Serbis

Last meeting on our cinema class, we got a chance to see an independent film "Serbis" by Brillante Mendoza starring Coco Martin. The movie starts with a woman looking at the mirror and saying "I love you's" in a seductive way and a little boy's watching her.

The story focuses on bigamy, unwanted pregnancy and probable incest which are part of their daily lives. A struggling Pineda Family who runs and lives in a small theater  in city of Angeles, Pampanga discovers that morality can be both complete and relative as they suffer each others pains and vices. The head of Pineda Clan is Nanay Flor played by Miss Gina Pareno who runs the business which shows pornographic films and serves as a meeting ground for male hustlers of every conceivable customers which the movie is entitled Service a reference to the "service boys" who continually promote fast, anonymous, unapologetic sex to every passer-by.

The film presents the repugnant,rotten disgusting atmosphere showing what reality is. I got curious on how the story will go on with Coco got her girlfriend pregnant and what is thrilling here is that Coco Martin showed his penis in this movie and with Nayda(Jacklyn Jose) seems having a secret relationship with Ronald which is her relative. And in the end, my questions were not answered. It left me hanging. Most of the scenes were shot hand held so for me it was really kinda shaky and the background was so loud. Overall, I guess I'm not a fan of these kinds of films. It's kinda uninteresting to me and its qualities are apparent only if someone appreciates cinematic style for itself.

MowelFund Museum

When I first knew we'll be having tour at Mowelfund, I was so excited because our professor told us we are going to see the history of Philippine Cinema. I was interested on what we will see and learn on how cinema started in the Philippines.

We were very lucky because we got to see the president of Mowelfund Miss Boots-Anson Roa and gave us some information about her and the museum itself and I must say she seems very nice and still a nice-looking woman. Miss Roa said that this museum was made for the behind the camera crew and staffs because what we always see are the actors and actresses and we sometimes neglect the other people who are responsible for the whole film.

When we entered the museum there is like a small cinema theater which I think wasn't taken care much of. And then to another room full of posters and tarpaulins full of information and timeline how cinema started and influenced Philippine Cinema and some first newspapers and other stuffs that are older than me which was amazing!

Then we saw the costumes, props, editing machine that were used which I appreciate and these things will always be part of the good history of Philippine Cinema. We've seen the horror room which consists of monster and aliens that were present in different movies and they're all cool.

We also learned who made great impact during that period like Gloria Romero, Dolphy, Fernando Poe Jr., Eddie Garcia and many more. Outside the museum there are life-size tv personalities but looks so un-maintained and grimy and just like put there for no use. They should have clean and give life to those things so that someone would appreciate it.

Overall I enjoyed the tour and I just hope that it can be taken care more and maintained the true beauty of our Philippine Cinema. 

Studio Sytem and Star System

In the early years of cinema,(1960's) Hollywood Studio system created and managed their movie. The Studio manipulates everything. It operates from the eyes of the director, the camera man and the audience. The stars are not allowed to request or demand because the Studio takes care all of it.

While the Star System emphasized idealistic character over acting, they create their own stars in which studios are obligated to promote but at the same time protect their stars. They are private and they cannot go wherever they want. Unlike today, the stars can tell or demand what they want and what they need and it will be granted.

Surrealism

The first thing came to my mind when I first heard the word Surrealism was unknown, unidentified which is kinda connected to the meaning of it.

Surrealism was the first literary and artistic movement to become seriously associated with cinema, though it has also been a movement largely neglected by film critics and historians.
The foundations of the movement coincided with the birth of motion pictures, and the Surrealists who participated in the movement were among the first generation to have grown up with film as a part of daily life.
 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealist_cinema).

Surrealism is characterized by bringing anti narrative that experimented with a new mode of expression called automatic writing or automatism which sought tp release uncontrolled imagination of the subconscious.

For a change I would like to share one of my favorite young actors in US.  Zachary David Alexander "Zac" Efron. I first saw him in a movie High School Musical way back in 2006. Then it was followed by two more film series which he is still the lead role. Though his character in the film was very light, I still admire him for being a good and versatile actor. After High School Musical, a new film "17 again" released in 2009, where he played the role of a young Matthew Perry. He was really good as well as the story itself.

