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Just watched Ron Fricke's 1992 nonnarrative film Baraka (Blessing) and I'm still reeling from the whole idea the movie is built on, as well as from the montage of beautifully photographed scenes of nature, technology, and humanity.

For someone who usually likes his movie with a solid narrative, I got hooked from the first few shots of mountain scenery then cutting to a close-up of a red-faced spider monkey (?) bathing in a pool. Still waiting for a story to unfold, I got caught in the soulful look of the monkey staring not just at the camera but the viewer it seemed.

And before I knew it the movie reeled me into its haunting meditation -- for me -- on humanity and nature. The series of images set to an atmospheric soundtrack were like mantras, transporting me into a level of visual and spiritual understanding.

Okay, that may have sounded overly dramatic. But hey, even Roger Ebert waxes poetic on this film that he considers as one among his "great movies."

Knowing 02/04/2010

What? That you're smack in the crosshairs of the next disaster, perhaps even the apocalypse? What are you going to do?

That's the premise of Alex Proyas's 2009 film, Knowing, that stars Nicholas Cage as the astrophysicist John Koestler. Cage/Koestler becomes intrigued by a piece of paper his son gets from a time capsule buried 50 years ago. He soon decodes the numbers as predicting disasters around the world -- with each set of numbers pointing to the date, number of casualties, and the location of the event. There are three dates left on the piece of paper that are yet to happen. And that sets the pace for the remainder of the movie.

But more than averting the disasters -- an impossible feat, it seems, as Koestler does not have an inkling in what form it will come -- or minimizing the casualties, Koestler also faces a mysterious group of figures, referred to in the movie as The Strangers, who apparently are able to communicate with his son. This adds a sci fi layer to the disaster flick.

It is this sci fi layer that really became the bummer for me. I mean, the disaster formula kind of worked, but then adding this whole idea of The Strangers -- perhaps aliens who are either responsible for the disasters or are there to help the humans -- kind of stretched the credulousness out of the movie.

Even on this Maundy Thursday and April Fool's Day holiday. As we say in Waray: Gin inuwat la kita.

Logorama 25/03/2010

I had a good laugh watching this short animated film that won this year's Oscar for the category. The 16 minute Logorama (2009) features a Los Angeles made up of logos.

While some may find the movie's concept a bit gimmicky, there is some sense in how the directors portray this particular mecca of gloss and commercialism. And if you take into account how the movie's plot line follows the true-and-tested formulas of action films and disaster movies, with some emotional high points (if anything emotional can be squeezed out of a logo), you begin to ask how you are interpellated not just by logos but also by the cultural artifact that is Hollywood.

But do not get me wrong. The movie is no grim and determined critique of postmodern culture or how we are constructed by brands rather than by honest-to-goodness values -- although it is that too, if you think about it -- but a rollicking action slash disaster movie that will make you think. Watch it.

The Venetian's Wife 24/03/2010

This was supposed to be bedside reading. Bad idea. Couldn't put it down soon as I got about a third into the book. But then, I should have realized that Nick Bantock just doesn't offer you a visual feast but also regale you with an intriguing tale.

The first time I came across Nick Bantock's name was when a friend got a copy of Griffin and Sabine, the bestselling epistolary novel as reinvented by the author. This was way back in 1991. I was blown away by the artwork, with the story literally unfolding as the reader goes through page after page of postcards and letters tucked in their envelopes. And it was no gimmick, too, as the "exotic" imagery of the postcards and letters fit neatly into the mysterious correspondence between the characters.

While The Venetian's Wife (San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 1996) involves less reader interactivity -- with the catalogs and other artwork neatly incorporated into regular pages -- it is no less the visual treat and compelling novel.

You should get yourself a copy as I'm not giving any spoilers.

Please Don't 18/03/2010

This is one track, with vocals by Santigold and with video culled from archival footage, from David Byrne and Fatboy Slim's Here Lies Love (Todomundo/Nonesuch Records, 2010).

"Through a series of songs written by David Byrne, with musical contributions from Fatboy Slim (Norman Cook), Songs from Here Lies Love presents Imelda Marcos meditating on events in her life, from her childhood spent in poverty and her rise to power to her ultimate departure from the palace. In particular, the production looks at the relationship between Imelda and a servant from her childhood, Estrella Cumpas, who appeared at key moments in Imelda's life." (Here Lies Love, 2010)

David Byrne, in his Introduction, has this to say:

“The story I am interested in is about asking what drives a powerful person—what makes them tick? How do they make and then remake themselves? I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if—as this piece would be principally composed of clubby dance music—one could experience it in a club setting? Could one bring a ‘story’ and a kind of theater to the disco? Was that possible? If so, wouldn’t that be amazing!”

