patterns I found from my structuralist analysis of multifarious

Western film reviews of Filipino indie films are demonstrative of this so-called Orientalist grammar.

First, the repetitive mentions of Filipino indie films’ international screenings do not simply scream a

celebration of pride and do not just echo/admit the poor local reception of these films. At the same

time, it is noteworthy to state here the implied homogenizing and hegemonic force of the West

under the guise of assimilating these Filipino indie films in the apparently Eurocentric invention

known as “World Cinema.” Furthermore, the perfunctory gesture of a film review has to be

revisited. Although a film review’s primary objective is to critique, its perlocutionary act is to

recommend the film for Western viewership. One has to see a film reviewer’s suggestion “to make

Filipino director Erik Matti Hollywood’s next hot action import.” It is also interesting to feel the

sensationalization and sense of prestige in “worthy official submission foreign-language Oscar race

and an entertaining history lesson for audiences everywhere and “making its world premiere as the closing film

of the New York Asian Film Festival” [italicized emphases as mine].

Second, this homogenizing force can be felt as well in the review’s ‘playing-it-safe’ generic approach

that tends to capitalize on the universality of Filipino indie films as expressed on how these opuses

exercise and contribute to the development of the genre in which they can be categorized. Such safe

selections can be seen in “the making of a genre exercise in revenge and suspense,” “has delivered

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an explosive exercise in kinetic cinema,” “while following the traditional trajectory of a war movie,”

and “could be an intriguing addition to a Stateside action franchise.” Achebe (1974) notes that

colonial criticism involves talking about a text in a universalizing theme and not concerned with its

sociocultural dimensions.

Third, such notion of Western (only) viewership is fortified by formalistic jargons (e.g. idée fixe, e

pièce de résistance, D.p. Odyssey Flores shoots, stylistic esoterica, and long-take, chiaroscuro style)

which are alien/linguistically excluding to the subaltern Filipino audience. In a study conducted by

Valera (2015), it is connoted that Filipinos value the storyline of films due to lack of familiarity to

technical cinematic jargons.

Fourth and the most evident of all mythemes here are the comparative intertextualities of the

examined film reviews. Although it can be argued that such references to Western films in these

reviews of Filipino indie films are cited to evoke familiarity among Western readers, one should not

miss the blatant rejoice of these reviewers in the “third world” adaptation/version of a Western (if

not, previously made Asian) films and their recollection of a Western film in reviewing a film of the

East. (I have affixed by the end of this meta-criticism an appendix of these intertextual instances in

these reviews for their great number that nearly pleads for further critical exploration in the future.)

Nonetheless, what has to be underscored is the clear practice of Orientalist othering through the

following implications: (1) Filipino films’ appropriate, borrow, and/or imitate from this ‘authentic’

Western films; (2) there is a ‘seemingly necessary’ reinforcement of a binary opposite/evocation of a

dominant Western film as what Cavell (1979) notes as an evidential aspect in film reviewing to

characterize and evaluate Filipino films; and (3) Filipino indie films have to adhere with the

standards of these previously made (Western) films.

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Postcolonial Conditions

In this section, I shall talk about the larger and looming postcolonial condition of Philippine cinema

and the problematic modes of production and aesthetic appraisals. I will be employing Said’s

enduring Orientalist discourse and Spivak’s notion of the subaltern as my theoretical lens in

contextualizing the Orientalist grammar I attempted to unravel earlier.

Said’s Orientalist framework derives from the Foucauldian conception of discourse as both a

constituting agent and constituted product of the relationship between knowledge and power. For

Foucault (1980), the exercise of power perpetually creates knowledge and, conversely, knowledge

constantly induces effects of power. It is not possible for power to be exercised without knowledge,

it is impossible for knowledge not to engender power. Storey (2010) described discourse as both

organized and organizing bodies of knowledge, with rules and regulations which govern particular

practices (ways of thinking and acting) or in a much specified usage of terms: “they enable, they

constrain, and they constitute.” For Foucault (1989), discourses are ‘practices that systematically

form the objects of which they speak.’ A language enables one to speak, yet it also constrains what

one can say through it and it can also constitute its ‘participants’ as subject and object. Foucault

