Ang Lagusan - Gina Marissa Tagasa
I've been very excited for the burgeoning Filipino independent film industry, that I would always find myself watching almost every movie that comes out from the movement blindly. The latest that I've seen is Gina Marissa Tagasa's
Ang Lagusan (
The Tunnel). The film is about Joel (Cris Villanueva), a seaman who find himself in a docked cargo ship, with only a bag full of clothes, a photograph of a young girl, a one hundred peso bill, an address written on the other side of a note, and a child's prayer. Joel doesn't remember anything though, thus, he finds himself in Lagusan Street, the address provided in the note, and there he meets a handful of characters including Ason, his abortionist mother, Noni, the neighborhood drug pusher, Kado, the directionless youth, and a mysterious stranger who seems to have a knack for riddles and semi-prophecies. I learned that Tagasa is a scriptwriter for television soap operas and her roots are very evident in the film. Her directorial decisions mostly lead to a very television-like approach to every scenes - the blockings are uncinematic, the musical cues are all too heavy and predictable, even the acting is reminiscent of the television lauded style of acting which mostly includes a fistful of bawling and a tiny drop of actual inspiration. As I've said, I had no knowledge of the film or its director when I came in to watch. I had high hopes since the poster advertises that the producers have made a previous film which won accolades in international film festivals. The film begins, quite promisingly - infusing right amounts of low budget campiness, film-noirish mystery, and Filipino-style allusions. As characters are introduces and the mysteries are slowly unraveling, the film gets unnervingly preachy - that type of preachiness that is offputting because it tries so hard to be subtle but comes off as shamelessly obvious. In the end, we are entreated to scenes of humanly impossible metanoia, an explanation of the film's parable-like thematics, a dose of over-the-top acting and worse, a rather uninspired music video of a Christian song. There are scenes in the film revolving around some Korean evangelists giving out food rations to any of the impoverished citizens of Lagusan who would spend time to listen to their bible teachings. After the end credits rolled, I felt so shortchanged that I did not receive any food rations from the director and the producers of the film who shamelessly fed me with all these preachy religious stuff I was not in the mood for. I felt so shortchanged by having to pay well-earned money to watch this cheap reenactment of how faith can save you, that I thought about robbing a bank, burning down the mall, and slaughtering innocent bystanders. Pardon my histrionics, but the film did more good than bad, I believe. 1/2/*****
