Thursday, October 9, 2008

sex is good for the film industry.

It is way easier to produce films if the “raw” materials are not that price-y, I think. Imagine. If a movie maker can produce a high-quality movie using a digital camera with about a whopping eytigig memory (he can just shoot and transfer files), complimented with a good computer ready with sophisticated softwares that can do all the special effects and editing, then maybe we can have about 50 movies in a week! And that would be like [momentary mental lag] 200 in a month! Having less, or even no space for foreign movies. That’s also assuming those movies are not trashy and interesting in their own ways.

We can have more movies about Encantos (speaking of which, click to view an issue about Lav Diaz’s film), more movies about indigenous weird stuff with one-word titles (like Kutob, Sigaw, Kulam, Sukob, etc), we can have more films like Jologs (is the title is an overkill?), Labs Kita, Okey Ka Lang?, Dito Sa Puso Ko, Hey Babe, and so on.

But no.

Thanks to the progressive weakening of the US economy, bundled with the Philippines being dependent to Uncle Sam, and our status as a “Third-world”, what we have are movies coming from foreign lands – more like US monopoly. We’ve seen movies of talking dogs, parrots, fishes, and the Animal Kingdom in general; movies about traveling pants, magical basketball shoes, and dresses; add those flicks that fall under the what’s-the-point category: *cough*Horton*cough*, *cough*Ninja Turtles*cough*, *cough*Da Vinci Code*cough*. Enough coughing.

But don’t despair. Good thing Pinoys are naturally resourceful and eager. Given the funds, and surprisingly even given not, they still manage to produce brilliant films once in a while. Pinoy movie makers refuse to die! As consolation, they get awards and citations here and more abroad – being in film festivals in Cannes, Venice, Udine, Metro Manila, and insert city name here. Drop Metro Manila. I just realized that’s Mother Lily’s festival.

The point is: we still manage to produce movies that we can call our own. It only proves our resourcefulness and eagerness, with the added proof of our creativity. Sometimes we just need a kinky place, warm bodies for actors, moans for sound effects, and a decent camera to capture the moment, and poof! we’ll have a movie – a bold one, that is – and sex scandals to a lesser degree.

That’s the second point: cheaper “raw” materials, more bold movies. Brilliant, don’t you think?



1 comment:

moi said...

you should have alvin read this post. he's asking opinions if sex sells indie film =)