(2009) believes that discourses produce knowledge and knowledge is always a weapon of power. The

Foucauldian framework is a redirection of power’s signification. Before, power, as seen by Althusser

and other neo-Marxists, is conceived as a negative force that ‘conceals truth.’ Instead, power is

productive; it produces reality. Foucault describes a signifying system as a regime of truth, a “general

politics” of truth, types of discourses which society accepts and makes functions as true; otherwise,

those who do not obey the unspoken archive of rules and constraints are condemned to madness or

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silence. What Foucault calls ‘regimes of truth’ do not have to be ‘true’; they have only to be thought

of as ‘true’ and acting on as if ‘true’. If ideas are believed, they establish and legitimize particular

regimes of truth.

Said (1978) concretizes these discussions in the development of postcolonial foundation. He shows

how the West has constructed a ‘knowledge’ of the East and a body of ‘power-knowledge’ relations

articulated in its imperialist interests. Said claims therefore that “the Orient was a European

invention” and “[an enclosed] system of ideological fiction” with internal consistency. Orientalism

operates in the constitution of discursive subject-object relationship in which the West sets itself off

against the East as its ‘other,’ a “contrasting image, idea, personality, experience.” (The West is

treated as the developed and the rational, while the Orient is underdeveloped and savage.

Orientalism can be discussed and analysed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient –

dealing with it by making statements about it, authorising views of it, describing it, by teaching it,

settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and

having authority over the Orient (ibid.). Achebe (1974) best sums it up that “understanding him [the

native] and controlling him went hand in hand—understanding being a precondition for control and

control constituting adequate proof of understanding.”

Film production and criticism in the Philippines are dialectical parts of an enclosed system. It is

noteworthy to recall Althusser’s notion of ‘social formation’ (Habib, 2011) composed of

components such as the ideological (represented by the imperialist hegemony of the West in

cinematic industry and articulations) and the economic. Film production and criticism are both the

material practices that mediate and perpetualize these aforementioned components.

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Film, as already mentioned in this paper’s introduction, is an imported medium and thus

articulations such as criticisms/reviews on it linguistically alienate the marginalized Filipinos.

Furthermore, the roots of ‘indie’ films are postcolonial in nature. They responded to the Filipino

mimicry of Hollywood standards, yet the unstable economic structure that cannot sustain these

independent film makers positioned them in a commitment of a ‘necessary evil’: to be homogenized

in a Eurocentric world cinema that would propel them in terms of capital and market. Therefore,

the nationalist project of independent films is symptomatic of the American dream of these

cinematic workers. Lumbera (2011) provided a clear bridging between the ideological and the

economic:

The advantage enjoyed by American films extends even to subject matter. Because these
films are intended for worldwide distributions, the choice of material, and approach to
subject matter are not hamstrung by national aptitudes and attitudes. They can deal with
bolder, more controversial, more sensationalistic material because they cater to an
international market and they can afford to fail financially in one sector of their broad
audience having ways of recovering losses elsewhere.

An establishment, not just and anymore of a ‘World Cinema’ concept but of an excavation of ‘Asian

gems’ through sensibly disguised promotional film reviews reveals an alarming Orientalist practice in

global aesthetics. After all, even if the Westerns give an Asian film a low rating, we have an old adage

that “bad publicity is still publicity” and thus Asian films still consider any review as positive As

pieces of supporting evidence, local television networks would sensationalize the success of a

Filipino film abroad while the production companies and studios would always flaunt the reviews of

foreigners in their publicity. In other words, being reviewed internationally becomes a trend/brand

of prestige among local film makers. There is a willingness of assimilation, an unconscious

submission to the homogenizing force of the West which sanctifies the glory of a Filipino film. Such
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complicity shows how deeply embedded the Orientalist culture is in Philippine cinematic production

and articulations. The Western endowment of prestige to the Filipino films is hegemonic; it is

illusory in its valorization/appreciation of Filipino films as it remains the subject and apparently

maintains such politicized positions.