For some of us who grew up in Leyte, Imelda Marcos was this mythical figure we had to "slay" at some point in our lives. Now I have the soundtrack to go with the ritual purging.

Blindness 28/02/2010

Finally got to sit down and watch Fernando Meirelles's Blindness (2008). I often wondered how he would transform the apocalyptic world Jose Saramago created in his novel.

I wasn't disappointed at all. Julianne Moore was magnificent in her portrayal of the Doctor's Wife -- letting us feel what she was thinking and feeling in that wretched world that she alone was the sole witness. Through the intensity in her eyes and by how her jaw would be clenched tight, she could as well be mute as the only seeing person in a city where all the people had become blind.

I didn't like Gael Garcia Bernal being cast as the King of Ward 3, though. While he delivered quite a good performance, he didn't quite fit the character I imagined when reading the book. He looked really frail to be the King of Ward 3. Of course, that may be what Meirelles intended -- in a world where no one is able to see anything, size is not necessarily might.

And of course, my having read Saramago's novel Blindness (1995) may have clouded my lenses while watching the movie.

Such a timely read it was then, what with the news about Influenza A H1N1 all over the papers. And with the alarming warnings of pandemic proportions. While there was cause for concern, some of the serious stuff was glossed over by the sensationalized reporting -- moreso on TV. Some of the reports even quoted government and health officials talking about the need to call in the military.

Which brings me to the novel, Blindness (1995), and how it portrays a city and country turning into a version of Hell as one by one the citizens are struck blind. The first few who lost their sight are quarantined in an abandoned mental asylum, with the military keeping watch so that no one escapes to infect others.

But soon everybody, inside and outside the quarantine, are struck blind. And soon humanity becomes its own nightmare. Except for a group of individuals led by a woman, the Doctor's Wife (no name is given her in the novel), who wasn't afflicted with the sudden blindness.

She becomes the only witness to the degradation around her, and sometimes she wishes that she were blind too. But ultimately, she is able to lead her group to a kind of sight -- a kind of hopefulness that lives on in everyone who doesn't forget their humanity.

History in footnotes 21/02/2010

For Raymundo Mata is a footnote in the annals of the Katipunan, the Philippine revolutionary group that fought for independence against Spain and later America.

He is mentioned only in passing: "On June 15, 1896, Dr. Valenzuela left Manila aboard the steamer Venus. To disguise his real mission, he brought with him a blind man named Raymundo Mata and a guide, going to Dapitan to seek Rizal's expert medical service."

But Gina Apostol recuperates this character in her recent novel, The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata (Pasig City: Anvil Publishing, 2009). She lets Raymundo Mata speak for himself through what is purported to be his notebooks or, as the historian Estrella Espejo describes it, more of "an assortment of unpaginated notes and mismatched sheaves packed in a ratty biscuit tin and stuffed in a tattered medical bag, the edges of the papers curled up in permanent dust" (2).

The translation, done by Mimi Magsalin (pseud.), is divided into five parts that chronicles Mata's childhood in Cavite and later involvement with the revolutionary group. Part 3 of his notebooks contain entries that reveals Mata's encounters with Jose Rizal in Dapitan. The fourth part revolves around Mata's dark secret as well as clues to the whereabouts of the Katipunan's money, while the last part titled "Aftermass" reads like Rizal's unfinished novel Makamisa.

Espejo is handed this manuscript, rather the translation of Mata's notebooks, by the publisher Trina Trono. Overcome with the potential significance of this historical document, she shares her thoughts and the translated manuscript with Diwata Drake, a Murkian scholar who had published chapters of her forthcoming tome You Lovely Symptoms: The Structure of the Filipino Unconscious, Not Really a Langue or a Parole.

Equally overwhelmed by this historical find, Drake becomes engrossed in reading the manuscript that she becomes oblivious of Espejo's near fatal attack (though Espejo believes Drake tried to smother her in her sleep). The short of it is that Espejo is confined to the Quezon Institute and Sanitorium in Tacloban, Leyte, while Drake roams around the world (like a fugitive, perhaps?).

