MMFF Pocket Reviews

THE SUMMER Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) is ending this week, and we saw four of the eight films in the cinemas to give you a clue on what is best to watch. We’ve got body-swapping, death, a story about class and food, and two single girls.

ApagDirected by Brillante MendozaStarring Coco Martin, Lito Lapid, and Gladys Reyes

This film had its premiere at the Busan International Film Festival, and was shown in Warsaw, Bangkok, and other cities. Brilliant. It’s not as meticulously shot as Mr. Mendoza’s other works, but you can see the love in each frame.

As a homage to Pampanga, it shows the region’s rich produce and hospitality. One might think this is a movie about food (it isn’t, unfortunately, but we do need a good food movie soon), but food plays an important-enough role in setting scenes. The movie, after all, begins and ends with a feast.

Coco Martin plays Rafael, a scion of a landed Pampanga family who accidentally kills a tricycle driver in a traffic accident (both are on their way home with groceries for a party). While his father, played by Sen. Lito Lapid, takes the blame and goes to jail for it, Rafael is wracked with guilt and reaches out to the tricycle driver’s widow (a role played by Gladys Reyes that got her a Best Actress award from the Summer MMFF). We’d also like to commend Jaclyn Jose in the movie, who managed to convey a tapestry of emotions just by saying the tricycle driver had died.

Most of the film is in Kapampangan, and we’re jealous of native speakers of it because we are so sure the subtitles didn’t do it justice.

Apparently, in other countries, Apag ends happily, with all parties reconciled. The version we saw here in Manila is (spoiler!) wonderfully dark and a real bone-tingler.

Here Comes the GroomWritten and directed by Chris MartinezStarring Enchong Dee, Keempee de Leon, Awra Briguela

A religious family on its way to marry off their son hits a van full of drag queens, and their souls swap due to the earth’s magnetic field reacting to a solar eclipse. A sequel to 2010’s raunchy body-swapping comedy Here Comes the Bride, this seems to pale in comparison to its predecessor.

Angelica Panganiban’s own sense of camp in the 2010 film really worked in showing the contrast of a good girl given the soul of a camp gay man. That role is filled in by Maris Racal in this movie, and she is not as fun. Gladys Reyes is a busy lady this season, as she stars in this as well as the mother. The drag queens provide the comedic backbone of this story, but surprisingly, so does Keempee de Leon who plays a homophobe with a body occupied by a drag queen.

Single BellsDirected by Fifth SolomonStarring Alex Gonzaga, Angeline Quinto

I’m still mad that I spent P333 on this movie.

Two single girls, Rose Ann and Rosa Mae have their stories told through a radio DJ. It has an archaic take on what it means to be single (Ms. Gonzaga plays a girl who has remained celibate after a romantic failure; Ms. Quinto just really wants a boyfriend), and the cast and the color palette are incredibly loud and obnoxious. The jokes are taken from internet memes, and in its entire runtime of one hour and 33 minutes, I laughed exactly once: at the scene where Ms. Gonzaga pokes fun at jeepney remixes that combine sad love songs with club hits. Even that joke was taken from another meme.

Don’t watch this, you’ll get the same laughs anyway from the Facebook memes where the jokes come from.

Unravel: A Swiss Side Love StoryDirected by RC Delos ReyesStarring Kylie Padilla, Gerald Anderson

Kylie Padilla plays a successful woman who signs up for assisted voluntary death (ADV) in Switzerland after the breakdown of her marriage. While there, she meets the handsome and charming part-Filipino local Noah Brocker (Gerald Anderson). He convinces her to do three thrilling activities in Switzerland before going through with her plan (namely, going on the canyon swing, going to the Top of the World in Jungfrau, and skydiving). It’s a travel vlog with a very deep framing device.

Still, we thought the topic was discussed quite well, and it’s an okay movie for thinking about life and the joy it might still possess — then it gets depressing at the end. Really, not a bad movie, and we even cried a little bit (we’re thinking if we had been emotionally manipulated though; a complete possibility). We just wish this script was given to a more capable actress (we were thinking of someone a little more unhinged, a bit like Kate Winslet). — Joseph L. Garcia