Raya Martin's Great Cinema Party
Warning: spoilers aplenty. You've been warned, but if you want to save yourself 1hr & 10 mins of your life, I do encourage you to read on.
Raya Martin's Great Cinema Party is not really a movie. It's a glorified home video. This is the synopsis as I’ve remembered it.
The opening is quite interesting only for the fact that it showed stock footage of war-torn Manila for about 15-20 mins – aside from the fact that there was no sound. Then cut to a group of tourists (or at least they look like one), both foreign and local, who were goofing around some ruins in Corregidor with Carlos Celdran (as far as I am aware he holds a regular tour of the island). Then cut to a buffet dinner at an Old Spanish house, which apparently, had been used in filming some local and foreign productions in the past. A man started showing an album of old photographs of old movies actors and actresses who used to film there. The buffet of course included the world famous balut (in this case, in a weird, de-shelled, adobo-style serving) and some obligatory discussions about that dish. Then the camera pan up the sky and a deity-like Lav Diaz appeared above, welcoming people to the great cinema party. Then the action moved to Zambales. Some more people joined the group (I guess of filmmakers and film enthusiasts, although the only person I recognised was Brillante Mendoza – not really their fault but my ignorance of who-is-who in the indie world or so). The mostly indistinct conversations were mostly in English but you can’t really hear what they were talking about. I don't know if it's a camp fire but people seemed to be eating and drinking. It's very dark and the scenes were not lit at all. No one really talked about films except in passing when someone mentioned something about buying original DVDs and someone else said that she loves the Criterion Collection. Then blank screen for 10 mins or so, with background music, and then after a while, I saw traces of an outrigger boat, so I guess they’re on a beach area. Then just before it ended, there seemed to be a fireworks display. I can't really be sure because like I said, it’s really, really dark.
That's it. One hour and 10 mins of my life wasted. I've seen better photographed holiday video than this indulgence.