YBCA: NEW FILIPINO CINEMA—BOUNDARY (2011)

A half hour into Benito Bautista's Boundary (2011) [Facebook] and I'm mesmerized by Bautista's orchestrated sense of foreboding, McCoy Tarnate's neon-stained and vehicularly claustrophobic cinematography, and the grating disquietude of Coke Bolipata's anxious violin score. This is Manila neo-noir, darkly beautiful and atmospheric with distrust, uncertainty, desperation and pathos.

As synopsized by Joel Shepard for YBCA's "New Filipino Cinema" series: "Boundary is set in the crowded urban roadways of Manila during Christmas. A nervous taxi driver picks up an easy-going businessman as his last passenger for the night. Their journey together to a far-flung suburb takes a wrong turn in more ways than one, and becomes a wickedly tense portrait of urban anxiety and shifting identities."

Winner of the NETPAC Award at the 2011 Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival as well as a special mention in that festival's South East Asian competition, it's easy to understand how Boundary ended up on Oggs Cruz's Top 15 Feature Length Filipino Films of 2011 at Lessons From the School of Inattention, where he praised a storyline "that unites top-level corruption with bottom-level criminality."

That storyline bears striking similarities to the urban narrative of Amok (2011), undoubtedly because it shares John Bedia's co-authorship. "New Filipino Cinema" provides a fantastic opportunity to experience Bedia's burgeoning screenwriting talent, as both of his film credits to date have been programmed into the series. Whereas Chard Bolisay was referencing Amok when he wrote that the film's denouement was a "gala of predictable outcomes and unpredictable victims", his observation could just as easily apply to Boundary. Bedia likewise seems drawn to the interior world of vehicles, momentarily safe from but ultimately encroached upon by the menace of Manila. He scripts the permeability of this boundary.

How directors Lawrence Fajardo and Benito Bautista have stylized the mise-en-scène of Bedia's confined vehicular sequences in their respective films is an equally fascinating consideration of the auteurial conversion of word to image. Amok's diurnal and sweltering visualization is in sharp contrast to Boundary's lustrous nocturnality, awash with vivid oranges and greens bleeding in from the city's neon lights, as well as the Christmas lights strung up within the cab's interior. Tarnate's containment of so much color and movement within the constraints of the vehicle is downright masterful. I found myself frequently intrigued by his shifting camera placement and wondering how even one more person (i.e., the cameraman) could fit into an already crowded cab?

In the role of the guilt-ridden cab driver, Ronnie Lazaro—who I last saw in Affliction (Yanggaw, 2008), reviewed by both Oggs Cruz and Chard Bolisay—exudes the sweaty desperation of Manila cab drivers sympathetically described by Cruz at Lessons From the School of Inattention. His fare, the ruggedly handsome Raymond Bagatsing, suggests a different temperature of menace. Together, within the confines of the cab and the guarded limits of their conversation, they reflect in microcosm the shady ways of the outer world.

Boundary negotiates its interior and exterior spaces at YBCA's "New Filipino Cinema" on Friday, June 8, 9:00PM, with Bautista in person to Q&A with his audience. I envy this opportunity as Boundary has emerged as one of my favorites from the YBCA series. Ticket info can be found here.

YBCA: NEW FILIPINO CINEMA—The Evening Class Interview With Carlo Obispo

Searingly succinct, Carlo Obispo's seven-minute short 123 (2011) is—along with Raya Martin's Boxing In the Philippine Islands (2011)—showcased in the "Sex, Drugs and the Avant-Garde: Filipino Shorts" program curated by Joel Shepard for his "New Filipino Cinema" series, screening at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) June 7 through 10, and again on June 17, 2012. It is 123's U.S. premiere. Ticket info can be found here.

123 counts out its steps from the seemingly innocent Fresh Steps dance rehearsal in the film's opening sequence to the door that opens onto one of the Philippines' most distressing social issues. Its staged brevity belies a keen focus on making its point without needless exposition. It hooks the heart and then swiftly breaks it.

Winner of the Best Short Film and the Ishmael Bernal Award for Young Cinema at the 2011 edition of the Cinemanila International Film Festival where it was commended for its "poetry, social conscience and courage to pull the rug from under our feet", 123's beauty and force lies within calm and assured camerawork by Marvin Reyes, an appropriately pensive sound design by Pepe Manikan, and evocative editing by Thop Nazareno (especially noteworthy in the film's portrait of Fatima).

My thanks to Carlo Obispo for taking time to respond to a few questions by way of email.

* * *

Michael Guillén: Introduce yourself. What kind of training or education have you had in film?

