Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
cutting-edge art through its work with schools and prisons. One of the hottest visual
artists today is
Maya Muñoz
, whose work is often displayed in Manila's galleries.
Film
Although film-making has a distinguished history in the Philippines, and locally made
movies (and their stars) remain popular, they remain a long way behind their
Hollywood counterparts in terms of audience and income.
Early movies arrived in the Philippines in the late 1890s, but the first genuinely Filipino
film is credited to
Jose Nepumuceno
, the “Father of Philippine Movies”, who made a
version of a popular play
Dalagang Bukid
(“Country Maiden”) in 1919. The domestic film
industry didn't really get going until the 1950s, when four big studios (Sampaguita, LVN,
Premiere and Lebran) churned out hundreds of movies such as Gerardo de Leon's
Ifugao
(1954) and Manuel Conde's
Genghis Khan
(1952). Despite Gerardo de Leon's lauded
adaptations of the Rizal novels
Noli Me Tángere
(1961) and
El Filibusterismo
(1962), the
following decade was much poorer creatively and all four studios eventually closed.
Despite censorship during the Marcos years,
avant-garde
movie-making flourished in
the 1970s, with Lino Brocka's
The Claws of Light
(1975) considered by many critics to
be the greatest Philippine film ever made, and Kidlat Tahimik's
Mababangong
Bangungot
(“Perfumed Nightmare”) winning the International Critic's Prize at the
Berlin Film Festival of 1977. Brocka's
This Is My Country
, which tackles the issue of
labour union control under Marcos, was entered into the 1984 Cannes Film Festival.
The late 1980s and 1990s is regarded as a weaker period, but since the turn of the
century
independent Filipino movies
have been undergoing something of a renaissance,
in part thanks to digital technology. In 2003 Mark Meily scored a big hit with the
comedy
Crying Ladies
, about three Filipinas working as professional mourners in
Manila's Chinatown, while
Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros
(“The Blossoming of
Maximo Oliveros”; 2005) by Auraeus Solito and
Kubrador
(“The Bet Collector”; 2006)
by Jeffrey Jeturian were internationally acclaimed. Filipinos have also excelled in other
formats: Carlo Ledesma won best short film at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007 for
The Haircut
. In 2008, Brillante Mendoza's
Serbis
(“Service”) became the first full-length
Filipino film to compete at Cannes since 1984; the account of a day in the life of a
family running a porno film theatre in Angeles City is bawdy and brutally realistic.
Mendoza's
Kinatay
(“Butchered”) competed at Cannes the following year.
Lavish historical drama
El Presidente
(2012), another film directed by Mark Meily, is the
nation's most expensive movie to date, starring several acting heavyweights and exploring
the life of Emilio Aguinaldo. The
Metro Manila Film Festival
showcases the latest Filipino
films over the Christmas period every year, not all of them arthouse material. To get a feel
for what Filipinos like to watch today - from kitsch and campy romantic comedies to
fantasy romps - see
Enteng Ng Ina Mo
(2011), a fantasy parody;
Sisterakas
(2012), a
contemporary slapstick comedy starring vet Vice Ganda (the name is a play on “Sister
Act”); and blockbuster
The Unkabogable: Praybeyt Benjamin
(“Private Benjamin”; 2011),
an action comedy also starring Ganda as a reluctant soldier - the name is a loose reference
to the 1980 Goldie Hawn movie, but the slapstick and sexual themes are very different.
Music
Any Friday night in Manila (and all over Asia), countless Filipino
showbands
can be
seen in countless hotel lobbies performing accomplished cover versions of Western
classics. While there's no doubt that when Filipinos mimic they do it exceedingly well,
indigenous music
does survive. Tagalog pop and rap artists and to a lesser extent rock
groups have all been making a comeback in recent years, part of a slow but discernible
trend away from the adulation of solely American pop stars and celebrities. A useful
website for general information about Filipino music is
W
philmusic.com.
