Tattoos, taboos and trading: Riddles of culture (With apologies to Marvin Harris)
A war is raging online. It is not on drugs; it is neither between nations. It is about…
Acting in ‘Tennessee Williams’s Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh’
IN February 1983, Tennessee Williams flew off alone to London, Rome and Italy. A week after, he was…
My own rhapsody in August
The clouds were few and the view of the city from above was clear. It was the right…
Virtually covering the Games
THERE is an interesting angle to the Olympics happening at present in Tokyo: the intense online streaming of…
Symbols and sports: The Tokyo Olympiad
History plays a significant role in the return of the Olympics to Japan. In 1964, Japan was granted…
‘The Politician’: Dangerously disarming
THERE is a fabulous series on Netflix. It is delicious to the senses, endearing in its evil ways.…
Minding the past
“War is a great silencer of hypocrisy.”—James H. Blount James H. Blount is the author of the book, The…
What is thing called vlog?
Practically, everyone knows—meaning, an awesomely significant number of people—what a vlog is. Video log or video blog, a…
Philippine education: Once more with feeling
(For My Mother, Liliosa Genova Valiente and all those teachers who had to cross streams and rivers to…
The barber, the tailor and the governor
THERE is a major actor on-screen and he is Arjo Atayde. The sterling proof is in this on-demand…
Shaming education
This week, a report rocked this island-republic again. The other report did not so much shock us as…
Beauty in death, violence in love
Action in Rurouni Kenshin: The Final blazes and seethes. In this world, space has seemingly forgotten its primacy…
Imperfect condolences
BY the end of the simple and moving funeral of President Aquino, Bayan Ko was played, a song that had…
Time is our enchantment
AT five in the afternoon, the light from the west was kind. I was at the porch. The…
From comics to cinema: Promising rainbows and rains
IF anyone tells me “There is this fine and funny series on TV about TV, you should watch…
The loneliness that kills
The Japanese have a term for it—kodokushi, or lonely death. This refers to, in the context of Japanese…
Wanted: ‘Extinct or Alive’
Forrest Galante is an American biologist and conservationist. But he has been called many names, like “international adventurer”…
Permanence of the ephemeral in the work of Martin Genodepa
Do they move with the wind? What happens when it rains? Do they change colors according to the…
The tricks about tributes, eulogies and the afterlife
The series of deaths among relatives and friends should have made us experts in expressing our griefs. We…
Not alone: ‘Hitler’s Circle of Evil’
Viewed from the perspective of the power dynamics among the most important members of the Nazi Party, Hitler’s…
Murdering and burying identities
sinite parvulos venire ad me Suffer the little children to come unto me…—Matthew 19:14 The news is disturbing:…
Actors on acting
MUCH as I try to efface this habit of making cinema actor-centric, the areas of performance on-screen and…
Cleaning dishes and consciousness
IT is never my duty to do some cleaning in our home. My age has exempted me from…
‘Dance of the 41’: Homophobia historicized
IT seems, whenever persecutions happen to marginalized individuals, including those seen as homosexuals or gays, judgment always happens…
Contemplating our generations
There is a long note that has been circulating online. It has different versions, having reincarnated from a…
Nora
IT is tempting, but facile, to use the wine as metaphor for Nora Aunor, with another year added…
Agua de Mayo
There is a kingdom by the sea that subsists on rains, sunshine, and lies. When May comes, they…
Fabulous travels with Joanna Lumley and two Asian pop idols
There are two friggingly fabulous travelogues in Netflix right now. One has Joanna Lumley as our indefatigable, elegant…
The diaries of the dying are the thoughts of the living
A person I knew passed away this week. Another person had called my attention to look at his…
No great lesson from ‘My Octopus Teacher’
For those not feeling buoyant as they sail over the waves of life (indulge me with this hokey…
We don’t really need another hero
There is a conflagration online, and it began with a young would-be politician from the Revilla clan praising…
To ‘Colette’ the Oscar goes: A documentary on loss
Directed by Anthony Giacchino, Colette, a short film featured in the Oculus VR game Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, is the winner of this year’s Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). Presented by Oculus Studios and Electronic Arts’ Respawn Entertainment, and later acquired and distributed by The Guardian, it is said to be the first time a video game industry project has won an Oscar.