Carlo Obispo: Unlike many other directors, I did not go to a film school nor did I have any practical experience in film production. My passion for directing started in theater way back in college where I majored in Philosophy (which was my pre-course for, supposedly, Theology). I think I had always wanted to make films, though. But it was not easy to realize this, considering I was raised in a countryside where no one told me that filmmaking could be a career option.

After college in 2004, I went to Manila and worked as a writer for an entertainment production company. Having understood my intention, my boss sent me to the University of the Philippines Film Institute to attend a four-week video production workshop. This was the first time I saw how a video is made. After the workshop, the participants agreed to help each other out to make our own first films.

In 2008, I shot my second short film, Esbat, which was shortlisted at the 10th edition of the Cinemanila International Film Festival. This encouraged me to make more films. I gave myself more time to think over my plans in filmmaking. After three years, I finally came up with my third short, 123.

Guillén: How do you see yourself or situate yourself within the context of "New Filipino Cinema"? Who have been your influences? What kind of stories are you hoping to tell in your future work?

Obispo: I've always felt happy watching stories that make me feel sad. Those movies seem timeless. Whenever I watched a good film, I always hoped that I could be the writer of the story. I remember watching the screenplays of Ricky Lee [IMDb] and telling myself to write something like that too. I guess that's how the spark started. New Filipino Cinema tells us that the Philippines have more wonders than what we'd ever thought. And the international success of many Filipino directors has been a huge inspiration for new filmmakers like me. As a filmmaker, I want to continue to tell stories that will make viewers realize that something has been taken for granted.

Guillén: Talk to me about your short film 123, its genesis, how you settled upon its theme, and your approach?

Obispo: This seven-minute film had a long evolution. After Esbat in 2008, I attempted to write a full-length screenplay about a young street boy vis-à-vis the words of Philippine hero José Rizal who said, "Children are the hope of the nation." Along the way, I realized there were just so many possible issues to tackle that the screenplay would sound like a festival of conflicts. So I decided to split these issues into short films.

As a teacher, I initially wanted to write about education; but, one time when I was in Cebu City, I saw a poster at the land port that said,"STOP CHILD TRAFFICKING" with a picture of children being taken away somewhere in a truck. One of these children was a girl who looked deeply distressed, as if she had been silently weeping. I felt my heart explode. I decided then and there that the theme of my next film would be child trafficking.

As I drafted the script, I wanted the audience to share the same feelings I was experiencing during research and concept development and knew this issue had to be addressed quickly and as frankly as possible. I knew the opening scene had to involve the audience right away so that later on they would realize that the opening scene, including the title, were just the surface of something deep and dark.

Guillén: How has the win at Cinemanila encouraged or assisted your filmmaking?

Obispo: The recognition 123 has received has meant one thing to me: that I should be more bold and prolific in filmmaking. At first, I thought of making a film just when I felt the time was right or when I felt like doing it; but after Cinemanila, I decided to work more seriously in preparing for my future plans. 123 has made me realize that there are more hidden stories that have to be told. In this respect, filmmaking has become more of a responsibility.

Guillén: 123 is distinguished by a collaborative ethos. Talk to me about how you interacted with your editor, your sound designer, your cinematographer and, of course, your young actors.

Obispo: Artistic freedom, constant communication and our trust with each other played a very important role in this project. It was our first time to work under my direction and we did not have an actual pre-production meeting. Most of the crew lived in Manila, whereas I lived in the province that served as our shooting location. I would have to phone them one by one to talk things out. There was, however, no difficulty communicating ideas with them. After sending them the script, I asked them how they each wanted to go about their treatment? After exchanging a few notes with each other, we all arrived at a common ground. During the photography, it was fun and enjoyable. The same held true with the editing and music. Since we all lived in different places, we sent each other rough cuts and notes through email. I let the editor have the final touch on the project and—when I saw the finished output—I felt myself carried away, as if I didn't already know the whole story.

This was our same approach with our young actors, who were all first-time actors. The natural innocent look was very crucial so I did not want to give so many instructions that they would become self-conscious about their actions. One of the male dancers, Leo, choreographed their steps as simply and enjoyably as possible and I just let them move freely. To put them at ease, I constantly talked with them about their normal daily routines as if we were not filming.

The portrait of Fatima, however, was different in that she had to internalize a certain character who had a story of her own. I wanted the cinematography, editing and music to be distinct from the rest of the treatment, more dynamic, with more evident emotion. It took us some time to complete that sequence. The actress was very patient. We took as much footage as possible so that that we could accommodate editing and scoring.

Guillén: What do you dream for yourself as one of the new voices in New Filipino Cinema?

