WHAT'S ON YOUR LIST?

(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, THE LIFESTYLE WEEKLY PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 1 AUGUST 2008)

If you were to die tomorrow, what would you do today? Would it be a hectic day, crazy with a million things to tick off your life’s list, or would it be a day of leisure, a day to watch the sunrise and the sunset, the cloud formations in the sky, and the many other beautiful things you hardly even notice if you feel you have the rest of your life ahead of you? Better yet, why not spend it watching as many movies as you can, if only so you could live, if vicariously, so many lives in 24 hours, granting that your own is about go blank?

BLURB
Eh, anong gagawin ko, aatungal (What will I do, shriek)? —Mylene Dizon as Joyce, 100, Chris Martinez, 2008

If art, as defined by my online dictionary, is a piece of work, whose main purpose, apart from capturing beauty, is to provoke thoughts, Chris Martinez’s film, 100, recently shown at the 2008 Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, is truly an art form.

Over lunch late last week, before a private viewing of his directorial debut at the CCP Dream Theater, Chris shared with us what inspired him to do 100. There are a million other inspirations, of course, including the common fascination with lists, but the plotline showed itself to him during a vigil held over the corpse of a beloved UP Theater Arts professor, where special performances, including a drag show, were made in honor of the departed’s deep commitment to the arts.

Listening to Chris was in no way different from looking at pictures, although we had barely enough time to warm up over lunch to enable us to talk more openly with each other. Working on such a visual medium, filmmakers like him do have to communicate in images rather than in words. It is through words, however, that Chris made his way to filmmaking, first as a copywriter for advertising; as a playwright with such Palanca Award-winning works as Last Order sa Penguin and Welcome to IntelStar; and then, as though to get him closer and closer to his new title now as filmmaker, as a screenwriter whose achievements, at such a young age, include Sukob starring Kris Aquino and Claudine Barretto and Caregiver starring Sharon Cuneta, to name a few.

100, to be more precise, is not exactly Chris’ first film. Before it, he had done a short, Bakas, which won him the CCP Award for Alternative Filmmaking. On the theater stage, he is no stranger, having directed the stage adaptation of the '70s cult classic Temptation Island. As for his bread-and-butter, Chris directs commercials.

Given Chris’ achievements, 100 seems inevitable an outcome at this point. Even the very execution of the film’s storyline, that of a terminally ill woman making a list of things to do before dying, is a surprise to me, who, predisposed to artistic exaggerations and creative licenses, expected something more dramatic, more fantastical on that list than cleaning out the closet. But there’s the thought: If you were to die 100 days from now, you cannot simply fly off to Paris and bungee-jump from the top of the Eiffel Tower. There are so many mundane tasks to do in preparation for that end-all, be-all moment and, yes, that includes, as the film made me realize, bank transactions, transfer of ownership, and finding a new human for your pet, if any.

Indeed, the beauty of this work is in its restraint. Originally, as Chris confessed to me, the intention was just to create a list, random and unconnected, but in the interest of the audience, a story was woven in to tie everything together. But the story, too, is a study in restraint, just as the spaces in every scene is devoid of anything unnecessary and extraneous, just as the delivery of the lines as well as the facial expressions, even among otherwise flamboyant actors like Eugene Domingo and Tessie Tomas, save for a very few highlights, in which they seemed to be on the verge, but only on the verge of letting go an outburst of emotions, is perfectly under control, as in life, where not everything is in cinematic proportions.

Kudos to Mylene Dizon for keeping us drawn to the screen for one hour and 56 minutes, without having to scream or shed buckets of tears or cry out to God, “Why me? Why me?” Indeed, as Chris himself would admit, 100 was made for her to play the lead. The writer/director, without a doubt, made the right choice and Mylene’s Cinemalaya Best Actress 2008 Award is not necessary to prove it.

Kudos, too, to the rest of the cast and the crew! All they wanted, according to Chris, is to make a good film and here it is, with such distinctions as Chris’ Best Director and Best Screenplay trophies, Mylene’s Best Actress, Eugene’s Best Supporting Actress, and the Audience Choice Award to make it worth all the sacrifices.

A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.