Reconfiguring surplus and kindness
IT began in a small village: a table was loaded with vegetables and other food items and with…
Leading lives: Marlene Dietrich
“TODAY filmmakers know all about camera placement and visual angles. But TV cameras often distort contours much to…
Memories of identities
There is an online group called “Memories of Naga and Bicol,” of which I am a member. It…
‘Divine Comedy’: Journeying through truth and love
DIVINE Comedy begins with a book and ends with a book. And, in the 27-plus-minute short film of…
Counting online losses, and still hoping
WE have been counting losses online. Deaths by Covid-19. The technologies have given us symbols with which to…
The terrible beauty of dancing for life
THE story has been done many times: a person is imprisoned, convicted of a crime, and now faces…
Memories of identities
There is an online group called “Memories of Naga and Bicol,” of which I am a member. It…
‘Divine Comedy’: Journeying through truth and love
DIVINE Comedy begins with a book and ends with a book. And, in the 27-plus-minute short film of…
Counting online losses, and still hoping
WE have been counting losses online. Deaths by Covid-19. The technologies have given us symbols with which to…
The terrible beauty of dancing for life
THE story has been done many times: a person is imprisoned, convicted of a crime, and now faces…
Violating the invisible: Asian women in the US and somewhere
IT began in cinema, where else but in spaces of artifice and allure. In films, Asian women are…
Sing, racism: The invisible, invincible jazz divas
People are talking about this new Billie Holiday. We do not mean another jazz great because there could…
Restoring vision
Nothing political or ideological here, by vision, I mean that which refers to the eyes. My two eyes.…
Changing amid changes: News from the Tokyo International Film Festival
THERE is hope in our film industry. A communication from the organizers of the Tokyo International Film Festival…
Finding us
This essay is as much about the title as the content. In another century, and another domain, the…
Including and excluding: Identities in Netflix and cinema
There is a study that is appropriate for this month of March, Women’s Month. It is called “Inclusion…
Colonizing the Arts: The Case of Magellan, the Queen and the Sto. Niño
“Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”—Chinua Achebe,…
Cinema Rehiyon 13 goes global
WHEN the 12th Cinema Rehiyon ended last February 2020 in Naga City, the news of the Covid-19 virus…
Where were you during the revolution?
IT was a Sunday, the 22nd of February. I should have left by that time for Morong, Bataan,…
The melody lingers on
AND that is the title of the book I came across in a second-hand bookshop in our small…
Commemorating not our histories
When the historians of a government protest over a rapper’s own version of history in a land where…
In 1945 Manila, there was no love in the month of February
A young girl, thin as a reed, looks out of a photograph. Where and when was this taken?…
Locked down in ‘Memories of Forgetting’
A YOUNG man wakes up to the sound of coffee. He walks to a mother combing her hair…
Online ship of fools
“Self-attachment is the first sign of madness, but it is because man is attached to himself that he…
Of theater and life
IN the video, Naty Crame-Rogers is 91 and Gilda Cordero-Fernando, now also deceased, is asking her for tips…
Auguring the new head
They came one by one, ferried by dark chariots. Until they stepped out, no one could see them.…
The documentarians write and speak
DAANG Dokyu ended with a book with the same title, Daang Dokyu: A Festival of Philippine Documentaries. Important…
Writing and refusing vaccines
AS early as the 18th century, movement against vaccination were already being formed. It began with Jenner and…
Cinema quarantine
SIXTEEN filmmakers from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao were engaged by the National Committee on Cinema of the National…
America agonistes
When we recovered from the shock, we realized there was nothing unusual about Americans attacking their own capitol.…
Only women can pick up ‘Pieces of a Woman’
THE first 30 minutes of the film Pieces of a Woman must be one of the most stressful—good…
Killing words
The virus has mutated: It has turned friends into monsters and has made us judges and executioners of…
Ma Rainey’s angry blues
THERE is an angry film in town. It is not about war and killing; it is a chronicle…
Coming & going home: 2020/2021
By the last month of 2019, the forecast for the coming year, 2020, had already been released. The…
The world is waiting for the sunrise
The world is waiting the sunrise, And every rose is covered with dew. —From a post-World War 1…