Obispo: It is such a precious fulfillment to have someone moved by a film I've made. Being one of the new voices in New Filipino Cinema poses a challenge for me to move on and dream bigger. It is my dream to find opportunities that will give me chances to dive deeper and bring up stories that have been waiting to be free.

Photo of Carlo Obispo by Ralph Eya.

YBCA: NEW FILIPINO CINEMA—The Evening Class Interview With Raya Martin (by Alex Hansen)

In the "New Filipino Cinema" series curated by Joel Shepard for San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), Raya Martin's seven-minute short Boxing in the Philippine Islands (2011) has been grouped into a program entitled "Sex, Drugs and the Avant-Garde: Filipino Shorts." Shepard synopsizes this shorts program: "With a lurid title but a serious intent, this program of new shorts will give you a taste of the work of nine younger artists from all over the archipelago. Featuring a little bit of everything—doc, drama, experimental, and even some student work—this is a great intro to the contemporary film scene. All films (except Boxing in the Philippine Islands) are U.S. premieres." Ticket info can be found here.

Raya Martin was born in 1984 in Manila, Philippines. He graduated from the University of the Philippines Film Institute in 2005 and worked as a writer and researcher in local television, newspaper, radio and online magazines. His short film The Visit (2004) won the Ishmael Bernal Award for Young Cinema at the 2004 Cinemanila International Film Festival, and his documentary The Island at the End of the World (2005) won best documentary at the .mov International Digital Film Festival 2005. His first feature film A Short Film about the Indio Nacional (Or The Prolonged Sorrow of the Filipinos) (2005) won the Lino Micciche Award at the Pesaro Film Festival, Italy in 2006. He is the first Filipino filmmaker to be accepted into the prestigious Cannes Festival Cinefondation Residence in Paris, France.

Idaho filmmaker and Evening Class intern Alex Hansen—who has an admitted interest in all things avant-garde and experimental—conversed with Martin regarding Boxing in the Philippine Islands and enquired after Martin's craft and practice within the contemporary Filipino film community. The Evening Class extends its thanks to Alex for his welcome contribution.

* * *

Alex Hansen: Tell me about Boxing in the Philippine Islands?

Raya Martin: It was a commissioned work for a public park exhibit in Manila. At the time, I was obsessed with drugs after researching for my last feature Buenas noches, España (2011) but it was impossible to do something around that. So I thought about making something around sports or fitness, and it happened that a Manny Pacquiao fight coincided with the exhibition. I went to look for current boxing underdogs in the province and shot them with a pinhole that I made with a digital camera during their training. When I came to editing, we found footage of Pacquiao rehearsing and played with it using an analog camera. The analog dirt looked energetic enough to box our pinhole footages, so I thought, why not put them together? The work became a visual arena.

Hansen: Your shorts seem to lean more towards the experimental side, at least on the surface level—they "look like experimental films"—while your features seem to work these experimental tendencies into a more conventional appearance. Does your approach differ whether you're working on a short or a feature? Did your approach to Buenas noches, España, which "looks" like the shorts, differ from the previous features?

Martin: I'm a frustrated experimental filmmaker, but also because of my cultural background I have a love-hate relationship with the narrative. My "proper" cinema schooling was simultaneous art house and avant-garde works: discovering Tarkovsky and Brakhage at the same time while I was in film school. It just meshed into this consciousness in me and that's how I started seeing things around me. That's probably why I jump here and there: documentary, fiction, experimental elements... Buenas noches, España and Boxing in the Philippine Islands were made around the same time and that's probably the only reason why they feel related to each other; but, for me they're different. All of my works are different from each other, or at least they try to be.

Hansen: What prompted your interest in using history as creative fuel?

Martin: The blatant historical references come from my personal background. My parents, especially my father, were activists during the dictatorship era. He also happened to be a huge historical buff, mostly local, regional stories, which explains our modest library of Filipiniana books at home. Those were my childhood books, playmates, while most of my friends who I grew up with had other "timely" things to read or play with. I'm trying to grow out of it though.

Hansen: What is it about the filmmaking scene in the Philippines that has allowed it to become a breeding ground for such a surge of interesting and exciting work?

Martin: The Philippines is really a strange, beautiful country. It's neither Asian nor American, but we're also both in a lot of sense. Our lives are bound by American rules: we speak your language really well, and we dream of Hollywood all the time. But also we're a poor country, and we have to make do with what we have. So it becomes this bastard scene of your film industry. It's wretchedly beautiful. I don't think there's much difference with how we work as filmmakers here than in the U.S. I don't believe in national cinema. It's just become this monster, this ghost that exploded the past couple of years, but it's not there. It's also like sex tourism, they all come here and it's one big playground because we all look the same in bed, and we're like, hey this works, let's build this. But I don't feel we're critical with how we work here. Most of the filmmakers do independent works as name cards for studios. Sometimes it works, but most of the time they're just imitations. But maybe delicious imitations nonetheless.

