Metamorphosis
sgadia@theguidon.com
The Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF)—a staple in the Filipino Christmas tradition—is a ten-day long period allotted to showcase local cinema’s attempt at blockbuster movies. The 2009 line-up, however packed with box office kings and bombshells, was another round of poorly made films as based on story lines, production techniques, and the stars’ acting.
When I went to see several MMFF entries—I Love You, Goodbye, Ang Darling Kong Aswang, and Shake, Rattle, and Roll XI—I was not surprised to see the cinemas dead, housing 40 people at most.
True enough, at the end of the 35th MMFF spree, it was reported by various media outlets that the festival had not been able to reach the estimated P500-billion gross target. Instead, the total gross of this year’s MMFF earned P438-million, P13-million lower than last year’s.
Though this is quite understandable given this year’s seven-movie produce as compared to last year’s eight, I do think there are deeper implications behind the flop that is MMFF.
There are many reasons why the festival was a failure this time around. First, active moviegoers may have reluctantly altered their routine as Hollywood blockbusters Avatar, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and 2012 were put on hold to make way for the MMFF entries. Not even Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao convinced audiences to favor his film Wapakman over The Twilight Saga: New Moon, a vampire flick that stars heartthrobs Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. In effect, Wapakman only earned P2.6-million as the festival wrapped up.
Bloggers were especially vocal of their detestation for MMFF films. They said that the long-awaited Avatar missed a longer showing time because of the mandatory international film ban during the holidays. Because of this, the MTRCB might have encouraged many to purchase pirated copies of Avatar, since there was hardly any time to see it in the cinemas.
On a more personal note, I think the low audience turnout is not heavily due to the postponement of Hollywood blockbuster showings. It’s precisely the poor quality of locally made films that discourage audiences from supporting homegrown talent—if one can call it that.
Ang Darling Kong Aswang starred the oddly paired Vic Sotto and Cristine Reyes. While the movie was able to uphold its comedic promise, the plot itself was bordering insubstantial. No groundbreaking realizations there for sure.
Shake, Rattle, and Roll XI was a badly produced trilogy, with bad make-up, amateurish special effects, and mindless plots. This particular film shows close comparison to crammed video presentations of students.
Though these films instill some sense of patriotism in each viewer, they likewise promote the low standards Filipinos succumb to, regardless of the local cinema context.
The continuous production of such low quality films is not only insulting to the Filipino viewers’ tastes and capacity to appreciate superior films, it also hints at the increasing complacency of local film producers to release films that do not maximize their potentials as professionals.
Maybe it’s about time viewers reconsidered their support for the local movie enterprise. After all, it’s their money flushed down the drain.
