Metro Manila (2013)
Cast: Jake Macapagal, John Arcilla, Althea Vega
Director: Sean Ellis
Country: UK | Philippines
Genre: Crime | Drama
Editor’s Notes: Metro Manila opens Friday, September 19, 2014 at TIFF Bell Lightbox.
“No matter how long the procession,” Oscar Ramirez (Jake Macapagal) tells us, “It always ends at the church door.” His narration provides a gentle, noirish open to writer-director Sean Ellis’ Metro Manila, a film that easily floats in and out of genres without self-consciousness. A struggling farmer in the Banaue Province of the Philippines, Oscar is at the mercy of ruthless store owners who no longer pay a fair price for his crops. Desperate for money, he decides to travel to Manila to find work, taking his wife and young daughter along. It’s a decision made out of equal parts hope and naivete, not a surprise from a man so fond of optimistic platitudes. But Oscar confesses that he has always preferred a different version of that opening cliché, one he heard in prison: “If you’re born to hang, you’ll never drown.” It’s a tantalizing detail suggesting Oscar is not quite the shmuck he seems to be on the surface.
A guileless hayseed in the middle of a bustling, beautiful and uncaring metro area is a plot straight out of a silent film; the same hayseed with a secret reserve of strength is more akin to the unwitting heroes of films noir.
A guileless hayseed in the middle of a bustling, beautiful and uncaring metro area is a plot straight out of a silent film; the same hayseed with a secret reserve of strength is more akin to the unwitting heroes of films noir. Oscar is both of these things and more, thanks to the fluid genre swaps in Metro Manila. Soon after he arrives, he’s at the center of a tense urban crime thriller, along with his wife Mai (Althea Vega), both of whom take questionable jobs out of necessity, Mai as a hostess in a strip club, Oscar securing a dangerous position as an armored truck driver. Oscar’s new partner John (Douglas Ong) is an immediate friend, almost a guardian angel, but it’s soon clear that his friendship comes at a price.
With urgent camerawork and an eye for the symmetric, both the rural landscape and crowded urban center of Manila are lovely, inviting places, as beautiful as poisonous snakes. The visual metaphors, however, are a touch too on-the-nose at times, and coupled with some disturbing scenes of sexual exploitation and violence, Metro Manila occasionally becomes little more than an exploitation film. There are scenes meant to edge toward social consciousness which are instead clumsy and even a little thoughtless, where poverty is used as an excuse for more salacious scenes.
Still, there is something undeniably compelling about Metro Manila, an underlying tenderness and honesty in the performances, as though the actors were outwardly defying the film’s attempt to exploit them in the same way the characters struggle to defy a city that exploits the desperate. Macapagal’s performance is a marvel of subtlety at some moments, all outsized, conflicting emotions at others. A magnificent scene where Oscar gets drunk with his new co-workers is intercut with shots of Mai earning a pittance in a skimpy bikini. Both are surrounded by drunken, entitled louts with money to burn, and both are victims in their way, but it’s a clear juxtaposition: Oscar has the opportunity in Manila to become one of those louts with money, and doing so would be considered success, while Mai could never be anything but a commodity for others.
There’s a heavy romanticism throughout Metro Manila that borders on melodrama, yet culminates in a genuinely moving finale.
Ellis’ view of Manila seems touristy on occasion, but his choice to have the actors translate the English script into Tagalog helps mitigate the sightseeing factor, as do the carefully picked, realistic location shots. Fine performances mix with terrific pacing and confident camerawork to produce a gripping tale, with action sequences as solid and exciting as any modern, big-budget thriller. There’s a heavy romanticism throughout Metro Manila that borders on melodrama, yet culminates in a genuinely moving finale.
There is something undeniably compelling about Metro Manila, an underlying tenderness and honesty in the performances, as though the actors were outwardly defying the film's attempt to exploit them in the same way the characters struggle to defy a city that exploits the desperate.
