There is much to like about the film but an equal amount of bizarre things tarnish the luster of the award-winning Cinemalaya film.
The dark comedy Mercury Is Mine deals succinctly with the colonial mentality of Filipinos. The fortunes of a middle-aged cook Carmen Batac (Pokwang) begin to rise after taking in an American teenager Mercury (Bret Jackson) as temporary help. The American boy attracts hordes of customers smitten with his good looks. Carmen's roadside eatery begins to flourish and becomes a regular stopover for trekkers and fortune hunters going to Mt. Arayat.
The filmmakers suggest that Carmen is like a small-scale miner who struck gold after using mercury. But, mercury can be fatal if handled improperly.
An early film segment shows Mercury's true colors. He is not as pure as his white skin. He is a cold-blooded killer. Running away from patricide, he ends up in the eatery of Carmen.
The famed hospitality of Filipinos is shown through Carmen's decision to let Mercury stay. Carmen shows no hesitation in letting in the white boy. The whiteness of Mercury's skin clouds the minds of those he encounters. Carmen never doubted Mercury even after learning of the murder of his father.
This early in the film, I've lost my empathy for the male lead. Mercury is a killer. On the other hand, Carmen may be a bad girl who preys on the needy but she may still have a pure heart. However, as the film progress on, the dark side of Carmen's character comes to the fore. The two leads are so vicious they deserve one another.
Mercury Is Mine is spot on with its treatment of how Filipinos behave with Caucasians in their midst. However, the lead characters are extreme turn-offs. Imagine an absentee mother letting her daughter get impregnated by an American teenager. I didn't care anymore where the story went after that incident.
Pokwang's delivery of her one-liners brought the house down. Carmen's innocent guess on the origin of Mercury's name is a winner.
Prior to my viewing of Mercury Is Mine, I caught up with the Metro Manila Film Festival New Wave Best Picture Ari at Cinemalaya 2016. It is a Kapampangan film dealing with a famed poet. The film, with ample creative support from Jason Paul Laxamana, highlighted some of the main criticisms against the Kapampangan language. One of these quirks is the interchange of Fs with Ps.
I had a hearty laugh then after hearing Carmen say 'Let's fuck' when what she meant was 'Let's pack.' Local tidbits such as this, along with the delicious dishes, give the film a unique Kapampangan flavor.
The gold hoard of Mercury left me puzzled. Are they real? If it is real, then why didn't Mercury raise hell to recover them?
My guess is that the gold nuggets are fake. The last scene bolsters my hypothesis that the nuggets are fake. The final shot shows Carmen still cooking in her roadside eatery. Nothing has changed. Usually, when a character comes upon a fortune in the latter part of a film, the audience sees the result of this windfall in a succeeding scene showing a new house or a new car. In the case of Carmen, she is still stuck in her eatery.
I like to think that Carmen gave away those gold pieces but it is not within her character. That storyline is about as false as the gold hair wig of Carmen. Yes, there's no use changing her personality. She is, as she said early in the film, 'a bad girl.'
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