Recent Movies

[halfcactus]

Firefly (2023)
Plot: Tonton is a small boy who's frequently targetted by bullies. He finds strength and solace in his mother's fantastical stories about the magical places and creatures in their hometown in Bicol. When his mother passes away, he follows the map of her stories, packing nothing but her ashes, her drawings, and his unaddressed grief, to the cave of the fireflies.

The tone reminds me a lot of similar movies in the 2000s with sweeping orchestral music, unironic wonder, and a scenic road trip shared by strangers. There's also a framing narrative with a central metaphor about a butterfly and the firefly that saves her with his tiny light.

At its core this is a beautiful and viscerally emotional mother-son movie, but the edges are not as refined. It's elegantly structured and beautifully shot, but the narrative lacks the tightness that could have pushed it from good to brilliant. The character writing was weak (no one really had personalities or felt like real people) and the dialogue too dumbed down, as if the characters themselves were strangers to the country. I read in a broadsheet review that studio intervention might have been why it got dumbed down:

At some points the screenplay feels like it doesn't trust audiences, as most films do lately because of studio interference, but for the entirety of the third act Dulay's prowess as a filmmaker dazzles like the titular insects of his film, unearthing themes that go beyond bravery and camaraderie.

I also found the music kind of lacking (even though it all sounded nice!!!). They incorporated two cover versions (one male, one female) of Alapaap (Clouds), a very recognizable song from a beloved 90s rock band. Its words and music underline emotional moments and tug on the strings of associated memory. But IMO they could have added an instrumental/orchestral version to thread it with the original score and make the insert songs feel more naturally blended in and less like music video intermissions. XD

Overall it was still an enjoyable journey that gave us a glimpse of the scars that trauma leaves on us, and the sheer force of the love that makes us stronger.

Other notes: There was some dialogue in Bicolano (and English subs for the entire movie, surprisingly!), but most of it was in Tagalog. I wish it had been bolder and let the Bicolano characters speak Bicolano among themselves the whole time, but I guess our country's cinema scene is not ready for that...



GomBurZa (2023)
Historical film about people and events (the advocacies and deaths of Fathers Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora in the 1800s) that are not exactly film-worthy on their own (especially because the only thing that is achieved is unjust execution, and not even the one that triggers the revolution), so: interesting choice to make an entire two-hour movie about this! I mean this genuinely—I learned a lot about the motives of the clergy's (typically creoles) pushback against Spanish oppression.

And I am always down for movies about hating Spain, the Spanish, the Church, individual colonizers (even the "nice" ones), and various systems of oppression and discrimination, so here I am. XD

Some of its themes feel like modern-day academic discourse, one of which is about how language is used to gatekeep knowledge and not communicate. There's some derision over Latin being the language of law and religion, Spanish being the language of education, and Filipino being the language of the people. Dialogue switches between those three languages, and subtitles are in English—which I find a bit ironic even though it was fascinating to see church terms be translated; I only know them in Spanish and Tagalog.

For the most part, it's a very well-written and well-directed historical film that's more intellectually compelling than emotionally. It could have used a stronger emotional core to appeal to a broader audience and strengthen the ligaments that would have made this movie able to stand well on its own. The last twenty or so minutes really landed for everyone, at least! But it's not one I think I can recommend to international viewers, unlike other recent historicals, due to having a cast of characters that I feel (as someone who sucks at following movies) requires a degree of historical familiarity to recognize and distinguish from each other.


The Boy and the Heron (2023)
Baby's first Ghibli film on the big screen. XD

I liked this a lot more than I thought I would! The theater experience definitely elevated a trajectory that would have felt too meandering otherwise.

There were threads that felt loose—the entire concept of the tower and the power over a created world undermined the themes of life and death that were part of Mahito's journey of grief and understanding human mortality. I wish we had seen more of the moms (especially real-life Himi) and less of the dad and great-uncle. But it was all easy to ignore in lieu of the mother-son feelings which I thought really worked!


Bad Genius (2017)
Ahhhh I finally got to watch this! It's a Thai movie that was really huge a couple of years ago—my friends recommended it a lot but I was too afraid of the stress. ^^;

Plot: Incisive criticism on school systems and privilege gaps unfolding as a series of classroom heists. Lynn is a genius student from a poor family who, basically, fights back against an unfair system by devising methods for other students to copy her exam answers and charging them for her service. The first half of the movie is spread across the mundane episodes of high school life, while the second half is coiled tensely around a standardized international exam with higher risks and greater rewards.

While Lynn makes a compelling protagonist, the overall character writing (or the post-heist catharsis) doesn't quite withstand the moral lecture of the last ten to fifteen minutes, particularly for Bank, who ends up feeling more like a foil—the seeds for his choices were there, but not grown ripe. Still, it was a highly enjoyable ride, though one I'd recommend watching with other people if you're easily stressed like me. :P

I really liked the emotional complexities of Lynn and Grace's relationship, which felt like the truest part of the movie, and the general breadth and scope of the narrative. Other than the last ten minutes—which felt strongly like a reframing for the mainstream and family-friendly audience and reminded me a lot of the unsettlingness in the ending of The Bad Kids—it moves at a thrilling pace and uses visuals to lead viewers through its logic without overexplaining anything.