An engaging article about the MMFF and its purpose!
I DON’T know how to make of the awards night of this year’s annual Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF). Some entertainment writers describe it as glitzy. I don’t know what they mean by that. If it means “flagrant” and “showy”, then perhaps there were many of those. But if it means “garish” and “gaudy”, then the night was that, too. Maybe, “uneven” and “tentative” are the better modifiers. And sad.
The signals were confused that night, and the art of symbolizing greatly suffered from the presence of local officials whose role in the event is the result of a dictator’s imagination. I have nothing against local officials—elected or appointed—to be part of the country’s interest in the film industry. But when the definition of what is good and beautiful (see how these things can be co-opted?) is placed in their hands, then we know something’s off and odd somewhere.
After more than 30 years, I still wonder why we agree with the artistic decision of local leaders who were elected to take care of our sewers and canals instead of our cinema, and to judge the worthiness of traffic lights instead of those products that come out of the klieg lights. I am, of course, puzzled that producers and directors give up their rights over the assessment of their works over tax exemptions that can be negotiated outside of film festivals.
What we beheld that night—as in other past awards nights—was a festival that blatantly mixed popularity (as in quantity) with assumed art (quality). The films that secure the big audience, by this rule, qualifies to be judged as the better and the best also with content. Immediately, the logical and the discerning among us would say that the film that is well attended may not be the best in quality. This is an old issue but it is an issue that never dies because no one ever tries to finish it off.
Let us read then the awards night for what they are: awards.
These awards may not tell us in the acceptable or global way what kinds of films we produce, but they certainly tell us or indicate for us what we think and see as good films. With that major award comes also our own sense of what is good acting, good camera work, good child acting, good storytelling and good screenplay. Throw in the categories of good music and other standard assessment areas.
For the MMFF, there are other unique traditions. There is the search for the Gender-Sensitive Film. Whoever came up with this category must not be gender-sensitive.
The films are ranked from third to first place. It is a generous way of honoring the works of film producers and filmmakers. And yet, that generosity is duplicitous. What functions in this generosity is not aesthetics but politics. The more people get the prize/s, then more people are served and made happy. It is the mentality of doleouts, less in volume but more in numbers. Thus, at the nominee level, it is not surprising to see a slew of some five or six nominees from one film. In some situations, a film would have all actors who circle around the lead stars furiously nominated as Best Supporting Actor/Actress. It becomes a tough field. It becomes a free-for-all. Like politics.
There is another singular ritual in the MMFF: the awarding of Gatpuno Antonio Villegas Cultural Award, a much-disputed award or category. Even as other awards are already highly contentious, this cultural award is even more controversial not for what it purports to recognize but what it fails to explain as that which the award recognizes. For an award that acknowledges the link between excellent film and culture, the Gatpuno Antonio Villegas Cultural Award really partakes of that which we also do not understand: our own cultures.
Ask yourself: When does a film exhibit Filipino values? What values should be in a particular Filipino film that it should merit our attention and an award? Who finds out about those values? How obvious should be the expression of those values? How nuanced should be the presentation?
Anyone who knows his film should know that all films exhibit values. Perhaps, next time, the MMFF awards committee should identify what kinds of values they would be looking for. I can imagine already the words that these people will employ: pakikisama, utang ng loob and all those outdated so-called Filipino values propped up by sociologists of the ’50s when societies were seen as harmonious and homogeneous.
There is no way of finding out what goes in the deliberation for this cultural award. What we can examine are those after-the-fact results. What films won this award in the past? Katas ng Saudi and Bahay Kubo won the award in 2007. The following year, the film Baler won it and also the Best Festival Picture. Did the fact of being a period film or historical film play a big factor? In 2004 Panaghoy sa Suba received the cultural award, but failed to get the Best Picture, which was given to the Filipino-Chinese heritage film Mano Po 3. In 2003 it was not difficult to choose the Gatpuno Antonio Villegas Cultural Award: the film Filipinas was too forthright about heritage that it just had to win. That year Mano Po 2 was the Second Best Picture. In 2002 the first Mano Po won the Cultural Award even as the Best Picture plum went to Fernando Poe Jr.’s Ang Alamat ng Lawin. The film Dekada ’70, paying tribute to a crucial aspect of Philippine history, was not compelling enough to outshine the beginning of all these hand-kissing and celebration of the Chinese-ness of our heritage. What is in this Mano Po franchise that the mind of jurors clicks to the sound of “Ah, cultural award”?
But we are forgetting something. The Metro Manila Film Festival is not really a time to judge the merits of films produced as the year ends. Ang Panday easily won the Best Picture plum because it has emerged as the top box-office earner in this year’s film festival. Not that the film is bad; it is engaging. Highly referential and, at some points, almost an imitation of those epic films about heroes from Hollywood, Ang Panday really wins because of its actors, led by Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., who are very much into the story. You sense they believe in what they are portraying and when the special effects work (because sometimes they don’t), the film takes you along a fun journey. I just wish the Lizardo of Phillip Salvador was not made into a Joker. Still, in my book, Max Alvarado remains the “Lizardo,” a man so naïve he does not understand he is truly evil. Which makes for an attractive villain. Which makes Salvador’s Lizardo a dull reference.
During the awards night, there were trophies given to the theater chains, represented by their managers, which screened the top box-office performers. That, in essence, is the Metro Manila Film Festival...from here to eternity.
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The MMFF and the Puzzle of a Festival (and also Missing Max Alvarado)
Originally Posted by sharkey360
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