Ang Manghuhula

Ang Manghuhula (Click on the title for my review) is a film written and directed by Paolo Herras. It is about an outcast and failed fortuneteller who returns home to save her daughter from a fate she herself escaped--the town's next fortuneteller; a fate handed down from mother to daughter. It stars Eula Valdez, Glaiza de Castro, Chanda Romero, Pinky Amador, Emilio Garcia and with the special participation of Bella Flores.It will be shown in selected theaters nationwide starting September 9, 2009.

Charlie Koon's Rating:

Men in Trees

Good boy Bad boy

“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” - Henry David Thoreau

Desperate men are the most interesting species of men, at least in the theatrical sensibility. Usually dominated by a hard-boiled adrocentrist and suitcasey predisposition, normally tuned men are so difficult to capture in a colorful point of view, if they are captured at all, without the color reverting to a shade of gay futility. Apart from the sacrosanct movies of Fernando Poe and the like, men who have successfully summoned themselves in order to slay towering white handkerchiefs with womanish heads, the sheer absence of a good dude flick has the industry scrounging for fresh mojo. Astig is shrewd to fill the void, helmed by GB Sampedro and produced by the Queen of Men himself Boy Abunda, the debut of this TV oriented fraternity has the audience dashing for a second run.

The movie itself is cut into four slightly intertwining episodes, almost-Amores in its rendering but still accessibly linear thanks to Charliebebs Gohetia’s editing. The gruff and unsilken demonstration of filth and testosterone is predictable enough. These men are out to survive. The streets are rough and they have to be rougher, a survivalist mentality that permeates through the film’s entirety. But as the bricks start to crumble, the unfolding somewhat effortlessly belies the staunch but artificial rigor of the permanent Man along with his preciously defended manhood. Inevitably the latter becomes another pawnable item of the city’s vicious and voluptuous grinding.

It was refreshing to see a few mainstream actors in the process of actual thespianism. The dirty-tongued Dennis Trillo was robust and multi-faceted enough to stand as the definitive paragon of the stubborn boyness that unravels under the weight of his own dire consequences. Young men are most difficult to effectively characterize under normal circumstances without coming off as formulaic. Their desires are boxed and predictable, their reaction times calculatedly similar. The stereotypes of the weak and the strong are too two-dimensional to employ in any meaty portrayal. In this movie the addition and intimation of male emotion paradoxically adds strength to the characters. It’s always the tension of feeling that kills them in the end. A strong man is the suffering man, amusing to watch and terrific to behold in its fetish proportionality.

Aside from Trillo’s irrepressible brio and Sid Lucero’s obstinacy, the middle two episodes as presented by Edgar Allan Guzman and Arnold Reyes showed more of the despondent man, bedfellows of hard living and everything in between hard things. To relinquish one’s penetrative role as bleatingly portrayed by Guzman in the fluid-ridden movie house is a prime example of a sacrifice done on the strain of a family’s common hunger. Crying and nakedness are rampant, and the women aren’t so bad at it either. Add a few sprinklings of the occasional ill-placed but good-intentioned famous person’s cameo and you have a collective acting ordeal that could possibly surprise the mainstream observer but may casually bore the jaded indie activist. Certainly this movie is not Cinemalaya’s most cerebral, perhaps a mock symbolism of masculinity itself, but the primal grace is evident enough to enthuse. Ultimately, it is a reflection of how far humans can go and how scared we are of the predator from the bottom of the tree.

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Written by: Alex Milla (Guest Critic)

I have seen the future

Smells good...

The observance of a certain region, a territory or even a town in the Philippines has this commonality in perception of what their livelihood must be. It is not entirely bad, but it is totally overwhelming to see a mini store all over one place. At times, the entire street is crowded with a bunch of bakery stores. This film’s depiction has tackled a mildly different approach but it has the same system. The Quiapo Church might be the common ground for fortunetellers. And this has been their bread and butter. In this film, the fortunetellers inhabit a small village. Their passion in fortunetelling was projected a bit more. But I never thought that this simple tarot card reading might be competitively baneful.

Messina (Eula Valdes) goes back to her village after her mother Dorothea (Chanda Romero) dies of an unknown illness. Messina wants to save her daughter Claire (Glaiza de Castro) from the fate of being a fortuneteller. When she arrives in their house, she soon discovers that her family is caught in debt by a fortune-telling syndicate headed by Jakob (Emilio Garcia).

It was corroborated by the producer of the film that they employed a touch of magic realism in Ang Manghuhula (The Fortuneteller). Obviously it’s a bit literary in nature and some of the most prolific writers in this literary genre have very few works translated into film. Ang Manghuhula has this certain feel that yeah, in a way, they have translated into film perspectives of what magic realism is. If you’ll be more critical with its story’s progression, you’ll be perplexed because the peculiarity is entirely part of magic realism. Like in the story, the tarot card owned by Dorothea is known to possess some certain powers. Or the mysteries involved if you get to possess those tarot cards. The very essence of magic realism is to make the fantastic seem or indeed become naturalistic. Herras has accomplished it.

When the film started, it has this feeling of coldness in its scenes. Death has been very common in anyway it could be represented. The technical execution of the film is crucial with their undertaking simply because it will play a big factor in defining what magic realism is all about. Ang Manghuhula is beautifully photographed. The eerie scenarios are convincingly effective in recreating a flight of the imagination.

The acting of all the characters is sufficient. Valdes as Messina has portrayed the character well with deep understanding of the supernatural beliefs. De Castro looks like a newcomer and she seems like she has been too challenged with her role as Claire and has tendencies to look a bit overwrought. Romero’s participation is of course very well appreciated. Her presence has made the film more enigmatic. And it is surprising that this film has almost star-studded cameo roles from the likes of Angel Locsin, Epi Quizon, John Lapus, Candy Pangilinan to name a few. Bella Flores has been a crowd favorite the night of its premiere. And she will always be.

It is good to see that Herras has improved a lot from his suppose to be acclaimed film Lambanog which I have perceived differently, much of it in a negative manner. But with Ang Manghuhula, I certainly will buy this magic realism he has employed right from the very beginning. When he tries to imply Maria Makiling’s mortality in Lambanog, I have doubted it. But in here, magic realism is adequately translated into film. It is certainly admirable. Hopefully, he sustains what he is best known for.

Charlie Koon's Rating:

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Trivia:

The term “Magic realism” was first used by the German art critic Franz Roh in 1925 to describe a kind of visual style that expressed a heightened reality but is based on mundane subject matters. It has been championed by a lot of Latin American writers such as Gabrielle Garcia Marquez, using the style to portray the miraculous in a seemingly normal setting. In film, directors such as Tim Burton exemplified in his movie “Big Fish” is a prime example.