Western film reviews are thus Orientalist discourses. They are the meta-products of the economic

and ideological power of the West and at the same time the enforcers of a certain ‘regime of truth’

which includes the superiority of the Western in looking at the aesthetic of Filipino films and of

course its aesthetic imposition/colonization. Western film criticisms of Filipino indie films are thus

instrumental in the maintenance of the power-knowledge relations between the two continents. Said

(1978) noted that “to have such knowledge of such a thing is to dominate it, to have authority over

it...and authority here means for "us" to deny autonomy to "it"-the Oriental country-since we know

it and it exists, in a sense, as we know it.”

Amid these discussions, it is significant to recall how according to Tolentino (1996) notes that

Jameson’s critique of Kidlat Tahimik’s Mababangong Bangungot (Perfumed Nightmares) “could not

escape reifying the conventions of marginalization and disenfranchisement.” Jameson's construction

of a "Third World" reconstitutes the "First World/'Ihird World" dichotomy. Whereas the "First"

and "Second" worlds are defined by their modes of production (capitalism and socialism,

respectively), the "Third World" is defined in terms of an "experience" of externally inserted

phenomena: "the experience of colonialism and imperialism.” Not only it says something about the

Western film critique but is also underscores the perpetually reactionary nature of the themes of

Philippine film production and appreciation: a constant search for, if not upholding of, national

identity in response to years of colonialism. Tolentino (ibid) further argued that “since Jameson

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defines the so-called Third World in terms of its experience of colonialism and imperialism, the

political category that necessarily follows from this exclusive emphasis is that of ‘the nation’, with

nationalism as the peculiarly valorized ideology; and, because of this privileging of the nationalist

ideology, it is then theoretically posited that ‘all third-world texts are necessarily…to be read

as…national allegories.” Thus, the valorization of the nation in Filipino indie films is tarnished by

postcolonial project in which the local cinema has been stuck ever since and is constantly struggling

to escape from while at the same time reinforcing it. For Tolentino, “if this ‘Third World’ is

constituted by the singular ‘experience of colonialism and imperialism’, and if the only possible

response is a nationalist one, then what else is there that is more urgent to narrate than this

‘experience,’ a performance of an exorcism of the past?” The notion of an enclosed Orientalist

discourse thus undeniably arrives. The Filipino independent films, as third-world texts which can be

read as national allegories, are discourses that are both product of the power differential between the

West and the East and again an enforcer of the power differential itself. Tolentino’s dilemma makes

it clear: such Orientalist representation creates both a fallacy that all third-world texts are this or that

and a “Law of the Father” in which film makers have to comply with aesthetic standards to be

admitted into the Western stream of discussions. A Western film review of a Filipino independent

film is the consequential manifestation of this dilemma.

On the other hand, through application of Spivak’s notion of the subaltern, the problematique of

aesthetics discussed in this paper is not just an intercontinental situation; it is traceable in the local

setting as well. Spivak (1985) inspects “the absence of a text that can “answer one back” after the

planned epistemic violence of the imperialist project” and problematizes how a historically-muted

native subaltern can be studied from a libertarian, or a non-repressive and non-manipulative

perspective.” Such Western ‘ventriloquism’ fails for Spivak (ibid). Thus, the marginalized class is

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doubly oppressed: one in a local/national level and the other in the colonial level. If the readership

of Filipino film criticisms/review themselves favours only the Filipino middleclass and bourgeoisie

intelligentsia, one might even expect the same thing especially to Western film reviews. Such duality

of oppression overweighs the improbability of the subaltern to be “centered” or “allowed to speak.”