Hansen: A commonality that all the work coming out of the Philippines seems to share is looking to the surroundings / environment, history, and local culture for subject matter and inspiration versus the "dream factory" Hollywood mindset that a lot of American independent filmmakers try to emulate. Do you think the lack of familiarity with these sources lessens the impact for foreign viewers? For instance, I wouldn't know Manny Pacquiao is a congressman if it hadn't been for a commercial I'd seen (and since I can't remember what was being advertised, it apparently wasn't a very successful one).

Martin: The beauty of working in the Philippines is that the creative minefield is really bottomless—we live on so many layers—but, at the same time we're never apologetic about our parochialism. We love our own little bubble, and it's up to all of you to take all those references and do your homework. We probably stole that arrogance from the colonialist mindset. It's some form of resistance, a backwards version, but a resistance nonetheless.

Hansen: What was the first piece of work you created that felt like you had successfully expressed something? In my work I tend to intuitively piece a film together as I go. As a result, while they've had certain qualities, I've never felt my early films have been completely successful (until my latest piece, which still feels like dumb luck more than artistic intent). Does the end result matter as much to you as the journey it takes to get there?

Martin: When I did my first short film in high school, which seems to be missing now, I knew that this is what I wanted to do. I come from a family of writers, and when I did try it out it became this huge frustration. I needed my brother to double-check for me all the time, so then I couldn't operate on my own if he wasn't available. But working on images feels more natural to me, that's why I love it. I could be alone, but at the same time I'm very good working with people. Soul mates. I take the end product seriously. For me, it's like dressing up in public when you go out of the house. You want to be comfortable. You want to be respectable. But at the end of the day it's who you really are, how you've raised it. Shooting a film is probably the best feeling in the world. We can shoot for two days straight and still won't be unfazed. It's a really magical feeling.

Hansen: How do you feel about your work being shared on the internet? As a viewer, it's been a blessing for me. Living in Idaho, I wouldn't have any other opportunities to see your work. How much does it help or hurt your opportunities as a filmmaker? I can't imagine there are a lot of companies clamoring to release your work on DVD here in the U.S. (though if they did, I'd be the first in line).

Martin: I love the internet. I love piracy. That's how we got our early education of films because we couldn't just buy from Amazon every time. This was when the internet was just starting to boom, and then eventually we'd share each other's downloaded stuff. The whole idea of capitalism labeling piracy or the internet being a threat to creativity is bullshit. The artists don't get paid, sure, but they always haven't been paid or treated well before these things exploded. I don't have DVD distribution of any of my films. They're all just there floating. In the beginning I concentrated on just making them. There was too much coming out of me at the time that—whenever my producer wanted to sit down and talk about proper distribution—I would always delay it. I can breathe better now so hopefully we can do something about that.

Hansen: Perhaps a better way to have phrased my earlier question about the distinction between filming shorts or features would be to say that your shorts—Track Projections (2007), Ars colonia (2011), and Boxing) play more with the medium and the material aspects of cinema while your features play more with conventions (running time, shot duration, etc.). Buenas noches, España is more a mixture of the two different modes. Not sure there's a question there, but anyway.

Martin: I don't think I'm conscious about those things. I love my mash-ups. It's an elementary level of dialectics but I'm a kid like that and there's something pure about it. I could listen to Nine Inch Nails while watching Buster Keaton. I have to add that I'm also a frustrated structuralist.

Hansen: You mentioned earlier that—because of your cultural background—you have a love-hate relationship with narrative. Does your inclusion of radio drama, television, and old films (as elements in Now Showing (2008), for example) relate to this? Perhaps the frustrated experimental filmmaker in you subverts this material in order to reject how it fixes characterization and temporality into the narrative?

Martin: Our idea of time is much different than what is propagated here. Despite our stance, we are islanders. Our sense of time is dictated by nature. There's a lot of waiting. We are very patient people. I like finding odd things in different media, though. I grew up listening to radio dramas, and then moved on to a lot of television shows where they show all these classic local films. But my generation has encountered them in odd ways: dramas are interrupted intermittently by advertisements, as opposed to watching them on the big screen, or on stage. The more you fight this reality, the more it won't make sense. So I try to embrace this.

