Foster Child

What was true for a Berlin devastated by war in Roberto Rossellini’s GERMANY YEAR ZERO is true for the precariously laid-out squalor of a village in Manila. Brillante Mendoza obviously has a knack for knowing what his audience knows and can gather from a scene. As the camera is confidently trained on what appear to be, on their own, mundane situations, the implications gradually build to an overwhelming sense of immediacy. All of it is presented in a way that feels natural, with an emotional tempo closer to real life than to the abbreviated melodrama most films on this subject would tend toward. Rather, we have a staccato beat punctuated with cab rides and corny ring tones.  It assumes that you’re smart enough to get it, rather than beating you over the head with orchestral swells and sweeping panoramas.

My first instinct is to say I wish there were more films like this in the mainstream; studios not afraid of genres like neo-realism. But this style has to keep its integrity and subtlety to retain its value. So, instead I ask you, dear reader, check this film out, and think about it for a bit. Think about what film can be.

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