If you are
looking for something that would inevitably touch your hearts and raise your
feet off the ground laughing, the award winning Indi-film, BWAKAW, is the right
movie to spend your time on.
Filipino
cinema veteran, Eddie Garcia gives a career-capping performance as Rene, a
70-year old single gent in a quiet provincial town, as he resigned to seeing
out his days together with the company of his loyal canine companion Bwakaw
(Princess). Rene has his secrets but is refuses to share them until he
befriends a tricycle driver, played by Rez Cortez.
Employing frequent outrageous humor, jokes, and gay acts, director Jun Robles
Lana elegantly captures the quality of everyday life in the undeveloped areas
while crafting a superior character study of a grumpy old man who has allowed
most of his life to pass him by until an emotional jolt emboldens him to go
where he’s never dared to venture before.
Coming to
terms with his homosexuality late in life, Garcia's hunched hero is all kinds
of frustrated. It's implied that he's never even been with a man (or a woman),
grouchily refusing the boy-toy offerings of a local transvestite pimp (Joey
Paras) while slowly forming a relationship with a gruff, straight, married cab
driver (Rez Cortez).
The emotions
running through the film are surprisingly and refreshingly rich, especially
given the thicker attempts at comedy Lana indulges. As seriously as Bwakaw
takes the issue of Rene's own sexuality, it elsewhere treats the gay members of
his small town as flamboyant and clownish. Perhaps their ability to be so
flamboyant and clownish reveals the larger culture of acceptance in this
backwater berg, a generous reading betrayed by the community's skepticism of
Cortez's tough-looking cabbie. At one point, while turning down another svelte,
apparently mute boy prostitute, Rene comments that he's "not that kind of
a gay man." While the film is fairly diligent in probing the character's
lonely, delimited conception of his own sexuality, it also weirdly seems to
place pride in his shuffling existence as a hard-nosed celibate, the weight of
his exasperated desire his cross to bear. It is until the timely coming of
Bwakaw’s death, and how did the gay role of Garcia ended up interestingly.
The Film
Academy of the Philippines (FAP) announced on Sept. 17 the official selection
of “Bwakaw,” as the country’s entry to the Best Foreign Language Film category
for next year’s Academy Awards. Likewise, “Bwakaw” competed in the 2012
Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival where it won the Audience Choice and
Netpac Awards, as well as Best Actor (for Garcia) under the Director’s Showcase
segment.
No wonder,
the movie BWAKAW was listed by Time Entertainment as “one of the 10 films to
watch” at New York Film Festival, one of the most eminent international film
events anticipated by critics and avid fans worldwide.
Finally, the
wonderpiece of Lana will be for everyone; as children or adults will surely
rate this one thumbs-up, with the content as
for general audiences. This will surely be the most memorable
human-animal relationship you will ever see!
No comments:
Post a Comment