sabelohilario Most of the scenes are incoherent. The main plot is the brutality done to the girl, that's it, movie concluded. Just wasted my time watching this crap.

lppyabut-918-323826 The sights and sounds of Metro Manila no longer intrigue me. The struggles of the impoverished in this 3rd world country is a reality I deal with every single day. I only need to turn on the television or pick up the newspaper or look out the window to see and hear for myself. Therefore the story of a prostitute turned drug addict turned thief turned salvage victim is as predictable as they get. But in this movie, it served as the perfect setting for a young man's baptism of fire. Here is a carefree 20 year old boy who had just married the mother of his child; juggling university life, basketball and odd jobs for a dirty cop. His future, uncertain. His main ambition is to enter the traffic force where he truly believes rackets would be abundant. So when one night he is asked to work overtime, he unenthusiastically joins the team. It is to be a long drive and at every turn hesitance, tribulation and fear could be sensed in the boy as he is forced to become a man overnight.

jamalashley I knew that sooner or later, a Filipino indie film would win awards in international film festivals. As I kept on telling friends, it is very easy to satisfy European festival judges. Just give them a good dose of poverty, a dash of culture and some nudity. And if you really want to win, add some scenes denigrating Filipino customs, politics, bureaucracy or society.As usual with Mendoza's films, the setting is the slum area. This, of course, can only score big points from European viewers. Then comes the long scenes with characters walking along the slum neighborhood and the streets of Manila. The Western viewers are suckers for these scenes. It makes them feel vicariously how it is to live in such squalid places. For some academics or critics, this is their "research" into the social practice in these foreign parts.The main couple (Peping and Cecille) act as the tourist guides for the foreign viewers. They walk along the alleys of their slum neighborhood and drops off their child with a neighbor. With more walking, the viewers-cum-tourists-cum-researchers get to take a glimpse at everyday life in a Manila ghetto. The couple then take a tricycle ride before taking a Philippine jitney ride to go to the municipal hall. Wow, the foreign viewers just had a triple whammy — walking along the alleys of the ghetto, then taking a tricycle ride and then a jitney ride. Most of these foreigners probably have not even seen a tricycle or a Philippine jitney in their lives. The viewers-cum-tourists get to see more of Manila from the vantage point of someone in a tricycle and a jitney. It must be exciting for them just as I am excited seeing people ride elephants or camels or land speeder (like Luke Skywalker) for everyday purpose.In order to have more scenes for the "tourist" foreign viewers, the relatives of the couple went the city hall separately, even though they most probably live in the same house or are neighbors. And so the relatives (an old lady and two kids) take the viewers on a tour of the city hall and its vicinity — passing by a flag ceremony and a mass wedding, among others. Maybe in Mendoza's social circle, people go to their own weddings as if they are just going to see a movie. The couple wore everyday clothes. In fact, the groom was just wearing his college uniform. The couple take jitney or tricycle rides instead of a taxi cab or a friend's car. (Oh, they did ride aboard a friend's van after the wedding). The parents of both sides appear to be absent but there is a grandmother around. After the wedding, they go eat at a restaurant. After lunch, they go their separate ways. The groom proceeds to his school and attends classes -- on his wedding day! After school, the groom goes to his job collecting money from bookies who are also ambulant vendors in the street by the bay. The film then takes the viewers on a night tour of Manila, this time along the main highway, EDSA. Peping rides in the van with his boss, a police captain, and colleagues. Along the way, the boss picks up a prostitute named Madonna from a strip joint. In the strip joint, Mendoza titillated his tourist-viewers by showing a couple of ugly topless dancers. Inside the van, without giving any reason, the boss's right hand man, another police officer, starts punching the hooker and duck tapes her mouth. He continues hitting her until she is unconscious. But Mendoza did not show the actress being hit. It was all sound effects with the camera focusing mainly on Peping. It's cheaper for the producers and easier for the actors that way.To tell the audience that something really bad is going to happen, a horror-movie musical score accompanies Peping and the road trip. The musical score is supposed to scare the viewers. To cap the film, there was the "rape" scenes juxtaposed with other scenes. There was no struggle in the rape scenes. The woman was not even tied up. She was sitting with her back against the head board, baring her full body except the face with a fully naked man, with his back on the camera, forcing himself on her mouth. This is not supposed to arouse prurient interests. The climax of the movie is what the title is all about. Kinatay means butchered. But with all the butchering going on, there wasn't much blood shown. There was no blood on the walls nor even on the head board. There wasn't much blood on the men either. The twist in the end reminded me of the short stories I used to write in high school. I was imitating Hitchcock. I wanted endings that would surprise, even shock, the readers. Kinatay is such a film – very sophomoric, nay, juvenile.Mendoza won the Best Direction Award. It is the 3rd most prestigious award of the festival. I don't know what were in the minds of Isabelle Huppert and company. I've seen Antichrist, Inglorious Basterds, A Prophet, and Taking Woodstock. They were all immensely better than Kinatay. "A Prophet" won the Grand Prix. I haven't seen the Palm D'or winner "The White Ribbon" by Michael Haneke. Even the film Dogtooth, which was in the Un Certain Regard section, is a much better film than Kinatay.As a Filipino, I am very glad that Mendoza won the Best Director Award. But as a film buff, a Film Studies scholar and a film critic, I am very sad that his film is so mediocre. Cannes 2009′s Jury President Isabelle Huppert and Brillante Mendoza are planning to make a film together in the Philippines next year. Mendoza would be the perfect tourist guide for her. I suppose she was intrigued by the Manila slums and the EDSA roadside.

