Critic, defined.

A book of quips I read many years ago had this definition of a film critic: One who knows the way but can’t drive.  Probably true. 

I’ve been trying to recall famous directors who also had careers as critics.  I could only think of François Truffaut, perhaps the most popular of French New Wave directors. 

In the Philippines, there’s Nestor Torre, the longtime Inquirer columnist.  He did a musical in the early 70s called As Long As There’s Music, starring Nora Aunor and Victor Wood, our local version of Glenn Campbell and Kenny Rogers combined.  Wood seemed to have run and lost in every senatorial election, I digress.  If I’m not mistaken, in that movie, Wood’s character called out Nora’s name – Nora!  But Nora wasn’t Nora’s name in the movie.  But the gaffe made the final cut. 

Must find that precious (and infallible) little book.

For art's sake

These are exciting times for the local art scene. The likes of young artists Andres Barrioquinto, Nona Garcia and Annie Cabigting are raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in auctions in Hong Kong and Singapore. One thing for Filipinos to proud of, other than Pacman and Charice.


The other day, I was window-shopping at Finale Art Gallery for art pieces and found a piece by Paulo Vinluan that I loved. Here’s a pic from his show which has the same comical and surreal feel as the one I’m coveting. The New York-based Vinluan is also young, and he continues to excite with every solo show. His is my kind of art, along with Jason Moss’.

Vinluan’s style is rendered like comic book illustrations. It seems accessible like Marvel. But if you’d look closely, his art is social commentary. Each tableau represents masked characters with varying social pursuits (love, sex, power, acceptance). Some are sad in spite of the playful renderings.


That’s the visual arts, and one cannot take on a dismissive attitude about its being an artform. It’s how paintings take on an aesthetic stance. The artist has a standpoint, and he affords the viewer to see it his way or any other way. Can the same be said of a filmmaker?


This could be a long a dissertation on what films qualify as art, and those that are just dull recorded performances caught on film. But one thing I know for sure is that there are films that set out to be artistic but fail miserably. They’re just low-art like paintings you’d see on cow-driven carriages in the streets of Manila. And there are those which are pure entertainment. You’d like to see again because there are some meaningful subtleties you missed. They are Vinluans that would always fascinate.

Nazis in my dreams.

What’s your earliest childhood memory?   Mine was my grandmother’s death.  I could still remember my father not letting go of my Lola’s hand when she expired in the biggest room in our old Pampanga home, and Auntie Peng rushing to the small maid’s room by the kitchen, weeping.  I was not even a year old then.  But I was told that was what actually happened.

Scientific studies on memory could refute that.  Maybe everything was reconstructed for me when I grew old enough to have real memories.  Ok, the next  memory after that, certainly irrefutable, was my first trip to the moviehouse.  Sound of Music was playing back in the mid-60s (I must have been three or four then).  The only scene that stuck was when the Von Trapps hid in the Abbey and Rolf, Liesl’s boy, came upon them.  I had repeated nightmares after that.  It didn’t help that my school had Benedictine nuns all over.

That first experience was magical for me, albeit disturbing.  I must have enjoyed the trickery and illusion that film offered.  In film, I could imagine a far, far away place with rolling hills where nuns love singing their hearts out and kids going about town with clothes made out of curtains.   I felt for Snooky, a lonely and abused kid in Lino Brocka’s first film, Wanted: Perfect Mother, even if I knew she was getting paid more than Nora Aunor at that time.  I thought London was a cool place after seeing Oliver!  The beggars there looked better and could sing beautiful falsettos. 

My reaction to every movie I saw since Julie Andrews’ had been visceral.  And it remains so to this day.  Is it magical enough for me?  Or is my time better spent piecing together episodes of family high-drama which could even be more fantastical?