Sa Kanto ng Ulap at Lupa (2011, Mes de Guzman)

A rare trip to my hometown Bayombong, capital of Nueva Vizcaya, made me appreciate the realism of Mes de Guzman's award-winning film Of Skies and Earth. I saw firsthand the majestic beauty of cloud-capped mountain ranges. It seems heavenly to anyone gazing from afar. But, as one gets up close one sees that not all is tranquil up there. Roads ravaged by storms and torrential rains will add hours and sometimes days to your travel time. Heck, a newspaper even labeled Nueva Vizcaya as the ‘bad roads capital of the Philippines.’


Life in the highlands becomes grey and muddy with the onset of the rainy season. Groups of indigenous people complain about the effect of bad roads on the sales of their farm products and the provision of much-needed services. Not much work is required during this wet period. 


Sa Kanto ng Ulap at Lupa is set during such bleak economic period. A pair of kids, Rodolfo aka Yoyong and younger brother Poklat, descend to Bayombong and adjoining municipalities to earn some money. They take shelter in an abandoned house along with two boys, Uding and Boying. The four kids do various odd jobs.


The best scenes show the kids at play or just plainly conversing with one another. They remind me of my childhood experiences and the stories told by our elders. One such story I’ve heard during my recent trip was about how my aunts and their playmates would nonchalantly shoo away floating feces during their swimming escapades. Ilocanos also has this habit of scaring each through ghost stories. The slaughterhouse manager is scared shitless because of the kids’ story about vengeful porcine spirits.


A most memorable scene from the film shows Yoyong and Uding ambushing a young lad. Instead of a fist fight, we see Yoyong meekly apologizing to his fellow teenager Adoy. The four kids may have some mean streak in them but they do have good hearts. All they need is some guidance and probably more education.



As seen in the film, services 
in the province are well provided in the lowlands but not so in the highlands. A team of police arrives immediately at a crime scene. A truckload of firemen responds promptly to a fire alarm. The manager of the slaughterhouse worries about the possibility of a random inspection by the town mayor. The residents of the highlands are the ones getting the short end of the stick.


Director Mes de Guzman gained prominence with his pro-education film debut Ang Daan Patungong Kalimugtong. He once again highlights the importance of education. Yoyong is barely literate. Lack of accessible education must have been the likely culprit. A few reading lessons turned the young man into a loving person. A few more years of formal education would have transformed Yoyong into a better, caring person.

The final scene shows how the bleak, grey lives of the kids turn into a colorful albeit short-lived existence. Heaven for them is a bountiful harvest. But, who will survive to attain that divine promise?

Boundary (2011, Benito Bautista)

Getting a cab during Christmas season is an extremely stressful experience for commuters. Not so with the well-dressed Emmanuel Lazaro (Raymond Bagatsing). With a first name like that, he surely must have the angels on his side as he easily gets a taxi by default. He gets to ride in a brightly lit taxi driven by Limuel Alcantara (Ronnie Lazaro).

Boundary takes us for a trip inside Limuel’s confused mind. We first see him, disheveled hair and all, wandering along the Marikina riverbanks. He seems to be on a limited budget as he opts for a cheap snack. His brief chat with the vendor unnerves him. Ikaw ang mag-ingat. Those words linger as he walks away while glancing back several times.

Limuel is not unlike those contemplative Lav Diaz characters, Heremias and Serafin Geronimo. He has a dark past that he cannot leave behind. A place or a person will unexpectedly trigger their paranoia or melancholia. The nod to Lav Diaz is also seen in the use of Diaz’s frequent film location, Marikina riverbanks.

Emmanuel engages the unfocused and jumpy Limuel in a chit-chat. We learn that Limuel takes the road 24 hours every other day. His boundary is a high PHP 1500 but he is grateful that he no longer has to shoulder other miscellaneous vehicle expenses. He endears himself to Emmanuel when he showed photographs of his family.

Amused by the Christmas lights inside the taxi, Emmanuel orders Limuel to stop over at a Christmas lantern shop. He buys a capiz lantern and surprises the driver by giving it as a gift. The joy of Limuel is, however, short-lived. Constant calls from someone make him jittery once again.

Ronnie Lazaro

Limuel, it turns out, is a former member of a bank robbery gang. During the group’s last heist, he gets cold feet and leaves his comrades. They are now asking him to pay a certain amount. Limuel has no savings so he accedes to his comrades’ plan to rob off rich passengers.

The robbers Diego Gawaran, Limuel, and a cohort divest Emmanuel of his items.  They forgot to take his cellphone, which he uses to start springing his own surprise.

The rapport between Emmanuel and Limuel was well handled by the director. The latter cheated somewhat by having Emmanuel ride at the immediate back of Limuel. He did it probably in order to capture the two in single shots. He also admitted to putting Christmas lights inside the taxi to camouflage extra interior lights.

The taxi journey (and direction) was smooth sailing until the bonfire scene. With the robbers onboard, the suspense should have reach fever pitch. But, poor dialogue (i.e. mostly cussing by Diego) and clunky direction (e.g. poorly executed fumbling scene by the robbers) rob the film of much-needed tension. The taxi ride here is a mere kiddie bike ride compared to the suspense-filled van ride in Kinatay.

Limuel, given a new lease on life by Emmanuel Lazaro (Lazarus?), is able to leave his dark past but gets embroiled in a darker, more sinister situation. He no longer drives a taxi. He becomes, guess what, the driver of a van filled with corrupt policemen. And so, the journey to perdition continues...


*****
Related link/s:
Thoughts by director Benito Bautista (inquirer.net)