By: Iris P. Concepcion
I have seen lately how a lean organization with enough spunk to scatter, mind-wise, has revolutionized the way things are being run in this country.
I have read one politician terming it as "changing the mindset of how we are governed."
They are starting to rein in the film sector on this free-burst mold also. Fashion did it already and with a superior bang.
I just came from a brilliant movie megged by a classmate in college. It brought tears to my eyes in that, it was raw and dysfunctionally real, down to the actors he had employed. They might not have seen a make-up kit in their entire performing life.
It was the larger picture I was after at though.
I am a follower of his ouvre in various mediums of creations. I know he had churned out television documentaries and superior films that resembled more of his personal passions and convictions.
I was not expecting the filmmaker to turn up physically; his doppeldanger was buying tickets for travelogue films. He probably was not invited even to his own film screening.
I am glad, nonetheless, that the director showed up, robust and proud, to defend his film from being cauterized by a bunch of......well, bunches.
He is funny just like me. He said it could be the first time he is watching his own opus himself. I form an ESP with some of this country's creative men and women in this manner.
Perhaps, some sectors wanted to deconstruct him but the audience ended up weeping as an honest man's lens seeped through the fabric of social conscience without necessarily meaning to be too polite about it.
Yes: The World Cup Is One Big Soap Opera.
They failed to bastardize the film, firstly, because I am around (my own circuit of writers follow me like sprinkled moths). I am overtly proud this way.
Secondly, the exceptionality of reverse lens set-up we see masterfully in print is so cutting and rugged on screen that these pay-for-view critics walked out on their own set-up. To be arrogant, as the kindly father figure on the film said, you must win first.
I have seen tears fall as footballs were kicked by urchins. And bygad, am I proud when my fellow craftsman-director said the bitch word in a properly syllabled style.
This is a new style foray into the visual medium. It is better than reality show.
Words are spoken in real time and they are not dubbed. Well, these basketball fanatics of the underworld tried hacking it but they had miserably failed. The best romantic line was uttered by one of the most gorgeous faces I have seen on screen thus far without being too conscious about it.
"I am a good leader because I have a good partner who supports me."
It turned out to be the director's platform for howlers and he won it, hook, line and sinker. He let on a secret: two of his acting wards were being pirated by international schools but they had refused even with the monetary perks dangled before them.
It was a delight to watch the despondent faces of the once mighty, proud, mocking faces of the rich when they went out of the theater.
Bold lines from a feisty director who is not afraid to cry in articulating the best whopper lines thus far.
"We are gonna get 'em coconuts" is so Coppola and he was parrying them like he did in his film: fearless. And the audience cried in their very own set-up. Uptweaked, eyes rolled down on cheeks like dramatic confessions.
A lanky fellow in red asked him: "When are you going to publish this film?"
Director replied: "Published? Or when shall it have commercial screening? I am not going to have it screened commercially. I am showing this in schools as an advocacy project, for kids to develop passion for football even when they are too poor to watch live football plays."
I think I scored another one and walked out of the mall laughing at the array of the more famous artists donning shiny clothes, trying to get noticed. They look pretty and well-coiffed.
I kept the face of the lead male though: he looks very out of the box. So congenial.
Even Steven Spielberg would slap me for thinking this way.
Jim Libiran, thank you for your gift of heart-rending stories.