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OUIJA,
the film, like the persistent spirits called in by the
board, stays with you.
Topel
Lee, dipping his spurs for the first time in a
full-length nonindie (I am beginning to hate this term)
gives us a film that indicates there is hope in
mainstream cinema, the representative outputs of which
have been relegated in excellence and fresh approaches
to the background by pieces that are not dripping of
studio ink.
For a
start, let us set aside first the “A” given to it by the
Cinema Evaluation Board. Let us also clarify that this
is not the same as that Spanish film with the same
title, directed by one Juan Pedro Ortega. The last time
I saw a mention of the film, it was described as “beyond
bad,” which in the world of cineastes can be quite a
blessing. Or, have you not heard of films really bad
that they are already beautiful?
The film
by Lee works because it is, for once and for all, a
horror film that is frightening. It is not the kind of
horror film that sends you laughing or smirking because
the special effects have nothing special in them, or
that the monsters look like they have been secured from
a circus that has folded its tent.
If being
scared means being jolted every now and then or hearing
live screams from the audience, then Ouija is a
sheer and pure winner. I have to say this: the speed by
which I finished off my French fries can be directly
correlated to how much some of the action onscreen can
bring the viewer into the scenes created, leave you
there amid the uncertainties, and push you to pray. Not
as much as I prayed that the Devil was only a symbol
with The Exorcist, but I must say that Ouija made
me pray, too. Short prayers and then some.
It does
not matter if there is a character who pronounces in a
teensy-weensy voice that it is all right to be scared. I
know some lines that say it is all right to be angry. Or
it is all right to cry. But it is all right to be scared
takes the cake for being downright stupid when uttered
in a film built on the dogma that is not all right to be
scared. There are more of these unsettling (read
awkward, inept, coarse) elements in the movie. There are
the roles given to the actors and the scenarios that are
supposed to highlight the drama in their lives. Judy Ann
Santos has proven herself to be an excellent actress in
previous outings. There is no need to create gravitas in
her character by making her a lawyer. The character does
not work not because of Santos but because of a script
that inherits all the false notes of other court scenes
in other films.
Iza
Calzado gathers in her ruffles all the embarrassing
moments of the film. Take the rehearsal where the
director (stage? film? school production?) shouts “Cut!”
and tells us it’s a wrap. Or Sandra—Calzado’s
character—running offstage and being left alone in the
dressing room to fend for herself. Actually, there’s
more of this sort of silliness but it is to credit of
the film that, after about 30 minutes of conceiving the
characters, you forget their premature births and gawk
at how they have grown into mature personas in a horror
film that is everything but embarrassing.
It is
not in my character to tell a filmmaker how the film
should be done. That is not reviewing. That is dreaming.
But I do wish Lee had grabbed that Sadako lookalike’s
long hair, cut them short and banished the apparition to
Tokyo Disneyland.
There is
another way of viewing the highly derivative and
cross-referential filmmaking of Lee. The scenes may be
acknowledged as tributes to the classic horror movies in
his mind—from the contortions of the phantasm saluting
the greatest of ’em all, The Exorcist, to the
fascination with the midaregami, the flowing magical
hair that is the cinematic compulsion of the Japanese
chiller. If this be the principle, then the film can be
enjoyed in this manner, with all the mannerisms of a
cineaste. Now that is superficial. If a film is to be
measured in terms of importance, it is in the
substantial aspect of the cinema that which lingers.
That which makes us remember the movie.
My
enjoyment, therefore, of Ouija are in those
scenes that, to me, reflect the radical perspective of
this new director. Go back to the film again and be
fascinated by how the haunting and the haunted fuse in a
mix-up that is neurotic and baffling. The camera of Neil
Daza goes up-close to the eyes of Romina (Jolina
Magdangal’s character) and triggers the fear factor: Am
I looking into the eye of the phantom or of someone who
is terribly scared? The feet that reappear and dangle
and disappear, are they real? The young man all bowed
down and dripping with seawater, why will he not look
up? A young lady offers him a towel. We offer him a
prayer and wish that the woman not realize he is already
dead.
There is
a shock of recognition in that scene where the
grandmother is seen weeping in front of the images of
saints and turning up in a breath in her deathbed. We
have heard the story before—in our families and with our
kins—and here it is now, executed for us grandly and
sadly. In this scene and in other scenes, Lee catches
the true grace of the Filipino horror movie; it is one
that may be Gothic but not gross. It is one that scares
but also touches the heart that recalls the grief and
the days that can never brought again.
The gift
of Lee, if we may divine it now, is that he is a
filmmaker who has learned his craft from films. He is a
terrific student, too, given all those smart footnotes
to other horror films. The film may have slouched in the
first 30 minutes or so but once the planchette has
started moving across the board, it is hell all broken
loose, with Lee as the master espiritista-turned-raconteur.
You forget logic, as irrationality is the bed of the
horrifying. You throw out thinking, for abomination does
not encourage the mind to work.
As a
personal note, I wonder if his Tito Aba (Roxlee, the
superindie filmmaker to you) influenced this young man.
If my memory of the edgiest work of his uncle is clear,
I do not see any. Shall I dread the day when Topel Lee
summons once more the ghosts of his Artistic Past as he
creates a film that will convince us the Filipino Film
has indeed risen from the grave?
As for
the traditional elements of the film—the actors—Judy Ann
Santos and Jolina Magdangal must be the only remaining
actresses of their generation able to represent strongly
everything that mainstream cinema holds most dear. You
know, popularity, image, PR, etc. In Ouija, the
two prove to be the most engaging performers for this
year. However flawed the scenario and the lines,
Santos
and Magdangal are able to conjure tension and drama.
Subverting the object of their film, these two young
actresses do not need the planchette and the board to
call in the unseen. They just need their different, true
and almost untutored way of acting.
Anita
Linda has a very short role and I say that with much
regret. Perla Bautista is back and that is good, really
good. Here are two actresses who know how to work the
camera. I miss this kind of acting given the surplus of
performers coming from the world of theater with their
stilted characterizations.
What
about the A rating? Ah, let us leave that for the
spirits to explain.
The film
is produced by GMA 7 and Viva Films. |
