Hollywood Reporter praises Charo & Lav’s Venice entry

In a glowing review for Hollywood Reporter titled “A succinct, poignant revenge drama,” writer Clarence Tsui described Ang Babaeng Humayo (The Woman Who Left), the Philippine entry at the ongoing Venice International Film Festival (VIFF) directed by Lav Diaz and starring Charo Santos-Concio, as “an immensely immersive tale” and praised Charo for “a majestic performance” and for delivering “a sturdy performance in which she brings to the fore all the unstable emotional contours of a mentally unraveling avenger…”

A reworking of Leo Tolstoy’s God Sees The Truth, But Waits, the movie is Lav’s third entry at the VIFF, following Kagadanan Sa Banwaan Ning Mga Engkanto (Death in the Land of the Engkantos) in 2007 which got a Golden Lion Special Mention citation and Melancholia in 2008 which bagged the Orrizzonti Grand Prize.

The VIFF is held more than six months after the Berlinale in which was shown Lav’s eight-hour A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery starring Piolo Pascual and John Lloyd Cruz (who walked the red carpet with Lav).

Wrote Tsui, “Lav Diaz returns with a new feature which is, unlike his previous outing, simple, solid, self-contained and succinct,” adding that “(the film) should leave Venice with a few prizes before its global trek…The film is an immensely immersive and engaging tale about a wrong individual’s grueling struggle between reconciliation and revenge…Featuring Diaz’s immaculate imagery — in high-contrast black and white, as usual…”

The awards night is set for tonight (Saturday, Sept. 10; approximately early Sunday morning, Sept. 11, in Venice). Charo and Lav walked the red carpet last night during the movie’s screening first at Sala Grande (Lazazzo de Cinema, where the awards ceremony will be held) and then at Pala Biennale.

Charo Santos-Concio as the titular character Lav Diaz’s Ang Babaeng Humayo (The Woman Who Left)

As The STAR reported yesterday, quoting a report from film critic/curator Neil Young’s Film Lounge, Charo was ranked No. 3 with 8-1 odds to win the Coppa Volpi Award for Best Actress tied  with Natalie Portman and Greta Gerwig (for the USA entry Jackie), leading the other nominees from 20 official entries including Amy Adams, Alicia Vikander, Rachel Weisz and Monica Belluci. Humayo was ranked No. 4 among bettors with 10-1 odds to win Best Director for Lav and Best Film (Golden Lion).

“(Lav) Diaz has seemingly become increasingly vocal and explicit in articulating his views about the turbulent history of his home country,” continued Tsui. “With The Woman Who Left, the filmmaker has opted for a more universal contemplation about the cruelty and absurdity of human existence. While still hinting at historical schisms of a recent past — the film was set in 1997, and begins with a news announcer announcing the end of Western colonialism as we know it with the handover of Hong Kong to China The Woman Who Left hardly qualifies as a political allegory.”

Tolstoy’s short story is about a Russian merchant who is arrested and charged with murder while on a business trip and spends 26 years in a Siberian jail before meeting and finally forgiving the real culprit. The Woman, however, kicks off where Tolstoy’s tale comes to a close.

Continued Tsui, “Diaz’s protagonist here is former schoolteacher Horacia (Santos), who begins the film having already spent three decades in a rural correctional facility for a murder she didn’t commit. Having resigned herself to fate, she is suddenly informed she will be freed after her best friend in jail, Petra (Shamaine Buencamino), has confessed to framing her. While Horacia does get a second crack at real life, she doesn’t find the peace which Tolstoy’s tragic hero attains on his death bed. Horacia returns to her ancestral home and discovers that her husband has already died; her daughter, Minerva (Marjorie Lorico), has departed for a new life in another town; and her eldest son, meanwhile, has disappeared into the big smoke of Manila.”

More excerpts from Tsui’s review:

Horacia’s mild, maternal veneer begins to crack as she deliberately plots her revenge against the ex-boyfriend who, out of a jealous rage, paid Petra to frame her 30 years ago: Rodrigo (Michael De Mesa), who is now the head of an affluent clan living within a fortified mansion amid a wave of murderous kidnappings gripping the Philippines then. She moves into a nearby house, blends into the neighborhood and exploits newly struck friendships to her ends.

During the day, she plays a caring mother figure to the mentally challenged street sleeper Mameng (Jean Judith Javier) in exchange for the village idiot’s information about Rodrigo’s routine; at night, she dresses up as a hoodlum — her disguise aided by the tattoos she got while in jail — and serves as the protector of a snack vendor (Nonie Buencamino), a role which allows her to hang around her quarry’s locale under cover. It’s her friendship with the epileptic drag artist Hollanda (John Lloyd Cruz) which brings the film to its deadly denouement: her kindness towards the transsexual street-walker somehow leads to another murder, another individual taking the rap and yet another miscarriage of (social) justice…

…Rather than being a commercial sellout, The Woman Who Left is a taut exercise in which every shot burns with condensed emotions and human empathy, whether in the riveting depiction of the characters’ quotidian existence throughout, or the heartbreaking shots of Manila’s gloomy cityscape which makes up the final minutes of the film. Just like Pedro Costa refashioned a Jacques Tourneur zombie film into the slow-moving post-colonial treatise that is Casa de Lava, Diaz has also taken his conventional ingredients — the literary source, the revenge-noir narrative, the top-billing A-lister — and produced something that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Rita Avila’s first Tagalog novel, a love story titled Wanna bet on Love? to be launched next Sunday, Sept. 18, at the National Bookstore booth at the SMX MOA Book Fair

Rita’s 1st Tagalog novel

After writing award-winning children’s books, Rita Avila has just come up with her first Tagalog novel which will be launched (with book-signing) next Sunday, Sept. 18, 5 to 7 p.m. at the National Bookstore booth inside the SMX MOA Book Fair.

Rita related to Funfare the “confusion” that led to the birth of her first novel.

“I met Bobby Mijares of Mindmaster Publishing through director/author/composer Joven Tan in one of his book launch events.

“Bobby asked me to write for him, too. Since direk Joven writes love stories for him, I thought Bobby wanted me to do the same.

“I tried to start writing but I dropped it for three months. Then I picked it up again and locked myself up with a large soda by my side for several weeks. I never knew I would lose weight this way.

“Bobby was so patient with me. Direk Joven gave me a strong push that I started calling him ‘My Pusher.’ That made him nervous, he might be arrested, you know.

“During my meeting with my publishers regarding my novel, they said they actually wanted children’s stories from me. I told them, ‘I wish you have told me earlier! So you prefer that over a love story?’

“They laughed and told me they liked my love story but they will wait for my book for children.

“I took the challenge. I gambled. Thus, the title of my first Tagalog novel is Wanna bet on Love? It’s about a guy who hates gambling and a girl who loves it. How do they meet eye to eye?”

(E-mail reactions at [email protected]. You may also send your questions to [email protected]. For more updates, photos and videos visit www.philstar.com/funfare or follow me on www.twitter/therealrickylo.)