Cinemalaya 2011 fields relevant, significant features

“NIÑO.” A bittersweet dirge for the vestiges of a lovely, lambent and music-enveloped past.

At this writing, we’ve watched three of the films on view at the ongoing Cinemalaya indie festival, and the good news is that all of them are decidedly viewable.

That’s a tribute to the festival’s organizers, especially Laurice Guillen and Robbie Tan, who work directly with the entrants and jurors to keep the competition’s standards high.

We’re writing about the opening film, “Maskara,” separately, so let’s focus on the two other productions we’ve watched, Joel Lamangan’s “Patikul” and Loy Arcenas’ “Niño”:

Crime

“Patikul” is both relevant and significant, because it’s “hot off the headlines,” dramatizing the actuality-based kidnap for ransom of a public school principal (Marvin Agustin). Before that actual crime is committed, Lamangan’s film shows how hard both teachers and students struggle to keep the basic educational process going in that strife-torn part of Mindanao.

They travel long distances, make-do with meager facilities and tattered, old books, and deal with danger on a daily basis. Their heroic efforts appear to come to naught when Agustin’s character is kidnapped and subsequently killed, but the film still ends in a hopeful note when it shows the students’ parents finally acting as one to protect the teachers so that their children can continue to get the education that will free them from the limiting physical and psychological shackles of the past and present.

For its part, Arcenas’ “Niño” is a bittersweet dirge for the vestiges of a lovely, lambent and music-enveloped past that can no longer be retrieved. Unlike other nostalgic movies about a fabled past, however, this production adds an instructively “contradictory” level by revealing how blighted the lives of its old-rich characters really are.

It is the unexpected juxtaposition of the artfully idealized past and the crass and shabby reality that makes this movie a compelling viewing experience.

Arcenas is aided in the depiction of this contradictory conjunction by a prodigiously gifted ensemble cast. As the film continues to unfold, they visibly crumble before our very eyes as they reveal how weak and warped the characters they play really are.

Yes, there are instances when “Niño” comes off as a bit too  reminiscent of “Portrait of the Artist as Filipino” and “Oro, Plata, Mata,” but this new film still has more than enough strengths and mordantly corruscating facets of its own to merit being seen—and celebrated.

It’s still early days for the festival’s awards phase, but we wouldn’t be surprised if, come awards night, “Niño” will end up being cited among the competition’s best bets.