‘Serbis’ is the Philippines’ Entry to the Cannes Film and New York Film Festivals
ANGELES CITY is the location of this gritty, hard-scrabble, contemporary film about a Kapampangan family who owns a dilapidated movie theater. The province of Pampanga was once the site of a United States airbase.
The Pinedas’ matriarch, Nanay Flor, (Gina Pareño) is about to find out the verdict on a bigamy suit that she filed against her philandering husband. And on this day, she would come back, disgusted that the court ruled in her husband’s favor.
Family Theater is a decaying and horribly filthy edifice that is home to the Pinedas, including Nanay Flor’s daughter, Nayda (Jaclyn Jose) and her husband, Lando (Julio Diaz), her nephews Alan, (Coco Martin) a billboard painter; and Ronald, (Kristofer King) a projectionist, adopted daughter, Jewel, (Roxanne Jordan) and Jerome, (Dan Alvaro) her grandson.
The surprising element in the film (for me) was that there was a fair amount of frontal nudity and sexual graphic scenes between Alan and his girlfriend, Merly (Mercedes Cabral) and of homosexuals and male prostitutes indulging themselves. All these were happening in the semidarkness of the movie house, unknown to the owners of the building.
But there is something engaging about this film that kept me focused during its 93-minute run. Was it the slightly shaky cinematography, which tells me most of the scenes were shot with a single, hand-held camera? Was it the occasional moments of total darkness between clips, when characters were negotiating some of the dimly-lit passages of the building? I can’t seem to put a finger on it, but I am sure that it is an element that could excite a lot of people, especially voyeurs.
Gina Pareño, who pulled a notable performance in Ploning, is both imperious and defeated as Nanay Flor, bitter to the end because of her husband’s infidelity. She is at the crucible of her family’s lackluster fate. Nayda is the dutiful wife, who married her husband, Lando, because she was impregnated by him. She has a secret longing for her cousin, Ronald, the projectionist. Lando is content to be under his wife’s skirt, doing cooking chores in the family’s ground-floor carinderia, and taking care of the elementary school-age Jerome.
Alan, the billboard painter, shows aspirations for a higher calling in the arts, but is pulled down by his recklessness and immaturity. And Jewel, the adopted girl, is too naïve to comprehend what’s in store for her.
There were some light-hearted and mundane scenes in the film, such as when a fleeing purse-snatcher, cornered by Alan, Ronald, and a security guard, ends up literally hanging by his shirt from the banister of the stairs that led to the balcony; or when a stray goat ended up in front of the screen, yelping, while a soft-porn flick is being shown on the screen. Ronald lights up the entire theater, which resulted in the male prostitutes and their clients scrambling to put their pants back on. I was struck by the unexpected ending, but a fellow reviewer, an American, commented that the flick was unlike any movies that were produced in North America. "I liked it. It is an uncommon movie," the man said.
Serbis captures a slice of a decaying society and the abject poverty that is pervasive in some urban areas in the country. It’s a film that’s dying to be made for the consumption of people everywhere, and has the ability to make viewers take pity or exult. The film is so gross in its depiction of filth and perversion that it is bound to shock the sensibilities of some viewers.
Serbis has the potential of winning the nods of judges in the Cannes Film and New York Film Festivals where it will be entered next year. Just like other multi-awarded Filipino films before it, Serbis is equally worthy of acclaim.
Serbis was based on a screenplay and story by Armando Lao and and Boots Agbayani-Pastor. The film was directed by Brillante Ma. Mendoza. He was born in San Fernando, Pampanga. He was a Fine Arts major and studied advertising at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. Starting his careers as a production designer in feature films, television and theater, Mendoza received acclaim for his production design work in Takaw Tukso (1986); Private Show(1986); Olongapo (The Great American Dream) (1987); and many others. From 1990 until 2004, Mendoza also did production design for TV commercials of multi-national companies in the Philippines.
His first film, Masahista, made in 2005, won a Golden Leopard award (co-winner) in the videos section at the 2005 Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland, as well as the Interfaith Award in 2006 Brisbane Festival and the Audience Award in Turin, Italy. His other movies include The Aeta, Foster Child, Summer Heat, and Tirador. Serbis was a co-production of the Philippines and France’s Swift Production. It won script-funding from the Asian Cinema Fund of the 2007 Pusan International Film Festival, and participated in the 2008 Hong Kong Asian Film Financing Forum
( Published on January 17, 2009 in Asian Journal Los Angeles p. B1 )
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