Hansen: Your description of the filmmaking scene in the Philippines—doing the work to get noticed by the studios; being enamored with Hollywood—sounds comparable to filmmaking in the States. I imagine the main difference might be that American independent filmmakers often resist making do with limited resources, waiting instead until they have enough money to shoot with this latest and greatest camera or that high-end piece of equipment. Everything has to be done "right" or why bother? "If it's not done right, I won't get to direct the next Batman." What do you feel are the benefits of simply getting out what needs to get out versus sitting on ideas until they can be executed perfectly?

Martin: It’s survivalism. There are just more institutions willing to support your laziness than there are over here. If we had the luxury of that process—which I actually learned during my stay in Paris and tried to apply in a project like Independencia (2009)—then I'm sure we'd be more alike as filmmakers. Unfortunately, the government is not as supportive in funding cultural works, and the idea of arts and culture for private funding is just more backwards than it is there. Our arts education isn't non-existent, but it's a few decades behind. I've encountered artists from the province who come to Manila and discovered that it's possible to do something beyond painting landscapes or sculpting politicians. Nudes are still considered progressive. Just imagine if we try to pitch this thing called "cinema."

Hansen: I'm one who enjoys putting in the extra effort after watching something to better understand it, but some audiences don't like to do their homework. Are you ever conscious of how a viewer (no matter where they're from) will respond to a film while you're making it? Does that influence you in any way? Does it matter to you how big of an audience your work gets? If two people "get" and enjoy your films, does that offset the thousands who might be baffled by what they've seen or disregard it shortly afterwards?

Martin: If I did succumb to the idea of an audience present from the beginning, I wouldn't be able to come up with these works at all. It was probably luck, anyway, being stubborn about this process of creation. One of my favorite stories comes from Kidlat Tahimik, who happened to be my mentor in college, and is a good friend of Werner Herzog. During their younger days, Kidlat rode with Herzog to some far-flung town for a screening and asked why they had to go all the way just for a screening, unsure if people would even watch there. Herzog said that one has to go to his audience and cultivate it. Only businessmen count their present paying audience. We never learn from Van Gogh.

Of related interest: Raya Martin's Tumblr page.

YBCA: NEW FILIPINO CINEMA—NIÑO (2011)

The 2010 edition of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) introduced me to Filipino cinema. I took a festival studies approach to SFIAAFF's Filipino sidebar (Filipino Cinema and "Imagined Communities") and compiled a critical overview of Lino Brocka's Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (You Have Been Weighed and Found Wanting, 1974) as a sampling of SFIAAFF's mini-retrospective honoring Brocka. Then I solicited and retained the cooperation of the three Philippine film critics championed by Alexis Tioseco in his piece "Wishful Thinking for Philippine Cinema"—Francis "Oggs" Cruz, Eduardo "Dodo" Dayao, and Richard "Chard" Bolisay—all three who consented to interviews. Oggs and Chard further granted permission for me to republish their reviews of Yanggaw (Affliction, 2008). I enjoyed working with and learning from all three of these young gentlemen so much, that I continue to solicit their advice and counsel concerning all films Filipino to this day.

Thus, I was especially pleased when Joel Shepard advised of an upcoming program of "New Filipino Cinema" programmed for Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), June 7-10 and June 17, 2012. Featuring 29 films, 24 of them U.S. premieres, "New Filipino Cinema" is the most comprehensive survey of contemporary Filipino cinema presented in the United States. Shepard explains: "New Filipino Cinema is a big fat snapshot of the diverse range of filmmaking going on right now—narrative features, documentaries, and experimental work. The clichéd images of the Philippines that most foreigners are familiar with are of poverty, prostitution, and crime. Those social ills are represented in this series, but they absolutely do not define this complex and extraordinary country. It's important to understand this. I was also careful to represent filmmaking taking place outside of Manila, and to include many women directors."

"New Filipino Cinema" kicks off on Thursday, June 7, 2012 with an opening reception to welcome director Loy Arcenas, who will be attending his opening night film Niño (2011). My Philippine colleagues Oggs Cruz and Dodo Dayao encouraged me to watch Niño when it screened earlier this year at the 2012 Palm Springs International Film Festival, and I found it to be an enjoyable and affecting melodrama about a family as worn about the edges as the delapidated house in which they live out their circumscribed lives. The patriarch has fallen into a coma and his sister Celia, a former opera star, tries to miraculously revive him by dressing her grandson up as Santo Niño de Cebú, the Philippine variant of Santo Niño de Atocha, seen here wandering whimsically far from his holy chair, running throughout the old house, and among the complicated—if not quite modern—lives of its inhabitants. The film's comic flourishes are its highlights.