Tolentino (2016) implied how film and its criticism in the Philippines have always been

middleclass/aristocratic preoccupations (as educational and professional disciplines) which

imaginary/virtual audience/public is the intelligentsia and not the socioeconomically marginalized. If

not, there is a post-political discourse that seems to return art into its ahistorical and trans-universal

value that is a characterization of a middleclass sensibility. It is thus interesting to echo the earlier

delineation between film review and film criticism. Tolentino (ibid) favours the latter over the

former for its consideration of the socioeconomic conditions/context instead of highfalutin,

formalistic jargons of the film. Nevertheless, Tolentino’s meta-criticism is a critique of its self as well

as although a film criticism strives to shed light on the state of the marginalized in hope of

empowerment, film criticism is still an elitist trade, linguistically alien/inaccessible to its marginalized

subject of the paper; film criticism in itself is a representation as the marginalized remains a

discussed ‘intellectualized’ object of the paper that cannot read what is/are discussed about them

and cannot produce a reactionary discussion akin to what is/are discussed about them. It echoes

Marx’s epigraph on Said’s Orientalism: “they [the marginalized] cannot represent themselves; they

must be represented.” In a much larger sense, the culture of independent film in the Philippines, has

contradicted its socio-civic aspiration. As a radical form, it has only created another wave of elitism

in the guise of middleclass/bourgeoisie audience/reviewers.

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Challenges and Recommendations

Does it mean therefore that film criticism for the Filipinos is improbable? Maybe, for Western film

reviews which cater to a global landscape, it is. But for the local film reviews, there is hope.

Foucault (2009) points out that “where there is power there is resistance.” Discourse produces and

reinforces power, but it also exposes and renders its self fragile. Hegemonic discourses can be

challenged and possibly superseded by alternative discourses (Phillips, 2007), as discourse is never

absolute and resistance is possible. Very relevant to this potential intervention is Bhabha (1985)’s

interrogation of a master discourse by the natives in their own accents. For him, such questioning

produces an autonomous position for the colonial within the confines of the hegemonic discourse,

and because of this enunciates a very different ‘politics.’ There is a suggestion of hybridity in which

the native denies the colonialist its authoritative presence through misreading and incongruities that

expose the uncertainties and ambivalences of the colonialist text. Bhabha (ibid) recommends

fracturing the colonialist text by re-articulating it for instance in broken English to pervert the

meaning and message and therefore make an absolute exercise of power impossible. Film criticism,

in the Philippines, may derive from this proposition. The subaltern should be allowed to write their

own film criticism and through the recovery of their voices can one examine its subversions and

incongruities from the standardized Western film criticism.

Salazar (1991)’s pantayong pananaw (from-us-to-us point of view), on the other hand, is worth

revisiting. Pantayong pananaw refers to an encompassing addressivity as opposed to pankaming pananaw

(an outsider-addressing approach) and pansilang pananaw (an etic approach). Salazar (ibid) critiqued

how history, in this case film production and aesthetics, has always been addressed to outsiders (the

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elite and the colonialist). The use of a foreign language and the lack of native addressivity are what

he identified as symptoms. According to Guillermo (2005), pantayong pananaw is a “subsistent

dialogical circle” consisting of subjects within a community with a homogenous socio-politico-

cultural code understood genuinely by these subjects. Hau (2002) however suggests an expansion of

Salazar’s proposal: an analysis as well of the production and reception of texts instead of focusing

merely on the medium.

This is related to Tiongson (2016)’s recommendations among contemporary Filipino film critics: an

appreciation of the language of film, a knowledge of the history of the Filipino film as well as

familiarity with Philippine history, an appreciation of film as cultural artefact and as social catalyst, a

familiarity with the theories that analyze the social and political significance of film, and a critical

language that is sincerely interested in communicating with the audience, that is free of theoretical jargon

and pedantic language (emphases are mine).

Lastly, Gabriel (2011) historicized three phases of third world films: the first being an unqualified

assimilation in which the industry identifies with the Western Hollywood film industry and thematic

concerns of “entertainment” predominate and the second being the remembrance phase in which

Tolentino’s third-world texts as national allegories can be classified. Are we now moving towards the

third? The third, according to Gabriel (ibid) is the combative phase in which texts and subtexts go

through a radical shift and transformation of altering the rules of the [Orientalist] grammar,

prophesising that:

“Another film language, and a system of new codes begin to manifest themselves. With
regards to “reception” we discover that the viewer or subject is no longer alienated because

Page 15 of 35
 recognition is vested not only in genuine cultural grounds but also in an ideological cognition
founded on the acknowledgment of the decolonisation of culture and total liberation.”

