As part of an internship sort of thing with Lopez Museum, I was given the task of labeling old photos taken from the sets of various LVN Studios movies. So, that's what I did all day.
I was given a set of six LVN movies from the year 1950. I only managed to complete the identification process on two of them, but that's what you get when you have to identify actors and actresses nobody has given a second thought to for at least four decades, and all you've got going for you are a stack of fragile old magazines and some commemorative industry books.
But, going through those magazines and trying to mentally restructure what the industry was like in the 50's (no golden age, to be sure, but not that far removed from the first one in Philippine cinema), I was struck by the sheer breadth of the imagination of the Filipino filmmaker of that time.
From the lavish spectacle of the "costume" movie to the simple love story, these guys had a wide range of themes and stories, and it seemed like the imagination was the only limit. Hell, these guys made films about charging knights and gun-fighting cowboys. They even made a bio picture of Genghis Khan! I can imagine how we'd have been the toast of the cinematic world then...our Genghis Khan prefigured that of Hollywood by several years. These guys even made a film on the Nibelungenlied, which was later dubbed in German and showed in Germany! They even made films in English!
So, what happened? At what point in time did our filmmakers stop believing in the story and started harping on the message? At what point did all our stories, as Dean Francis Alfar put it, boil down to mere derivatives of a boy on his carabao dreaming of escaping his poverty (or, if we look at indie film, expressing his deviant desires)? At what point did we get stuck in this nationalist, social-realist rut that has run our imaginations to the ground for the past two or three decades? At what point did we self-censor our imaginations with ideological blinders? I've gotten tired of seeing the "Filipino way of life" as these pretentious auteurs see it, with the Filipinos being nothing more than obssessively Freudian poor folk. That's why I stopped watching Filipino films.
I don't think I would've stopped in the 50's.
Has anybody tried to take the initiative of restoring these old gems?
EDIT: i stand corrected. Apparently, the 50's (and the 60's) was the Golden Age for Philippine cinema. Cool.
dont worry. there is hope. there is carlo j. caparas. masyadong maraming shits. digs?
ReplyDeleteCaparas will save us all, dude. ;)
ReplyDeleteexactly :)
ReplyDeleteproblema dito kung derivative lang ulit siya.
ReplyDeletepoint, sarah: ang munting prinsesa. the first one with camille pratts was pretty decent but they shat on it by making a tv soap...
Doesn't have to be derivative. And, we don't have to milk each concept long after the teat's dry.
ReplyDeleteearly 90's provided a bit of hope, even if it's just sometimes plain crazy.
ReplyDelete"Magic Kingdom", a rip-off from "Mortal Kombat"; "Balawis", a rip-off from "Predator"; "Kabayo Kids", a parody of "Bioman"; "Superwan, Two, Three", "Mighty Mouse and the Robo-Rats", "Batman en Robin"... we also had good attempts too, like "Juan Tamad" directed by Jun Urbano; "Kalabog en Bosyo"... We also had buddy flicks like "Gwapings", "Buddy en Sol", "Miguel en Lucio", etc.
What happened to us? I think we eventually reduced our sense of success to stars, special effects, and more spectacle. We have substituted our sense of plot and protagony to a couple of cheap laughs.
Also, even if i don't like Bong Revilla that much, I enjoyed "Ang Dugo ng Panday". Too bad that Carlo J. Caparas pissed on the franchise with his "Hiwaga ng Panday", starring Jinggoy Estrada and Kris Aquino. Jinggoy even smithed the sword into a shotgun-- goddamn!
ReplyDeleteLate 90's... that's when things went downhill. Even as late as the mid-90s, we'd even attempt making vampire films.
ReplyDeleteAt this point, we were already ripping things off and recycling them...I think the malaise began far earlier than this.
ReplyDeleteOur vampire flicks were retreads of earlier pinoy vampire flicks. But, I think our movie imagination was already in the crapper by this time. Like I said, I think its earlier than this. The 80's were already pretty bad. The only genre showing any smidgen of imagination was horror, and occasionally comedy.
ReplyDeleteActually, drama too. Drama is actually faring better than comedy as Philippine drama is not too pegged on formula. "Saranggola", where a kid witnessed his dad accidentally kill another kid turned out well. Another movie with Christopher de Leon, Vilma Santos, and Aga Mulach, where Christopher de Leon had to take care of a retard Aga turned out good as well. An adaptation of Nick Joaquin's "Johnny Tinoso and the Proud Beauty"... well, it was an interesting failure.
ReplyDeleteThe two Lea Salonga movies with Aga Mulach were decent as well, a love story that actually dealt with maturity and life outside the romance.
ReplyDeleteWhat really needs serious fixing are our comedy films that have been reduced to nothing more than a series of gags, our romantic films that have been too dependent on love teams, and our action films that... oh. Our action film industry is practically dead.
ReplyDeleteDrama is too narrow a genre to cover the whole industry. Comedy and Romance are the ones dominating now. The only drama of recent are the gay flicks. Brrr.