Siftings
'A Very Special Love' & 'For the First Time': Two Reviews
In the spirit of pursuing Popular Culture, in particular the cinema, as a valid subject for study in these postmodern times - indeed, cinema is the present day opium of the masses - I watched two Pinoy films considered blockbusters based on their first week's box-office receipts: "A Very Special Love" starring John Lloyd Cruz and Sarah Geronimo, directed by Cathy Garcia-Molina; and "For the First Time" with Richard Gutierrez and KC Concepcion (whose launching movie this is), directed by Bb. Joyce Bernal, quintessential director of blockbuster love-team movies, and partially shot on location in Greece.
Ah, Greece of the limpid sparkling blue waters and everlasting sun! Byron's fabled Isles where ardent Sappho sang her hymns to Venus! But there must be more than this for the masses to line up for " For the First Time". If the millions of pesos spent for this film is a valid indication of its quality, the expectations of whopping financial returns in terms of worldwide screening and box-office returns wherever Filipino OFW's are found, is just as valid. The same can be said for "A Very Special Love", although it is less expensive with its Manila-based location. This is because, like the run of local films that breaks records, these two have the ingredients which popular audiences have come to expect: formula love situations which are basically extensions of the classic boy-meets-girl formula; the glossy urban look and lifestyle; the fast pace and comedic add-ons by an all-star supporting cast; the theme song invariably sung by the female lead in the opening credits, and the requisite happy ending with the hero and heroine in a clinch or the equivalent of it. But if you are looking for incisive and disturbing insights into the present Philippine condition, you will come up with a blank. These two films have nothing to do with poverty, the rising cost of commodities, rampant unemployment, the yawning gulf between the rich and the poor -- to name a few of the problems that beset our society. Instead, they offer escape from the humdrum toil of everyday 'commodified' life, giving their audiences peeks into the affluent lifestyle of the Filipino upper class - albeit often falsely magnified and highly exaggerated – with which the masa can identify. The best thing I can find in these two films is that they affirm the importance of the Family and the positive values it espouses as an institution: understanding and forgiving love, emotional support, discipline, the ascendancy of moral and ethical behavior in a person's way of life. The basic conflict in both films is Alienation and Return to Family, in which the young hero and heroine (played respectively by John Lloyd and KC) experience trials which they have to overcome (in the guise of expectations for the good of the family enterprises which put pressures on both) and lead to the eventual assimilation or re-assimilation of both into their respective family circle, signified in the patriarchal embrace towards the end of the film.
In "Very Special Love", John Lloyd Cruz plays the "suplado", hard-to-please editor of a glossy fashion-cum-tourist magazine owned by his father (played by Dante Rivero) whose corporation is managed by his eldest brother (played by Rowell Santiago). It appears that John Lloyd's character is under pressure to produce an issue that would make money for the family-owned business empire and thereby justify the magazine's existence. Sarah plays a new employee who has a crush on her new boss, and there the fun begins. Her lower middle class background is blessedly not an issue here, but it is the boss' own hang-ups about wanting to prove himself in the eyes of his half-brother and sisters from his father's first marriage with whom he feels alienated. The magazine issue is a flop, despite the hard work and expense incurred in its making, and John Lloyd, swallowing his pride, applies for a job in his brother's office, which is what the brother wanted all along. Here, we have a case of the reverse of the bildungsroman or growing up novel of classic European literature exemplified by Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, in which the hero progresses from childhood innocence to independence and maturity, undergoing initiation into the ugly realities of life and eventually embracing the responsibilities of adulthood with a good measure of humility. In "Special Love', the hero does attain the humility to recognize his limitations and goes back to the fold of Family. But Instead of attaining independence, he affirms his dependence on his family – a Filipino value, when one comes right down to it. For this film, this is the maturity its hero attains, never mind if the basically Western values of independence and self-reliance are thrown overboard!
But there is a refreshing lack of the love formula cliche here. We see instead the son's longing to be a true son of the Patriarch (played with authoritative pain and sadness by Dante Rivero, who has the capacity to define any role he plays) which generates the pathos in the film. The comic stunts and Sarah's engaging wholesome image are designed to activate the mass audience appeal to make the film a hit. My verdict: the film attains a measure of respectability as art product through the acting of John Lloyd Cruz and Dante Rivero. Its requisite cutie-cutie ending is just required accommodation to the Rule of the Market.
"For the First Time" is predictably fun – its ending makes sure that you will remember that! -- forcefully funny and as glossily packaged with all the amenities for the long-awaited launching movie of KC Concepcion, princess of local filmdom royalty. KC is lovely but needs to lose some baby fat in order to come up to the sexy standards of Angel Locsin and Marian Rivera. The unwanted pounds make her look plump and stocky in certain types of clothes. Built on a sturdy scale, with rather broad shoulders traceable to her dad Gabby's physique, KC's healthy outdoors look and bubbly aura combine with her full rounded breasts to clinch her status as a new and exciting star of Philippine cinema. She can even sing on top of all those best-selling commercials she's been doing on TV. Richard is the ideal male lead: handsome, muscled, carelessly charming, and when the script calls for it, properly suffering as a love-sick lover out to win back his lady-love. The film turns on the father-daughter relations, in which the daughter, burdened by a past trauma (she was in a car accident with an ex-boyfriend), has to prove to her father (played by Phillip Salvador) that her remorse can lead to responsibility and the humility that goes with it, so that she can take her place in (again, as in the other film) the Family Business. (It looks like Star Cinema and ABS-CBN are in the Family Business business!) But this film is more a love story than the other vehicle, although both point to love as the catalyzer for the growing-up process.
Both movies are currently making money for their producers, especially "For the First Time", what with worldwide premiers and bookings. Although thematically, "A Very Special Love" has the edge in achieving more pathos, it is the heartbreaking tears of the daughter longing to connect with her severely unfeeling father that made me cry without my meaning to, prompting me to overlook the thematic flaw in Phillip's characterization which was not given enough space or time to prepare for his turnaround at the end, as he extends forgiveness and comfort to the daughter he had treated like dirt in the immediately preceding scene. But the movie ends happily, which is what the audience paid for, anyway.
So, what else can I say? I can only reiterate that commercial films will always be bowing to the Rule of the Market. If they refuse to obey that rule, they can turn themselves into indie films with a limited budget and financial returns that register much less than their artistic and intellectual values. But at the rate Pinoy commercial films are making money these days, there isn't a chance they can morph into indie films. That's okay. In the world of fast-lane pop culture, there's certainly room for both!