Labels: BeyondtheBox, cinemalaya, CLICKTHECITY, digital films, indie films, joselito altarejos, pink halo-halo
Labels: allen dizon, angeli bayani, BeyondtheBox, cinemalaya, digital films, edgar o. cruz, filipino films, indie films, joselito altarejos, Mark Xander Fabillar, pink halo-halo, stir.ph
CLICKTHECITY REVIEWS PINK HALO-HALO
by Philbert Ortiz Dy
posted on Tuesday, July 13, 2010 in Indie Films
There are no surprises in Joselito Altarejos’ Pink Halo-Halo. In fact, the synopsis on the schedule brochure pretty much gives away the ending. But that’s hardly the point of the film. Here, Altarejos shares with us a recollection of life as a soldier’s son, delivering a lyrical slice of life picture that explores the rhythms of childhood against a backdrop of creeping dread.
Altarejos plays on the dichotomies, the child Natoy living an almost idyllic life in his hometown while endless conflict terrorizes other parts of the country. It points to the striking truth that for most people, news of war and strife almost serves as background noise, the narratives only becoming real as the people they love become subject to tragedy. It’s a terribly sophisticated insight into our country’s precipitous decline into a culture of violence. This isn’t the most explosive film of the festival, but it’s quietly devastating in its own way.A REVIEW ON PINK HALO-HALO
by: Edgar O. Cruz | STIR Editor in Chief
16 Jul 2010 | 11:03 AM
Joselito “Jay” Altarejos’ Pink Halo-Halo is the real liberated indie film at the Sixth Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival. With the compelling theme of Liberating indie film, the filmfest is currently rolling and I got to watch three full-length features: Magkakapatid, Pink Halo-Halo and Sampaguita, National Flower in that order. Looking for the new indie film, I find nothing out-of-the-box with Kim Garcia and Francis Pasion’s movies. But it is Pink Halo-Halo that tries and succeeds in getting out of the indie film mold told in a gay boy’s fondness for halo-halo.
Pink Halo-Halo is independenly produced with filmmaker Altarejos as producer, writer and director. A gay film, a genre which Altarejos has been specializing almost exclusively and doing a good job at elevating the genre and perceptions about gay men, it is without a single naked man and titillating sequence. It is about Natoy confronting his sexuality as a normal boy and his developing sexuality. It does this by showing scenes such cutting a piece of paper into dolls, learning how to apply makeup, fingering a beauty product catalogue – all told as motions, no dialogue.
Subject is dark alright: the death of the boy’s soldier father in Mindanao. But it does not beat corruption, injustice, poverty, exploitation, politics – the range of subjects most dear to indie films – to a pulp. It stays a simple story of a mother and a boy coping with a soldier’s life. It is without drama, just a bunch of people going through the motions of what life brings like going to the wake of dead comrades. Or fixing the motorcycle which seems the only luxury in this soldier’s life.
It is in Tigaonon, the dialect of Ticao Island off Masbate, all throughout and uses the townpeople as actors. Lead actor is Paolo Constantino as Natoy who does not have acting background and was not drilled on the craft before shoot. Proffesional actors Allen Dizon, Dexter Doria, and Angeli Bayani do the adult parts. This is in the tradition of Vitorio De Sica’s Italian Neo-Realist films which works very well for the movie’s purpose and intent.
For once, an indie film touches on the nobility of the human spirit in time of tragedy as very well told in the dialogue-less ending sequence with the townspeople meeting the dead soldier’s casket at the wharf. It is without histrionics, just the resignations there’s no escape in the tragedy. It is even without mood shots with nature very much incorporated into the scene.
***Also published in The Daily Tribune.