Shepard deepens the perspective: "The image of the child Christ, the Santo Niño, holds special significance to the Filipino faithful. It is said to cause miracles, the idol a perfect representation of the country's strange conflation of religion and superstition. It is why a young boy has been dressed up as the Santo Niño in this clever dissection of a fading aristocratic family. With the patriarch fallen ill, the debts piling up, the house crumbling, and the family falling apart, all that's left is to pray for a miracle. With studied grace, Niño explores a social class rarely depicted in Filipino films, revealing a deeply human core to aristocracy."

At Lessons From the School of Inattention, Oggs Cruz details that exploration: "There is a reason why people are fascinated with ruins, despite the evident disrepair and decay. Ruins are permanent reminders of a distant glorious past. In Loy Arcenas' Niño, the Lopez-Aranda clan is portrayed with the same fascination, as if the family were ruins on display: the bits of opera that Celia sings to bedridden Gaspar with her aging soprano are the broken columns, the stories told by Gaspar of his blossoming political position are the damaged statues, and the rustic house, its remaining furniture and ornaments and the anecdotes of the loyal household help of the house's former prominence are the collapsed edifices, the wilted gardens, the burnt arcs, all of which are faint indications of the family’s expired extravagance." For a first-time filmmaker, Cruz finds Niño a "feat to behold", and stresses Arcenas' "disciplined craftsmanship."

At Piling Piling Pelikua, Dodo Dayao writes: "Fides Cuyugan-Asensio is indomitable as the lapsed diva and her temperament becomes the film's: skittish, fractious, wistful, elegant, and just the tiniest bit cuckoo."

Blurbs On Contemporary Filipino Films adds: "The effort to create an envelope-pushing film concocted over jaunty pieces of melodrama, gothic humor, opera music and camp with a Hallmark strain that’s too close for comfort, warrants some recognition. But it is through Rody Vera's excellent screenplay that we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel the angst the characters lived through, with their varied forms of displacement and agony rattling in the most smoldering of friction."

At Pelikula Tumblr, Jansen Musico has a brief conversation with Arcenas, wherein he explains: "Rody and I love irony and we much agreed how much irony fills up our daily lives. We wanted to explore this in the film, within the context of a comedy of manners. But Filipino life is a hijinks of comedy and sorrow and so we decided that Niño should be a study of the present Filipino psyche walking the fine line between tragedy and comedy."

Preceding the film, Alleluia Panis of Kularts will perform "Ritwal" with vocalist Kristine Sinajon.

ARGENTINE CINEMA—Lucrecia Martel on La Ciénaga

In yet another masterful programming coup, Joel Shepard scores one for the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts with—not only the Bay Area premiere of Lucrecia Martel's latest film The Headless Woman—but a retrospective of her earlier films La Ciénaga and Holy Girl with Martel present at both La Ciénaga (in conversation with her audience) and The Headless Woman (in conversation with B. Ruby Rich). Both evenings of her on-stage appearances sold out in advance and—judging by last night's enthused audience for La Ciénaga—her Bay Area appearance marks a singularly-anticipated event for a veritable who's who of San Franciscan cinephiles. This is one of those in-cinema experiences buttressed by its social texture in which I am delighted to have taken part.

After confessing he has seen La Ciénaga four times and aware that Martel based the story on memories of her own family, Joel Shepard kicked off the questioning by enquiring what Martel's family thought of her highly personal debut feature?

"There are several versions," Martel quipped. Before the film was finished, Martel showed her brothers a VHS version. They reacted that no one would understand the film because it was more like a home video of their family. Her great uncle—on whom she based the character of Gregorio (Martín Adjemián), husband to Mecha (Graciela Borges)—claimed not to understand anything in the film, to which his wife objected, "What do you mean you don't understand anything? You're just like Gregorio." Although the character was based on her great uncle—who Adjemián never met—her great uncle's wife recognized her husband in the actor's performance. As for her mother, she thinks Martel is the best director in the world.

Noting that each of her films contain complex—sometimes overwhelming—sound designs, Shepard wondered if Martel thought of the visuals and the sound separately when developing a film?

With La Ciénaga, Martel wasn't quite sure what her system would be since she'd not had much experience making cinema. Having never attended film school, she had no awareness of a working method. Martel qualified that she did achieve some schooling but wasn't able to carry through due to problems Argentina was facing at the time. That being said, when she conceives a film, sound precedes image. She based her dialogue on the oral sounds of family life; overheard phrases that are second nature to her. The sound design is thus already composed by the time she goes to the set to shoot the film. Although she doesn't know exactly how she's going to film things, the sound is already set.