Well, we have to watch and learn.

References:

References:

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Essex Conference on the Sociology of Literature July 1984. Colchester: University of Essex.

Campos, P. (2016). On poetics and practice of film criticism in the Philippines: A roundtable

discussion. Plaridel, 13, 1.

Clayton, A. & Klevan, A. (2011). The language and style of film criticism. New York: Routledge.

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David, J. H. (2013). Pinoy film criticism: A lover’s polemic. The Manila Review, 3.
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Page 26 of 35
 APPENDIX

Orientalist Excerpts from Western Film Reviews

1. Welcoming to the International Cinema

to make Filipino director Erik Matti Hollywood’s next hot action import.

During Cannes, Well Go USA purchased North American distribution rights and announced a fall

release for a film with reasonable small-screen potential.

whose marathon films have made inroads into major festivals in the last few years.

It showcased in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival to a select but appreciative

audience, despite a running time that exceeds eight hours, in what may break a record for any major

world festival.

Following its world premiere at New York Asian Film Festival, “BuyBust” will become a must-see

item for genre fans. It looks certain to spark controversy and attract large audiences when it releases

locally Aug. 1, and should enjoy a successful run in selected North American cities from Aug. 10.

the film comes as a noteworthy departure from the light-hearted features that currently dominate

Philippine cinema.

BuyBust, which premiered at the New York Asian Film Festival in June,

The Philppines' foreign-language Oscar hopeful is a rousing historical epic set during the Philippine-

American War.

A worthy oicial submission in the foreign-language Oscar race and an entertaining history lesson for

audiences everywhere,

Page 27 of 35
It’s worth noting the ilm’s remarkable turnaround at the domestic box oice. Initially released in 100

cinemas, “Heneral Luna” performed only modestly in its irst week and was quickly withdrawn from

more than half its screens.

The nearly four-hour, black-and-white Venice prize-winner

The bodies in this movie — which received little love at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival

Making its world premiere as the closing film of the New York Asian Film Festival,

BuyBust is bound to raise a ruckus when it opens in the Philippines on August 1, followed by its

U.S.release August 10.

Such a director is Brillante Mendoza of the Philippines, and the victim of his Idea is his Official

Selection at Cannes 2009, "Kinatay." Here is a film that forces me to apologize to Vincent Gallo for

calling "The Brown Bunny" the worst film in the history of the Cannes Film Festival.

2. Formalistic Jargons:

Shot in black and white using a squared-off frame,

An idée fixe, as the French so usefully put it. As Pierre Henri Castel observes, Au sens banal, idée

fixe est l'équivalent d'obsession.

e pièce de résistance

On a purely technical level “Kinatay” impresses, especially in the irst quarter. D.p. Odyssey Flores

shoots

stylistic esoterica of holding endlessly on a shot just to watch the movement inside it resolve.

Page 28 of 35
pin-sharp deep focus.

Diaz’s long-take, chiaroscuro style

3. Comparative Intertextuality

Using Western Films:-- Intertextuality for familiarity of Western audience

unlit sequences are something to compare with Pedro Costa’s sepulchral images of Fontainhas in

Lisbon or Tsai Ming-liang’s street scenes.

“pure cinema” practiced on this side of the Pacific by the likes of Terence Malick. But where Malick

sets his gaze upward to the heavens, Diaz sets his at street level

In a montage that recalls the conclusion of Michelangelo Antonioni's “L'Eclisse,”

Godfather-inspired hospital assassination

you might draw parallels with the quietist achievements of Asian cinema such as Apichatpong

Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, or Tsai Ming-Liang's What Time

Is It There? and I Don't Want To Sleep Alone. Sergio Leone might have wanted to make his own

version of Norte, The End Of History.

As Fabian descended into his inferno of fear, I found myself remembering Martin Landau's Judah in

Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) waking up in a cold sweat, unable to believe what

In the arresting Hong Kong-style thriller

There’s plenty of social significance embedded in the premise for On The Job, which centers around

the same breed of desperate men who take company money to drive trucks full of nitroglycerin over

a mountain pass in The Wages Of Fear.