But such is the drama of Philippine scholarship it seems, or what the novel seems to mimic.

As Ambeth Ocampo relates in Makamisa: The Search for Rizal's Third Novel (Pasig City: Anvil Publishing, 1992), he stumbled upon Rizal's text from the marginalia often swept aside by official chroniclers of the National Hero. Apparently Dr. Angel Hidalgo, Rizal's grandnephew and a scholar who compiled an annotated bibliography of Rizal's works, alerted the Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission (JRNCC) about "an unpublished manuscript in Spanish resembling the Tagalog Makamisa in plot and characters, and existing in the National Library" (18).

Hidalgo suggested that the existing manuscript be "transcribed, translated, and published." However, Hidalgo was silenced by his uncle, "Leoncio Lopez Rizal, the acknowledged authority on Rizal and a member of the JRNCC...by declaring, 'No se puede por que el manuscrito es un borrador. Un borrador del Noli me tangere, nada mas!' (That cannot be done, because the manuscript in question is a draft. A draft of the Noli me tangere, nothing more!)" [translation provided] (18).

And so Rizal's third novel remained buried among other manuscripts in the National Library, until Ocampo was able to retrieve it. His transcription and translation is what we now have in his Makamisa: The Search for Rizal's Third Novel.

This same kind of contentious scholarship is what Apostol mimes and mines in her own explorations into the Filipino identity. And what a rollicking heteroglossic carnival she presents us readers.

For the novel is not just about the footnote figure that is Mata. It also mimics the combative scholarship in the spats among Espejo, Drake, and Magsalin in the footnotes and in the forewords and afterwords to Mata's notebook entries.

It is the footnotes that really propel the novel to its ending that turns out to be, in Espejo's words, really "a circular loop, with same beginning and no end." An ending that thrusts Drake into her own quest to unmask what she suspects to be Magsalin's hoax (abetted by Trono, if she is not herself the pseudonymous translator).

Such is the nature of literary works, it seems. It can inaugurate a revolution just as much as Drake says of biographical texts, it can launch a thousand "false starts, red herrings, dead ends, mysterious trails" that make the quest -- whether for a nation or for the novel's closure -- worth the while.

Moreso when we can chuckle through the pages, something that Apostol liberally indulges us with in her serious play with rewriting history.

As Magsalin cryptically writes in her postcard from "'an island in the South China Sea'": Mi noamla: ra puada vimgoes am at.

Choice quotes 06/02/2010

Some choice passages from Eudora Welty's autobiography of her childhood and the beginnings of her life as a writer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984):

"Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it's an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole." (14)

"...I stumbled into making pictures with a camera. Frame, proportion, perspective, the values of light and shade, all are determined by the distance of the observing eye." (21)

"The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order, a timetable not necessarily--perhaps not possibly--chronological. The time as we know it subjectively is often the chronology that stories and novels follow: it is the continuous thread of revelation." (68-69)

"The frame through which I viewed the world changed too, with time. Greater than scene, I came to see, is situation. Greater than situation is implication. Greater than all of these is a single, entire human being, who will never be confined in any frame." (90)

"Travel itself is part of some longer continuity." (97)

"It is our inward journey that leads us through time--forward or back, seldom in a straight line, most often spiraling. Each of us is moving, changing, with respect to others. As we discover, we remember; remembering, we discover; and most intensely do we experience this when our separate journeys converge. Our living experience at those meeting points is one of the charged dramatic fields of fiction." (102)

"Of course the greatest confluence of all is that which makes up the human memory--the individual human memory. My own is the treasure most dearly regarded by me, in my life and in my work as a writer. Here time, also, is subject to confluence. The memory is a living thing--it too is in transit. But during its moment, all that is remembered joins, and lives--the old and the young, the past and the present, the living and the dead." (104)

"As you have seen, I am a writer who came of a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within." (104)

Juie and Julia 30/01/2010

Poster from Wikipedia

Watched this during the Christmas holidays. Here's the Wikipedia link for a synopsis of the movie as well as some review and other related info.

Meryl Streep shines as Julia Child, while Amy Adams sparkles as Julie Powell. But what I liked most about the film is Nora Ephron's brilliant screenplay woven out of Child's autobiography and Powell's memoir (based on her blog).

And of course, the scrumptiously photographed culinary dishes.