MANILA – October 8, 2013 – Metro Manila, the UK entry to the foreign language category of the 2014 Academy Awards, could have been set anywhere in the world, but director Sean Ellis chose to do it in the Philippines.
The film tells of a farmer Oscar Ramirez, who moves with his family from the highlands to the big city in search of a better life, only to discover hardships greater than they imagined. Oscar and his wife Mai soon become embroiled in the evils of the city, and when Oscar gets a job as an armored truck driver, he becomes involved in a scheme that threatens to corrupt him and ruin his family.
The story’s themes are familiar all over the world: the hardships of urban life, loss of innocence, corruption, poverty. As Ellis shared at a Q&A session after the film’s special screening on October 4, 20th Century Fox has even bought remake rights, a testament to the film’s universality.
But Ellis’ choice to set the film in Metro Manila was born out of his personal belief in what he says are "the laws of creation."
The idea for the film came to Ellis when he witnessed a fight between two armored truck drivers during a visit to the Philippines. The scene created quite an impression on him, so that 18 months later, back in the U.K, Ellis wrote a 20-page synopsis for what would be Metro Manila.
As Ellis shared, "The original idea came to me when I was in the Philippines, and I’m a great believer of the laws of creation… For me it was a t, and I felt that this t was from the laws of creation, and therefore, I didn’t want to be unfaithful to that t. I didn’t want to take it elsewhere."
Following his belief must have been the right move, because when Ellis started filming, everything fell right into place.
"You know when you’re trying to do something and you’re trying to drive somewhere and you always keep hitting a red light, it’s like something is telling you you’re not supposed to be there on time?" He said.
"You can often make films when the whole process is like you’re hitting a red light… This was one of those days when you’re driving along and every light is green. You just keep moving through every traffic light…That’s pretty much how it felt making this film in that sense," he shared.
"It’s my love letter to the Philippines," Ellis said.
Metro Manila will be shown in Philippine cinemas starting October 9. It will be the first time that an audience who knows the world of the film better than any other audience will be seeing it.
Ellis shared that he is interested in seeing how the Filipino audience will respond.
"Some of the comments that we get from Filipinos is that it’s a defamiliarization of what they know. It looks familiar. But because it’s shot with a viewpoint from what I found interesting about the city, it looks slightly unfamiliar," he told adobo at the Q&A session.
"I was very captivated by a lot of details, that I know when I was going ‘oh look at that!’ Jake [Macapagal, who plays Oscar] would be like ‘yeah,’ just not impressed by it," he shared. "What I was interested in was sort of looking at things that I hadn’t seen before and presenting it in a way that looks familiar to Filipinos but probably in a different point of view."
Actor John Arcilla, who plays the armored truck driver who mentors Oscar, asked Pinoy viewers to see beyond the setting and listen to the story.
"The theme is very universal. As an audience, I don’t see Filipinos there. What I can see are human beings. Suddenly, Metro Manila disappeared. People will always realize that this is just fiction. It can happen in any city," he said.
"What I’m afraid of a little is just the first 15 minutes. Because everything is so familiar that they might think this is what the movie is all about. Filipinos just have to wait," Arcilla said.
The Filipino audience might find the story similar to Lino Brocka’s masterwork, Maynila sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (The Claws of Light), an iconic film in Philippine Cinema that tells a similar story of a province boy getting eaten up by the big city.
But as Ellis said, cliche though the story might be, he has added his own twist.
"I remember when I talked to cast and crew saying it’s about this family that migrates to Manila in hope of a better life, and they sort of just glazed over like, every other Filipino film," he said.
"The thing is, the cliches are there for a reason. They are cliches because they work. But I think it was an art director that said, ‘don’t give me these cliches, bring me new cliches.’ So it’s taking that cliche and reworking it and putting for me, the final ending of this film is a different way of looking at a heist movie," he added. "I think by the time you get drawn in to the thriller aspect of it, the cliche element has sort of been rinsed from it."
The special screening of Metro Manila was hosted by the British Embassy, the British Council, and its partners as part of "This is GREAT Britain," a five-month long celebration of British business and culture.