Page 29 of 35
(after all, Bela Tarr’s darkly funny Satan’s Tango was riveting and only half an hour shorter.)

that echo most of Tsai's oeuvre.

The second half of his film is an illustration of directorial monomania- -a willingness to drive

audiences from the theater not so much by the violence (rape, beheading, vivisection) but by the

directorial style itself. You want to depict human atrocity, look to the von Trier.

Or, if you want to award a director in the grip of the relentless execution of a obsession, at least go

for broke and give a prize to "Enter the Void," by Gaspar Noé ("pas de tout"). At least you could

see what was happening in his film. Or honor a director who dealt with a human life at length and

depth, like Jacques Audiard ("A Prophet (https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-prophet-2010)").

Or Jane Campion, who handles the enigmatic and apparently chaste love affair of young John Keats

as a balancing act between romanticism and genteel derangement. Or give it to Resnais. Now there's

a director, with a light and wise touch in a whimsical story of fate dealing out what fate always deals.

Death, you know. You want a violent film, honor Johnnie To's "Vengeance," with Johnny Hallyday

as a father who swears a blood oath and then loses his focus in the fog of old age. It played by the

rules of film noir and Hong Kong cop thrillers. It didn't insanely slash and burn. You want an

existential hit man? Try a woman, the fish market girl played by Rinko Kikuchi in Isabel Coixet's

lovely "Map of the Sounds of Tokyo"--a film that evoked some of the same mood as "Hiroshima,

mon Amour." Or go with Almodovar, even though "Broken Embraces" was minor Almodovar, just

as "Looking for Eric" was minor Loach, and (so most people thought) "Taking Woodstock" was

minor Ang Lee.

Somewhere in the indie shocker niche occupied by Irreversible or Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer,

Page 30 of 35
It’s in the shadow of Pedro Almodóvar that Die Beautiful explores the life and death of a

transgender Filipino woman, with filmmaker Jun Robles Lana (Bwakaw, Barber’s Tales) making that

comparison count.

In this regard “BuyBust” sets itself decisively apart from comparable full-tilt Eastern action

spectaculars that have made an international impact, such as Thailand’s “Ong Bak: Muay Thai

Warrior,” Indonesia’s “The Raid” (2011), and Cambodia’s “Jailbreak” (2016

challengingly austere by Hollywood standards. Yet it’s easier to watch than the work of many “slow

cinema” stars whose films are hailed at international festivals.

The movie opens with a cafe conversation that could occur in nearly any American college town.

(and increasingly clear in its cribbing from films like e Raid and Oldboy)

Mr. Mendoza isn’t the first filmmaker to set his camera loose in an old movie theater, a conceit that

has been put to nostalgic and poetic use by the diverse likes of Giuseppe Tornatore (“Cinema

Paradiso”) and Tsai Ming-liang (“Goodbye, Dragon Inn”).

Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea are the big Asian territories that come to mind when audiences

think of quality action movies. Of course, some incredible action films, like “The Raid” franchise,

have come from other, smaller, Asian countries. However, the Philippines has struggled to gain a

foothold in the worldwide cinematic consciousness. Filmmakers Lav Diaz and Brillante

Mendozahave experienced success on the festival circuit, but not in Western cinemas, and The

Criterion Collection has only recently inducted the nation into their canon in the form of two Lino

Brockaclassics.

Matti employs the “Alien” mold to cast his action heroine.

Page 31 of 35
he role doesn’t afford Curtis a great deal of emoting, but sheer presence and action chops suggest

the actress could have a very promising feature in movies in this vein (not unlike “The Raid”

and Iko Uwais)

Your move, “The Expendables” producers.

Michael Mann’s late-period work makes for an appropriate point of reference when thinking about

Matti’s latest, and not just because of similarities with the scintillating digital nighttime photography

in “Miami Vice” or “Blackhat.”

