By Brontë H. Lacsamana, Reporter
WHILE the seven full-length films and 24 student-led shorts of the 2nd edition of Puregold’s CinePanalo Film Festival provide an exciting array of stories from all over the Philippines to see, a shadow looms over the event due to a stark omission.
Baby Ruth Villarama’s Food Delivery: Fresh From the West Philippine Sea was dropped from the line-up at the last minute, so the documentary about the situation in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) was unable to screen alongside the seven other feature films. The reason given for its removal was the rather vague “external factors,” which elicited whispers among the crowd on the film festival’s opening night, March 14, at Gateway Mall 2 Cineplex in Quezon City.
Like last year’s Cinemalaya film festival, which canceled the documentary Lost Sabungeros for security reasons and barely screened the anti-Ayala Land documentary Asog (Cinemalaya was held in an Ayala mall that year), CinePanalo is also under the mercy of its backers and sponsors. Why the festival chose not to stand by the WPS documentary it funded is a question that will probably never be answered, though speculation abounds.
But, of course, the show must go on, and the opening night’s proceedings were outwardly lively and filled with excitement for the entries having their premieres. Robbed of the chance to see the film I was most excited to watch, I opted for two others that also seemed to delve into the depths of their respective stories — figuratively and literally, as they are both also set by the sea.
Here are my reviews:
SALUM
Directed by TM Malones
Salum (meaning “to dive” in Hiligaynon) is about a father and daughter who work as scallop divers to earn a meager living in northern Gigantes Islands, in Carles, Iloilo, where shellfish is plentiful. While this setting offers great potential to educate viewers on the realities faced by divers there, this film only lightly touches on those issues and focuses on a family-oriented story.
The narrative is simple, centered on a father’s deep love for his daughter, although he is unable to provide the comforts that she deserves. Allen Dizon takes on the role of the father, Kosko, who has been left behind by his wife who is in Japan and he now struggles to provide for his only daughter. Christine Mary Demaisip plays 13-year-old Arya who is more than happy to help out her father in diving for scallops, though she wishes they could afford to buy her a phone.
Both leads, nominated for Best Actor and Actress at the festival, assume their roles with ease. The former embodies the pressures of a father who is driven mad by his limitations and by the rumors of unimaginable wealth that can ease their situation. However, it’s kind of odd that he’s the only character who speaks Tagalog while the rest speak Hiligaynon. Demaisip, though young, is as natural an actress as she is a swimmer, expressing the concern a daughter would have for a father under pressure. Both Dizon and Demaisip can be commended for actually doing the diving in the film, too, using the round flippers called yapak that real scallop divers in the region use.
The film paints the life of Filipino shellfish divers as one filled with life-threatening risk and exploitation. We briefly see compressor diving, which differs from freediving as it uses a basic form of surface-supplied assistance in the form of a battery-powered compressor that feeds air into a long hose for a diver to use underwater. This is dangerous due to the unreliable nature of the outdated, rusty equipment that can break down at a moment’s notice, and also due to the lack of technical stops done from the depths. Kosko mentions that his father was a victim of this, as many divers resorting to the method suffer from decompression sickness that can lead to blindness, paralysis, or even death.
Then there is a rumor that one of the clams Kosko and Arya sold to a rich businessman allegedly contained a pearl worth millions. Dizon then convincingly takes on a father’s feverish descent into finding treasure to give his daughter a comfortable life. The film speaks to the dangers of letting such false hopes and ambitions lead people to their downfall, similar to how the divers resort to unsafe practices like compressor diving. But the film never clearly makes this connection, instead throwing in issues of land ownership with Kosko mentioning that his father’s family used to own Silangan Island, until they were pressured to sell it for a pittance to a developer who has now turned it into a resort.
Salum honors the perseverance of those making an honest living while also depicting the circumstances that lead them to poverty. However, its attempts to dive into (excuse the pun!) certain issues feels insufficient. Kosko’s brief madness is treated as a learning experience, though he goes so far as to wastefully shuck piles of clams and scallops and even break the law by using an unregistered boat. The tragedy of his situation, while compelling, never fully serves the realities of Filipino seafood diving that were presented in the film. Ultimately though, it’s a solid representation of the kind of uplifting story that CinePanalo is going for. That people are there to help, and that an honest living is the most noble, is a great conclusion to the drama, marked by excellently filmed diving footage. But Salum also cracks open exactly what limits projects that are submitted to the control of film fests — that the stories told are toned down to fit its limiting, uplifting, family-friendly criteria.
FLEETING
Directed by Catsi Catalan
Fleeting is a beautifully filmed love letter to the short yet sweet nature of improbable romances. It appears to be the softest and gentlest film in the lineup. It follows Janella Salvador as Gem, a dreamer who moves to Mati, Davao, to attend flight school and fulfill her ambition of becoming a pilot. There, her workaholic, fully online life clashes with the slow-living mantra of RK Bagatsing’s JC, the surfer owner of the resort and café she’s staying in, who actually turns out to be the black sheep heir of a cacao farm.
Salvador and Bagatsing, also nominated for acting awards at the festival, play their parts to perfection. This being director Catsi Catalan’s debut is not obvious as she manages to bring out the best of both the leads’ talents — a mix of ferocity and vulnerability on Salvador’s part, and a blend of arrogance and mystery on Bagatsing’s — while also giving us a nice film to look at. Fleeting is a love letter to the meeting of two worlds: the calm, meandering pace of provincial Davao Oriental and the frenetic pace and pressures of the city; the reliable ebb and flow of the waves at sea (representing JC’s love for surfing) and the overwhelming vastness of the picturesque sky (representing Gem’s love for flying); the full surrender to the present moment and the yearning to connect with the rest of the world.
There are echoes of the typical romance here, not exempt to cliched lines galore, except there is no major conflict to dramatically wedge the two characters apart. The film instead has them meet, dance around each other, come together in poignant moments of understanding, and ultimately come apart. It’s all stretched out, at times to its detriment, some parts just made to entice you to visit Mati and try sikwate hot chocolate (admittedly it entices very well!). But its approach to love is as tame and natural as a beachside view of the horizon parting the heavens and the earth.
The scenery makes for a quintessential travel-oriented romance, with Gem starting out as a basic city girl tourist on the beach who pushes for JC’s café to have Wi-Fi. None of it really goes anywhere as they are shown to easily adjust to each other later on, him agreeing to have her market the café on social media, and her no longer pushing him to install Wi-Fi.
There’s also a little issue with how the guy turns out to be rich, being able to come and go to his family’s farm as he pleases (which isn’t usually how the black sheep of any family would behave). The resort-café also seems to operate on its own logic, having existed long enough for Gem to find it despite supposedly almost going bankrupt, as if JC is so incompetent as to not know the basic rules of running a business. It’s as if his being a mysterious black sheep of a rich family is an excuse for all of this to happen — as per the formula of many other romcoms before it. Fleeting turns out to not be any different when it comes to that.
It achieves its purpose, though, promoting Mati as a picturesque destination that many audience members will want to look into for their next vacation. The premise is old and bland, yet gorgeously told as the visuals of sea and sky parallel the characters’ differing paths in life. Again, it’s good enough for a debut and fully in line with the best CinePanalo has to offer.