FELEO. Finely focused portrayal.
As the opening film of the ongoing 2011 Cinemalaya indie film fest, Laurice Guillen’s “Maskara” sent the festival off last July 15 to a bracingly rip-roaring start. We hear tell from some privileged previewers that this year’s festival could be one of the best editions yet, and “Maskara” supports that heartening impression.
Ironically, when it was first announced that “Maskara” had been invited to open this year’s Cinemalaya, some sour-graping was heard, to the effect that Guillen “shouldn’t have joined,” because she heads the festival’s selection board. Even after it was explained that “Maskara” wasn’t going to compete for awards, the muttering persisted.
—Well, after the film’s smash-hit screening last July 15, the “issue” has been settled decidedly in favor of the film—and some viewers have even expressed gratitude that it has gotten the festival off on such a high note.
Commitment
What excited opening-night viewers about Guillen’s first “indie” movie? Its unusual and overwhelming commitment to truth—not just cinematic truth or cinema verite, but vita or “life verite.” Guillen and her scriptwriter-actress daughter, Ina, based the core of their film’s drama and conflict on something they actually experienced in their shared life as a family—the (not uncommon in the Philippine context) belated discovery that the head of their family had a daughter by another woman.
The story’s parameters have been fictionalized and tweaked to refer to top dramatic actor, Roberto Martin (Tirso Cruz III), but its reality-based core remains firmly in place, and the filmmakers should be complimented for telling their story, which is so close to them, with such insightful objectivity—without losing the emotional honesty that makes the film such a movingly empathetic experience for viewers.
Best of all, the filmmakers are able to share something so personal, and perhaps so potentially painful, genuinely without rancor, “blame,” “guilt” or recriminations: The focus is definitely not on them, but on the “other” daughter, “Anna,” played by Ina.
That amazing juxtaposition alone makes the film unique, and an instructive study of thespic involvement and distancing, given Ina’s unusually personal (and potentially inimical) links to the character she has written and is portraying.
Contradictions
To her credit, however, Ina doesn’t allow such personal complications or contradictions to intrude into her finely focused portrayal—and, when “Anna” belatedly breaks down, Ina’s performance fully vivifies her profound loss and pain, and was consequently rewarded by the opening-night audience with an unusually felt and appreciative reaction.
For their part, “nonrelatives” Tirso Cruz III as the actor and Shamaine Centenera (as his wife) brought their own kind of thespic insight to the film, as did an ensemble of other guest artists who poignantly reminisced about their recently departed friend and colleague.
This long sequence is telling and well-intentioned, but emerges as the film’s most static and rigorously verbal component, detracting from its visual and action-driven dynamism.
On the whole, however, “Maskara” is involvingly and empathetically real, because it removes all masks and reveals the throbbing truth in the wound and the scar of its protagonists’ fictive and/or borrowed and/or real lives. Consequently, an unusually exciting and revelatory night at the cinema was had by all!