Akin to “Dredd,” every citizen becomes a weapon against our badged heroes; in real world terms,

these people are the victims of human rights abuses. The mixed reception to Mendoza’s last feature

“Ma Rosa”—and its poverty-porn approach—suggests that there is no tidy cinematic solution to

representing to the current reality of the Philippines. [A-]

Buybust as “a horizontal Raid.

See it before he gets hired to helm a Fast and the Furious spinoff.

Although The Raid might be the most apt recent point of comparison, Buybust is part of an urban

quest-to-survive tradition that goes back to Walter Hill’s The Warriors, with touches of John

Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 as the squad members become trapped in small rooms besieged

and invaded by seemingly endless legions of bloodthirsty attackers.

It's hard not to compare the new Filipino siege drama "BuyBust" and the Indonesian siege drama

"The Raid," especially since the two films share some of the same producers. T

That's nothing new for contemporary action films," but "BuyBust" simply isn't as relentless or

innovative in its action filmmaking as superior recent films like "The Raid" or "Dredd."

Page 32 of 35
The over-long and slow-starting action picture is sort of a Filipino version of “The Raid:

Redemption”

This cocktail napkin sketch of a story should be familiar to anyone who has seen films like "The

Raid," "Assault on Precinct 13," or "Rio Bravo."

"BuyBust" may be that point for me—until the next "The Raid" comes along, anyway.

From The Warriors (1979) and Trespass (1992) to The Raid (2011) and Dredd (2012), it’s an

irresistible premise and dicult to mess up — all it needs are compelling characters and thrilling action

The recent We Will Not Die Tonight succeeds on that front (with a similar plot too) with

BuyBust boasts a body count that's so ever-spiraling it could make Quentin Tarantino quiver, and

enough bone-crunching brawls to outstrip those of the no-holds-barred Indonesian actioner The

Raid. These visceralrepresentations of death and destruction aside, Matti's stylistic and thematic

frame of reference seems to be George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead or Dawn of the

Dead, as his protagonists battle with crazed, zombie-like mobs while they try to navigate their way to

ultimate survival.

BUYBUST: The Philippines’ Answer To THE RAID

general as a Patton-esque figure, b

The Philippines gets their own “Infernal Affairs” with “On the Job,” a propulsive new actioner. It’s

not a remake of that Hong Kong hit, but it features the same cops-and-criminals conict and stock

moral ambiguity that turned that earlier lm, and “The Departed,” into an ethical funhouse mirror for

its protagonists. And hey, the action isn’t bad either. If you wanted a Filipino lm from less-skilled

lmmakers who worship at the altar of Johnny To and Michael Mann, you could do worse.

Page 33 of 35
Daniel, is younger and prettier, a more ethnic (and innitely more appealing) version of Sam

Worthington.

Would anyone really quarrel if Anderson, with his easy smile and bedroom eyes, replaced Sam

Worthington in the next “Avatar”?

Yet events move too rapidly for the sentiment that Mendoza is generally so expert in developing to

have any opportunity to blossom here. Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang already successfully

mined this material in his ode to the last days of a movie house, Goodbye, Dragon Inn. If you are

looking for The Last Picture Show, search elsewhere.

Kurosawa-esque black-and- white praxis

Just like Pedro Costa refashioned a Jacques Tourneur zombie film into the slow-moving post-

colonial treatise that is Casa de Lava, Diaz has also taken his conventional ingredients — the literary

source, the revenge-noir narrative, the top-billing A-lister — and produced something that is greater

than the sum of its parts.

After extensive recutting, the Gallo film was redeemed. I don't think editing is going to do the trick

for "Kinatay."

They are cranked so high we recall the guitar setting of "11" in "This is Spinal Tap."

4. Universalization:

If the movie’s universal themes don’t impress, its specific details do.

The makings of a genre exercise in revenge and suspense — one lmed in a high contrast black and

white to emphasize the noir elements of the story has delivered an explosive exercise in kinetic

cinema

Page 34 of 35
While following the traditional trajectory of a war movie, but good action is the only thing an action

really needs to get right

and could be an intriguing addition to a Stateside action franchise such as The Fast and the Furious.

Page 35 of 35