Direk Peque back in harness
By Leah C. Salterio
The Philippine Star 10/23/2004
"I'm not making a comeback. I've always been here."
That was multi-awarded filmmaker Peque Gallaga, who points out that his
latest opus, Nang Panahong Naging Blonde ang mga Pinoy, is not a
directorial comeback. Of course, the public knows Peque as the esteemed
director of such classics as Oro, Plata, Mata, Scorpio Nights and Virgin
Forest. Four years after his last movie movie (the suspense-drama, Sa
Piling ng Aswang, a Metro Manila Film Festival entry shown in 2000), Peque
has come out of his hiatus to bring to the big screen an old material
which he also wrote.
Blonde boast of a star-studded cast and is now on its post-production
stage. The project was bankrolled by producer Tony Gloria of Unitel
Pictures, with a surprisingly meager budget of only P1 M. Tony is also the
producer of Mark Meily's award-winning directorial debut, Crying Ladies,
which stars Sharon Cuneta.
"I actually settled for a budget of P500,000 for Blonde," Peque shares. "I
was willing to do it only on video and film it in Bacolod, but Tony very
generously gave me P1 M. I asked for nine days to shoot, but Tony also
gave as 12 days. This may be the classic, pito-pito film, with totally low
budget, but with pito-pito, they save on production values and salaries of
small people on the set. With this movie, we saved on the talent fees of
the stars who are working either for free or way below scale. All the
stars are aware of the present situation of the local film industry and
they're dying to do an interesting work. The other actors should begin to
realize that their pay scale is really bloated. Kawawa ang producers
talaga."
Peque attest this is the first time in his illustrious directorial career
that he's doing a film project without any career considerations, not the
awards, the international festivals nor the box office. "I have no money
to do this movie," allows Peque, who was recently honored with the
much-coveted Gawad CCP Award for Film. "It reminds me of the times I used
to do movies when I was a teenager and I just asked friends to come and
join. Even the production staff took a cut to make this movie.
"When a good project comes up, the money is immaterial to me. That was
what got me out of my hiatus. I find myself getting paralyzed when I think
about awards while doing a movie. You start to become very self-conscious
and I've lost that a long time ago. I've trained myself away from that."
Peque wrote the material for Blonde in the mid 90s ?"when (Joseph) Estrada
was still vice president and texting was not even a trend yet" ? but the
script merely stayed in his shelf. "I got sick and tired doing industry
stuff," Peque reasons out. "There's nothing being done in local cinema
lately that really excites and interests me. I consider myself
semi-retired, but I felt I wanted to do something this year. The itch to
make another movie was there again. So I gave it a good try and talked to
major producers about the script that I have. I just had to update it."
For the longest time, no producer was willing to gamble on Peque's script.
"Nobody wanted to touch it," he says. "I don't think they got past the
(long) title. It's not the classic formula stuff. There's a love interest,
but it's not central to the story. But when I gave the script to Tony, he
called me up after two hours to say, 'I like the script.' But when I gave
the script to Tony, he called me up after two hours to say, 'I like the
script.' When he asked if I could do the film with P1 M budget, I sat down
with Lore Reyes and we worked on the budget. I'm directing this alone,
with Lore as line producer."
The main cast members of Blonde are Epi Quizon, Boy-2 Quizon, Ricky Davao,
Jimmy Fabregas, Izza Calzado and Tessie Tomas "in a major cameo role,"
according to Peque. Doing special appearances are Eddie Garcia, Richard
Gomez, Joey Marquez, Richard Gutierrez, Tonton Gutierrez, Ian Veneracion,
Gabby and Ryan Eigenmann, Joel Torre, Ara Mina, Giselle Tongi, Cherie Gil,
Michael de Mesa, Mark Gil, Rita Avila, Gina Alajar, Cherie Pie Picache and
even cartoonist Roxlee, who himself is an independent filmmaker.
Peque cannot be happier with the lineup of stars in Blonde. It was an
overwhelming experience for him to work with a star-studded cast. "I
always knew all these actors love and respected me, but I didn't know it
in such a dramatic way," he avers. "If we were going to ask starving,
young actors to do this film for free, I think that's unfair. So I asked
my old friends.
"I was not very close to Eddie Garcia and it was Tony who approached him.
But the minute I learned that Eddie was free, I called him up. I worked
with him as a production designer in Eddie Romero's Ganito Kami Noon,
Paano Kayo Ngayon and I was this contravida in Kaming mga Tigasin, one of
his early comedy films.
"I've always respected Eddie. Even when I was still a film student, I
could see that Eddie never turned down a role, no matter what it was. He
never judged whether he was too good for the project or not. You know what
a thrill it was when I told him, 'Eddie, I remember your character in
Tubog sa Ginto. Sana gano'n din ang gawin mo dito, gano'n ka-straight,
gano'n ka-simple, walang borloloy.' He did it exactly. He's a real
artist."
Despite the star-studded cast, Peque didn't encounter any problems with
any of his actors on the set. "Can you imagine, even if there were nine
stars involved in the filming for one day, there were no egos, no
late-comers," Peque offers. "They were all there to work and they were all
very professionals. All of them were sincere. Epi Quizon, who was
introduced to me by G Tongi, came up to me and said, 'I want to work with
you. All my brothers have worked with you.' I took him literally. I also
worked with his dad before."
Blonde is comedy, yet Peque notes the actors are far from kenkoy. "I told
everyone from the start, 'You know it's a comedy, but let's not play it as
a comedy at all. Let's play it as a drama.' All of the actors were
straight. They don't know they're being funny. I've only done one comedy
before. Bad Bananas sa Puting-Tabing, in 1982. I don't really do comedy
because my humor is very strange. I didn't think whether or not this movie
is pang-masa. The main consideration is I just wanted to make a movie that
I wanted to do."
Peque's producer echoes his sentiment. "the problem today is not quality
films," Tony maintains. "Our direction, cinematography and acting have
become better. The problems is predictability of the audience. You cannot
always second-guess today's winning formula at the box office. Sometimes,
you think this move would make money, but it wouldn't. The best thing to
do is make a film you really like, so at the end of the day, even if the
movie didn't make money, you end up with a movie you like. It's double
tragedy when you end up with a movie you didn't like and didn't make
money."
Peque, who gained international recognition with is war epic, Oro, Plata,
Mata, expressed his desire to promote Blonde as an intelligent film. "When
you sell a movie, you have to sell it in way that the audience can
understand it," he insists. "When I did Gangland, I had no idea how Viva
would sell it. I guess Viva panicked then. But now Gangland is being shown
in retrospective and it's always a full house.
"I'm less interested in sex and violence. I'm more interested in the
interaction of people. I used to think that was a pretension of (Akira)
Kurosawa and all those aging directors in their autumnal years, when they
talk about the so-called inter-relationships of human emotions. But I
realized you really get into that."
Does he consider Blonde his best work to date? "Butch Perez, who I also
teamed with in a lot of films told me every director or actor is always
doing his job in every film. There are those who say 'pang raket lang,'
but they still try to be good. Am I capable of really good work? Of
course. But there are certain films which I've seen that I wished I had
made, like Y Tu Mama Tambien. But my script is not even half as good as
Alfonso Cuaron's movie."
Producer Tony Gloria says Blonde will be shown next year, after the Metro
Manila Film Festival (MMFF) in December. "It will be nice to have a
trailer shown in the theaters during the MMFF," Tony says. "I believe this
is an unprecedented project. Stars were compelled to be in this film
because it's Peque directing and they love to be in it, even if some of
them are not even getting paid."