Shepard suggested that repeated viewings of La Ciénaga have revealed its frequent comedy: Mecha is such a bizarre personality while Gregorio's personality is defined by how he dyes his hair. Tali (Mercedes Morán) becomes humorously obsessed with traveling to Bolivia. Not sure whether he was reading comedy into the film, he asked if Martel intended it?

Her family laughs a great deal when they watch the film, Martel replied, but she suspects the film's humor is provincial, and not necessarily funny to everyone.

Shepard shared some reviews he found of La Ciénaga that amused him for being obtuse. Entertainment Weekly claimed La Ciénaga "had too much integrity for its own good" and, elsewhere, one critic complained that Martel was asking way too much of her audience. Which led him to consider the larger issue of Martel's relationship to her audiences and if she thought about them while making her films?

Audiences are the only reason a filmmaker makes cinema, Martel insisted. However, you are born alone and you die alone in your own body. Love, conversation, language, sex: they're all attempts in some way to overcome so much loneliness. Cinema is a great opportunity—a possibility—for the viewer to immerse himself into the loneliness of the filmmaker's body in order to share it. Of course, it often happens that a viewer leaves a film without that happening; but, the intention is to have that happen. When that connection does happen, it's incredibly glorious. Sometimes that experience is a matter of seconds, and not the whole time of a film, which Martel has discovered through the comments made by her audiences where the point of relation is not inherent in the film itself, but the way the film reminds them of experiences they have had in their own lives.

As for the comment that she asks way too much of the viewer, Martel can accept the criticism, even as she understands that the viewer is sometimes prepared, sometimes not prepared for a demanding cinematic experience. Whether or not a viewer connects with her film has nothing to do with whether the film claims too much importance, or whether one viewer is more intelligent than another, or more interested in the film. The cinematic experience—favorable or disfavorable—is composed of mere moments.

Asked whether it was difficult to get La Ciénaga financed and produced, Martel admitted to extreme luck because Argentine producer Lita Stantic advised her to send the film to Sundance, which she did, and where she won the prize for best screenplay. This helped secure funding to complete the project. What was strange about Sundance was that they encouraged her to change the ending of her screenplay because—from the point of view of the jury—they saw the film as being about alcoholics and alcoholism. They suggested that the accident Mecha had at the very beginning should be at the end. Martel countered, "Well, maybe. But since the film is not about alcoholism, that's just the way it is."

Initially in 1997 she tried to finance the film with money from within Salta, the northwestern province of Argentina where she's from. She spent a lot of time in the city of Salta, capital of the province, trying to make arrangements with the bank and convincing investors to finance the film. In the meantime, she was also trying to do some casting in a garage that was close to her house. She interviewed people of all ages from 9:00 in the morning to 9:00 at night. She taped these interviews. As it turned out, the experience was extraordinary for her. The people she cast from those interviews in 1997 then took part when the film was shot in 1999. That's why she offered them thanks for their patience in the film's closing credits.

Respectful that Martel's script for La Ciénaga won the prize at Sundance, one fellow wondered how closely that script matched the final film? Especially with regard to the seemingly improvised performances of the children? On a related note, he wondered how Martel cast the children and how she worked with them to achieve such natural performances?

Martel assured the young man that the film looks a lot like the screenplay except for a few scenes that she had to cut out for budgetary reasons and length. As for her system with working with actors, Martel doesn't have one, claiming every actor is different. She can't have a single system to talk to such different people. But when working with actors, and especially children, she tries not to change the written lines. She leaves them alone and avoids improvisation because the writing itself is a complex process and a difficult balancing act so—to begin improvising on the script—would change the film too much. However, because some child actors are truly monsters, she doesn't show them the written lines. She tells them what to say. If she shows them the written lines, some child actors try too hard to memorize them and lose the natural quality in their acting. She talks to them about things that look and sound like the written words but avoids showing them the literal script.

It's a curious thing, Martel added, when you're trying to work with actors to film a scene and it doesn't come off natural. She realized that—if you're really paying attention to the graphic pauses in the text and how it relates to what's happening in the scene—the graphic pauses reproduce almost identically. So it's the use of the air in these pauses, the use of the space, that will achieve a natural effect. Actors are often not trained, however, to do that. It's especially difficult with children.

When she sought to cast the children, she tried different things to help them concentrate. There is a serious problem that develops between the time you write a script and when you go to cast it and then when you finally go to film it. The boy she cast for the role of the little boy had grown into a big boy by the time she got to filming. The secret to working with children and non-actors is to have a good relationship from the time you're casting. Casting, first of all, is not to try to find out talent—which many directors think is the case; they believe the actor has to do something—but rather, casting is more an opportunity to find out what you dare ask of somebody and what you're really trying to accomplish. Casting determines your own limitations as a director, whether you are prudish or courageous in what you ask of your actors.

