Unknown actors shine in Carlo Obispo film

Film review: 1-2-3

MANILA, Philippines – It is easy to conclude that writer-director Carlo Obispo is a good storyteller and his love for his hometown is easily discernible.

His young characters are from Silag island and he paints a really engrossing idyllic life of islanders Luis (Carlos Dala) and his sister Lulu (Barbara Miguel).

His film 1-2-3 opens with a young man underneath the sea looking for something to sell to help tide over his family living a typical hand-to-mouth existence.

 Meanwhile, his sister Lulu loves singing which they thought would be their salvation from poverty. She joins an island amateur singing contest and but didn’t make it to her dismay. But her talent is not lost on the audience. Her song number is without a minus-one gadget she cannot afford to buy. Thus, she sings her guts out — a cappella and all ­— and her potentially good voice is discovered by a dubious talent scout who offers to help find her luck in the city. That will be the end of her idyllic life.

Although Lulu sends money regularly, her brother Luis wonders why there is not a single word from the sister.

In the big city, he gets a gradual exposure to the thriving flesh market by just observing what is going on in the entertainment district. There’s one bar full of teenage girls servicing mostly foreigners. Opposite that house of sin is another bar catering to pedophiles. By pretending to be one of them, he gets picked up by a foreign pedophile and his immersion to the flesh market begins.

In the first few minutes, the Obispo film looks like reverberations from Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s Sa Pusod ng Dagat and in that part showing lower depth in the city, you can’t help but think the film is another sensitive variation from Lino Brocka’s Maynila Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag.

Because as Obispo has beautifully written it, 1-2-3 is clearly about Rape of Innocence and the price country bumpkins have to pay to survive in the big city.

Without name stars in it (except for the token presence of Patricia Javier as Mrs. Kim the mama-san), the young talents have very little to fear from their popular counterparts.

Barbara Miguel as Lulu delineates a riveting transformation from country girl to bar girl and indeed, she looks like she had already portrayed a role in Miss Saigon. The director allows her to shine on her own and she delivers. She is the face of human trafficking in the well-made film.

If there is one who deserves the highest accolade in the film, it is another young actor named Carlos Dala who portrays the young islander Luis. He is innocence personified in the island and in the big city where his character looks for his long-lost sister, his moments of reckoning are natural acting at its most undiluted form, quiet but powerful and shaped by good instinct. (Again, one can’t help recalling Bembol Roco’s equally compelling role in the Brocka classic.)

Barbara Miguel as Lulu in the Carlos Obispo film: Commendable transformation from country lass to teenage bar girl

The cinematography of Carlo Mendoza leaves a very good mark in the film, the production design of Roy Lachica allows for great contrast between island and city life. The musical score of Pepe Manikan clearly enhances a sensitive story and the sound design of Mike Idioma and Alex Tomboc adds to the technical finesse.

One notes that the producers of 1-2-3 are the same distinguished gentlemen — Fernando Ortigas and E.A. Rocha — who produced Heneral Luna and Tandem. One of them spoke before the screening and it is easy to see they love good films and will do everything to support a good project. Quite noticeably, they can spot a promising good director when they see one.

Indeed, there is a good reason to celebrate this year’s edition of the Cinemalaya Film Festival. There is a good feedback about the quality of the entries, and here’s hoping they can later move into the mainstream milieu where their kind of creativity can help improve the quality of our audiences.

Cinemalaya is a project of the Cinemalaya Foundation, Inc., the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) and the Ayala Malls Cinemas. Established in 2005, Cinemalaya is an all-digital film festival and competition that aims to discover, encourage and honor cinematic works of Filipino filmmakers.

1-2-3 is still showing at the CCP Cinemalaya festival venues.