‘Kapatiran’ lands in H’wood Reporter

“KAPATIRAN”

PEPE Diokno’s “Kapatiran” scores a positive review from The Hollywood Reporter’s Clarence Tsui. In an essay published June 30, Tsui, who saw the Filipino film at the Karlovy Vary film fest (ongoing until July 9), describes it as “a harsh but heartening hymn set amidst the lives of both moneyed young gods and penniless plebeians.” The movie follows privileged law students undergoing initiation to join a fraternity.

Tsui asserts that “Kapatiran” is not just a spine-tingling thriller,” it offers “a raucous twist on the filth-and-fury, realist aesthetics … of Lino Brocka and Brillante Ma. Mendoza.”

The critic points out that “while eschewing the extreme grotesqueries … of Khavn dela Cruz’s ’Mondomanila,’ Diokno’s visions are equally scary.”

Tsui insists that the film is “dizzying in its structure, but deadly when it lands that fatal hook.”

In sum, “Kapatiran” shows Manila as a “living nightmare … firmly in the grip of … the claws of darkness rather than light.”Bayani San Diego Jr.