KOMMANDER KULAS Review
Khavn
de la Cruz's Kommander: Kulas: Ang Kaisa-isang Konsiyerto ng Kagila-gilalas na Kombo ni
Kommander Kulas at ng Kanyang Kawawang Kalabaw sa Walang Katapusang Kalsada ng
Kamyas (Kommander Kulas: The One and Only Concert of the Amazing Combo of Kommander Kulas
and his Poor Carabao in the Long and Unwinding Road of Kamyas), or Kommander
Kulas for much-needed brevity, relies strongly on pattern. After a
prologue which details the existential account of the titular character's death
in storybook fashion, Khavn spends little time to force his audience into a
near-torturous cycle of depraved art, from spoken poetry of varying degrees of
menace and perversion serving as soundtrack to several images (the most
shocking of which has a heavyset woman sitting on a plate as if defecating), to long takes of Kommander Kulas riding his carabao in lush landscapes, to public domain Tagalog love songs serenading images of a makeshift grand piano
stationed in different decrepit locations in the city.
Khavn has done the same patterned film before. In Paalam Aking Bulalakaw (Goodbye
My Shooting Star, 2006), he documents a date with a girl (Meryll
Soriano) while cycling through love poems and love songs. Where the pattern in Paalam
Aking Bulalakaw complemented the Khavn's unabashed meanderings on
romantic love, in Kommander Kulas, the pattern only adds to the burden of the
film, weighing the already weighty subject matter with the malady of predictability.
However,
Khavn is not concerned with providing surprises or shocking twists. Right from the start, he duly
warns his audience of Kommander Kulas' demise leading from his unresolved search for his
heart which led to his meet-ups with various loves and their human
representations. It seems that Khavn's goal is to wear his audience off, to make them feel the exhausting repercussions of a hopeless search for a hopeless
heart. In that sense, perspective and agenda, Khavn more than
succeeds.
Khavn is more than a prolific filmmaker who makes three to four feature length
films and even more short films per year. He is also very unpredictable. His
films, most of which bear the signature of being sensible and
sometimes logical despite the palpable chaos of their creation, attempt to dignify the
common vices of the inevitable ease of digital filmmaking and are most of the time, very successful at it. Mostly unplanned with only an idea that is probably germinated from random discussions over rounds of San Miguel beer in one of Manila's artists' nooks and probably a day or two to shoot and materialize the idea, Khavn's films,
despite the obviousness of the probable ease and welcomed carelessness in their production, range from absolutely
fun to curiously profound. Interestingly, with Kommander Kulas, it seems the hardworking director has unwittingly chosen profundity over fun.
(Cross-published in Lessons from the School of Inattention)