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Fans nix druggie slum dweller Papa Piolo

Author: Bibsy Carballo
Column: Meanderings

PRIOR to watching Piolo Pascual in Manila, we had already heard so much about the project. How he had decided to co-produce it, star in it, attracted by the concept of an updated tribute to Lino Brocka's Jaguar and Ishmael Bernal's City After Dark. The twin-bill was directed by Raya Martin and Adolfo Alix, both big names in the world of independent cinema.

The prolific Alix is a constant at CineMalaya competitions having done the awarded Donsol, Kadin, and Adela which opened the festival last year. Martin's Independencia went to Cannes this year to be exhibited in the prestigious Un Certain Regard Section. The partnering of these two giants with Piolo Pascual, easily the most popular male lead actor in mainstream cinema today, was an experiment we all awaited.

As an initial venture, Manila certainly had good karma. For one thing, it was one out of six given special screening rights after having been selected from over 50 other films at the Cannes Fillm Festival last May, that historic festival which also had Martin's Independencia, and where Dante Mendoza won the best director trophy for Kinatay, the first ever for the Philippines.

Manila has already been invited by eight foreign film festivals. It was chosen to open the CineMalaya 2009 Independent Film Festival and Competition at the CCP. Piolo himself is said to have been overwhelmed by the reception the picture has been receiving from every sector both here and abroad.

On opening night, typhoon Isang couldn't keep away curious movie buffs, foreign observers, and hordes of Papa Piolo fans who couldn't contain themselves and we are told screamed out his name several times during the film screening.

Now that the dust of success has settled, comes the bare facts of life a neophyte producer and movie icon must face. Not a few have told us that Piolo has sank in quite a sum into the Manila project. Quite a few, too, outside of the screaming fans who streamed out of the CCP premier night had stated unequivocally that they didn't like the movie. What's gotten into Piolo, they ask, that he has allowed himself to be sweet-talked by these indie writer-directors to bankroll their projects that wouldn't benefit him at all? To make things worse, an editor friend pointed out, why couldn't Piolo even wait to see how Manila would perform. He had to jump into his next project that launches Eugene Domingo as solo star with Dingdong Dantes as leading man. He must be out of his mind, he continues.

We decided to watch Manila and see what all the conflicting opinions were about. It was 4 p. m. at the Megamall last Sunday, primetime for kids and the yayas, boys with girlfriends looking for bargains. We couldn't believe that we were barely two dozen in the entire moviehouse. Two dozen at a Papa Piolo movie? You have got to be kidding. The bad news must have already spread like wildfire.

The trailers were ending and Manila in black and white was to begin. A dirty bedraggled individual is seen walking the streets. He has a drink of water from a faucet. He lays down on the grass and falls asleep. It is Piolo, tired, and unwashed.

Upon waking up he continues his travels. A pastiche of images accosts the senses. Sidewalk vendors; a raid on the massage parlor offering sexual favors; his search of the drug that must be his only succor; his visit to his girlfriend Angelica Panganiban and mother Rosanna Roces who both turn him away; the finality of it all.

The first part of which is City after Dark has ended. We are jolted to the present by a color segment of director Lav Diaz on a movie set after which the credits of the twin-bill roll. The two persons seated beside us articulate our thoughts. What was that all about?

The second part, the Jaguar part is faster paced and more to the taste of the contemporary Pinoy. Piolo is a bodyguard to political bigshot Jay Manalo. Piolo tells his lola Anita Linda and his brothers that he will take them out of the sewer soon enough as his boss treats him like family as long as he is loyal. That evening the group of Jay, his sassy girlfriend Alex da Rossi, and loyal Piolo run into the girl's ex Baron Geisler and during a rumble Piolo kills Baron and hides in the garbage dump. Unfortunately, the cops come and signal the end of his dreams for lola and his brothers.

Like the dozen or so of us who watched that afternoon, we liked Manila. It was a simplified homage to the two classics of both Brocka and Bernal 30 years ago. Both films had to go through the proverbial eye of the needle to be shown; City after Dark was originally titled Manila by Night but it is said Imelda Marcos requested Bernal for a change of title purportedly to save the slur on her beloved Manila. Today, there are no such problems of censorship. The problem is one of audience. And it is Piolo Pascual going through the eye of the needle to do what he wants.

As we left the theater, we ask our friend her opinion of the movie. Her reply was immediate. She didn't like Papa Piolo dirtied up and as a drug addict. Hindi bagay. She liked the bodyguard role more since he was more pogi and with pogi people.

Perhaps that is the key. Do it slowly, with acceptable roles until one day, Papa Piolo will no longer be Papa Piolo matinee idol, every girl and bading's dreamboy and will have become Piolo Pascual, actor for all roles and for all seasons. But he has taken the first bold step. We salute him. He may end up kawawa with hard-earned savings down the drain, lose his screaming Papa Piolo legions of fans, but he may just have opened a new chapter in the 3rd Golden Age of Philippine Cinema.

Email the author at bibsycarballo@yahoo. com

Source: People's Journal