This was one the scenes in the movie when he comforts his own daughter because she was being dumped by her boyfriend and the daughter didn't know it was his father because in this story,  Mike Perry was given a chance to be 17 again played by Zac and fixed the things he didn't have a chance way back then.

Zac played numerous roles in different movies and by now he has two upcoming films for i know that will be successful.

 

Hollywood Style

What is a Hollywood Style?

In almost an hour of the film showed to us, I am surprised at how many things they tackle and just how one becomes a movie fan to the various influences that certain directors take from the films they love and put them in their own work. I love watching movies especially the heart touching ones but before i don't really pay much attention on other details like editing or any other elements. I just watched it to fulfill my happiness or to just entertain myself.

 

 When this topic was being discussed during our class, I kinda felt bored because I am not really keen of watching old films but as the discussion goes on along with the film, I knew that these people were the one who started and studied how the motion pictures can be formed and developed and without them there would be no modern films today. The Hollywood style story is primary. It is concrete that the audience would easily understand what the director is trying to convey. Filmmakers depend on style- structure, narrative and visual elements to effectively tell their story to the audience. Its mode of production standardized the way movies were produced. The Hollywood Style became the first studio style and can produce lot of films in a year. Some of the films featured are The Wizard of Oz which was released in in 1939, The Heiress, a 1949 American drama film which was directed by William Wyler. Another film is Casablanca in 1942 a romantic drama film which said to be the greatest film in that time.
 

 

















I find this overview of the American films remarkably informative and had an impressive introduction about movies in the U.S. from the silent era to the early 1960’s. I admit that I was never interested in watching or knowing what and how Hollywood Cinema made their films but with this , I kinda find it mesmerizing. It’s an epic analysis that combines rare archival films, some scenes from immortal movies, interviews with leading filmmakers and commentary from well-known scholars and critics. For me, the history of the American films from its beginning to today provides deeper understanding, development, techniques and genres of the USA’s best films. It richly hires first person interviews and modern directors, producers, screen writers, cinematographers, actors and other movie craftsmen.  When it comes to editing they made it continuous or invisible that audience will not even noticed that the scenes are actually filmed in just a studio style.

I may not know much or deeply understand this topic but I know in time we would finally able to experience and learn the process of creating film on our later part of being a Mass Communication Student.

De Vierde Man or The Fourth Man

At the beginning of the film, I wonder what is with the spiders and webs all about and at the end, my question was answered. It shows symbolism. 

The story started with a gay writer, Gerard Reve who seen a guy on a bookstore which he followed. I got curious and I assumed that he was probably a gay. Then he rode on a train and saw a woman with a baby which started his hallucinations.  He came out of town for a speech and there he met a nice and young lady, Christine.  He always seems to be hallucinating and this with the young lady it started to drive him crazy. Then he went with Christine who is very rich and works on a salon and he thought that he can find the man he followed on the train through her because Christine showed the picture of him. The story is really confusing and puzzling and as it goes on, my questions are also becoming tons because I have no idea what will happen next. 

Then Gerard gradually becoming aware of this lady had been married before three times and it bothers him if she has been divorced or did she kill them because he found tapes on how her husbands died in tragic. For me, this can also be can considered a Film noir because of the presence of femme fatale. 

As I read in some article the director Paul Verhoeven frequently claimed that he made this film, overdoing the symbolism and bible references intentionally. Lots of foreshadowing are also visible like Gerard Reve tips his glass to a statue of Virgin Mary as he takes tehe first drink of the day. Another is a woman peels an apple, then shapes peel into a halo over the boy's head.

This film is all handled in an excessive style that fills each scene with blood and sex. Gerard Reve is terrific as the intended fourth man but believed that he was saved by the woman who he first saw on the train and he considers her as Mama Mary. 

The ending was shocking and the said “fourth man” died in a very tragic way which traumatize Gerard and he thinks that it all happened because of  the nice young lady that he met.  It is highly-charged, beautifully crafted, heavily symbolic thriller is stunning. This stylish erotic thriller gained a cult following for its frank treatment of bisexuality, bizarre visuals, and an extremely good performance by Christine as a woman who may or may not have killed her three previous husbands.