jamesnicolay If there's one thing about widely marketed Filipino movies which should improve dramatically, it's sound--I absolutely loathe the annoying synthesized staple background music being forced upon us each time the characters are set to spew their spit with their loud, hammy dialogues, or whenever someone is about to cry. That's why I applaud local indie films which at least feature original scores or unusual songs to give better local color to the story. Some experimental films by some of the innovative, unpopular directors even skip background music in order to give a sense of realism to their films. And what a relief--here comes Brillante Mendoza's "Kinatay"--which I believe outscores--pun intended--every Filipino film for its masterful exploration of sound and its effect on people. "Kinatay"--before it won the Best Director Award in the most prestigious film festival in the world--was butchered by various international critics when the film was screened in Cannes. They blamed the unsteady video and the lack of light in about half of the entire film. Even the famous critic Roger Ebert dismissed "Kinatay" as the worst film ever screened in Cannes, even going as far as saying that he wanted to apologize to Vince Gallo for saying the same remark about his "The Brown Bunny." (I had the misfortune of seeing Gallo's film and I thought that Ebert should not retract his statement about Gallo's horrible, conceited trash.) Movie watching for me has always been both a visual and an auditory experience. Often, movie makers tend to focus on the story or the actors or even special effects. But few directors actually bother to heighten music or sound as the most important aspect in a film. Quentin Tarantino, who's notorious for his wild taste in music in his films, is one of the directors who, I believe, highlights sound in his work. In his "Kill Bill Vol.2", one of the crucial scenes is when The Bride gets buried alive and the video of the movie is slowly diminished by the sight of dirt covering the entire screen. For a few seconds, we hear nothing but the sound of gasping, whimpering, and crying from the protagonist as her villains make loud noises with their shovels digging and throwing dirt to the screen. Experiencing this in a theater gives the audience a claustrophobic environment where we empathize with the experience of struggling of the character.This sadistic manipulation of sound, for me, is crucial to understand "Kinatay." Mendoza wanted to make the audience fear more for the victim by making them see less details and hear more. By making the cries of Madonna nonstop and interspersing with the curses of the police officers, the audience feels equally threatened, abused, and angered. The background music reinforces the atmosphere of terror as it sounds like a masterful and unique score of a thriller or horror film. I actually think it's pretty obvious that since the visuals are intentionally dark and shaky, the director wanted the audience to hear the movie out instead. Unfortunately, many viewers (critics included) are already blinded by digital spectacles. How ordinary it is for modern viewers nowadays to see a film just because the movie has good visual effects. There are only a few people who after watching a film goes out to say that the film has superb score or background music.The striking quality of the sound of "Kinatay" is definitely its profound sense of realism. We hear the sounds of the city during the first thirty minutes of the film, and for people who live in Manila, it feels like home--with all the deafening noise of the vehicles, shouts of the vendors, gossips of the housewives, screams of street basketball players, music from TV, cellphones, radios, and even noises from animals. But as night falls, the absence of noise becomes more threatening. A simple curse in the middle of the night already gives us the creeps--what more if the curses and screams are confined in a compact vehicle, a remote house in the province?The loudest sound in the movie comes from the facial expressions of Peping. In his silence, we hear the terrifying outburst of guilt, of helplessness, and of fear. With Peping, we become passive witnesses to crime and become deaf to the cries of the victim. We know exactly who are the dregs of society and yet we do nothing because we know that we are powerless because these villains are some of the most powerful people in the society. And sad to say, the message of Brillante Mendoza has to be heard loud and clear: this is what our reality sounds like today.