BOY TOYS Review
In an age in Philippine
cinema where filmmakers and their films are thirsting for a local market at the
risk of solely relying on the international film festival circuit for an
audience, a genre of films persisted, with a captive market that was loyal to
it no matter how technically inept and creatively insipid the films were. Queer
cinema took over the space the titillating films of the nineties outgrew.
Initiated by Cris Pablo's ultra-low budget meditations on the gay lifestyle
that were shot on digital video, these queer films were mostly independently
produced, a quality that separated it from the sex-oriented films of the
nineties which were heavily supported by the country's profit-hungry mainstream
film studios. As a result of the genre's indisputable profitability, which in
turn opened it to exploitation by more enterprising producers who opt to
concentrate on what drew viewers to pay and watch, which is the nudity and the
sex, instead of artistic integrity, it earned ill repute among film circles who
saw the genre's domination in both numbers and earnings of the entire
independent film industry, if ever such a thing exists, as an affront to what
independence in filmmaking really meant.
Yet queer cinema in the
Joselito Altarejos, whose
career as filmmaker is a product of the recent boom in queer cinema, has made
seven features in the span of only three years. His staggering output as a
director is a testament to the undying demand for the films that follow the
formula that breathe economic viability to that particular genre. With Laruang Lalake (Boy Toys), Altarejos offers an insider's look as to how these films
are made, starting from when an aspiring actor (Arjay Carreon) from the
province is pushed to audition for an upcoming gay feature by his ambitions of
stardom and dire financial needs to when the film gets made but its life hinges
on the hands of the members of the censors board.
It's clearly and
understandably a non-judgmental portrayal of what happens behind the scenes.
The characters, from Carreon's timid neophyte and his motherly manager to the
admirably honorable director (Richard Quan), lack that certain darkness in
their personalities that could have caused the requisite conflict in this film
about filmmaking. Instead, the film focuses on the mechanics of making a gay
film, concentrating on moments that are by themselves banal, but as a whole, is
a statement on how gay films, despite their assured profitability, are still
subject to all the rules of independent filmmaking in the Philippines, which
include making most of shoestring budgets, putting up with unprofessional upstarts
and being at the mercy of established ones, personal loans for the sake of the
craft, and censorship.
Altarejos dutifully mounts scene
after scene, attempting to approximate the tedium that goes with the
filmmaking, coloring the tedium with bits of comedy and drama. Despite the
effort however, Altarejos fails to engage primarily because the film is not
consistent in its aim, struggling to initiate its audience with the familiar
story of an upstart getting into a profession that will predictably eat his
soul before completely changing course to focus on the fate of the film. The
problem stems from the fact that neither the upstart nor the fictional film is
interesting enough to carry a film about them. Carreon plays his character with
hardly any charm to pull away the fact that the character is severely thinly
written. Fortunately, Quan and Mon Confiado, who plays a strip club owner who
is venturing to produce gay films, are believable in their respective parts.
The fictional film, showed in bits and pieces as being filmed and as shot,
seems to be the typical gay film, defended righteously by the director as an
exploration of gay sexuality, but as portrayed in the partial pieces that
Altarejos shows, is more of a montage of naked male bodies in various simulated
sexual acts.
Despite all its faults, Laruang Lalake contains a sequence that
makes it worth anybody's time. The director faces the censors board for a
second time, pleading for his film to be given a go-signal to be screened
commercially. As the censors rip his film apart and tackles each objectionable
scene and explaining why it can't be screened to the public, the film morphs
into something else. Sure, ostensibly, the scene laments a film culture that
bows down to individuals whose senses and tastes have become obsolete (as deliciously
displayed when the censors themselves are unable to turn a cellular phone in
silent mode). However, much more than a statement as to the dangerous inutility
of the censors board, the scene, in the way the director defends first the
scenes and later on, the homosexual acts depicted in the scenes, begs for
acceptance of the genre that exists primarily because there exists sexual
differences. To disparage the genre itself is akin to intolerance, and in a
way, just like all the members of the board that condescend on the elements
that are essential to both gay cinema and being gay, we're all suspects.
(Cross-published in Lessons from the School of Inattention.)