As for images of children in film, Martel stressed that the word that ruins the image of a child is the whole idea of "innocence." Innocence doesn't mean anything. The idea of a child's innocence is an invention by adults to withstand the fact that a child has his own life, and often his own sexuality. Whenever Martel writes, she thinks about the fact that there is a mystery or a secret that she's not aware of. That's why in her films you only see fragments. She doesn't attempt to create psychological characters because then viewers start getting caught up in those ideas of innocence and purity.

Martel was asked if she performed her own cinematography? She replied that, of course, she framed the shots but the actual camera work was done by the extraordinary director of photography Hugo Colace.

The narrative traction of La Ciénaga is unique for not depending upon standard resolution. Notwithstanding its irresolute aesthetic, the movie compellingly moves forward. One young man wanted to know how Martel accomplished that?

La Ciénaga, Martel explained, as well as her other two films are based on a traditional oral structure. Conversation is a perfect example and, specifically, a conversation with her mother. After 40 minutes of talking on the phone—in which she and her mother discuss everything—Martel still doesn't know what her mother is trying to tell her. But when the conversation is over and Martel asks herself what it was about, she comes to a gradual understanding of how all that has been said ties together. Though she loves this way of working, it is—of course—problematic when it comes to marketing a film because audiences like to have tidy resolutions to their films. Then they would be able to recommend the film to their friends. Often, she has had viewers admit after seeing one of her films that they didn't really like it only to have them advise a few weeks later that—after sitting with the film—they really liked it; but, by then, the film is out of the theaters so they can't recommend it to their friends. The structure of oral narrative is something we are all trained to do by the nature of sustaining a conversation. We all know how to keep each other talking in conversations that don't have a beginning, middle or end.

Curious about the presiding meaning of La Ciénaga, one fellow wondered if it had to do with Martel's previous statement about being born alone and dying alone and that existential wrestle with life? He wondered what world view she was trying to get across?

Martel explained that, for her, La Ciénaga is a film about abandonment; a human being abandoned by divinity, by God if you will. She conceded this was wholly a personal point of view. A lot of people who have seen the film think it is about decadence; whereas for Martel, decadence is what gives her the most hope in this world. Anyway, the happiest parts of the film are about decadence.

Questioned about the sensual relationships between José (Juan Cruz Bordeu) and his cousins, and whether this denotes an ease in Argentine familial relations where siblings are more relaxed with each others' nudity, Martel joked that, unfortunately, when we think about Latinos, we think about Jennifer Lopez and reggaeton. That's the fantasy of the Latin body that satisfies gringo desire. As far as Martel is concerned, desire within a family is something that circulates, rather than being concentrated or personified in any single individual, object or action. Martel qualified that—with concern to this topic—she prefers not to say everything she thinks because she knows that a lot of people have lived through heartbreaking situations in such environments. Yet it seems to her that desire always overflows and goes beyond the norm. In other environments we have words to articulate concepts of desire; but, it's complicated within the family environment.

Intrigued by Martel's earlier statement that she approaches her filmmaking as if there is a mystery or a secret that she's unaware of, I ventured that the image of the steer stuck in the film's titular swamp likewise holds some kind of profound secret for me, especially because the children are obsessed with tormenting it in its misery. If, as she stated earlier, La Ciénaga is about the abandonment of divinity, I wondered if she was saying that—absent that divine impulse—humans are more susceptible to inherited notions of classism, racism and sexism, which the film observes unflinchingly? Do we get stuck in a place where—without inner wisdom—we rely on received and faulty knowledge?

Martel graciously offered that—when she writes—she tries to stay as far away from deliberate metaphors and symbols as possible; but, she understands that the need to create metaphors and symbols is a human way of amusing ourselves. She honestly—at least not consciously—didn't conceive of the steer stuck in the swamp as a metaphor for stagnation. With regard to abandonment by the divine, La Ciénaga ends before it becomes explicit that the only means of salvation is within and among ourselves. She understands that the viewer can relate this to the animal stuck in the swamp, but this was nothing she endeavored consciously or intentionally.

As for her next project, Martel has been writing an adaptation of a famous Argentine comic book regarding an alien invasion; but—since she doesn't know what's going to happen with that project—she's gone back to another topic, related to The Headless Woman, also within the fantastic genre. It's likewise about an alien invasion but the aliens are unknown relatives who invasively visit.

Cross-published on Twitch.