Film Review: Cavite

“CAVITE” OPENS ON FRIDAY, JUNE 16
Lumiere, 1572 California Street at Polk, San Francisco, (415) 267-4893
Shattuck Cinemas, 2230 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, (510)464-5980
For more information visit www.landmarktheatres.com

©2006 by Annabelle A. Udo
(published in "Listen & Be Heard")

Chevron Gas Prices o' the Day (19th Avenue)
$3.25
$3.35
$3.45

It was 3 in the morning when I arrived in the Philippines in 1999. It was my first trip and there was no fanfare at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. There were two men dressed in military couture with their pants tucked in their boots and weapons at the ready. At that moment, the trip I had been waiting for all my life seemed glum, but as my adventures took me through an array of experiences--from meeting a journalist-turned healer to sitting in the mayor’s seat in Vigan, Ilocos Sur to picnicking in the high altitudes of Baguio—it all turned out to be life altering. I now feel that the Philippines ought to adopt the slogan: "Never a dull moment." And, so in retracing this experience, I realized as I watched Cavite, that this young pair of fledgling Filipino-American filmmakers (Ian Gamazon and Neill Dela Llana) also captured the indigestion that I witnessed when I was there--the congestion, the poverty, and the politics--the Philippines is still, otherwise, a country chock full of beauty.

Cavite begins in San Diego with a very tense Adam, the central character played by Gamazon, who seems to be riddled with the constant battle of just being. His story unfolds almost immediately when he is prompted to leave for the Philippines to attend his father's funeral while also juggling a problematic relationship with his American girlfriend. Upon arriving in Manila, he struggles to contact his mother and sister who, unbeknownst to him, have been kidnapped. Upon discovering a cell phone and photographs of his family, he realizes what has happened. On the line is a threatening, sometimes sympathetic, voice of one of the hostage takers who coerces Adam on a labyrinthian journey through the intestines of Cavite in order for Adam to save his family. The spectacular cell phone reception that Adam received in this film leaves one wondering which cell phone provider he was using.

This film could easily have been a documentary as the audience is taken through actual footage of a cockfight, jolty rides on the crowded Jeepney buses, the cacophonous streets of the dense marketplaces and odoriferous squatter towns. What is admirable of this film is truly the labor of love to make this project come to fruition. With post-production costs being under $7,000 and two cameras which they eventually sold on eBay, their seamless ability to embroider themselves in the existing landscape while shooting allowed them also to utilize the true reactions of the locals. Cavite unfolds naturally and although exhausting with the constant shaky cam, the suspense factor remains high which is really what keeps one's interest to the end considering that the film really contains only two characters: Adam and the demanding voice of terror that seemed to serve more as a tour guide than a kidnapper.

Cavite is a creative endeavor that contains the likes of the Joel Schumacher film Phone Booth. It will be interesting to see if these two young filmmakers plan on producing more works as their style has a natural flare in addressing the Filipino American experience.

The Mezzanine

©2006 by Annabelle A. Udo

Chevron Gas Prices o' the Day (19th Avenue)
$3.27
$3.37
$3.47

Save my soul from the wretched earth that bleeds
Where temples turn to dust
And the basic needs
Of humanity
Have all run dry.
We look to the sky and wonder “why?”

Praying to a god that we do not see
The Lord Creator of you and me
Who catches us in an invisible net
Lest we jump
Lest we forget.

We know not where we are going
Heaven above or hell below
The humidity of the damned
Sets aglow
the wolverine’s face
that appears by the candlelight
Not speaking
Just staring
The voyeur of your fright.

Death walks through the unlocked door
Beggarman, storekeeper, the town’s local whore
And taps on the shoulder
Of the one who sleeps
Deep
and even deeper
Until they can no longer breathe.

But the beauty of it all
Is really in the living
Of not what was received
But what was in the giving.

So to the ancestral ghosts that follow our ground
Watch our disappointments
Watch the lost become found,
They will always be here to uplift us
From the wreckage of darkness
And the long miles ahead
This life pursued
It is written,
It is said.