Carnival Fun

I know you will lurve it

Eugene Domingo stars as the twin sisters in the comedy film Kimmy Dora. These twins are rivals. No one will dare tie them back again with their own umbilical cords. Kimmy and Dora are the daughters of Luisito Go Dong Hae, a tycoon who is estimably one of the most influential settlers of our country. I am not sure whether they are made out of dumplings or kimchi as their surname implies so, but this comedy film will not hasten to use most of your brain for further analysis of its lampoon. To simplify things up, as long as a comedy film makes you laugh, the film itself is already vindicated and could be praised for its worth.

Kimmy is the smart, career-obsessed and devilish head honcho of the company. She is moody to her staff and sadistic to her assistant Gertrude (Miriam Quiambao). But her heart softens when Johnson (Dingdong Dantes) is around despite their differences in ideas when it comes to managing business prospects. Unfortunately, Johnson is more amiable to Dora, the super-special twin sister of Kimmy who is the opposite of her radical behavior. This made Kimmy be upset even more and sibling rivalry in the past has been dug. With the tension on the loose again, the petty fights has led to the heart attack of their father Luisito (Ariel Ureta). While recovering from her father’s ailment, Kimmy finds out that the will and testament favors more to her sister Dora.

Kimmy Dora will be the newest addition in our recent comedies that are exceptional and charming like Ded na si Lolo and Last Supper No. 3. But those two have a different switch, using social satire as a way to provoke laughter. Ang Tanging Ina could be a grand similarity due to its heavy usage of farce and the slapstick. I think these four films combined define what comedy in our times works. We make films for us to laugh but at the same time, it has the aroma of being our own, something that is not time-bounded.

I have said this before and I will repeat it further even if I sound obnoxious. Yes, I am a fan of comedy films. I have high expectations from our filmmakers when these films show up in our theaters and most especially if it’s the slapstick kind of comedy. I do want to progress with my own taste for comedies even if I have sung praises for the works of Charlie Chaplin and Leonid Gaidai. I am not really fond of Woody Allen films but I do regard his works as universal. Why am I saying this? I think most of our writers have this notion that even comedies should be intelligent with its rendering. And most of them dismiss slapstick as a flawed type of comedy. I will definitely disagree and this film Kimmy Dora will prove them wrong without me saying any further. I could have slapped their coconut brains with my IPOD and entrenched them with my Chaplin Collection. That scene for sure will be hilarious. But they could use wit as their defense tactic for this is the only kind that should progress in the comedy arena. And they could mistake slapstick for being offensive and mindless.

But true to the word, slapstick is not really the type of fresh corals that will sway your brains constantly. It is more of the mechanical type, perfunctory with its domain to produce laughter. Kimmy Dora does most of its pleasing moments on this approach. I will not be surprised with its great deal of slaptickness since it’s the territory of the director Joyce Bernal, who have expressed mightily a great form of absurdity and passed it over as a great entertaining film. Chris Martinez as the sole writer has the upper hand in layering its story with humor for its script with a classifiable ordeal of figures of speech. Kimmy mostly utters her lines in hyperbole while her sister Dora is more ‘intelligent’ and discreet for her one-time use of a palindrome, naming her adopted stray dog ‘Mickey’. Kimmy could have thrust her stilettos for its obvious slur. But she is at home with word exaggeration and slang offenses. Kimmy Dora is a great blend of different comedy types and as an outcome, it is miraculously compelling and mind enthralling.

I am more optimistic that our audience will be guided better so that they will eradicate some of its wrong notions towards film appreciation. Slapstick will always be a great form of comedy - if used judiciously. I am really saddened that most of the times, the audience has lots of pretensions that comedies are garbled as a serious matter and should be viewed with all our brain cells moving towards Level Ten – Einstein brainpower. I may be misconstrued for being narrow-minded, boxing the appreciation only to a certain type of comedy. But my point of view is just simply bending the values of a good comedy. The values of our times have changed. Blame consumerism for the abhorrent proclivities towards any form of appreciation. But I don’t mind the trends. I only believe in good films. Whether it is Chaplin or Allen, as long as it makes you laugh, then it proves that the film that you are watching is a good comedy. But always remember, laugh first before you think.


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I am beautiful

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Truth is more painful than death. It would be easy to accept death than leave your loved ones until the time has arrived. It is sometimes unfair that even the person who will depart will prolong the agony for the people who truly love them by not telling the truth. But then, if we think further, is it because they are too strong to endure the pain? Is it pride until the end that would matter? We are all equal no matter what condition we have. The truth is the only thing that could heal even the most unyielding soul.

Joyce (Mylene Dizon) is a career-obsessed single woman. Suddenly, she resigns to her work at the brink of her achievements because she acquired the terminal disease, pancreatic cancer. She is given three months to live. She grabs her post-it and jots down the things-to-do in the remaining months of her life. She seems extremely good at this and is terribly organized. Until each of her loved one knows her true condition.

Martinez’ has crafted the movie itself like a cancer patient. It has the ability to be fragile and rough with its composition. It could be also true that a device commonly done by most filmmakers to handle the theme of death has been deliberated. Fusing it with humor is not so unusual to us critics. But 100 has been clever considering the fact that it’s brought upon by natural comedians of our country. Eugene Domingo and Tessie Tomas have the ability to make a discourse with the tragedy bestowed to the protagonist. I will never doubt the story’s ability to bind comedy in dealing with this illness. It is bravery on the director’s part to have the assurance that it will likely be of valuable usage to an engaging and insightful story of a woman stricken by cancer.

Independent films have the tendency to experiment with its camera works and cinematography. I have no qualms with the sentimentality generated from some scenes even if it could have been more restrained. Although the Hong Kong sequence could have been a bit off. The home video effect might be misguided as a personal travelogue by the two actresses having a vacation. It’s good that in the end of the Hong Kong segment, Joyce is back again to her condition. The overall technical quality of the film is definitely superior. It gives elegance to the connotation that ‘indie’ film works have this dark and muddy tendency in its film format. It has maximized the medium could offer, mostly with the strengths of the intangibles like the storytelling approach and genre style.

The theme death is a universal language that we could relate to. Its either you are the one dying or the one being left behind. In Joyce’s life, her friends embody who we are. Ruby (Eugene Domingo) is Joyce’s childhood friend. She is the first to know of Joyce’s condition. She effortlessly continues to take the journey with her friend despite being perturbed by the news she has known. Eloisa (Tessie Tomas) is Joyce’s mother. She did not know the condition until the time when Joyce has to be rushed to the hospital. The mother instinct in her strikes without any trace of despair.

Until the very end, we could not get what we desire. Joyce has been very successful in her line of work. She gets the empathy of her friend who stayed despite the awful times of her life. But Joyce has an unrequited love. Death brings family and friends closer together. Despite the tragic occurrence, we still have the ability to laugh. It might help to ease the pain. After all, laughter is as natural as death.

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