Seeing is believing

Film Review: Kita Kita

MANILA, Philippines - In the cultural wasteland that the Filipino film industry has become of late, a simple, humble flower has bloomed. It is Kita Kita, a small slice of life cum character study that amply demonstrates that — judging from the movie’s reported first-day take and the crowds I have personally witnessed — one needs not big stars, or exotic locales or even an intricate storyline, to attract the local movie-going crowd.

 Not that Kita Kita panders to the lowest common denominator in the audience. Far from it! The movie is properly a tragicomedy, an anti-romcom in all respects: No unexpected (and hackneyed) plot twists, no melodramatic declamation pieces for people to quote, no pesky “best friends” dispensing banal advice to the protagonists, no love triangles and definitely no happy endings. It is an honest, introspective story of two people who meet and (sort of) fall in love, before chance intervenes and forecloses on happy-ever-after.

 Alessandra de Rossi plays Lea, a Filipina tourist guide living in a small borough in Sapporo, Japan. She is betrothed — or so she thinks — to Nobu, a Japanese with whom she has had a relationship for five years running. Although he has proposed marriage, he keeps putting off the actual wedding for some reason. He also neglects Lea with his frequent absences and by forgetting important occasions such as their anniversary.

 One day, Lea receives a note, ostensibly from Nobu, asking her to meet him at a beer garden. Assuming that this is the day that Nobu will finally set a wedding date, she phones her sister and tells her to take a leave from work. Arriving at the beer garden early, she had gotten herself quite tipsy alone when she notices Nobu there. But instead of the romantic prenuptial rendezvous that she was expecting, she sees Nobu cozying up to her half-Japanese neighbor. After angrily confronting them, she sets off, her vision progressively becoming blurry, until she collapses.

 Fast forward to a few weeks: Lea has become blind, living alone and slowly adapting to a life of sightlessness. Temporary blindness due to stress, it is explained later in the film. Bitter and hurt, she tries to go on her usual routines when she is befriended by a new Filipino neighbor, the homely Tonyo (played by Empoy Marquez). He drops by every day, bringing her cooked Pinoy food, watering her plants. In the face of her vehement efforts to drive him away, he persists.

Tonyo, though, is quick of wit and very humorous, eventually making Lea laugh. Gradually, he breaks down the barrier of bitterness she has erected between them, and they become close friends. He successfully urges her to play the part of tourist guide for him, and as they visit the sights of Sapporo, they seem to fall in love. Till one fateful day, while on one such sojourn, Lea suddenly regains her vision, but as she sees Tonyo for the first time, tragedy strikes.

 Fast-paced and exuberant, I was wondering why the movie appeared to be rushing through the three acts in just over an hour, and was jarred by an abrupt cut into flashback. But then, after regaining my bearings, I understood, as the continuous flashback scenes showed the story in a slightly different — but more revealing — perspective. The original narrative tells the viewer that Tonyo mysteriously came into Lea’s life at a time when she needed company most, as in a typical rom-com. But was that really the case? Did he truly materialize only after Lea became blind? Or did she just fail to see certain things before?

That last sentence, in a nutshell, is verily the main thesis of the film: That sometimes, although we have eyes to see, we fail to see the most obvious things even in plain sight. Lea failed — or refused to see — that Nobu had no intention of marrying her and that he was cheating; she failed to see the beauty of the flowers in Sapporo, or the kindness of its people, until she was blind. As one of Tonyo’s lines says: “Noong nakakakita ka, hindi mo ako nakita; noong nabulag ka, saka mo pa lang ako nakita.” 

 The movie succeeds mainly because of the undeniable chemistry between Alessandra and Empoy. She is truly an overlooked jewel in the Philippine movie industry. With an unconventional, quiet beauty that grows on you as the film wears on, she has an acting ability that goes beyond physical forms, absorbing her character with such completeness that what we get on screen is a living, breathing person many levels above mere acting.

Empoy is perfectly cast as a colorful smartass whose witticism is genuinely funny. Indeed, Empoy appears to be brilliantly improvising his funny lines throughout the movie in his ad libitum interactions with Alessandra, whose giggly reactions are apparently genuine. This is not to take anything away from Alessandra, who expertly comps Empoy in delightful scenes of give-and-take that are the highlights of the movie.

I am gratified that movies of this genre are now reaching a wider audience. Credit must be given to a new breed of filmmakers fearlessly breaking from the formulaic, as well as producers willing to take the risk. The crowd who roared with laughter at the jokes, who cried at the end and who broke into spontaneous applause as the ending credits rolled on, was a sight to behold. Perhaps a new golden age is dawning on Philippine Cinema? Well, to see is to believe.