A season of symbols
There is one difficult question being asked online and it is whether Christmas will push through this year.…
Women in boys’ love: Persisting and presenting—Part 2
WHERE do women situate themselves when the boys they love start loving other boys? The possibilities are varied,…
My Nipa Hut: Deconstructed, reconstructed
IT takes an anthropologist, a good one, to restore “my nipa hut” into its proper place in the…
Women loving boys who love boys: The BL Phenomenon
I CAME late into this BL phenomenon. In Ateneo de Manila University, where I taught Japanese cinema for more…
Disputing national identity
The First Great Filipino. The Filipino Artist. And the Filipino Art. Make it: The Portrait of the Artist…
The last good year
November is a tentative month. That explains its grayness, a color already captured by a poet. The early…
The critics’ choice
And so it happened that for the first time, our Gawad Urian was held online on November 10.…
Virtual anger and sadness
The Internet has developed my anger at anything. Online, I am always angry. Save for the time when…
Critics online: Gawad Urian in the pandemic world
ON November 10, 2020, our group, the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino, set a sort of record: we conducted…
Writing up a storm (written in the middle of a storm once more)
For how long will I be writing about storms and typhoons? I can understand the filmmaker who does…
Memories of Tokyo and the film fest
LAST year, my autumn was made doubly magical with my participation as a film critic in the 32nd…
At the path of Typhoon Signal No. 5
Volatility seems to color my own generational experience because, aside from trying with all my might to survive…
Sean Connery is our James Bond forever
IN the end, the news reports said the death of Sean Connery was hastened by his dementia. Sean…
A matter of mourning
The news is out: cemeteries and memorial parks will be closed to living human beings. Finally, the resting place for the Dead will be exclusively owned by those who have gone ahead of us.
‘Rebecca’ and the ghost of Joan Fontaine
THE sumptuous production design brings us back to Manderley and that age of manners gilded amorality. Once we…
Who are we in this pandemic?
“Events of future history will be of the same nature—or nearly so—as the history of the past, so…
This good Earth according to Attenborough
STRANGE and hopeful it is that, at the age of 94 years, David Attenborough looks back at the…
Erasing histories
This has been written: The Filipinos walked out to protest and the Mexicans followed. It was called the…
Forgotten Filipinos; forgotten documentaries
THE first Philippine festival of documentaries from the earliest works to the most current, Daang Dokyu is back.…
Un-Happy Teacher’s Day
Do you buy into this Teacher’s Day? Are you even convinced in your heart that the day is…
Updating a fairy tale: ‘The Boys in the Band’
WHEN it was announced that the 1970s iconic cinema on gay angst and allure would be revived, I…
Decoding the Conjugal Dictatorship
Thunder and storm attended the birthing of Ferdinand E. Marcos. In the humble house, two women watched over…
Cosmic duet of good and evil
WHEN is Good overwhelming? When Evil is doubly enthralling and enticing. Thus glides before us an old tale…
21st of September: Who remembers? Who forgets?
The journals and recollections are coming out: On the 22nd, in the late hours of the evening and…
After 32 years, a film comes home
IT was in 1988 when a film was completed and released. The dictator had left the country; a…
Dispatch from Bicol: The canceled feast
Not in my lifetime, I told myself. Not in my lifetime that the biggest, most important festival in…
The great story continues: ‘A.D. Kingdom and Empire’
I AM always curious about stories from the Bible. Jesus Christ has always been—bar none—the most intriguing individual…
Commanding celebrations and the memories of dictatorship
Today, September 11, 2020, is the beginning of what could be an annual celebration in Ilocos: this is…
‘Hollywood’ is Hollywood’s apology to Hollywood
WHAT other critics find despicable in the Netflix series Hollywood is what saves this seven-episode grand memorialization of…
And when September goes, we shall all be counted
Feasting on its national heroes on the last day of August, the country began counting its people on…
Nostalgia for justice: ‘Tokyo Trial’
ON August 15, 1945, Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan after years of hostilities in the “Far…
Goodbye to August
I can see from where I sit that the winds are here. The tall plants outside our perimeter,…
The 2020 Gawad Urian nominations in the age of Covid
THESE films will go down in history both for their excellence but also for the fact that they…