For a very dark film, “Kinatay” is getting its happy ending.
After much trepidation, director Brillante Mendoza’s controversial film walked away with an MTRB rating of “R” (Strictly for Adults/No one below 18 years old may be admitted). He’s happy that “Kinatay" can now be seen in its entirety without cuts.”
Moreover, film buffs can attend its first public screening this August 25, Tuesday, at Greenbelt 3. The event is hosted by adobo magazine and the film’s post-production house Optima Digital.
Having colleagues from the ad industry—who have known Mendoza since his days as a production designer—see his masterwork is important for Mendoza.
He says, “I’m hoping for a warm reception from the advertising community.”
“Kinatay”, which earned the filmmaker the Cannes International Film Festival’s nod for Best Director, is 100-minute descent of a young criminologist (Coco Martin) into moral hell. Tagging along for a quick buck, he finds himself trapped in a nightmarish ride from which he cannot get off.
By all accounts, the film is not a typical audience-pleaser. Initial reviews from Cannes have been extreme, although the Cannes jury felt very strongly for Mendoza’s vision.
In a personal note to the filmmaker, jury member and Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino said, “Your decision to never dramatize…never indulge in movie suspense was bold and daring…I believed everything I saw.”
Reviews by Filipino cineastes, who viewed the film in the UP Film Institute, have so far been intriguing. Lilit Reyes, an awarded screenwriter and adman, wrote:
“The seemingly unseen and seen soon-to-be-murdered target, right beside the innocent protagonist, combined with music as though our heart will pound loudly and stop beating, and mixed with conversations to aid the non-visible violence in alternately nonchalant and filthy dialogue, make ‘Kinatay’ an effective thriller, in realistic, but darkly visualized manner.”
Spot.ph’s reviewer Antonio Paredes said, “Brillante Mendoza does what he does best: capturing the controlled chaos of the city in broad, impressionistic strokes…There is a metaphorical appropriateness to having the action be so murky that you cannot even identify who is speaking—evil can be faceless, or requires a remove on the part of the person perpetrating it.”
While the screening (which includes a director’s commentary) will shed light on Mendoza’s filmmaking process, intrigue continues to follow him.
Copies of adobo’s July-August issue, on which the director is both the cover story and the subject of an unusual centerfold, have disappeared from many newsstands. Speculation has it that certain parties—critical of “Kinatay”’s subject matter and of Mendoza’s graphic storytelling—are buying them in bulk, to deny him the added publicity.
In response to this theory, an amused Mendoza said by SMS, “That’s a nice mystery to have. Didn’t know I have [such] a huge following.”
Then he promptly ordered a few more copies of adobo. Just in case.
